Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Mark Daley, welcome to the Midlife Fulfilled Podcast, a vulnerable conversations episode.
Mark Daley [00:00:07]:
Well, thank you. It’s great to be here, Bernie.
Bernie Borges [00:00:09]:
It’s great to have you. Before we get started, Mark, before we get vulnerable, why don’t you share with my listener which age decade are you in?
Mark Daley [00:00:20]:
Well, I will hint I’ll give the the audience a hint that I I had to apply for Social Security recently.
Bernie Borges [00:00:28]:
Okay. So that would put you in your sixties. Right?
Mark Daley [00:00:32]:
Yeah.
Bernie Borges [00:00:32]:
Okay. Alright. That’s my decade is there as well. So we’re we’re both in the same decade. Awesome. Well, Mark, where would you like to begin this vulnerable conversation?
Mark Daley [00:00:43]:
Well, you know, we we are in our sixties, and even though I get taken for Brad Pitt an awful lot, I’ve had a rough life. So, and that’s why I look like this. But, I’ve had actually a great life. And, so I guess, I don’t know where do I start. We you and I had a conversation previously about, you know, where I am in my career, what it’s like in corporate America right now. And I, you know, had a great career. And, a couple of years ago, I had a tragedy happen where I had a company and I was a co founder of the company and my partner, a much younger man than they, passed away at 46 years old. And unfortunately, because he was an American citizen but he wasn’t born here and raised here, he didn’t understand the legal system.
Mark Daley [00:01:29]:
And when you have an LLC, you’ve got to have an operating plan and you’ve got to have a succession plan and he didn’t have that. Well, unfortunately, his ex wife ended up with an incredible company and 45 days later, everyone left. So that happened about three and a half years ago and I decided, during that timeframe, it was just after COVID when he passed away. But during COVID, like everyone, I was looking for something to do around the house, not meeting with a lot of people. So I decided to, clean my basement. And I’ve got 3 adult children and a lot of their childhood toys and still school projects, and decided to go through the basement, one piece of paper at a time. And while I’m down there, I find 2 boxes, one box full of old emails and one box full of VHS tapes, spanning my career When
Bernie Borges [00:02:24]:
you say old emails, you mean, like, printed emails?
Mark Daley [00:02:28]:
Yes. Like, printed email. That’s a great question. So I I spent between, IBM, BOEM, and Siemens, I spent 27 years in that entity. And what I did, I was in the management and, I printed some emails just as a CYI, just in case I ever needed them. But I also thought I had a habit of every time I was on the phone with somebody, I had a pad. I’d I’d write in the margins what we were talking about, your name, the date, or something. And I had 20 years, 27 years of that type of archived stuff.
Mark Daley [00:03:00]:
And I was going through it. And I said, man, I had a great sales career. I had over 10 deals, well over $1,000,000, and I had many deals under $1,000,000 that were worth of 500,000. And I’m thinking to myself the whole time, I, you know, I could write a book. I should write a book. You know, I learned so much and it was a great piece of my career. And, as I’m going through these old couple old emails, I find one from marketing. And marketing is like, it’s like 2,004.
Mark Daley [00:03:27]:
Hey, Mark. Do do us a favor. We’re paying for all these trademarks. Can you go out and look at these trademarks of these products and stuff and let us know what to keep? You’ve been here forever. You know better than we do. I’m looking at all these old products and the succession, the whole setup is, there was Rome, a company. IBM bought Rome for 1,250,000,000 in the 80s, turned around a couple of years later, sold to Siemens for an undisclosed amount. Siemens kept the name, but they kept everything in the product line.
Mark Daley [00:03:58]:
So the product line had old product and they’re going back to the Rome days. So I’m going through a spreadsheet and I’m marking stuff up, you know, get rid of this, get rid of this. But I never even went to market, shouldn’t be paying for it. Get down to the name role. And I said, you know what? Keep that name. And the marketing guy writes back, why would we keep that name? I said, well, you know, that was a story, American success story. They got product in the Smithsonian, product in the in the San, Jose Computer Museum. They set the tone and the culture for Silicon Valley back when it was a good place to work.
