Live and Unfiltered: Real Talk with Tony Gunn

Curt Anderson 00:00
That’s great. Hey, Damon, happy Monday, dude. How are you? Brother,

Damon Pistulka 00:04
I’m doing great Curt. I am ready to roll today.

Curt Anderson 00:07
Man, did you did you get a good night’s sleep last night? I did. I did because it’s a short week. We

Damon Pistulka 00:13
gotta come pack five days worth of goodness into three. That’s when we get to go stuff ourselves and do a bunch of other stuff the weekend, watching football. You know the whole nine yards exactly, especially, thing that’s gotta

Curt Anderson 00:27
do, the family thing, especially with this episode here today, dude, like this is, I know it’s gonna be fire. Man, you ready? Yeah, sit down. Are you ready for this? All right? Tony Gunn is in the house. Tony, how are you brother? What’s happening? Man, living

Tony Gunn 00:38
a dream. Man, are we? Are we actually live right now. Curt, are we doing this live?

Curt Anderson 00:42
Nah, we’re just winging it. Yeah, yeah,

Tony Gunn 00:44
editing is involved, right?

Curt Anderson 00:48
Who knows? Man, yeah. We’re just, we’re just waiting.

Damon Pistulka 00:52
Will tell us if it is,

Curt Anderson 00:55
we’re just on the fly. So Tony, this is such an honor, such a privilege, to have you here. Man, you’re just a fierce advocate for manufacturing. You’re all over the place. Man, you’ve got a view. My goodness, gracious, Dean, are you just raging with Chelsea, this view that that Tony’s got, or what? Man, it’s,

Damon Pistulka 01:10
that’s, it’s green. We don’t see green this time. Yeah, you don’t see green. Like, it’s

Curt Anderson 01:14
like, barren where I’m at. So Tony, let’s dive in first. So again, you’re all over the place. We’re going to dive into how you’re helping manufacturers. You’re just, I don’t know anybody that’s a bigger advocate for manufacturing than yourself. But before we go there, my friend, I’m gonna go back in time a little bit when you were a little guy growing up, when you were a little guy growing up, who was your hero? Who did you look up to? Who was this, that person that just elevated you. Who was your hero when you’re a little guy?

Tony Gunn 01:43
Oh gosh, this is going to sound so cliche, my dad. My dad was my hero. I mean, my dad was almost a professional baseball player. He played against pistol, Pete Maravich and basketball, you know, he’s, he was, he was a heck of an athlete, and he was my coach in all sports growing up, and he was always a nice guy as well, which is kind of important as a kid. So I mean, you know, a lot of people when they’re growing up, they think of professional athletes or musicians or movie stars. I never cared about that kind of stuff. I really just kind of appreciated the human being that I was and felt like I was my own best friend, um, but also really appreciated the the kindness that was offered to me by my by my parents. Wow, nice.

Curt Anderson 02:28
That’s a phenomenal answer. And you’re not a junior, right? Do I have that I’m not a junior? Just when Eddie Sanders was on the show, he was he had the same answer. He said, My dad and I was like, Eddie Saunders Jr, What’s your dad’s name? And I kind of like, looked up, and I’m like, Well, if he’s a junior, I think I answered my own question. That was probably one of my dumbest questions. Tony, please share.

Damon Pistulka 02:51
It was good. I was giggling like

Curt Anderson 02:56
hell. Eddie Saunders Junior, What’s your dad’s name, but, Tony, what’s dad’s name, please.

Tony Gunn 03:00
Bob Gunn. Bob Gunn, so

Curt Anderson 03:02
what’s funny? I was just talking about Pistol Pete over the weekend. So Pistol Pete was from West Virginia, went to LSU, yeah, one of the greatest basketball players of all time. Your dad played with Pistol Pete. Did

Tony Gunn 03:13
you say yeah? Played against him. So my dad grew up in a place called Rocky Mountain, North Carolina, and it was a superstar in a basketball team. And the short and sweet story he told me was they were in some sort of tournament or something like that, and they played against Pistol Pete. And Pistol Pete didn’t even play the second half because he scored so many points and beat him so bad by the first half. And that’s but my dad was very talented, and their team was but that’s how good Pistol Pete was, right? He was changing the way the game was played at that time, right?

