Kamard Johnson is the President & CEO of GTT Commercial Tires, based in Richmond, Virginia. With a professional background rooted in sales and customer service, Kamard joined forces with his brother to build a company that started with seven used tires in a shed and grew into a multi-location operation recognized on the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row. His story highlights both the opportunities and the hard lessons that come with ambition, leadership, and scaling too quickly in the tire industry.

In this episode…

Success to outsiders can look like growing or scaling your business at a fast rate. But when is fast too fast? Does it take a toll on your business? In this conversation, Kamard Johnson explores the realities behind tire business growth challenges and what happens when ambition outruns preparation.

Kamard shares his candid journey of rapid expansion, earning national recognition while battling the hidden costs of fast growth. From strained operations to financial pressure and even selling into unprofitability, he reveals the lessons that reshaped his approach. These tire business growth challenges forced him to step out of sales and into a true leadership role, focusing on systems, processes, and long-term strategy.

What we loved about this conversation with Kamard is how real he was about the struggles behind the growth. He didn’t just talk about the wins but he also opened up about the mistakes, the financial pressure, and the lessons that forced him to grow as a leader. Hearing him explain how self-awareness and putting people first shaped his journey gave us a lot to think about, and we think it will hit home for anyone facing tire business growth challenges or pushing their business forward faster than it was ready for.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn: 

[02:09] The meaning behind GTT Commercial Tires

[02:18] Kamard’s upbringing and how his mother and brother shaped his path

[05:34] How his mother persuaded him to join the family business

[07:01] Working side by side with his brother and defining their roles

[11:46] Why Kamard sees himself as more of an architect than a builder

[16:42] Expanding to three locations and the strategy behind it

[17:27] Lessons learned from pursuing aggressive growth

[19:44] How Kamard adjusted his leadership style after growing too fast

[21:57] Discovering the risks of selling into unprofitability

[24:59] The mantra from his mother that guides Kamard’s leadership

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Kamard Johnson’s Website
• GTT Commercial Tires Website
• Tread Partners
• Gain Traction Podcast on YouTube
• Gain Traction Podcast Website
• Mike Edge on LinkedIn

Quotable Moments:

• “These hands have never changed a tire in my life.”
• “Growth magnifies not just the things you do well, but also the things you don’t do so well.”
• “You can actually sell yourself into being unprofitable.”
• “You take care of the people who take care of you.”
• “The truest foundation of success is self-awareness.”

Action Steps:

1. Evaluate whether growth is exposing weaknesses in your operations before expanding further.
2. Focus on systems and processes that support sustainable growth, not just sales volume.
3. Step back from short-term wins to look at long-term leadership and financial health.
4. Remember the importance of self-awareness in leadership, know what you do best and where to delegate.
5. Embrace the lessons of tire business growth challenges as opportunities for building resilience and sustainable success.

• Gain Traction Podcast
• GTT Commercial Tire
• Kamard Johnson
• Mike Edge
• Tread Partners

Transcript

00:00
These hands here. Admittedly, audience has never changed a tire in its life, ever. I had to get out of sales and become more of a leader, become more of a business minded individual and really look at the implications of decisions made financially and otherwise. Yeah, selling them for not enough margin to actually make it a profitable sale. Yeah. So yeah, I’ve done it.

00:27
Welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. I am Mike Edge, your host and I have the privilege of interviewing the tire dealers, shop owners, counter sales reps, technicians, industry executives and other thought leaders of our industry. This episode is brought to you by Tread Partners. Tread Partners is the leading digital marketing agency that specializes in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. Tread Partners works with clients that have hundreds of locations, down to five locations. Get a professional, unbiased opinion and let Tread Partners review what you’re doing. It starts with a simple conversation. To contact tread partners, visit treadpartners.com so let’s get started. Hey folks, welcome to the Gain Traction Podcast, the official podcast for tire business. We have a special podcast for you today.

01:13
Kamar Johnson, president and CEO of GTT Commercial Tires in Richmond, Virginia is our guest today. Mike Burns introduced us. He’s with itdg and I couldn’t be more happy working with Mike over, I guess the last couple years, but he’s always brought us some good guests and this is dynamite one here today. Kamard, welcome to the Gain Traction podcast.