Mark Daley [00:04:30]:
And,
Bernie Borges [00:04:31]:
I I remember, Mark. I, you know, I’m dating myself, but, of course, you know, I’m not really dating myself. Everybody knows that I’m in the same decade as you. But I remember I actually worked in Silicon Valley, and I used a Roam phone. It was awesome. Back in in those times, it was pretty high technology, you know, for a phone system. So I I I was an actual user.
Mark Daley [00:04:53]:
Well, no. And that that doesn’t surprise me. A lot of people our age or older certainly remember it. And, I I tell them, we get down the spreadsheet. I said, keep Rome. They said, why? Why would we do that? And I said, it was a storied company. Maybe Siemens will wanna reactivate it and use it someday. And then he writes back, well, how long? And I just flippantly respond, keep it 2020.
Mark Daley [00:05:14]:
Well, fast forward, I’m in 2020 right now. And I, you know, I said to myself, jeez, you know, when I go upstairs, I need to go to the US Patent and Trademark Office and and see if that thing is available. So I finished cleaning up and shredding stuff and getting rid of stuff and I go upstairs. And about a day or 2 later, I said, oh, let me go check that. And there it is. It’s available. So I called my daughter. She’s an attorney, one of the daughters.
Mark Daley [00:05:36]:
And, hey, Camille, can you you pick up that trademark pad? I’m not your secretary. You can figure out how to do it. What do you want anyway? I said, no. I want Rome. Rome. Well, I’m sure Siemens owns that. She I could hear her clicking in the background or, like, oh my god. That that’s available.
Mark Daley [00:05:52]:
I said, yeah, it is. She goes, what are you gonna do with it? I said, well, my, you know, my my partner, that, you know, had passed away, and, I I need to do something. I’ll just start a company. And she goes, well, that’s you just can’t do that. I said, well, that’s what trademarks are all about. She said, dad, get a big law firm to represent you because that’s a big company. If I got a few, you can be your attorney of record, have a big law firm because they would crush me and I don’t practice law. You know, she’s got her JD, but she doesn’t do that.
Mark Daley [00:06:25]:
And, so I went on and I got a giant law firm and they said, Mark, here’s the deal. It’s not on the website. Even though it says it’s dead and even though it says it’s available or abandoned, you you can get it. But the way the courts work, they’ll give it back to Siemens within a 3 year period. After that 3 years, then it’s anybody’s game or go out and get get a release.
Bernie Borges [00:06:44]:
So it’s kinda like a statute of limitations, just the 3 year period?
Mark Daley [00:06:49]:
Yeah. And they don’t they don’t publish it on the website. And this is the this is a big law firm. I called a friend of mine up in DC who, just joined the large law firm. And I said, hey, Jacob. How many, IP attorneys do you have? He says, well, I got 143. I said, okay. You’re the right company then.
Mark Daley [00:07:05]:
This is what I wanna do. And he knew who Rome was too because when he first got out of law school, he says, yeah, I could punch a code in my phone. I could do bill back to clients that way. I said, yes, Rome had a big legal, practice, you know, the law firms loved it. So, what they said was wait and or go get a release. And I wasn’t gonna, that division of Siemens doesn’t even exist anymore. They have nothing to do with telecommunications, communications in general. So I said, You know what? I’ll wait 3 years.
Mark Daley [00:07:33]:
For 3 years in one day, I called that law firm. I said, Get me that logo. And I’ve been doing some consulting work, you know, in that time frame. And, I’m really excited because I’m on the cusp of I can’t reconstitute the same company, and it could never be the same company.
Bernie Borges [00:07:48]:
Right. Right. So so, Mark, I wanna I wanna come up a little higher because that’s a great story, but I wanna talk about the why. Like, what is your motivation behind doing this? You know, you you told me about an experience off before we we press record about, sort of a job search thing that you went through. And and if that’s part of your why, I wanna make sure that, you know, that’s part of our conversation.