Curt Anderson 03:41
Wow. What a man, what a blessing, what a gift. And so, big shout out to dad. So thank you for sharing that story and what an inspiration he’s been to, you know, lay that down for you. So let’s fast forward a little bit. So, you know, fierce advocate for manufacturing little guy growing up, Dad was just your hero. Just put, you know, work ethic and inspiration to you. Did you see yourself? Kind of, you know, walk us through your I believe 20 years in machining, if I’m not mistaken, from your LinkedIn profile, talk a little bit. You know, your 20 year old self. What did your future look like? How did you pave this path?

Tony Gunn 04:13
You guys are going to need to interrupt me during this story, because I’ve told it a lot, but it is incredibly interesting. So for your audience who maybe doesn’t know this story, bring it on, brother. And I am transparent, and I am authentic. So some of this, you might go, did he really say that out loud? But growing up, I was, I’m a true idiot in school, I really am. Like I dropped out my junior year, I went, I went back, and graduated on time, but I dropped out my junior year. All I cared about was soccer, right? Like I was gonna be a professional athlete. This is what I knew. So I went to I went to school only to play soccer. I didn’t care about well and girls, but only to play soccer. And so I dropped out my junior year because I didn’t pass enough classes to play soccer. But I was like, Screw you guys. I’m out of here. So I ended up going back to Summer School, graduating on time, went to college for girls in soccer as well. Got kicked out of. Three colleges got kicked out of three colleges while pursuing this, this college soccer career. In fact, my freshman year in college, I was a sixth leading scorer in the nation. I was I was legit. I was really, really good, and I played at a very, very high level, almost to the pro level. And it was around this time that through the pursuit of chasing women. And I apologize to all of the people listening right now for this part of the story, but, um, I indulged in some sides of of that world that maybe I shouldn’t have, but I have a really, really wonderful, amazing daughter that came from it, right? So a true blessing. And I wasn’t the nicest person at that point in my life. I’m a very nice person now, but I think that that young lady changed my life, put me on the trajectory of good. I was, I was I was a troublemaker. I was doing things that were illegal. Some of my friends were locked up. One of them lost their life and and I was not doing well, and so I needed to find at this point, I needed to find work. And I know I’m being completely transparent, and probably not something you expected me to tell but I needed to find work, and I needed to find a job at this time that had no pre existing conditions for health insurance. It just so happened to be a manufacturing facility. And in this manufacturing facility, it was precious metals, so we made rains, jewelry and earrings, all that kind of stuff. But it was also a refining facility, so anyone who sent in the materials, they could melt it down. They could turn it into nine carat gold, 12 carat, 18 carat, you could make it for the whole world. And when I first started at this place, just for insurance, and had zero cares whatsoever about what manufacturing was, because, much like the cliche of everyone else out there who had their machine shop ripped out and gyms put in in high school, because I had no CNCS, and we had a great gym for the football team. I didn’t really know what manufacturing was at this time. It was just a job to me, and I did everything I could to survive, right? I was mopping floors on the weekend, Matt, you know, waxing floors. And you mentioned 20 years, it’s about 25 years of manufacturing. And people who see my career, my journey, traveling the world and being an advocate for manufacturing, oftentimes overlook the journey to get to this place, right this, this journey of this pedestal. It started in the dirt. It started there. And I love that. I wanted it to be like that. That’s the story of my life. Mop floors, work from the bottom. The first machine I ever ran was a hydraulic press that just punched holes in plates of gold, right? I mean, there’s lots of really great stories that came from this facility. I got to work directly with Nat Geo. We had gold bricks that came in. We had to melt them down and turn them into commemorative coins for a sunken ship that was off the coast of North Carolina. I learned how to program line by line on about 5060, different machines. I had six, seven different patents for the jewelry industry. I ran company improvement committees. I was, I did, I think, software which is like a simulated version of Six Sigma. I mean, there was so much involved in this first six years of manufacturing, but it was 100% by accident. Yeah.

