Ep 56: John Hodnett's Journey: Turning a Wake-Up Call into a New Opportunity

William Huffman  0:00  
Hey everybody. Today we're talking with John. They do a house swap before it was cool. We talked about haberdashery is great places to eat. And PTSD, right? No, it's interesting. See you soon

William Huffman  0:30  
everybody, William here and Sara. Ed.

John Hodnett  0:33  
John, how did ya

Sarah Huffman  0:39  
we are pumped to have you on the podcast Jon's

Unknown Speaker  0:45  
shooting gets booed him on the phone. Now

Unknown Speaker  0:48  
it is only 240 In the afternoon,

Unknown Speaker  0:50  
I go for some alcohol right now.

Sarah Huffman  0:53  
What are like three to five things you might tell other people about working with like, either will or me or like the team and then

William Huffman  1:01  
we're going to bring it back? Yeah. And then we're going to Okay, so I'm going to allow this line of questioning, questioning, questioning me, because I'm a questioner for the next like, two to three minutes, because then you too, I could just leave and the conversation would go on for hours. But I've got I've got an agenda. So all right. Yeah, that is a question.

John Hodnett  1:17  
Three to five things that I would tell others. Yeah.

William Huffman  1:21  
Is this a recruiting piece? Are we

Sarah Huffman  1:22  
No, but I was just like, you know, you've been here now six months. So like, we're, I feel like we're fairly upfront about how we are and who we are. Yeah. Are we wrong?

John Hodnett  1:31  
No. No, in fact, I was gonna say get prepared to to reacquaint yourself with yourself, because you don't know who you are. I have found myself through you guys.

Unknown Speaker  1:44  
Oh, well. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker  1:46  
I may cry on that one.

John Hodnett  1:47  
Yeah. So

William Huffman  1:48  
there's a reason there's a reason we keep Kleenex around here? Because we're a bunch of babies. Yeah.

John Hodnett  1:53  
I mean, I knew there was accountability. I knew there was you know, extensive training, I knew there was like, we do real estate this way. This is the real estate portion of it. And we'll be short, but real estate this way. And I was like, Well, I've been around it. I know exactly how I was supposed to go. I was the dumbest person on the planet.

William Huffman  2:09  
Yes. Don't talk about a friend that way. But I know what you mean, I

John Hodnett  2:13  
am better. Now. The people that you are surrounding yourself with are the ones that make you better bring your self out, right. And in a very short time, I'm shocked at myself to have that. So you're consistent. You are vulnerable. You are honest and loyal, giving all the things right that I had heard, didn't need to be proven. But yeah, this being in this environment will bring out things in. If I'm giving advice, bring out things that you will need to check, you know, answer a call, right? Because you're being asked to look inward and say, you have all the tools we see it in you want to do it or not. So that's kind of how I wake up every day since I joined here.

William Huffman  3:05  
I found it really cool that you didn't talk a lot about real estate.

John Hodnett  3:11  
I heard this wasn't a full on real estate. No.

William Huffman  3:13  
But I mean, like your answers you didn't say they make you pound the phone. They make you work on your scripts, you know, from what I heard was, well, I do but but there was what I heard was, you work on yourself. If you get better things should around you. It's better to dumb it down for dummy talk.

Sarah Huffman  3:32  
Okay, so say someone was new that was going to join the team. And you had like two minutes with them. And you'd say, Okay, this is what you gotta be prepared for. Beep go, Hey,

Unknown Speaker  3:47  
do you got no, oh,

John Hodnett  3:49  
be prepared for an environment that is life being lived? Like outside out loud? Like, nothing is hidden? There's no like, we're gonna go have a meeting off here and talk about things they will be out and we'll tell you what's going on. You know exactly where everything is what's going on at the time. Everything's available for you. You just have to ask, if you don't ask, it's up to you. So it's kind of one of those like big family things where you sit down at a table, like if you went to your friend's house when you were a kid and it was a big family, like five, seven kids or something. And you didn't ask for the food because it was getting passed around and you didn't get full. It's your fault.

Sarah Huffman  4:28  
Oh, that's a good analogy.

William Huffman  4:29  
I really liked that analogy. That's a great way. Yeah. Cool. Awesome. That's That's fantastic. All right. Let's bring it back to the year that you were born.

John Hodnett  4:38  
God. Yeah. 1961.

William Huffman  4:41  
All right. So in 1992. John was born Where's John? Born? youngest

John Hodnett  4:49  
of five. Really? Yep. We lived four older sisters three still living. We lived in I was born in Berwyn, Illinois. Alright, where's that about? It's not Southside like, but kind of over where the new Comiskey Park is.

William Huffman  5:06  
Okay. So it's suburb of Chicago. Yeah. Okay, cool.

John Hodnett  5:10  
Yeah. My dad was always in the menswear business. During the war. He was stationed in India, weirdly. And he was doing laundry for

William Huffman  5:19  
so unreal. So in the 60s, let them in the Korean War. No, he would have

John Hodnett  5:23  
World War Two. So the very end of World War Two when he was young, in his 20s,

William Huffman  5:27  
how old were your parents when you were born?

John Hodnett  5:34  
Probably my dad was probably in his mid 40s, early 40s.

William Huffman  5:37  
Wow. Okay. Okay. Because he told the WWE to Atomy and that threw me off.

John Hodnett  5:41  
Yeah, yeah. So he got on the tail end of that he and his sister were both in it. That's another story. But anyway, so he got into menswear, because he had been doing laundry during the war when he haberdashery. Yeah. Okay, so he was always interested in clothing. And he got a job like, intermittent jobs when he and my mom first got married and then and then he got hired in Chicago when they moved there and started up with his mentor, a guy named Al Baskin, who his two sons went on to create the mark Shail menswear stores in Chicago and they have one up here in Minneapolis for a little while.

William Huffman  6:18  
Anyway, in any relationship. Carol Baskins not that one. Okay, not that one. Okay. Just wanna make sure not

John Hodnett  6:23  
the tiger. Yeah, so that was the I was the kid only boy, right? Okay, this kid. And we moved probably six, seven times when I was little because my dad would be transferred to a new site. And he took you know, he was what

William Huffman  6:39  
do you say when you say he was in men's clothing? Like a tailor? Yeah. Okay.

John Hodnett  6:45  
Taylor clothing. So there's a suit manufacturing company in Cleveland that owned six or seven different chains of menswear stores throughout the US. Small little mom and pops, but order some bigger ones, too. That was their distribution network. So they made the suits and then they shipped them off to wherever Kennedys in Boston Baskins in Illinois. Ultimately jesters here in Minneapolis. That's how we ended up here. But we moved around like six or seven times because they moved my dad around there to run these joints, and all that. So I was always in some sort of store and in the back room and helping customers and helping the little tailors fit things. And so it was just part two, like so do

Sarah Huffman  7:25  
you? Is that why you're always very well dressed?

William Huffman  7:28  
I'd say it's part of it.

John Hodnett  7:30  
Yeah, I try. I mean, it's stuck with me. That's a compliment. Mike. It is a compliment. Yeah, my dad always was like, you know, when you go outside, you're showing the world who you really are. So pajamas at the airport was not his jam. He hated that type of thing.

Sarah Huffman  7:43  
I don't mind. Yeah, that still does. drives him nuts. If we're not dressed. Yeah.

John Hodnett  7:48  
So it was just a big part of my family to have my sister's work there. And I worked there ultimately, through high school and out of college and yeah, so I got

William Huffman  7:58  
this. Okay. Well, we gotta back it up. You just You just went to college? Yeah. All right. So let's back it up. We're I said, Where

Sarah Huffman  8:04  
are you when you moved to Minneapolis?

John Hodnett  8:07  
Nine years old. So

William Huffman  8:11  
I want the camera to get this face.

Unknown Speaker  8:12  
He's frustrated. They can't see

William Huffman  8:14  
it. They can know that. It's beautiful. I know. You are beautiful in every single way. So you're the youngest of five. You quickly breezed over like four still around. What's the age gap between you and the the others?

John Hodnett  8:34  
My so the one next to me is three. It goes like three to 93288 year

William Huffman  8:43  
gap. So 036 Like,

John Hodnett  8:47  
yeah, nine for my oldest, I guess. Yeah.

William Huffman  8:50  
So it's a nine year gap between you and your oldest eldest. Okay.

John Hodnett  8:54  
So my mom was I mean, she was

Unknown Speaker  8:56  
pregnant all the time. Yes. And just,

William Huffman  9:00  
yeah. Need to sell a lot of clothes.