Mark Daley [00:08:15]:
Well, so that’s that’s that is the why. Alright. So so I’m out, and I’m I’m looking for a new position. And I’ve had a great career and I’ve done everything from channel marketing and channel management to alliances. And I managed SAP, a little software German company and
Bernie Borges [00:08:33]:
I’ve heard of them.
Mark Daley [00:08:35]:
Yeah, a little company out of Waldorf. And I did a lot of business with them when I was with Siemens. But I managed them for CA Technologies and there was a it was a pretty good job as an alliance manager. So another company was hiring for that exact position. So I applied for it and I got the call immediately. I interviewed and a lovely young girl interviewed me about my daughter’s age. And she asked me to do come back and do a presentation and I did. Can I do it for her boss? Yes, I did.
Mark Daley [00:09:07]:
And I added some things to it. And one of the things I added because I knew SAP so well was, you know, let’s come up with a mobile app and I’ll put that in the deck too. And I won’t complete it but I did the wireframes for it. I presented to her boss. He loved it. And then she said to me, Mark, I learned more in the last presentations about SAP than I have in the last 5 years. You know, I wanna bring you on board but let me let me get my boss to concurrence. And then she went silent for a couple of weeks.
Mark Daley [00:09:38]:
And finally, I left her a guilt message, hey, you need to call me back. And and she did. And she goes, look, I’ve been avoiding you only because I’ve been fighting with my boss. He wants to hire somebody with more runway. And I started to laugh. I said, more runway? I’ve never experienced that before. So in my life, when I I have 4 older brothers, and I revered them as older brothers, and I learned from older people. And I actually hire older people a lot because they have all this experience.
Mark Daley [00:10:10]:
That whole notion of of not hiring somebody because they don’t have enough runway. So I I I coached her and I said, look, never say that to anybody ever again because you could be sued for saying that. That’s age discrimination. She goes, no, it is. And I’m really mad at my boss. I said, well, I’m not happy with him either, but don’t say that ever again because you could be sued and I’m not gonna sue you. She goes, he’s gonna go with this this other person, and she told me who the person was, who I know who it is. He ended up taking the job, and he lasted 18 months.
Mark Daley [00:10:41]:
And I I I kept a monitor. I put a you know, you can do a on LinkedIn. You can do a Sure. You know, an alert. So, that job came up again, and I sent that manager, her boss, a note saying, I guess you didn’t have enough runway and, left left with that. But, so so it gets frustrating. So, you know, you’re out there, you’re trying to get a job, and and and there’s some companies to be candid with you. I’m real critical.
Mark Daley [00:11:09]:
I’m not gonna work for just anybody. I’m not. I’m good at what I do. If I’m gonna represent you, you’re gonna have to have meet my standard. It’s not the Gartner standard. That’s a gold standard. Mine’s a platinum standard. So there are companies that I probably could have went to work for and then there’s companies also that were trying to lowball me.
Mark Daley [00:11:28]:
So I got really frustrated. And this whole wrong thing is sitting in on my PC. I’m thinking, yeah, I need to do something with this, you know? And, it was a great company. And I kept thinking, you know, what can I do with it? And then I I belong on Facebook to something called the Rome Alumni Group, and there’s 33 100 former employees up there, and it is a brain trust that’s untapped of really smart, creative people. I it’s a very active group too. There’s a lot of jokes and things that go on, but there’s a lot of people that talk about their history and their stories there, and I had a great career there. It was a it was a great place to work, and that’s what they that was the, motto, great place to work. Long before anybody else used that motto, they had it.
Mark Daley [00:12:16]:
And and, yeah, they had a campus in Santa Clara. They had swimming pools. They they gave people sabbaticals. But it wasn’t just about product. It was it was the culture of the company and how they treated employees, but also how they treated customers. So there was a book that came out about 10 years ago, Starting of Silicon Valley, How Rome Became a Fortune 500 Company, great book. Katherine Maxfield wrote it. She’s the wife of Bob Maxfield, one of the original founders.