Damon Pistulka 08:19
That’s awesome. That’s awesome because, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, how many people get into manufacturing on accident and stay into manufacturing, because it’s an industry you can really learn to love, yes,

Tony Gunn 08:36
yeah. And I would, I would advocate for that as well, you know. And I would also say that there’s a lot of us, as you mentioned, we’ve gotten into it on accident, some of us, some of us, a lot of us, from our from our parents. We have parents that were in the industry, and then some folks who actually meant to do it. But I would say a lot of us, including myself, were misfits. We accidentally got into it. We’re kind of troublemakers, and we’re like, well, this I fit in here. I can these are salt of the earth people that I can hang out with.

Damon Pistulka 09:03
We can make shit.

Tony Gunn 09:06
We make everything. We make everything we before you hit Did you? Did you hit record when you talking about breaking a leg or your hips, immediately in my head, I’m like, Good thing you’re a manufacturer, and they’re getting better at fixing that now, yeah,

Damon Pistulka 09:18
that’s

Curt Anderson 09:19
right. So Tony, I absolutely love this. So just as a, you know, just a booming extrovert as you are, as you were going through that process. And, you know, part, it sounds like part of your career is, like, a little bit revolutionary at times, maybe evolution. When did you start hitting? When did it start hitting you like, hey, you know, with my personality, I can be an advocate for this. I can get other people fired up. I can get, you know, inspire other people to come into this industry. Was it a transition? Was an overnight and I have like, what did that look like? Really,

Tony Gunn 09:46
really, a great question. Curt, because I think, I think for me, there was never a pursuit of needing to be the face of something I never desired. Required that position. I always you mentioned an exploding extrovert, but honestly, did you know I’m actually introverted? Are you the difference between an introvert and an extrovert is an extrovert can go into a party or go into a situation, and they become fueled by the energy around them, and they’ll actually leave that feeling hyped up and ready to go and ready to do some more someone like myself, while I am truly charismatic and I think I’m somewhat fun, I hope other people agree with me. It’s somewhat fun, I will feel wiped at the end of like I have a social battery that I have to pay attention to. So when I’m done with a Keynote or I’m done filming at a trade show, I need to go be by myself in my hotel room. So that’s, that’s kind of, that’s kind of the start of what you brought in. But how did, how? When did I realize? Um, so let’s step back a second. 12 years of being a machinist and three major facilities. I even tried road construction for a little bit because it paid more money, and I wanted to see what it was like. I accidentally fell into a role which, which took me to be an international consultant and the vice president of a company, which took me to about 4050, different countries. And my job where was to understand how business is done in each of these countries, build distributorships and educate people on how to do things in the micro machining world at a faster, more productive rate, COVID hits, and then this is the fast forward journey, of course, but COVID hit, and I am very unique from other people. If I’m scared of something, I run toward it. If something is fearful, I chase it like I want to know why I’m afraid, and I want to be a part of it, which is why I surf in hurricanes or a good walk through active volcanos when they’re erupting, or swim with sharks. You know, these things scare me, and I want to be there in front of them. So when COVID hit, I don’t really do fear, worry, anxiety, these types of things. And so I was like, I respectfully apologize to the people that I’m working with, but I need to take time to myself and time to my family. The world is in chaos. Everyone’s looking at each other’s as numbers instead of as humans, because we don’t know if we’re going to have profits anymore. We don’t know if you’re bringing in enough sales, and if you realize what I said previously about being an international consultant and traveling all the time, I wasn’t able to travel at that time, so I didn’t enjoy feeling the pressure of needing to create the type of work that needed to be created without the ability to do 50 to 70% of my job, which was traveling and being there right so respectfully, stepped down from the roles that I was in at that time, put everything in the storage when backpacking through Mexico with my family. We’re just like, we’re out of here. We’re done. And we went through the Yucatan Peninsula. We went through Playa Del Carmen. Went through key throw Rio de guitar say, just enjoyed ourselves. And during this time, a bunch of companies reached out to me, realizing that I was in between jobs and and offered me wonderful positions, but it was just, it just didn’t resonate. And then mtdcnc, the news media company that I’m with right now, the advocacy of manufacturing, what you asked about, they said, We know about your history in manufacturing. We know about your history as a consultant. In fact, we interviewed you at Mac in 2014 and again at emo in 2018 or 19. I can see emo is the even years. So 2018 we would like to consider branching out to make this a true global channel for manufacturing the true, agnostic, unbiased, global channel that the world deserves to truly see what is being done inside of these facilities. And I kind of, I kind of looked at my my wife and myself in the mirror, I was like, I get to be of service to everyone this. This is an opportunity to do good for an invisible industry that deserves it. So I flew to England, did a couple of interviews. They liked what they heard. I liked what I heard. Ended up creating the North American branch, became the Director of Global Operations for this news channel. And again, going back to the beginning of this conversation, it was never a pursuit of glory. It was never a pursuit of selfishness. Of it was, it’s always been a very selfless of service, idea that I can help people. Because what I’ve realized, my friends, is there are people so smart of manufacturing, I mean, brilliant, far smarter than I could ever dream of becoming. But a lot of these folks are truly introverted. The joke that says, How can you tell? When you met an outgoing engineer, they look at your feet instead of their own when they talking to you, that’s how you can tell, right? So I almost feel like it’s a responsibility and a duty to be the voice of people that deserve to have their voice shared. And I hope that makes sense, but that’s the reason why I do this.