John Hodnett  9:03  
Or yeah, I mean, that's probably why he wasn't. He was traveling all. The time I came along the story is kind of funny so that by the time I came along, my dad had friends in the industry, and he had to go to market he had to go to New York. So like I was born, I was the fifth kid, finally a boy. He was there than I was born. He hopped a plane that night. And one of his buddies came a Thai salesman came in and sat with my mom. And the nurse came in the next morning and she's like, Would you like to see her son?

William Huffman  9:34  
Not really. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  9:35  
I'm not the dad.

William Huffman  9:36  
Yeah. That's that's a joke's on me. The mailman.

John Hodnett  9:42  
The mailman. Dad was like, Hey, Cool, good. You're born. I gotta go to new

William Huffman  9:44  
Yeah. Yeah, you're fine. You're fine tenant and good to go.

Sarah Huffman  9:48  
Now. Did your mom work? Or was it your dad was the main

John Hodnett  9:52  
main guide classic. You know, beaver cleaver upbringing for people that don't understand that that's like a classic American family, you know, married for 50 plus years. My mom was the homemaker did everything five kids. And yeah, Dad always worked. Wow. Yep. churching and all the things, all the things,

William Huffman  10:12  
all the things. Alright, so tell me about a young John. Is it John or is it Jonathan on the birth certificate? Jo? Hn. That's John. Okay, John. Yep. So no jail n because Jonathan spelt Gln. Yep. Okay. So,

Sarah Huffman  10:26  
so what elementary school? Did you go to any Dinah?

William Huffman  10:30  
We stop at Sarah.

John Hodnett  10:32  
When we moved here? I wait,

William Huffman  10:33  
what no answer was mean. I am definitely thinking I'm in charge of the ship. So what's like your youngest memory of Chicago?

John Hodnett  10:47  
Okay, in kindergarten, when it was like, bring your dad to where, you know, bring your dad's work day or school day. Yeah. I told the teacher that my dad was a fireman. And she called my mom and she was like, I think it's so exciting. What your husband does. We'd love to have him here to talk to the kids. And my mom was like, really? They're gonna like they're gonna like Menswear. That it was like, Why did you think? What's wrong with you what your dad does? And it was like, I don't know. I started be cool.

William Huffman  11:17  
Yeah. Yeah, my dad, but that's those ties.

John Hodnett  11:21  
Yeah. So you know, telling fibs from an early age. But yeah, the Chicago deal. I do. Remember, we moved from the neighborhood that I remember being, you know, when I first started remembering things, I guess when you're little to a suburb called Oak Brook. And now that's like a really posh at the time, it was just developing, and all that. And it was a new development. My dad designed this, this house of Red Barn house and it was great. It was kind of one of these big undulating neighborhoods and stuff. And this truck came around in the summertime and fogged for bugs. Really? Yeah, like really unhealthy and very, but yeah. And all I remember is as kids, we rode bikes through the fog potentially dangerous and potentially tourists. Yeah.

William Huffman  12:10  
How many of those kids are still around? Me? Yeah,

John Hodnett  12:13  
I know.

William Huffman  12:14  
Here we go. Crushing it, crushing it. Alright, so you're riding through poisonous clouds,

John Hodnett  12:20  
right. Like on the trucks? Probably like, yeah, kids. Come on. Yeah, it's

Unknown Speaker  12:23  
cool. You want a cigarette? Yeah. Cuz

John Hodnett  12:26  
like the most popular non ice cream guy?

William Huffman  12:28  
Yeah. That'd be good. All right. So so we're in Chicago. And do we go to school in Chicago at all? Or do we not go to school till we move here?

John Hodnett  12:38  
Yeah. I don't remember much about that. I just we moved to Boston from Chicago. Okay. Tell me about that was kind of the big deal. We became hockey fans. Boston Bruins fans.

William Huffman  12:49  
Are you still a Bruins fan?

John Hodnett  12:51  
I am a Bobby Orr. Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we were until we moved here. It was the North Stars. So it was. Yeah. And I don't know, as a kid. I was I started playing hockey in Boston. Okay, I can't and that's how I say Boston, Boston. There's a little bit of that. But my parents are from Rhode Island. All my relatives are from the East Coast. Okay. So there was this element of like, pack the car, Boston, you know, depending upon the dialect that you want on the East Coast. We had that. And I grew up thinking, like, everyone's relatives lived halfway across the country. Like I had a friend of mine who was like, well, we're going over my uncle's house, and I'm like, Oh, that's a big deal. It's like, no, they live just down the street and like, know what they can't do that. Like all mine live, wherever. So we saw them maybe once a year. Okay. It was kind of cool, because going back there for cookouts in the summertime, it was instead of brights on the Weber Grill. It was lobsters. My mom's sister married a lobster man and he would show up with two bushels of lobsters from his boat. Yes, please. God. Yeah. It was good. Because why

William Huffman  13:57  
did we live here? Because there's no earthquakes. Okay, yeah, there's no crocodiles. No crocodiles. Yeah, hurricane. No hurricanes

John Hodnett  14:05  
are safe here are

William Huffman  14:09  
the upper Midwest. Yeah. Weapon cities.

Sarah Huffman  14:11  
So then when did you make it to minute Minnesota.

John Hodnett  14:15  
We so he was. We were living in Boston and he was going to be transferred to Minneapolis for another menswear store justice, which is no longer here. But it was the store that we came here for. And I remember the night I was sitting with my mom and she got the call from my dad. He was at the airport. And he's coming back. He had gone out to Minnesota to talk to the people and get ready for the job. And we didn't know like exactly when we were moving or what type of home that you know, we're going to go into we had this home we had he had just designed and built in Boston to get a brand new house and we were kind of excited about that. My sister's thought it was a cool house because he had built an area for stables and they were into horseback riding and all that. So he calls and I heard all I heard my mom on the other line said was you did what? And so The story was in remember, this is like the early 70s. So they're at an airport bar. And he meets this guy who's being transferred from Minnesota to Boston. And after a few martinis, these guys decided they should just swap houses. And that's how they that's how we got the house here in Minnesota. And he got the house my dad built in Boston. So no realtor nothing. They just met over a house swap. Yeah. My mom was like you did why? And so she had never seen where we were living or anything and beautiful, you know, faith and love in that marriage.

William Huffman  15:33  
Do you know the addresses of those two houses that he built? Because I would love to look them up and see what they're worth now versus the one he has now and they calculate is that gain or loss? Yeah,

John Hodnett  15:43  
one Devon Shire drive in Oak Brook, and 29 Stone cleave Road in Boxford, Massachusetts. So how in the world and I remember,

William Huffman  15:52  
Randy, have you thought of that? Those addresses at all? See, this isn't isn't as badass.

Sarah Huffman  15:57  
So okay, so cool. It's not like you were slumming it, because is this when you moved into Sunnyslope?

John Hodnett  16:02  
Yeah. Yeah. But we didn't again, the whole like, I didn't know what he died. Yeah. And it was like, Oh, you live in Edina? Well, I we just showed up here, man that

William Huffman  16:12  
just came in from Boston. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  16:14  
Wow. And did those two ever did they keep in touch the house swappers?

John Hodnett  16:18  
I don't think so. Their last name was Huff Smith. Oh, really? No, not Huffman, but yeah, Close to close. I don't know. I surprised look him up.

William Huffman  16:30  
That'd be super fun.

John Hodnett  16:31  
Yeah. Hey, remember,

William Huffman  16:33  
that's crazy that we actually had somebody. It's funny when we just asked these random questions. Somebody was they remembered their middles or their late elementary school fight song from like, 40 some years

Sarah Huffman  16:44  
ago, and they were like, I have no idea how that just started digging into thinking of it. Yeah. Yeah. strangest things happen. You

John Hodnett  16:52  
guys just bring it out to people. All right, what memory needs

Unknown Speaker  16:55  
to be released? Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

John Hodnett  16:58  
So maybe shed for you right there. Tissue? Yeah, yeah. And massage. Yeah,

William Huffman  17:02  
I'm getting I'm getting adjusted later from a chiropractor. I don't know why that's came to me because deep tissue, blah, blah, blah. Okay, so what age are we when we get to Minnesota?

John Hodnett  17:12  
We are nine years old? Nine years old. So

William Huffman  17:15  
that's 1970. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  17:17  
to go to Concord?