Mark Daley [00:12:44]:
And it’s a great book. It talks about the headquarter location, the acquisitions with IBM and Siemens, talks about the culture, the Rome philosophies. But it also talks about who was on the campus, you know, in the early days a lot. And and Steve Jobs was there, Bill Gates was there. A lot of the Silicon Valley stalwarts took a lot of the culture that Rome had, and that’s how they they use that as a foundation for their companies. I think some of them have gone astray, to be candid with you, but but other ones have not. And, so I’m I’m I’m I’m I’m looking at all this and saying, geez, you know, if I if I start up a company, it can’t be the same products. Maybe I can get some of the same people.
Mark Daley [00:13:25]:
But, you know, I’m looking at this as a business, not as a as a fun club. I’m on the board of an AI company in Santa Clara on Great American Parkway. That’s Rome had a building there. It’s an industrial strength AI tool. And so we’ve got some customers. I’ve got some equity in that company. And part of my role in that company is to also help them go to market. So I sat down with that CEO and I said, I’m going to resurrect Rome and Rome AI and, because why not just roam.com? And I said, well, that’s a great idea, but somebody owns that URL and we need to make it new anyway.
Mark Daley [00:14:02]:
So I I own rome.ai. I also own rome.cxcustomerexperience, and that’s something that Rome looked great with. So Mhmm. What I decided to do with let me let me reconstitute it differently, but I wanna have the same principles and values of that company which, you know, taking care of customers, taking care of, employees. And and and I’m very excited about this, because there’s there’s a lot going on in the AI space, but there’s also a lot going on in cybersecurity. And I’ve got things in motion in both those areas.
Bernie Borges [00:14:36]:
Okay. So a couple of thoughts that I wanna share, Mark. One is, for my listener who is listening and not watching on video, because, listener, I hope you know that every episode is recorded on video and it’s available on, the YouTube channel. So I’m looking at you, Mark, and you look like you’re in a home office setting. And, over your left shoulder is a well lit sign, which is the Rome sign. So for the listener who may not know, the Rome name is spelled r o l m as in Monday. So you’ve got that Rome, sign right over your left shoulder. And, also, as I look at your body language, I can see how excited you are about this And the story that you told about this position that you were imminently qualified for, that you didn’t get because you didn’t, quote unquote, have enough runway, at least perception wise.
Bernie Borges [00:15:34]:
Right? Their perception. And now you are coming across like a bulldog. Like, you’ve got this thing. That’s a positive thing, by the way. In case anybody owns a bulldog, bulldogs are wonderful dogs.
Mark Daley [00:15:51]:
I live in Georgia. So we got the Bulldogs. Here
Bernie Borges [00:15:53]:
we go. The Bulldogs of Georgia. Yep. So you you are passionate about this, Mark. You are fired up about this. So, you know, this is not a a business podcast, so I don’t wanna give the listener, like, too much detail on your business strategy. I wanna kinda humanize this. Like, tell us about the emotion you’re experiencing.
Bernie Borges [00:16:13]:
What’s your family think about this? You know? I mean, just give us some more insight into that.
Mark Daley [00:16:18]:
Well, that that that’s a great that’s a great, segue. Great question. So so when my partner passed away, I decided, well, I’ll have my own shingle. I’ll go out and do some stuff myself. And I called up a couple CEOs that I know and I said, You know what? You’ve done business with me before. Go to your Rolodex, Give me five names. Or you send them 5 emails and introduce me, and I just have a cup of coffee. Well, what are you gonna sell them, Mark? I said, that’s I’m not gonna sell them anything.
Mark Daley [00:16:46]:
It’s what do they need and what’s broken. So that’s the best way to sell something. And and I’m I’ve been in the technology space so long. It’s not really I don’t go out and try to sell a feature function product. I try to to solve a problem, a business problem. So I I I I did well with that for about 6 months. And, the 1st CEO I spoke with, he had a sales issue. He didn’t know why he had such turnover, and I did an analysis.