01:35
Mike, thank you so much for having me. Super honored and a privilege to be here. And like you said, definitely want to shout out the other Mike that introduced us and really put this in contention to be able to happen. So appreciate you.

01:48
Mike Burns is awesome guy. We talk periodically and he goes, man, I got a great guest for you. So he was enthusiastic about introducing us and I’ve been excited since then. But what’s funny? I, you know, you notice I just stuttered over your name, but the T’s in there got me. Go ahead and tell us what, what your name stands for because I love it.

02:09
Yeah. GTT Commercial tires. The GTT portion is short for get the truck. Get the truck on commercial tire.

02:18
That’s so creative. I love it. Well, let’s start back about who Kamard is. And you know, all my listeners out there like to listen to everybody, like tell us a little bit about Kamar, where’d you come from and navigate us to how you got to the tire world.

02:34
Yeah, yeah, I think this will be good for the audience at least. That’s my aim. And so Kamar Johnson, born and raised, Richmond, Virginia, south side of Richmond, Virginia to a single parent mother that had two boys, my brother and myself. I’m the baby. My brother and I are 12 years apart and so as you can imagine, I wasn’t the most close childhood. You know, no 20 year old young man is overly excited to hang out with their 8 year old kid brother. And I will say though, he acted as a father figure for a lot of my life and definitely kept me out of trouble and on a straightened path. And so super grateful to everything that he contributed to my development, directly and indirectly.

03:18
I have a tremendous mother who again made a lot of sacrifices and done a lot of things to ensure that best she could. I was on a pathway with a trajectory that was ascending. Right.

03:30
Yeah.

03:31
And so super grateful for both of them because there’s no way that I’d be sitting here having this discussion with you as the young man that I am and what I aim to become without the part that they played in my development, my journey and overall my life. So just wanted to start with that part.

03:48
Listen, I love it when people appreciate the people in front of them. I mean, because we don’t get there without it, right?

03:53
Yes sir. Yeah, yeah. I mean even down to like the notion, and that’s a bit of a tangent, but you kind of brought it out of me, the self made notion. Right. Like I respect anyone that clamors to that moniker. However, I just think if we really dig deep enough, you can really uncover that there isn’t anything that gets accomplished without the assistance of others. Even ideas that come from your own mind. So somebody else plays a part in it. Right. Like in our business, okay. You know the tire game, like we don’t manufacture the tires. So there’s countless hands, there’s countless people who efforts contribute to us being able to get the product that then goes to our end user, who we serve that we’ll never know about, never see, probably never meet.

04:38
But nonetheless they’re playing a part in the success that we’re able to achieve. And so I just, I personally don’t subscribe to that notion about, you know, being self made, but nonetheless to get us back on track.

04:49
I like it.

04:50
Who I am a young man who has worked in sales primarily all of my working career. I’ve sold everything from appliances and electronics to cars and real estate, so. And everything in between probably. And it’s been a great ride. And so leading up to Getting into the tire business, that same loving, supportive mother of mines, I tell her all the time, she should have been a lobbyist on Wall street or something like that, because, you know, she lobbied, AKA bullied me into joining forces with my big brother in this business. And her and my, you know what that is?

05:36
It’s just mama’s intuition.

05:37
You know what they say, mothers know best. And so in this regard, she for sure has earned that statement. To be tried and true and in all actuality, you know, professionally is by far the greatest decision that I’ve made. You know, one of the reasons is because it brought my brother and I closer because as again I mentioned, we didn’t have the closest personal relationship growing up. And so by way of being forced in a business together, every day, you know, you either get closer or you grow further apart. And fortunately for us, we’ve grown a lot closer. You know, that’s my guy. So she bullied me into joining forces with my brother.

06:14
And their outlook, Mike, was that I would be able to come in with the sales experience, come in with the customer service experience that I had earned and experienced over my work and journey and add to what was already a solid business that my brother had created from a foundation standpoint. You know, he had a lot of traction. Right. No, punish.

06:36
I like it. I like that word. Good job.