John Hodnett  17:19  
I started half the year I went to wooddale. Oh, yeah. before it got torn down. No longer there. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  17:24  
How did you know when deal was torn down? Because it used to be across from St. Stephen's church. You weren't alive

William Huffman  17:29  
when that was torn down a quarter? Um,

Unknown Speaker  17:31  
yeah, I probably. I just remember

William Huffman  17:35  
where it was. Okay, moving on. Yeah.

John Hodnett  17:37  
So finished out the my fourth grade year there. And then we went to Our Lady of Grace Church. And so then my parents enrolled me at the great school there.

William Huffman  17:48  
Were you a little shithead? Or were you a good kid? Or were you suck up a tattletale?

John Hodnett  17:52  
So I went to Our Lady of Grace, and that's where I you had to wear uniform? Oh, well, Joe, I was compelled to wear these uniform pants, which were. I didn't like I didn't think they were cool. And so I kept a pair of really tight. They were blue pants and a light blue shirt, and the blue pants and my mom wanted me to wear with these baggy things that I thought were not flattering, or I don't know what I was thinking. So I kept a tight pair of jeans, tight pants in my bag. And I go to school, I change them. And then that's amazing. And I would remember to change them back when I would go home and then one day I forgot and I got busted. So

William Huffman  18:31  
you were wearing skinny jeans. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  18:33  
It was like, maybe like joggers skinny jeans before they were popular. Do you actually pictures of these? Oh, yeah.

John Hodnett  18:41  
I'd have to look. There's probably pictures. But yeah, I mean, my mom was just like, we're big pants. People. We're not wearing tight pants.

William Huffman  18:49  
Big pants people.

John Hodnett  18:52  
That's amazing. If it was Elvis hope over. Oh, steel. But yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. And so that's where so like the coal Catholic thing. And I love old oil g is a huge part of our family. My dad, you know, I mean, every major life event has happened in that church. Yeah. And so one of my best friends got married there. Yeah, I mean, I did the whole thing. I was like altar boy, I went into the boy choir there. The guy who ran the choir in the music program, and also all the religious classes was a real mentor to me, and I named my oldest son after him. So So it's just kind of a neat environment there. But yeah, just very, like Catholic ghee with all the garments that you're wearing for, you know, Altar Boys and choirs and things like that. So it's a neat little environment.

Sarah Huffman  19:43  
Well, I went to I grew up going to St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, which is that too far? Yeah, I would have been by wooddale school. But it's the two churches have a lot of similarities. It's like there's like this is the process. This is what we were. I was an Acolyte. You know, or you light the candle? No, I don't. Okay. Yeah.

William Huffman  20:03  
I wasn't, I didn't really attend church. Well, I actually did for a little bit. I went to the Salvation Army church, because then they fed us.

Unknown Speaker  20:09  
You got lunch? Yeah.

William Huffman  20:12  
Yeah, they had a tambourine and a drum that they passed around. And then as you're singing, like, you know, some of the kids were able to play the drum. They only let me play the drum for like half a song. They took it away from me. Because you're supposed to be like, keep it in one. What do you like? Yeah. And I was like, I was like I was I was drumming to the beat of the song. I wasn't keeping time.

Unknown Speaker  20:41  
You weren't helping. I?

William Huffman  20:43  
We were rocking that bitch.

John Hodnett  20:46  
The spirit was moving through. Yes.

Sarah Huffman  20:52  
Okay, so you went? Oh, well, GE stops at eighth grade. Right. And then where did you go held St. Benilde?

John Hodnett  21:02  
Yes, so they had I'm gonna

William Huffman  21:04  
move this. What's going on? Yeah,

John Hodnett  21:06  
they had recently merged with St. Margaret.

William Huffman  21:07  
What was what what was their mascot? The night red night. Red light and red knights. Why the red knights? What's the religious thing to that?

Sarah Huffman  21:18  
I don't know. But we drive by build every day. We do. Yep. Where is it? It's on 100. Where St. Louis Park. It's like right along the highway.

William Huffman  21:28  
There's that. How do we drive along

John Hodnett  21:30  
with Jewish synagogue across the street? Right next to it has a kind of sloping roof. Yep. So it's on

William Huffman  21:35  
100. But we don't drive through St. Louis Park. Yes. We

Sarah Huffman  21:37  
I promise you. We drive by it every single day. I cannot believe it's across the street from the Volkswagen dealer.

William Huffman  21:43  
We will drive by that every single day. Yeah, we

Sarah Huffman  21:47  
pretty much do I talk through 24. Anyway, I'll show it to you.

William Huffman  21:51  
I geography.

John Hodnett  21:54  
Yeah. Well, it's still there. And it's a feeder school.

William Huffman  21:57  
Glad we just talked about that for 40 seconds. Yeah. Look at it.

John Hodnett  22:02  
It's a feeder school for St. John's University and colleges. St. Benedict's. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  22:06  
Oh, it is the feeder school for is it still one of them? Yeah, but I'm probably St. Thomas. Yep.

John Hodnett  22:11  
Yeah, you got to keep a little closer to dude. I just feel like I'm eating this. Yeah,

William Huffman  22:17  
your chins almost resting. But don't Me Mine is my job. It's rest. Yeah, I usually right. Okay, cool. That's awkward. Microphone building your cameras catching all this awesome.

John Hodnett  22:28  
Yeah. So hockey, big hockey player like to grade school to really be done hockey. peewee. What position shoots forward.

Unknown Speaker  22:38  
Okay. Oh, could you what's your number?

John Hodnett  22:41  
Nine Nine. Number

William Huffman  22:42  
nine. Yeah. So what's your goal count?

John Hodnett  22:47  
One season I had 15 goals. Holy buckets. Yeah. Wow. That's really cool. But I was I was I was a mature SP last year. Yeah, I get in the corner, got the puck and got out before somebody could whack me. So.

William Huffman  22:59  
Okay. So you didn't like to be put into the board's? Didn't know. Well, there's no hitting. Well, there's no hitting in. Yeah,

John Hodnett  23:07  
well, there was that. Yeah. But yeah. Like all the rules they have now. Yeah. Because of what happened.

William Huffman  23:14  
There the stop signs on the back of the jerseys now. Yeah. So

Sarah Huffman  23:17  
where did panelled practice? Like did you go to Braemar? Or like, where did you practice hockey?

John Hodnett  23:23  
on highway? 100? There is God. What's it called? There's some ice arena. That's kind of right behind target now. Oh, in St. Louis Park. Yeah, yes. Yeah. Yep. That was like 5:45am practices before school.

Unknown Speaker  23:39  
100 I don't know. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  23:40  
I'll give you a tour. Well,

William Huffman  23:42  
is it by the AAA? Yeah, it's not far. This is a very, this is very geographical specific conversation.

Unknown Speaker  23:50  
It's really Yeah, like you're not far.

William Huffman  23:52  
Oh, you don't take 42 you take 77

Unknown Speaker  23:55  
Anywho.

John Hodnett  23:58  
So you graduated from funnelled graduated from funnelled played hockey played hockey there and well, I want to I played hockey, the almost all of grade school in high school. We miss go to the state tournament one game. I did go to hockey camps in the summer.

William Huffman  24:16  
Is that one or two a

John Hodnett  24:19  
god back then. It was probably two okay. Yeah. We were the Don Bosco Conference, which I don't even know what that is.

William Huffman  24:27  
That about right? Yeah, I don't know what it is anymore either. Yeah. Yeah. But no,

John Hodnett  24:31  
I had a couple summers where I went to Luna Annie's hockey camp. Awesome lady Esposito hockey camp. That's really cool. funny because I just had lunch last week with Cindy Wagner's and we meet at tavern 23, which is Lou's restaurant. Yes. Yeah. He comes in and he sits in the booth right behind us. Nice indie is like talk to anybody. And she's like, just second she turns around she Hey, Louis, what do you think? And they all of a sudden they strike up and I'm thinking she knows this guy. She doesn't she She didn't know she's freaking fearless. Yeah. And so he gets up and he's like, Oh, I'm gonna take off and I'm like, Hey, Lou, I know you like I went to school with your, your daughter Michelle. She was a year younger than me and Our Lady grace because they went to that. Yeah, it was oh, yeah, I remember you. And I'm like, do you remember? Like I went to your hockey camp because you mean the one over in Richfield. I used to Rena with the Esposito brothers. And I'm like, Yeah, and I said my sister had a huge crush on Phil Esposito. She drove me all the time, so she could look at Phil. He just talked to Phil he's doing the play play in Tampa Bay. And like, these are hockey players from the frickin legends. Freakin legend. Yeah. And this guy is still going around. He's what she told me he was 84 but this right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And he's bopping around this place. So that was great. I have a picture of the all the kids who went to the camp had the picture with all the things it's JP Perris a Zack breezes dad. Yeah, Lou, and the two Esposito brothers. And Lou was like, well, Tony's not with us, but Phil's still alive. And that was like God, I have a picture of me as a child with these huge safety glasses because I wear glasses back then with a big rubber chunk, like right in the middle of my nose. And here's Louis so yeah. Time that.