Mark Daley [00:17:14]:
It only took me about a month and a half. I put him on retainer for a couple months and, and then I told him I can give him a report and make some recommendations, which I did. And then he came back and he he fired a bunch of people and he said, Mark, I need I need to hire some people. Can you help me there too? And I got him some employees. And next thing you know, you know, my income was great for for 6 months, and then you take a dive. Right? And it’s inconsistent. When you’re doing this on your own, you’re you’re hitting a bumpy road. And so my grown children are like, hey, dad.
Mark Daley [00:17:49]:
Why don’t you you know, you’re you’re a pretty handy guy too, and why don’t you just get a job at Home Depot, and you can mix paint and, you know, and tell wallpaper or whatever. I I did that once in my youth with my brother owned a wallpaper and paint store up in New York. I said, I I I’m there’s nothing wrong with that. I like that, but I’m not at that point in my career to check out and work Home Depot or and then my my youngest daughter suggested it twice. She was emphatic about it. She was, damn it. I I I know you’re struggling a little bit. You know, the ink comes up and down, up and down.
Mark Daley [00:18:21]:
And my wife works full time, so it’s not that bad. And, so I said, no, I’m gonna do something else. And then, I decided to put a build business plan together and I wanted to share with my kids. Now, everybody’s proud of their kids and and I I’ll be candid with you. I think I hit the trifecta with my 3. I I’ve got a daughter who’s an attorney but she’s a senior manager at Deloitte managing the FDA, you know, for software development. I’ve got a son in Denver who is a world class, lacrosse player and, does a lot of video editing and video drone footage and shooting weddings and all kinds of stuff for ABC and other people. He lives in Denver.
Mark Daley [00:19:05]:
And then my youngest daughter lives in, in New York. And she she works, not Madison Avenue, but she works downtown Manhattan for an ad agency as well. So when we all get together, it’s really an interesting interesting conversation because I did a bunch of videos when they were little and corporate videos, but they weren’t really professionally done. There was not at the local level. And they used to hear me in my office, and I’d have a flip chart, and I’d be rehearsing something, and they’d say, daddy’s crazy. He’s he’s talking to himself in the other room. But I’m I’m I’m I’m practicing. So I I instilled upon them.
Mark Daley [00:19:43]:
You know, even Tiger Woods, he practices, you know, and and baseball players go in the batting cage. They gotta do the same thing in in delivering a message. So for this event, speaking with you today, I did listen to a couple podcasts, and I think you got a winner here. And, yes, I’m going down the business path, but a real life piece of this is is my children. I have 2 of those kids are getting married, 1 in 2 weeks, 17th, and another one, October 4th in Ireland. So I’ve been wanting to get this company launched for a while, and it’s gonna happen right at the wrong time, but there’s never gonna
Bernie Borges [00:20:17]:
be a difference. Like they’re very supportive of you. Right?
Mark Daley [00:20:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Bernie Borges [00:20:22]:
Are they excited for you?
Mark Daley [00:20:24]:
Well, you know what I did? I went out and,
Bernie Borges [00:20:28]:
I
Mark Daley [00:20:28]:
get to give away a little bit. Yes, they are excited. So the old Rome employees, the Romans as their tech or as I affectionately refer to them as, and we talk, cook, talk, say that to each other. We’re Romans, friends of Romans and countrymen. They were always into swag. So I put a swag store up on my website that I’ll be launching in a couple weeks. And the swag store has, you know, polo shirts. It’s got, you know, hats, all kinds of stuff with the the new logo.
Mark Daley [00:21:01]:
And I I I added some things to the new logo that they’ll appreciate. So what I did is I I bought some swag and I mailed it to my girls. I said, I need a couple models. And I immediately, they got no. And then they said, okay. And so one of my girls, one of them lives in New York, her matron of honor lives here in Atlanta. And I said, hey, have Christina come over. She’s a photographer.