06:39
And you know, my biggest drawback, Mike, was, you know, hey, man, you got this thing going. You’re the face, you’re the voice, you enjoy it, right? My brother is a lot more hands on than myself. These hands here, Admittedly, audience has never changed a tire in its life ever. And so, you know, I, I’m very proud.

07:02
I love, I love your humility there. Just to say it, I mean, it’s okay.

07:06
Yeah, I’m very transparent about that. My brother on the other side, you know, he’s trenches. He’s definitely more technically sound. And, you know, he’s that guy. And so he was that guy. My question was, you know, being that, right, from a male perspective, you know, we derive a lot of purpose from our ability to deliver, right? And what we do professionally to provide. And so I was very curious as to how that would play out if he and my mother were correct. And then now I come in, I change things, you know, with the latitude given to me, it works. Where does that then place you and then how do you react to that? Right?

07:44
But to my surprise, man, by far the selfless move I’ve ever experienced in my life from another Male, particularly an alpha male, to give up that seat, jump in the passenger side, and allow me to drive us in the direction that we’ve been going in the last six and a half years now at this point, because I officially joined January 1, 2019. My brother started it July 21, 2016. So last Monday was the nine year anniversary for us with seven used tires in the shed of his backyard. Right.

08:17
That’s awesome.

08:18
So, yeah, he allowed me to break stuff.

08:22
And that’s what makes your brother a really good leader too, though. He. You know what I’m saying? Because somebody that knows their lane and knows what they need for the company, he obviously had the benefit of seeing his little brother have that talent and he didn’t have to look far. But, you know, I mean, I think that says a lot about your brother’s character. To go look my. My brother be awesome in this one spot in this company and. And I can do what I like to do and we can just take this thing a lot further. And. And mom obviously recognized that. And. And then applied the. He went to her, which was genius, right? Applied the pressure on you because he probably saw it. But you know, what’s the old cliche? A prophet’s not without honor except in his own hometown.

09:04
And you could apply it to family or friends or whatever when they’re real close. You don’t think my brother. Some people can be arrogant enough, think my brother can’t be the guy? It can’t be that easy. It can’t be right here, you know?

09:15
Right.

09:16
Yeah.

09:16
No, that’s spot on, Mike. Because to that point, my brother is much more quiet than me. And so, yeah, he definitely planted the seed within mama’s head and allowed her to do the bidding. Because rewinding a bit, when I went to him after probably at that point, nine to 12 months of bullying from my mom and I just waved it off, dismissed it. Side stuff that, you know, because I have my own career going for myself, right. And things worked out well for me. So, you know, again, to potentially create a clash with my brother, I just was like, that. It just felt sticky, you know.

09:54
Yeah.

09:55
But, yeah, so I go there one day, all my meetings had canceled on me. I’m in a three piece suit, like hard bottoms on and picture that, right? And I’m walking into a freaking tire warehouse at that point, right. It wasn’t even a tire shop and he was with a customer at the time. And so back then, the business model was pick up and carry, right. So guys would come with Their pickup truck and a trailer hitch to the back and take as many tires as they need. He was pretty much a one man band. Would facilitate the loading of the tires, collect the money, give them an invoice, the whole nine. And so I’m walking around the warehouse while he’s doing that, and you know, once he finishes up, I’m like, so this is it, huh? He’s like, yeah, okay.

10:34
I’m like, well, listen, you know, we get together at mom’s house every Sunday, which we’ve been doing for years now at this point for dinner. And I haven’t heard anything from you about us joining forces. However, all I can be told about is that notion from mom. And so, like, is this a parental fantasy or is this actually something that you really are interested in? You know, and in his again, very short and sweet, like fashion Mike. And. And if you’re ever fortunate enough to meet him, you. You’ll experience what I’m talking about. The response was, yeah, I just been waiting on you. And that was it. End of the meeting.

11:09
I love it.

11:10
And I’m like, seriously, man, you gotta.

11:12
Give me more to go off of, right?

11:13
Yeah, yeah, we gotta have a conversation, man. What is it gonna look like when I want to go left and you want to go right again? This is your thing. You created this. From seven used tires to now a thriving multiple, you know, six figure business at the time. Like, what is that gonna look like? You know, and like I said, you know, he was very open, very confident, very selfless. And again to your point, very much so. A great leader to switch roles per se and allow me to get in the driver’s seat. And like I said, you know, you.