Unknown Speaker  26:14  
Did you watch a lot of slapshot go Yeah,

John Hodnett  26:17  
anything hockey movie anything that came that lived

Sarah Huffman  26:19  
in my my house? Yeah, with the tape. I should just come in one day.

William Huffman  26:24  
Oh, put tape either this week, usually for the golf tournament this year. That's amazing.

John Hodnett  26:29  
Stories. Yeah, it was kind of cool. It was kind of cool.

William Huffman  26:34  
That's a really cool story, man. Like, I mean, I knew a little bit. I mean, I know you I don't know a ton about your past. Like I knew your father was in you know, haberdashery or in menswear. And, you know, but I didn't know you built two houses in this. I think he told me the whole swapping story once but yeah, I don't remember. And then, you know, playing here. So what type of a student were you like? Were you a Sikh steeped degrees type thing? Or solid C solid? C?

Unknown Speaker  27:00  
You had hockey to play?

John Hodnett  27:01  
Yeah. Yeah, I was not. No,

William Huffman  27:06  
no, no, just no. Okay. So what was our first job?

John Hodnett  27:10  
My first job out of college is working at my dad. We're still in high school. Oh, in high school.

William Huffman  27:16  
I know. I know. You know, you're working. Oh, hold on.

Sarah Huffman  27:19  
I work at the Perkins that they tore down. Yeah. Anytime. Oh, my gosh. Tell me.

William Huffman  27:23  
Were you a server where you cook?

John Hodnett  27:26  
No, I was a busboy actually. Okay. They wouldn't let me do that. And Wishing Well. Yeah. What was up? Where did that go?

Sarah Huffman  27:33  
I don't know. Like literally in our Perkins, I don't know if this is every Perkins or if it was just this Edina. 50th and France Perkins. You would go in and there would be a wishing well have like little like toys and treats and treats and giveaways and like so when you got to go to Perkins before you left. You could go to the wishing well and pick out one item.

William Huffman  27:53  
No idea what you're talking about. It was

John Hodnett  27:56  
yeah, it was a deal. Yeah. I don't know if they did that. Because there was a huge wait always on Sundays and yeah, all the time. So that maybe that also made the kids not crazy. was the only

Sarah Huffman  28:07  
place for breakfast growing

Unknown Speaker  28:08  
up? Yeah. Wasn't hilltop there. No,

William Huffman  28:12  
no. Oh, by my apologies if you guys to see the pace. They're gonna see it. Yeah. Yeah, that was ridiculous that

Sarah Huffman  28:19  
wishing well I haven't thought about that. Wishing Well, in years. Yeah. Probably like 30 years.

John Hodnett  28:24  
Yeah, I know. So many people who went through that place working there. Like, even when I was in grade school, my sister worked there. And when I needed money, I would ride my bike up there. And I knew she had a hand like a pocket full of chips and stuff. And so I, you know, scan like,

Sarah Huffman  28:38  
and that's like when I went the smoking section on this side of the restaurant. Yeah. Because, you know, it doesn't come over to this side, because it's like a little bit of a wall. They did like a plexiglass. Yeah, yeah. And they would like glue things to the wall. They wouldn't hang things to the wall. Okay, so you can take things,

William Huffman  28:59  
but at our Perkins that I worked at, there was a, the breaker was smoking. So, so imagine this table being the break room. Right there. Three feet out was with a line started for cooking food, crow. Cooking smoking, right? Basically. Yeah. No, it's

John Hodnett  29:16  
not to go there.

William Huffman  29:17  
100% Yeah, yeah. Okay, so

Sarah Huffman  29:20  
now, you're in high school. Where do you go to college? St. John's University because it's the why not? And that's where everybody goes. So did your sisters go to St. Ben's

John Hodnett  29:30  
Catholic pathway No. Oldest sister went to St. Mary's in Winona. Okay. The next sister went to St. Bonaventure in New York, upstate New York. My two younger sisters went to the U of M. Yeah, that was the only one who went to St. John's.

Sarah Huffman  29:47  
And is that how you became such a big U of M fan is through your sisters or just

John Hodnett  29:52  
I had a wonderful time at St. John's University. So good. Tell me more. I was invited Not to come back.

Unknown Speaker  30:00  
Oh, you're promoted to

John Hodnett  30:03  
public? Yeah. You can still go to church but don't come here. So yeah, and I transferred out of the you. Okay. My second. Okay.

William Huffman  30:11  
What the hell did you do to get asked out of the church the more like

John Hodnett  30:15  
what I didn't do homework the the other curriculum. So how much should do that work do

William Huffman  30:21  
you not have to do to not get us back

John Hodnett  30:25  
consistent? poor grades I'm sure it was a year. It was halfway through my sophomore year. Freshman, so

William Huffman  30:33  
they took your money for a year and a half. Oh, yeah. Then they're like, Get out of here.

John Hodnett  30:37  
Yeah. You know, I look back that, that, that campus, that environment up there. It's really special. Yeah, no, and I didn't appreciate it at the time, but it's just, it's just being a kid and being stupid. Making dumb things. I do regret it. But it you know, get it put me on a path to something else. So Right.

Unknown Speaker  30:56  
Alright, so now you're going to the you well.

William Huffman  31:02  
I didn't know what type of a student he was in college. So I'd have to ask. Are you still working at Perkins? Or what are you doing now?

John Hodnett  31:10  
While I'm in college, yeah. Are you working? No. No. So I remember we always had the family business, right? Yep. So that was the job. Okay. Whenever I came home from school whenever that and when I transferred for sure. My dad was like, you're living under my roof. You're also still working. So you're working at the store at the clothing store? Right. So I'm taking the bus down to campus. Okay. And working when I'm not at school.

William Huffman  31:36  
So you are still working? Yep. Okay, cool. Now we're at the U of M sky, you MMA fighting golfers? What are you going to college for? Like, what's your plan? How are you going to take over the world?

John Hodnett  31:47  
So against my dad's best wishes, I wanted to get into retail. I loved every single thing about the store. I loved the environment. I love the customers. I love the whole idea of you know, bringing goods in for resale and presenting them and making them cool plays. Yeah, all that and this was like old school retail where it was like, you know, the older there was two stores jesters on the fifth on Fifth Street was it was a sixth level store. And that was the original store right across, right across from Marie's there was another old really before they built that, that sort of salmon colored thing that's there. And so taking the elevator up, it was one of those old like, hand elevator, we had to crank it to the level. Yeah, when I was when we first got there, there was an elevator operator, that was that guy's job, just to sit in the elevator which floor please. Right? So it was it was just kind of cool. But I loved it. And I really wanted that. So when I went to the EU, I took a business degree major with a retake, they have a retail merchandising minor that was offered out of the College of home economics. So I had most of my business classes on the main campus, not West Bank, but East Bank. And then I would have to take the bus over to the St. Paul campus in the home school for the retail classes, like textiles and fabric construction.

William Huffman  33:10  
Was that was that? Was that a female dominated class? Or was it 100? Person? Okay, yeah. Just based upon the name of it in the in the time that you were going there? Like the years?

John Hodnett  33:19  
Absolutely. And I was like me and another guy and I. Yeah.

William Huffman  33:25  
So how was it?

John Hodnett  33:28  
It was I loved it. I mean, I wasn't I was locked. I was had a long distance relationship with somebody backup at St. John's. So that's not my jam. I wasn't really makin chicks at the class. That's kind of what I was asking. Yeah. So it wasn't for me, but. But the cool part was that some of the professors were older, retired, retired retail executives, that my dad had known throughout like guys who worked for Dayton's guys who worked for other large companies here. So it was kind of neat to learn all the mechanics of like, how do you how do you present a budget like a retail man? Yeah, jet like you, you have to be able to buy the new product, but you got to clear the old product and that creates the open to buy to be able to buy the product, otherwise, your inventory gets big blah, blah, blah. So

William Huffman  34:10  
yeah, very cool. Cool.