Mark Daley [00:21:22]:
I said, I need a new headshot. And so she comes over and I get Christina. It’s a shirt to wear and took her picture. And and, my my youngest daughter is like, dad, you’re getting the whole neighborhood boss. I’m gonna get everybody involved. I said, I I want people to talk about this this entity once it gets up there, but the swag is a fun piece. But they are they are they are supportive. And when they learned about the history of the company and, they used to get their benefits.
Mark Daley [00:21:48]:
They saw that logo their whole lives. I had that sign hanging in my garage for 30 years. I took it down. I could put some some lights behind it because I’ve been wanting to do this anyway. So actually, your your podcast, pushed me to do. Yeah. Yeah. And and, but it’s, they’re supportive.
Mark Daley [00:22:08]:
My my wife is not a technology person. She’s a, public school library. And so this whole notion of technology, how do you make money just talk on the phone all the time, you know? And or you cannot explain,
Bernie Borges [00:22:22]:
but So so so Mark, I’m I’m gonna tell you a quick story. It’s not apples to apples, but you reminded me of it, so I’m gonna share it. And again, it’s not apples to apples, but you’ll see the similarity in a moment. Early in my career, I worked for only 5 years for a company called Kodak. Used to be known as Eastman Kodak. Well, this was back in the eighties, and I was in sales in their business technology, business imaging systems division. At the time, Mark, that company was way bigger than it is today. That’s a company that they’re still in business, but they’re a fraction of what they used to be back in the eighties when when I was with them.
Bernie Borges [00:23:03]:
I was with them in their heyday. And what you reminded me of as you’re telling the story is that, similarly, it was a company with great culture. It was a company that was revered. It was a very strong brand, largely known for the consumer brand that it that it was. Mhmm. Right? And probably still is. I don’t know to what extent, but not as well known among the public as a business to business brand. It wasn’t the business community, but the average person on the street thought of Kodak as a camera company and, more importantly, as a film company.
Mark Daley [00:23:40]:
Yes.
Bernie Borges [00:23:41]:
But the point I’m getting at, where, again, not apples to apples, but where there’s similarity is just the reverence for the company and how, you know, there wasn’t a moniker of, like, Kodakkers, but they used to say that they all bled yellow because that was their primary color. Right? So people who are, you know, lifers at Kodak bled yellow. Like that, they would just lived and breathed with great pride of their employment at at Kodak. And I kinda see that kinda going on here with the pride of people who worked at Rome, people who were in that community, and I really admire what you’re doing about just kind of bringing it back, not not necessarily as a products company, you know, not you’re not reinventing the product that they sold into the in the marketplace back in the, the eighties, but the culture. And and and here’s I’m gonna say this and tell me your reaction to this. The feeling that people had around that brand. I I I get the sense that you’re trying to do that. You wanna bring back that feeling.
Mark Daley [00:24:47]:
That’s precisely it’s it’s spot on. And I remember Kodak because they were a customer of ours. And I believe we’re out of Rochester, if memory serves me correct.
Bernie Borges [00:24:55]:
Yep. Yep. Yep.
Mark Daley [00:24:56]:
So, yeah, they were a great company. It is that culture. It is that feeling and the feeling of not only camaraderie, I still get calls today from Romans, not as many as I used to. Hey Mark, I’ve got an HR issue. I need to run this past somebody. It’s not my company today that’s gonna give me a straight how’s this gonna get handled? Or, Mark, I’ve got a technology issue or, Mark, I’m looking at these 5 technologies. Could you just give me an hour of your time and tell me which way to go? And these are relationships that are lifetime relationships. You know, you grow up in that time when you were a codec, might have been the same time when I was at Rome, you grow up during that period and and you learn so many things.
Mark Daley [00:25:39]:
And then in our case, we did Friday night cutovers and went into the weekend, and you get to spend a lot of time with people and you get to know them and their kids and and and, you know, you get invited to their weddings and their bar mitzvahs and everything else. And, they’re more than just, friends or family. So you drop what you’re doing. If you if I get a call a matter of fact, they went up to my LinkedIn the other day. I’m getting ready to change it all, and it says, you know, pro now, Roman. I’m a Roman. That’s what I am. So so I’m hoping that I hope that catches on.