11:45
Know, you know, it’s interesting. I always find this about life. All your past experiences seem to help you with the next one. Yeah. And you, if you had started this thing with him, it would have been too early for you. Like, you needed the platform that he gave so that you could go see what. You know what I mean? Like, you know, I, I gotta have the. It was. It’s just, you know, timing works. Look, I put everything in God’s hands and timing just works. And I think knowing your personality and getting to know you a little bit, you needed a little bit of a platform just to say, because I don’t know if you wouldn’t have had the same vision that he had at seven tires. Right.

12:25
Yeah.

12:26
You know, and what makes him great is that he recognized the opportunity, but got it to a level that said Okay, I need somebody now that can really pull the wagon. And, And. And that’s what he recognized for sure.

12:39
You know, one thing that he and I have talked about, and this will be the first time that this is said publicly, but privately, I don’t really see myself in the light that a lot of people see themselves as business owners or even CEOs of, like, not publicly traded companies where I feel like I built this because I know I didn’t, and therein just lies it. I think my brother, like a lot of founders, because that’s what he is. He founded this. They’re real builders, right? Yeah, like actual construction guys. I’m more the guy that. I’m an architect. You know, I’ll write this thing down, I’ll create the vision for it on paper, but somebody else has to actually put in the labor to, you know, build it out.

13:24
And I think that is the essence that, you know, the two of us have been able to really coexist in, is because we really have no overlapping of stepping on toes, because what he thrives in and where he is best fulfilled, I have no interest.

13:40
Yeah.

13:40
And vice versa. So.

13:42
Yeah. Yeah. What a compliment that is.

13:45
Yeah.

13:45
I met a. I met a guy one time, didn’t even know it at the time, found out later, and this is a whole nother industry, but I did. I sold Internet marketing programs to manufacturers. And this is a company down in Tennessee. And it was massive, big equipment, that packaging equipment. And anyway, I had met this guy out in the road somewhere. I don’t know why, but to make a long story short, come to find out he owned the company and he was the main sales guy, like national account guy that would go out on the road and sell it. So then I was calling on this company one time. I’d met him out in the road, but then I called on their company one time thinking he was just the sales guy. Then I find.

14:27
Then I find out, I meet the president of the company, and I said, yeah, I met your sales guy, so. And so. And he goes, well, he’s actually. He’s actually the owner of the company and chairman of the board, and I work for him. And I’m like, what? And he goes, yeah. He said he knew that his. His lane was sales, and so we run the company. And he goes and gets the business. And I thought, wow, what a, you know, what a humble concept that he knew that, hey, I’m the guy that needs to be out there shaking the bushes. I. I know how to talk to the Customers, I know how to sell our equipment, but I need you to run it. And he hired, you know, a whole executive staff to run his company and then he stayed in sales.

15:06
I thought, man, and this, we’re talking about a multimillion dollar company. I thought it was just a really, I mean, you just don’t meet people like that very often. But your brother seems to be in that kind of pool to recognize himself and said, hey, I’m good with this. I just, I want to do this over here.

15:23
I believe the truest foundation of success is self awareness. And so, yeah, I concur with that strategy that that gentleman has used. And you know, he’s focusing on the sales piece and has built the infrastructure around him to be able to actually have the company run in the way that he agrees with, but not because he’s the one pulling the strings. That’s amazing. And yeah, I like to think I’m pretty self aware. I definitely know the things that I am intrigued with, interested in and because the thing about it, right, Mike, I think oftentimes just because you’re good at something does not mean that you enjoy it and does not also mean that it’s best suited for you to be doing.

16:06
And so that’s something as well that I feel like I’ve benefited from being able to remove the ego that can be associated with results that you can get from being good at something and truly saying, listen, it’s best if we defer this to Mike or this person or that person who has more enjoyment for it and we can get them with the appropriate training and development to the piece of capacity where they’re able to have an output that candidly can surpass minds just because they’re not going to have the lull that comes from doing something monotonously over and over. That, yeah, you’re getting good results, but you just aren’t feeling it.