Sarah Huffman  34:12  
Well, I just think back like, how cool would it be now to have a six story? men's store? I

William Huffman  34:17  
would, I would. I would love it. Yeah, yeah. Or a six story women's clothing store with good products. Good

Sarah Huffman  34:25  
things. Yeah. We've lost that. I think in retail and I think we've lost a lot of

William Huffman  34:31  
clothes of clothes have become a throwaway item. And back in the day shoes weren't a throwaway item sports coats pants, like nothing was a throwaway culture item. It was you would have the you take the shoes to a cobbler. You would take the pants in the in the jacket to a tailor, and you would have them fixed and it was the quality was so much better than the shit we get these days. Don't get me wrong, I buy nicer stuff and you pay a ton more for it. But the normal was high quality goods.

John Hodnett  35:02  
Yeah, there wasn't any.

William Huffman  35:04  
There was because we weren't getting textiles in from other countries and I'm not against like shipping stuff in and whatever and products we made elsewhere. It was just a different time when the loom was here making the textiles and then they would bring the product in and yeah,

John Hodnett  35:20  
God, yeah, you said at that store was kind of a museum too, because it had been there since 1907. When when the company was started by pb Juster. And his father, John, J. U. S. t er, yeah. Okay. And then they sold it to the suit manufacturing company. But when when the when the store moved in the mid or late 70s to Nicollet Mall, which is where all the action was. This this five story or six story store that not only had like levels of where you'd buy clothing, the first door was like, shirts and ties and accessories and shoes and hats. There was a whole hat department like a guy that was his job was to sell men's hats, because that's what happened. And then the second floor was all suits and sport coats and slacks. The third floor was administrative offices. The fourth floor was a tailor shop full on Taylor shop with all the big steam press. Yes, there was 70 people employed there. 70 just sewing and doing stuff. And then the top floor was what they called the penthouse, which is all this young man's cool fashion hip stuff. So crazy stuff, but when they closed it, there was handcrafted tables that had like pineapples as legs. Yeah, and all this old oak leather furniture that they're like, Yeah, we don't want that. Because the new store was all gonna be like smoked plexiglass and brass because that when

Unknown Speaker  36:45  
it was the 80s now

John Hodnett  36:48  
so all that stuff, like there was two guys who were like, nobody wants us. I'll take it. And one guy started up an antique furniture store with most of that. Yeah, he made a killing on it because

William Huffman  36:58  
automatic so yeah, it for like $1 Maybe it probably still smelled of cigars and bourbon. Yeah. Serious. Yeah.

John Hodnett  37:08  
So just crazy. So no, I mean, the quality thing. You're right, right. And you I mean, you have to look hard, but you did. A lot of the manufacturing is in and you're in Europe. So the best still Harris tweeds, things like that. Those are that's in Scotland that's in England. A lot of silks come from Italy. It's you know, you got to hunt for it. But you can find it.

Unknown Speaker  37:29  
Where do you like to shop?

John Hodnett  37:31  
I am. So once you live in a retail environment growing up. It's really hard to pay full price for anything. Yep. So I am more of a like because I know what I'm looking for. And I know if I see it at a price that it shouldn't be at like Ooh, that's a good deal. So I will kind of hunt around virtually anywhere. Yeah, mostly. The stores that are in Galleria. There's like a store called Jackson gray. Yep. Which is good.

Sarah Huffman  38:00  
And they have went down on in North Loop now to Yeah, yep.

John Hodnett  38:04  
I was a big fan of the foursome when it was down and in ways that I haven't been to the new location. Get out. There's the man. Yeah, I know those guys because I used to sell them once. I jumped over to the wholesale side to stuff so they are carrying the torch.

William Huffman  38:20  
Yeah. Well, that's good to hear. Because I I think they carry a lot of great products. And actually one of my favorite products is the civilian air jeans. They're meaning Kelly they're made in California. Yeah. So it's

Sarah Huffman  38:32  
for some doesn't sell that they don't Ellen and out.

William Huffman  38:35  
Edmonds does. Yep, yep. And Allen Edmonds is a shoe manufacturer in Wisconsin, that you know, makes a high quality shoe that I've had for yeah, I've had these for five years now. And I beat the heck out of them. But no, I love a good product and I am not a bargain shopper. I was like three and four and let's buy what you what else do I need in this one in every color ended at 100% in and out.

Sarah Huffman  39:04  
So okay, so you graduate from the UFM Yep. And your your degree was in

John Hodnett  39:11  
ultimately business with a merchandising minor. Okay.

Sarah Huffman  39:14  
And then you went into wholesaling Yeah,

John Hodnett  39:17  
I went I worked for my dad right out of college. So I went I graduated from you know, doing all the odd things and, and actually was a buyer. So for that store, my categories were like shirts, ties, sports, were all the fun stuff. Yep, socks, underwear, all that stuff. So my sister had been doing that she got married and kind of had started to have kids and so bowed out of that. And so, my dad's like, if you want it, you know, you got to earn it. And he asked all of his executives to kind of make the decision. He didn't make the decision whether it could work there, he left it up to them. So,

William Huffman  39:52  
so help me understand the structure. So did your father own the store? Or was he just the had cheese.

John Hodnett  40:00  
He didn't own it. So it's owned by the suit manufacturing company. Okay, right. And then they install like, presidents vice presidents, were managers all that in each one of these small chains of men's stores.

William Huffman  40:12  
I wouldn't call it small. I mean, it was seven stories and had hundreds of employees. Yeah, that's not small.

John Hodnett  40:18  
That's No, but it's not like 100 store chain. It was, you know, 10 stores.

William Huffman  40:21  
Still. That's awesome. Yeah, that's super cool. All right, so we're out of college. Did we ever get arrested in college? No. Do you have to run from the cops in college?

John Hodnett  40:32  
No. What's pretty milky?

William Huffman  40:37  
Bar boring. We're ending?

William Huffman  40:38  
I know. We're not because we're not. We're going. Alright,

William Huffman  40:42  
so we're College. We're working for the old man. Is that what we're doing for the rest of our life? Like, how are we feeling at this point?

John Hodnett  40:49  
Yeah, I remember I was sitting with one of the vendors that I was a friend of the family. They sold us a bunch of a bunch of stuff. And like, it's so cool to finally get to work with you. We work with your sister, and you guys are great. And like, how do you love that? Do you love it? Do you love it? And I was like, Yeah, I mean, it's something that I really wanted. And I was so excited to get it. And I got here and I'm waiting for that big kaboom to have, like, Yay, you got this. But I'd seen it done all my life. So by the time I got there, I was like, Oh, this is how you do it. And yeah, so

William Huffman  41:24  
even, like, legit question. Did you learn anything in college that you didn't already know? Or had a very basic understanding of that? You could have just maybe worked for two or three, four years and been just as fine.

John Hodnett  41:39  
Oh, was college necessary? Is what you're asked for? Yeah. For what you want to go do? 100%? No. Okay. Yeah.

William Huffman  41:48  
Good, honest answer. Like that. So I see

John Hodnett  41:51  
that as a father of three who and one about to go into college. Yeah, that'd be like, you know, what? Why don't we wait? Yeah. See what you want to do.

William Huffman  41:58  
Take your time do that gap year to

Unknown Speaker  42:02  
what is that? There we go. There's that gap here.

William Huffman  42:04  
Yep. You're well, that's a that's a term, right? Yeah. I wouldn't know. I'm still on my gap year. 20 for some years in a gap year, I'm doing okay. Okay, so we're working. And all of a sudden, we got the gap, the thing we wanted, and it's not what we want it right. What are we doing? Well,

John Hodnett  42:25  
at that time, we got really close with the vendors that we were, we work with at the store, right? It's a family run store. And everybody knows my dad and my sister and me and all our family. And so this guy who had a brand new kind of cool product that we had brought in and it sold out faster than we could buy it. These jackets made by a company called Columbia Sportswear. Oh, yeah.