Mark Daley [00:26:14]:
Well, I actually got a I got some swag made that says my pronoun is Roman.
Bernie Borges [00:26:19]:
And, I I That’s a first. That’s a first.
Mark Daley [00:26:21]:
I think they’re good. When you go back to the culture and the people, we had second to none the best products that were out there on many occasions. When you have that many owners, their cultures of companies change. IBM was shirt and tie. Rome was just cool. Siemens was not shirt and tie, but you could drink beer, and they were, you know, they were had some good products, had some holes in their products as well. And the culture changes over those acquisition, but that core group of people that were Rome employees stayed there for a really long time. And and I have deep love and respect for a lot of the people that I work with.
Mark Daley [00:27:00]:
And, like, my operations manager, well, we we started out as engineers together, ended up working for me when I left, as my operations manager for North America. And, he he and I text each other probably 2 or 3 times a day still.
Bernie Borges [00:27:16]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Daley [00:27:17]:
And it it you know, so that that culture, that feel, yes. I desperately wanna bring that. And I wanna bring that something in corporate America that doesn’t really exist anymore. It’s it’s it’s loyalty, and it’s I put up on my website, you know, you you you wanna apply, you can apply. But you’ll you’ll be able to, see the wrong philosophies and and look at what the originally the original founders put in place. And that’s the cornerstone. But the other cornerstone of something called the Sweat Pledge, from a guy by the name of Mike Rowe. And, and that’s up there too.
Mark Daley [00:27:51]:
I would encourage listeners to go to roland.ai, go to careers, look up The Sweat Pledge, or you can go to Mike Rowe’s site to take a look at it. And, you know, it it it goes through, hard work is not taboo. And and and
Bernie Borges [00:28:07]:
Well, I think what what I’ve gotten from this conversation is just, a great example of testimony, Mark, of, I don’t If you wanna call it a second act, I’ve heard people use the phrase second act, but whatever you call it. The fact that you know you’ve got a lot to offer the world and you found a passion. You told your story about how you got there by going through the boxes in the basement and the emails you came across and then the whole trademark expiration. And, you know, you waited the 3 years, and then you you got it. And and and now you’re going after it. And and that’s that’s what I want the listener to take away from this conversation, Mark, is the the passion that you found and you’re just going after it with passion.
Mark Daley [00:28:54]:
I am. And I’m I’m passionate about it because I think it’s a winner no matter what offering I bring. If it’s under that brand, I’m betting the companies extremely well. They gotta deliver the best service. They gotta have the best products. And I’m not bringing in name brands. I’m bringing in brands that people don’t know that they should know. But but the culture of the company was was was, just an open culture where we took care of the customer, and that was, you know, the whole gist of it.
Bernie Borges [00:29:22]:
Yeah. That’s great. Well, Mark, let’s wrap it here. But first, why don’t you, tell my listener if they wanna connect with you, how can people get get into your world?
Mark Daley [00:29:32]:
Sure. So, the website will be launched in the near future, and, it’ll be roamedotaiorroamedotcx. Both will go to a Roam landing page, and you’ll come to the page. So I appreciate the time, Bernie.
Bernie Borges [00:29:46]:
And if someone wants to connect with you, Mark, what’s the best way to do that?
Mark Daley [00:29:49]:
With me, LinkedIn would be the best way. And, so I’m I’m at LinkedIn all day long, and it’s, you know
Bernie Borges [00:29:56]:
Okay. So
Mark Daley [00:29:57]:
that would be great.
Bernie Borges [00:29:58]:
My listener knows that both of those will be linked up in the show notes. So, Mark, I wanna thank you for coming on the Midlife of Hope podcast, having this vulnerable conversation, and just sharing your story. It’s it’s inspiring, and, I’m gonna wish you fantastic success and fulfillment.
Mark Daley [00:30:16]:
Thank you. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time as well, Bernie.