16:42
Yep. Now that’s a great way of saying it. So talk to me about, because you guys have three locations now.

16:49
Yes, sir. In the state.

16:50
And you’re strictly a wholesaler for commercial tires, is that correct?

16:54
We’re strictly a. So we’re not wholesale. We’re direct to the end user. So we’re dealing with owner operators. We’re dealing with Florida.

17:02
Oh, yeah, yeah.

17:03
We’re in falling attire. We do the mobile service. Yeah.

17:07
Awesome. How far part of your locations, just for the audience sake?

17:13
Furthest distance is about an hour 45 minutes. Okay, so one is in Richmond and then that farthest one is in Portsmouth.

17:21
Now what was the strategy in the, you know, in creating more locations? Was it your customer base just kind of demanded it?

17:30
No, that would be the textbook answer to give. But I like to be as transparent as possible. It was truly just ambition and to a degree, Mike being a bit overzealous, candidly. Right. You know, I’ve learned a lot of lessons from the six and a half years of aggressive pursuit of growth. And the thing that a lot of people don’t tell you about growth when they’re either reaping the rewards of it because they’ve been through it or that are just talking from a, in the stands perspective and they haven’t actually been on the gridiron. Growth is not only expensive, but it does come with the other proverbial growing pains. And I’ve learned a lot of lessons. I’ve made a lot of errors and bad calls, if you will, as a result of my pursuit for growth. Right.

18:24
Like you can look at this plaque here. That was all in pursuit of growth. You know, Inc magazine recognized us as one of the fastest growing 5,000 privately owned companies in the country three years in a row now. And that’s all been great. Right. But the flip side to what people don’t see that doesn’t show up on the plaque is everything that breaks, right? All of the fires that just grow out of control, almost like the wildfires out in California because it’s too dry and you’re the one left holding that extinguisher, attempting to put it all out. And so yeah, but you were also.

19:00
You were also the guy that had the match too. You thought you could control it, right? You thought, hey, yeah, I think I can light this fire on. And all of a sudden it gets out here and you’re like, well, we got the end thing. You know, you get the customer service issues, you get all the other. Oh yeah.

19:15
Supply chain processes and you know, SOPs. I mean, it all goes to crap quickly. And so that’s the thing about growth. Growth magnifies not just the things that are going well and that you do great, but also the things that are not so well and that you don’t do so great. And you know, you got to figure out a way to not only compartmentalize, but how to actually sure those things up and become a solution minded individual to put those things to pass or, you know, they can of course, take you over.

19:44
So what did you do in regards to your personality and recognizing. Oh man, I, I pushed the gas pedal Too fast here. I mean, what was the biggest lesson that you learned about yourself and maybe did you learn to pull on the reins on yourself a little bit or.

19:59
I needed to do the exact opposite of what the gentleman did that you just mentioned that went full throttle into sales and built the team around him. I had to get out of sales and become more of a leader, become more of a business minded individual and really look at the implications of decisions made financially and otherwise as it pertains to the effect on the business and its operations and overall, ultimately its customer experience. And so I had to become more of a steward of business acumen and P and L and balance sheet and just becoming a better communicator because oftentimes, especially in the small business environment, right, whether you start it or not, you come in and you may be employee number one to 10.

20:51
And so there isn’t a lot of processes and if they are, you know, as growth happens, they become outdated, antiquated. And so it’s easy to get behind the cue ball and not necessarily be able to dictate what is the next best move for the company because all of the decisions are coming from just here, right. And there’s no data driving it. So it’s either ego driven or it’s either intuition driven. But that doesn’t always end up being what is absolutely best for the team, for the customers and for the operational flow to not have choke points and constraints that you create. For me, I had to take a step back from sales and really look at how does this tire business work? What, what is important to the customers that we serve? Why are they choosing us?

21:42
How can we best fulfill our obligations that we’re saying we’re wanting to do? Are these things that we said we want to do they complement the value that the customers see versus the arbitrary values that we think?

21:56
That’s interesting.

21:57
They’re, they’re usually.