William Huffman  42:46  
Get the hell out. Seriously, zip ends

John Hodnett  42:50  
about Yep. Nobody had seen it there in neon colors and all this. So this is the 80s Yep. Okay. And he can't get out of his own way. He's doing so much business guy named Dave ferry great guy. And I'm the king, king. You can say shit. You know, my office and I wearing a suit every day. And he's like, Hey, can you talk to you? I'm like, Sure. And he's like, look, here's the deal. My business has grown like crazy. And I need somebody and I'm expanding my team. And I'd love it. If you would consider coming on. I'm gonna go What does that mean? What do you you know, I don't even know what that means. It's like, well, I just need to travel with me. You know, I'll carry my bags, like learn the business. And then you, you know, be able to do that. And I was like, All I heard was carry my bags. And I was like, No, you understand? Like, I don't carry bags, like, but thanks. I mean, it's a great offer, I'm sure. But they I was just so smug. And I said, No. And then, like, six months later, I realized what I had missed out on. And I was like, Hey, Dave, can you still have that offer? He's like, Well, actually, I filled that position, but we'll see. So I was like, dang it. And then the business just kept growing. The company kept getting bigger. And he finally called me and he's like, now it's me, who's not deciding if I want you and he was joking. But yeah, so I finally made it. I jumped over there and, and never looked back. And Wholesale is, you know, completely different than retail. Right? So it's more like, oh, man,

William Huffman  44:13  
hold on, hold on, hold the hell on for a freakin minute here. The creator of Columbia outerwear, or whatever the hell it's called Columbia, like we just want to Columbia, right? You knew him.

John Hodnett  44:27  
Not the Creator. Well, I didn't know him. So Tim Boyle, the Boyle family. That load lady on all the ads mother group boil. Yeah, real person, real family.

William Huffman  44:36  
I was gonna ask you that. Yeah,

John Hodnett  44:37  
a great story. Right. She and her husband emigrated from or escaped Nazi Germany to come to the US. She and her husband take over this business that her parents started on the shores of the Columbia River. All that her dad knew how to do was make fishing vast because that's what he did in Germany. He was a big outdoorsman. He made outdoor clothing for She vests and hats. They started that company. Well, parents retire the girl and her husband take over. And they just start building the business offering a few other things. And her husband has a heart attack and dies. She owes a bunch of money, the bank, the bank comes in and says like your business isn't worth anything. I mean, we'll give you this much for it. Or you can just run it into the ground. And God looks at him and says, Get out of my office. I'll run it into the ground, suck it back, right. Let's go

Unknown Speaker  45:28  
get out of here. Okay, so, so

Unknown Speaker  45:31  
cool. At that

John Hodnett  45:32  
time, Tim, her youngest son is a College, the University of Oregon, she says, here's what's up, I need you to come help me. And so he quit school and he comes in, he joins the company and they they somehow created that system where you can zip in and zip out the first. One of those was a hunting jacket. It was a camo hunting jacket with a down liner that came in. Because when you're out hunting, whatever, I'm not a hunter, but like, temperature regulator. It's cold the morning it's not Yeah, absolutely. So then they didn't they're like wow, okay. And they saw they went to the some ski show in Europe, and they saw all these colors and like, you know, we could do that. And we can make a jacket that looks like this, but with that deal. And they they created the Bugaboo jacket. Yeah, first one with the fleece, and it's just a boom exploded. And so Dave very was a buddy of Tim's they fly fish together. And in when Tim was growing the company, he's like, Hey, Dave, I don't have a rap in the Upper Midwest, do you? Do you want to try to sell this stuff? And there's like, no. Okay. That's that was

Sarah Huffman  46:34  
the Bugaboo. I haven't thought about that. Probably since fourth grade. Yep. 1989.

John Hodnett  46:42  
Wow, that's crazy. Sorry. It was like it was whatever crocs you know, all of a sudden, yes. Turn around and not see crocs you didn't know they existed before. That's kind of what it was. Like you couldn't you use the phone was ringing all the time. To buy Columbia product? Yeah. So getting in there as a salesman and part of the sales team. It was a little not how life works. But it was a great experience.

Sarah Huffman  47:07  
And how long did you stay with Colombia?

John Hodnett  47:09  
almost 16 years? Wow. Yeah. When I started, the the volume for that brand was 90 million. And when I left units,

William Huffman  47:21  
are we talking $90 dollars wholesale

John Hodnett  47:23  
dollars. And when I left they had just cracked 1.4 billion.

William Huffman  47:28  
Holy crap. Yeah. Wow. So that's wholesale. So yeah, you can triple quadruple that double, double, double, at least for retail. Yeah. Wow. Gert, good. Yeah.

John Hodnett  47:43  
Yeah. Her her thing. She was such a card when she would come to the Twin Cities. I a couple times I was able to take her out. She go on media tours and go to radio stations and, you know, newspapers and give interviews and stuff. So you get to know her driving around town, and you'd hear the same thing. But it was always that consistent story of like, you are in charge of your own destiny. You are the one that's responsible. And, you know, she was a hard worker, and she liked eltra A hand and she turned it around. And her whole thing was, you know, early to bed early to rise. Work like hell and advertise that was her thing.

William Huffman  48:16  
Oh, Mike Early to bed early to rise work like hell and advertise. That's amazing. I'm gonna get that tattooed somewhere. Like that's, that's so cool.

Sarah Huffman  48:26  
Wow. Okay, that's amazing. I love that. So okay, after your Columbia. Well, I just want to ask you at this point, you When are your first two kids come into play

John Hodnett  48:36  
right around that time. Okay. When you started at Columbia, or left, it was working for my dad. When I met Leslie. And it was she was like, hey, it's a friend of you know, your sisters. And it's, it's they know this girl who's moving out from Iowa. She got out of school. We should get you guys together. Okay, cool. And then it worked. We got married. And so yeah, so Carter was born. Like, right when I was still with my dad, and about two years before I left to go to Columbia. Wow. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  49:09  
That's so cool. Just hearing the timing. Yeah, it's really quite cool. Now, how long did your dad have the store? Well, or did he retire from there?

John Hodnett  49:18  
Yeah, he retired at 64. Okay, so,

William Huffman  49:22  
so the clothing industry had when it was back then it you know, pretty well.

John Hodnett  49:27  
Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Right? That's great. showing signs of like, atrophy or anything at that point. Okay, so he got out a good time.

William Huffman  49:36  
Very cool. So, we're, we're working for Columbia. We get married. We're having some kids.

Sarah Huffman  49:43  
Are you any Dinah at that point or where you live?

John Hodnett  49:44  
We bought our first house. We lived over. After we got married. We were renting over off of 34th Street and Crosstown 62. Kind of at the airport like right where Yeah, we read it there. And then our first house we bought was 58th. And Park Avenue, South Minneapolis. Near that listing that we had on Columbus. Yeah. Kind of rent by their neighborhood. Yeah. So they Yeah, stayed there for 11 years did all the first time homebuyer things, you know, tear up carpet, do the floors, paint everything.

William Huffman  50:22  
That's a nightmare.

John Hodnett  50:23  
That was a good little house. But yeah, good starter house.

William Huffman  50:27  
That's awesome. So we, you know, I'm not saying we're fast forwarding here, but you know, we kind of go forward. And let's bring it more towards your last couple of years. Because we get spent a lot of time. I will I know you, you can tell stories for hours, and they're great stories. Let's hear a little bit more about you as much as you want to share about the last couple of years of your life and kind of maybe how we got here.

John Hodnett  50:53  
Yeah, so married twice. And there's a lot in there. You know, there's a little in there. Yeah, we're probably a few episodes away from

William Huffman  51:07  
your having that PTSD Podcast coming out. So

John Hodnett  51:09  
there we go. That's right. Yeah, so just, I went through a number of different brands after Columbia. So I stayed the outdoor business still in the wholesale business, and ultimately made the jump over to the natural food industry when I was kind of bored, and just wasn't sure where I wanted to go. So I've been I have been working for, you know, with vitamins and supplements that aligned with my lifestyle. And I was like, okay, that's what I want to do. I was adjacent to a realtor that I was married to, and I always was, like, you know, this looks like something to be great. I wouldn't have to get on planes and trains, and I would travel cars and hotels. And that was like shutdown. So that wasn't an option, because somebody needed to get the paycheck and the benefits and all that. So yeah, be you know, be me. So ultimately, that. Yeah, and then that marriage ended. And I found myself at a crossroads of like, okay, what am I going to do? So, I've always wanted to do this, I went and took myself through licensing got that taken care of. And I was gonna go with the arms wide guy. And I was telling a friend of mine, who is also REMAX as a result agent, what was going and he's like, Oh, no, you're not doing that. There's no way like, as your friend, I honestly cannot in good conscience let you do that. So he got me hooked up with Cindy, and I'm here at results. And he and I were going to partner up, and, you know, rule the world. And so solo agent been doing it forever. And it was great, exciting for me to finally you know, do the thing, but I realized I was more of not getting what I needed or wanted.