21:58
Well, you probably learned this about yourself in the business. You know, you’ve sold a lot of products, you said, and experiences in your life. So when you came over to tires, sales ended up not being the problem. It was because you could actually sell yourself into being unprofitable. Right? I mean, and people don’t understand that until they get there and they’re like, what I should be doing well here? And then you’re not. Because like you said, customer experience goes down. All these other things. That’s interesting you bring that up. So our parent company is Tread Partners. They’re the sponsor of this show. And we have told Clients in the past, look, you don’t need us yet. And they’ll be like, why? And it’s because all our people in house know the tire business and the shop business.

22:42
So we’ll tell them, look, you’ve got other problems. We could bring you enough business to just bury you in the sense that if you can’t handle cleaning up your processes, you’re not going to get more profitable by getting more people in the top of the funnel at the door. You know what I mean? Because you already have. You got these other problems. And so it’s interesting that we’ll actually turn down business or my staff or, you know, my folks on our team will, because they’ll look at it and say, man, this comp, they, yeah, we’d love to have them as a client. You know, they’re a big name and everything, but they actually have more operational problems that they need to clean up first. And it’s.

23:22
We’re talking about stuff that they can probably clean up within six months to a year, then hit the gas pedal because, you know, your problem’s not more customers right now. If you get more. It’s like you said earlier, which I think is just really simple, but it’s clear you get more, but you’re just magnifying your problem. You can grow, you grow yourself into just more problems if the problems are existing. It’s like you said, you’re just throwing gas on it and making it a bigger problem by getting, trying to get bigger faster.

23:50
Sure.

23:50
Yeah.

23:51
That problem goes from hiding in the corner like a mice to sitting on your desk like a, you know, an elephant. Yeah. So, yeah, I’ve learned a lot from the growth in the eras, even down to. To something I’ll address that. You just mentioned about selling your way into not being profitable. For sure, I did that. Absolutely had no clue that’s what I was doing though. Right. The intentions were pure. And that’s the thing about the business side that is so different from being just a solo producer for business for me and my sales endeavors. All I had to worry about was convincing the customer that the value that I am telling him or her for this experience or this product supersedes the value that they have on the money that is in their pocket or obviously on their debit or credit card. Right.

24:39
And then I’m done with it. What has to happen after that delivered, it has nothing to do with Kamar. So none of these things came natural to me to think about. It was the same thing. Hey, we get these tires in, I’m gonna sell them. And yeah, selling them for not enough margin to actually make it a profitable sale. Yeah. So, yeah, I’ve done it.

25:00
That’s so interesting. I love the lessons you’ve learned. Is there any. Is there a quote or a mantra? I like to ask folks, this something that you live by that just maybe a mentor gave you or your brother gave you. I don’t know. That just kind of reminds you to kind of recalibrate in your head that this is. This is what I do.

25:22
Yeah. That’s an easy one. It goes straight from. Oh, it goes straight to the source of my being here, my mother. Right. She has always planted the seed in my brother or not. Which I didn’t understand it more so in my earlier years as much as I do now because I’ve. I’ve experienced a little bit more life. She would always tell us, you know, you take care of the people who take care of you.

25:45
I like that.

25:46
And that has been something that. Sure. You know, you can look at the times where you’ve overindulged or over indexed on your service to another person that perhaps may have been an individual of the. The parasite host type of dichotomy, and they’re just looking to use you. Right. Not even use you, abuse you. Because I believe we’re all here to be used. And I am totally cool with that. I relish it. It’s the abuse piece that, you know, can become a bit murky, but even in those instances, I’ve gotten to a point where I don’t derive any ill will from it.

26:19
Yeah, you can’t let. You can’t. And I’ve learned that lesson the hard way, too. I can’t let that person’s burn affect my relationship over here, because that’s not their fault. It’s. It’s this guy. He. It’s ice. I got to isolate that to. To this person. If I was charitable, in other words, and somebody took advantage of my goodwill or whatever and kept taking advantage. And you feel like. Man, I just feel like I get abused over here. Okay. That’s. That’s isolated over here. That has nothing to do with these relationships. And I got. I got to trust again and I got to be kind to all these people still.

26:49
Yeah. Yeah.

26:49
And that’s a tough lesson, I think.

26:51
Oh, for sure. Because you’re the individual experiencing these feelings. And so anytime in my estimation, when you’re the one that has to go through, like, I. I’m of the mindset that the Greatest pains, more or less, that one experiences in their life, they experience them alone. And so when you feel done wrong or you feel abused, of course you have emotions. You’re human. And so how you deal with those emotions is what then dictates what comes next. And so for me, I’ve taken two things from it. I don’t allow for myself to charge someone else with the crime that somebody else committed.

27:31
Ooh, that’s good.

27:32
That’s good. At that point, to a degree, you may not see it this way, but yourself are replaying that unfortunate occurrence, if that’s how you want to categorize it twice now, or however many times you allow that to happen with people. And then the second part is, I just see it as you’re going to go through life and meet tons of people. And obviously there’s individualism that shows up with all of us, but there’s tons of similarities and synergies that we have. And I am just of the mindset that based on the phase of when you meet somebody and where you are and where they are, has more to do with the interaction than the signal pointing that, oh, this person’s a good person, this person a bad person.

28:22
You know, I just think that, you know, we meet people at different phases, and as a result of that, you know, they may be in that. That stage where they do need to do more taking. So they see it as right to be able to get to that next level, whatever that looks like for them. And it’s not on us to judge that. It’s not on us to condemn that. Because, you know, we may have a different set of beliefs or a different philosophy of perspective. We all sharing this. This thing called life together. And there’s so many days that can mount up where you aren’t at your best, but somebody may not have caught you in a scenario where they could have said, Mike, I got you. I knew you weren’t as good of a guy as everybody said. Right.

29:00
And because you haven’t had that light shed on you in those moments where you weren’t feeling your greatest or you may have had a life event take place, that obviously has dimmed your light a bit.

29:11
Yep.

29:11
Nobody knows about it. But then on the flip side, when you get somebody and you’re like, oh, yeah, you know, I trained up this intern and, you know, we did all of this good stuff for him. I took him out to lunch and I was really teaching him, you know, all the lessons my dad taught me and all of the lessons I’ve learned from my prior manager, and this, that, and the third, and he should be grateful to me. You just don’t know where he is in life, if he’s even at a point where he can receive it the way that you are intending it for. For it to be received.

29:38
You know, man, that’s so. That’s so good.

29:40
So, yeah, that’s. That’s how I look at it.

29:43
I love it. Before I let you go, what’s a hobby you like to do outside of work?

29:51
I’ll tell you what is going on in my life right now. That’s the best answer I can give you. So a buddy of mine, he is running the New York City Marathon by way of raising funds for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. Nice. And so I had the insanity to sign up for that pledge, and I, too, am doing it. I’ve never ran a race of any official status in my entire Life, let alone 26.2 miles.

30:21
Yeah, nothing like starting small, right? No, baby, step into this thing. What the heck?

30:26
And I find myself right now, the hobby, Mike, is I am training six days out of seven. I am running four days, and I am training my legs twice. And so that is what is consuming my time outside of work.

30:41
Man, that’s fantastic.

30:42
Yeah. But I’m grateful to be in a position physically, mentally, and emotionally where I’m able to endure such training, to then put myself and my body through this feat. For such a great organization that obviously is raising money for research.

30:58
Absolutely.

30:58
Or phenomenal. Not a phenomenal cause, but for a cause that needs this level of attention, I’ll say.

31:04
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, Kamard, I can’t thank you enough for being on Gain Traction. And to Mike Burns for introducing us. Glad you’re here today.

31:11
Again, I appreciate you for having me, man. And again, Mr. Burns, we appreciate you for making an introduction.

31:16
Well, listen, we’ll have you back sometime and we’ll find out what happened with the marathon.

31:22
Yeah, yeah. Let’s book it.

31:24
All right. Hey, to all our audience out there, you know we love you. Thanks for being part of Gain Traction podcast. Till next time, we’ll see you. To all our listeners, thank you for being part of the Gain Traction podcast. We are grateful for you. If you’d like to find more podcasts like this, please visit Gain Traction podcast dot com. If you’d like to make a guest recommendation, please email [email protected] this episode has been powered by TREAD partners, the leader in digital marketing for multi location tire and auto repair shops. To learn more about Tread Partners, visit Tread Partners. Com.