William Huffman  52:47  
Yeah, he'd been doing this for a very long time. Yeah. Doing doing a good business, loving his life doing it. Great. Yeah. And here you are starry eyed and ready to like, literally, this is this is your new take the world by the horns type thing?

John Hodnett  53:02  
Yeah. I mean, the big wake up for me was when the marriage fell apart, like, wow, I, you know, the old I'd never thought I'd be here at this point in my life. And you can say, well, that sucks. Here's life dealt me this thing. And this is happening to me. Or you can be like, What do I do with this opportunity? What how I can craft anything I want. There isn't anybody guiding me or telling me I can't do it anymore. So what do you want to do? So that's really why I've moved into this and and wanted to craft this life for myself, you know, because I've never my dad, really, he did retire. But he never really retired because he retired from the clothing business and immediately started a consulting business, which he had all the way till when he passed away at 93. So he was active all the time working. And so the notion of retiring and going to a beach and reading but it just is not in my blood. It's not your DNA. No. So I was like, What can I do? For as long as I want to do it in any manner that I want to do it? It's it came, it brought me back to real estate. So that's how I got

William Huffman  54:06  
because all's we do is open doors. That's not

John Hodnett  54:08  
all. That's not all we do. And so with, with, you know, my first initial blush, it was great, but I was hungry for more I knew I wanted some structure and accountability and, you know, an environment that you know, was a I need to get to that place. I feed off being around people in a team and other people and I will contribute but I will also you know, take not take but just get continues. Yeah, that environment. I needed that. Right. I was finding myself going to the the office that we had by myself just to be in a space where there was people and I'd sit there at the Eaton office, and I'd be like, Okay, I'm a realtor. No. When's it all gonna start? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  54:53  
just comes flowing. Yeah.

John Hodnett  54:55  
And it wasn't that way. So, so yeah, luckily I landed here.

Unknown Speaker  54:59  
I love it. Yeah.

William Huffman  55:02  
I love it. We love you like very much. So you're you're absolutely a part of this crew. You know, people say the word family and I don't, I don't know if I want to say the word family, but I mean, we're like, we're more of a gang. Like, I know for a fact, I piss people off here. But it's all good because I can piss John off. And then I'm like, I can be like him downstairs in the backyard. If somebody's trying to beat me up, and John's gonna grab me and they make freakin will. I hate him. But it just comes out and help me beat somebody up in a dark alley type thing, you know, and then we'll come upstairs and have a beer or something?

Sarah Huffman  55:35  
Well, I think like, we've tried to move away actually from the word family, because like, sometimes families are dysfunctional. So it's like, I don't want to bring in like dysfunctional energy.

William Huffman  55:44  
Who told you that somebody was somebody we're talking to? Yeah, yeah, more than

Sarah Huffman  55:48  
likely. And I was like, Yeah, it's really it. Is that more of that team mentality? Where like, it sounds corny, but it's like, yeah, together. Everyone achieves more. Yeah, but it is true.

William Huffman  55:58  
In a team a team wins or loses together. Yeah, not one. If you're on a team, you either all win that game or you all lose that game. Yep. There's there's no other way around it. And that is truly how I think we've I know how I feel I miss Yeah, if you're not winning, and you're not winning, but I'm winning. I'm not winning. You know. So

John Hodnett  56:20  
yeah, the tragedy you talked about Gopher football. How did you become such a big fan? So a it's a it's been like the sad be sad fan because they haven't been winning for a long time. They got a new coach about six years ago. PJ fleck. Okay, he's very polar Roosevelt people either get him or they don't. There's somebody else I know like that. And he he wrote a boat, he he wrote a book about that phrase, row, the brother ball. Yeah, everyone's like, Oh, really the book, this guy love it, the boat sinks. The story of that is, is very different from what other people take from that. He had a child that that did not make it past childbirth, bird born quickly and then passed away. And he decided he was going to live his life for that child. So he was going to keep rowing in his boat no matter what life through. And he's got metaphors of like, your back is where to where you're going when you're rowing, a boat, not canoeing, or paddling. When you're rowing, you're, you're physically can't see where you're going. So you're trusting where you're going. So there's a lot of things in his philosophy that I took to heart in terms of like, you know, motivating and how am I going to live my life, you know, this is great, I love this concept. And then he takes it further into the team. And he's got all these acronyms for how he coaches. His responsibility he sees isn't just to make good football players. He's like, I'm taking young men and making them into adults. So he has like date night, to show them etiquette, how to treat women, things like that. So it's huge. But we talk about family and you got an acronym for team together, everybody achieves more. He has one for family, the letters there mean, forget about me. I love you. And I love that. Because I think that is the essence of any group of people that you are with together, oftentimes, a family and yeah, it's dysfunctional for sure. And you can fight. But in the end, there's something that Bond's you.

Sarah Huffman  58:12  
Yeah, I do love that. Forget about me. I love you. And what is it about like sports like coaches, like when you think about the real ones, the great ones, the great coaches are able to like there's something that they're able to do within the team members, like the teammates, where they get them to believe, you know, they get them to believe in themselves. They get to, they get them to believe, you know, it's even just how like the Vikings this year. Yeah, they actually yes. Okay, we can go into

William Huffman  58:40  
this. They believed they were overachievers to the max, but they believed that they could win. Yeah. And somehow they freaking did. Like they should not have gotten where they weren't because because of the but you're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go ahead. No, your your need is five touchdowns. Yeah. Like, are you kidding me? You're like the mentality and the mindset to say something like that. Where you're down by 30 some points. Yep. And you're getting your ass whooped. And you just walk in there. hibbett us five, touchdown. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  59:13  
There's just something about like, get one. I'm not even like sports fanatic. But I do love sports with the good coaches. Yeah. And you can tell teams that are knit together with good coaching, and good mentoring versus like the Vikings this year versus the Vikings last year? Yeah. The team really didn't change. No players. Not really. They really didn't change. But the team changed. Yeah, and that's just I just think there's something that everyone can learn from sports. Like when they come together as a team and actually work and play together. Because it's not about like, oh, he had a good game or like you had a good sale. It's no everybody wins when everybody wins. I love

William Huffman  59:51  
the I love the fact that to a fault, maybe at times, whatever. But Kirk Cousins, he'd be like, I could have done that better. Yeah, I could have done that. better. I'm sorry, I didn't get that to you. He never once said, Why the hell were you out of position and I threw that perfectly you catch that shit. Like, that's never been his MO. And it's just as have him as a leader on that team. It is very inspiring to see how he does and some people think he's being a candy ass or, uh, you know, whatever. I

Sarah Huffman  1:00:21  
just comment on Kirk Cousins for a second. Yeah, I

William Huffman  1:00:23  
didn't like him for how long has he been here yet? Five, six years. I didn't like him for the first two, three years.

Sarah Huffman  1:00:27  
I started to like him this year. Yeah. Because it's like his leadership showed up differently under this coaching staff. Absolutely.

William Huffman  1:00:35  
Yeah.

John Hodnett  1:00:36  
You saw how he interacted with the previous coach. Yeah, all that. But you guys, there's a metaphor like for at least from where I sit and the six months I've been here from a lot of what I'm being exposed to, right. The the coaches that Glover the way that we look at things, you know, the five touchdowns, right, got the shit beat out of us from wherever I'm on that phone. I'm getting the shit beat out of that. I'm picking up that call and doing one more. So it's, you know, it is it is translatable, transferable? Yeah, yeah, really anything, not just this business that we're in. But I'm amazed that, you know, there's there's enough of that environment here that you thrive in. And not everybody can. That's the only thing right? The flag flick will always say like, I'm not for everybody. Like, you might be a five star kid out of high school and every school wants you and we'll talk to you. But guess what you may not I may not want you here and you may not want to be here and that's okay. We're not going to get you just because you're a good football player. You have to fit the culture. Yeah.

William Huffman  1:01:35  
That's awesome. Well, we could talk about this stuff for freaking days here, man. All right. Before I asked you the final questions here. If somebody has any buying or selling questions for real estate, if they're looking to have their home remodeled a new toilet, anything done like that, you're a great person to contact. How would they get ahold of you?

John Hodnett  1:01:56  
John at a good life group.com JL HN what are those digits? Son? 612-940-3830. Roll the boat. All right.

William Huffman  1:02:05  
Thank you for sharing. Okay, so we wrap up every, every podcast with tell us your top five favorite restaurants. Okay, I did do a little homework for this. Okay, so All right, so let's go with number five. Like

John Hodnett  1:02:20  
in descending or ascending,

William Huffman  1:02:21  
any any order is fine. But good question, but I like your favorite for the last. Yeah, if you can't see me.

John Hodnett  1:02:27  
Okay. All right. So my This is gross for some people, but it's just my jam. So I do have a guilty pleasure. I love these Chinese buffets. Right?

William Huffman  1:02:40  
Like the supermoon buffet. Oh, god. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker  1:02:45  
What's your favorite one?

John Hodnett  1:02:48  
Actually, there's one on Lake Street.

William Huffman  1:02:49  
That's you were talking about this. What is it called?

John Hodnett  1:02:53  
Fill in the blank. They're all like, you know,

Unknown Speaker  1:02:56  
I think he's a team out in Doom.

John Hodnett  1:02:58  
I wouldn't see the thing about the guilty thing as you can't really share that. Because then you're like, isn't it great? And everyone's like, This is rubbish. Like,

Unknown Speaker  1:03:06  
this is terrible.

William Huffman  1:03:07  
Is it? Is it more than $10?

John Hodnett  1:03:10  
Like, probably with inflation. Yeah.

William Huffman  1:03:13  
Yeah. Okay. But it's one of those places that just a few years ago probably been like 795 for lunch and 995 for dinner, for sure. And like 1395 is your favorite thing

Sarah Huffman  1:03:23  
out of the buffet.

John Hodnett  1:03:25  
So I do this thing with the hot and sour soup. And I mix it with the usually they have the sauteed green beans with garlic. Yes. One. Yeah. And do that with some rice. Yeah. So I know. It's weird. But anyway, that's, that's low on there.

Unknown Speaker  1:03:45  
Okay, that's number five. All right. Number four.

John Hodnett  1:03:48  
Number four would be the car Luna, which is over Yes. Yeah. On the deal. Yeah. really unusual. What is it? Is Chef and pan asian? Yeah. It's Oh, it is high. They just start winning all sorts of awards. Yeah, it's the most unusual menu, unique food, I think. But if it's Jeff and I will try it yesterday. Yeah. And the environment is. It's like how did this get here?

Sarah Huffman  1:04:18  
Why didn't she just get nominated for a James Beard? Midwest award? Yeah. On that restaurant? Yeah, yes. Yeah.

John Hodnett  1:04:25  
Yeah. And where it is and where it's located is it's great for that neighborhood and I would only probably visit it in the summer because of the extra year patio. Okay, so that's really cool. Number three, number three would be the Dell frescoes. Oh, really, really anywhere? Yep. I'm not a big steak house guy, but that is the only place where I've had memorable, like, completely billion degree seared rib eyes. Yeah. And it's a very simple menu of like, slice tomatoes and onions with blue cheese. But first of all a huge Martini that is has with olives, sliced tomatoes, onions with blue cheese, that's the salad and then the seared ribeye. And then they make these potatoes that are like potato chips that are tossed with sauteed onions. I don't know how they do it separately and mix them together. Yeah.

Sarah Huffman  1:05:21  
Yeah, so we'll and I went to dollfuss goes for the very first time this year in New York City. And oh, yeah, you know, we ordered we ordered the tasting menu. Oh, yeah. And I don't think that's the way to go because too many good things Yeah. Alfresco. We did it wrong, but I think we just did it wrong. So it's it needs to be a repeat.

William Huffman  1:05:43  
You know, I normally don't give restaurants or repeat but couple people that have told me that it's really good. We just did it wrong. We did it wrong. I think we did it wrong.

John Hodnett  1:05:52  
Yeah. Okay, Steakhouse. I mean, again, I don't eat a lot of red meat. But if I do, I'm very particular about it. So you're a ribeye guy Ruth's Chris more Morton's. It's like those few like, chains. But this I know that Dell versus a chain, but they do a pretty good.

William Huffman  1:06:09  
Well, I'm making a ribeye, this. Make me revise. I got you. Right. I'm pretty sure I can I make the best steak I've ever had.

Sarah Huffman  1:06:18  
I do right. You make great steak. I think it's better on a gas grill. But on the gas grill or on the pizza oven. Yeah. Like you've been cooking it lately. The smoker and I haven't been as good.

William Huffman  1:06:27  
It's still good. This is just not the same. I don't think feedback, screw you. Number two.

John Hodnett  1:06:33  
Number two. This is sort of a hybrid, but my kids. My daughter lives in the Laiho, California. And I thought I had had good, like, tacos. And um, yeah, so Casey's a high school social studies teacher in at Richmond High School. And so they took us on a taco truck crawl through the neighborhood around the school. And every truck that we went to he hit either taught their kids or knew the family or whatever. And oh my god, that Barry. Oh, the, you know, that's my favorite. Yeah. carnitas everything. Yep. So I know it's not fine dining, but no, no,

William Huffman  1:07:15  
no, they was

Sarah Huffman  1:07:17  
trying to talk about, but there's something different about California tacos when we were San Diego. I'm like, I will always remember this Cerrito taco that we had. Yeah,

William Huffman  1:07:27  
we were going to San Diego. We're driving from LA to San Diego and we rented a convertible Sara got sunburned. And I'm like, Well, I want some food. And I'm like Googling and I'm like, there's this taco place. I'm like, How does this freakin place have 5700 reviews? And it's like 4.9 There's nothing around here. strip mall. It's in a freakin strip mall.

Unknown Speaker  1:07:50  
Yeah, we go there.

Sarah Huffman  1:07:52  
Like here we are almost nine years later.

William Huffman  1:07:55  
That's the reason we've had trees with tacos now moving forward, and every single time was a disappointment. Compared to that taco except for one taco shop. Mother Teresa ones.

Unknown Speaker  1:08:04  
I love trees. Yes.

William Huffman  1:08:06  
You know what? Crystal? Oh, that's okay. They're good trees. Oh, Anna. Molly's tacos are really good. But they don't do a treason Why

John Hodnett  1:08:15  
aren't they coming back? Are they doing something for soup? Yeah, to order it.

William Huffman  1:08:19  
We are going to do that. Yeah. John, we're doing it. Yep. I need bone bone bone bone owners down as well. All right,

John Hodnett  1:08:27  
number one. Number one. I was lucky enough to eat at a place in California called the French Laundry. And it is like, were

William Huffman  1:08:39  
you telling me about this or somebody else? Sorry.

John Hodnett  1:08:43  
It it was in continues to be one of the top restaurants in the world. And so it was on a trip that of some friends of us took through the wine country. And we just we kind of were lucky enough to get a reservation there. And it's his 12 Course Menu. Everything that comes out is handcrafted with little, you know, tweezers and all that other stuff. Somebody

William Huffman  1:09:04  
was talking about this when we were talking about travail just recently. Yeah. Because they freeze Yeah.

John Hodnett  1:09:09  
Like, like, why does this exist? But I'm glad it does. Yeah, you know, and just

Unknown Speaker  1:09:15  
super cool. I'm looking at it up right now.

William Huffman  1:09:17  
Hard to hard to replicate. Certainly. We're gonna go to California just for this. Yeah. Yeah.

John Hodnett  1:09:22  
And it's one of those things where it's way out, you know, in wine country, and there's no sign. It's just like a brown building. Yeah, you got to know like, where you're going. And so, yeah, that is, yeah, I do. I love to cook like the passions there. And, you know, living alone, I don't have an opportunity to cook up for a bunch. My 18 year old loves it, you know, kind of not a lot. But yeah, so I'm one of those guys where I do like to go out but I'm like, I could have made that better. Yeah, so annoying.

William Huffman  1:09:51  
Yeah, yeah, there's a few places where I just don't even try and make the dishes because it's really hard for me to order a steak somewhere and you know, yeah,

Sarah Huffman  1:10:00  
Okay, John, this was an I loved this podcast because we've worked together now for six months. But like, we just every time you, there's just like something new that we learned. And that is why I love this podcast. If people want to hear more from you, you're going to be starting a podcast. Yeah. What is it going to be called?

John Hodnett  1:10:17  
It's going to be called the PTSD podcast that and those letters aren't what you think they stand for.

William Huffman  1:10:23  
They are kind of

John Hodnett  1:10:26  
a little bit people thriving and surviving. After divorce. I love it. Yeah, that's all stay tuned, folks.

William Huffman  1:10:32  
Yeah, well, I I'm excited for you to share what you've been going through and where you're going. The journey you've been on the journey you're going going to be going through so that's super cool. Awesome. I'm excited. Well, this has been absolutely amazing. I superduper. Appreciate you. And as always we out deuces