Curt Anderson 14:40
Dude that was classic. They look at your feet

Tony Gunn 14:43
instead of their own. That’s an outgoing engineer, all right. So

Curt Anderson 14:46
I want to pack a couple of things right there. Tony, I oh my god, the dude, I’m ready to run through a wall. This is so Alright, machinist, for many years, you’re kind of the accidental manufacturer, if you will. Major companies. Different places that you’ve contracted that COVID hits, and all sudden, you’re like, you know, hey, we’re going to take a little family, you know, you know, out, you know, you know, break, if you will, a lot loss of a word there. You’re going to take a family break, if you will. How long

Tony Gunn 15:15
were you gone? About three months. Three

Curt Anderson 15:19
months like just traveling with you and your family, yep, dude, that is so phenomenal, you know. And how many people you know? Damon, what’s that expression some days, not a day of the week, right? You know, someday I will do that when I retire. And, gosh, Tony, I didn’t know that about you. What an inspiration. And I think that’s a lot for folks to take in, you know. And it doesn’t have to be three months, and it doesn’t have to be COVID, but I think a great lesson right there is like, hey, sometimes you need to call a timeout and, you know, you put family first. You put peace of mind, you know, your work life balance, whatever your decision making was in that process. I can’t tell you how admirable Damon, what are your thoughts? Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 15:57
I think it’s, it’s, it’s great when you take a reset like that, and then the because you can clear clarity. This brings clarity. I mean, I can imagine you’re out there and you’re walking, you’re seeing some things, and it brings new perspective. And then when these companies started to reach out and you see that you can help so many more people in the industry by doing what you’re doing now, but that was an exciting time.

Tony Gunn 16:23
It was nerve wracking and exciting, but I think the vibration is the same, right? Nervousness and excitement are the same vibration. It’s just where the focus is on positive or fear, yeah, but it’s the same. It’s the same thing that does like this, right? All the time. So, so it was, it was both. It was both to to be on camera, to know that anything that you say is being recorded and can be transcended through like somebody could pull up a video from four years ago when I first started this thing and I said something ignorant, and they go, look at that ignorant dude. It’s forever online but, but I don’t care. I don’t I’m okay with, I’m okay with having the stupid faces from photos of people being taking photos of me while I’m in the middle of, you know, these conversations and being online, being being a meme for people doing a silly dance inside of a machine or or making mistakes, because I realize that I’m very honest with myself, and hopefully other people are as well. And I’m not, I’m not scared of making mistakes, and all I can do is be the best version of myself, today and tomorrow and yesterday and and I think that’s okay, but it does take courage to realize that this love stuff lives online. And again, people are so much smarter than me, and I just want to do the best I can. And I like building these bridges between between the voices and the creation, right, and sharing it with the world. And I think that’s important. So, so, so Yeah, is it? Is it? Is it sometimes a little anxiety driven sure, you know, we want to do the best we can for those being represented on camera. We want them to advocate for themselves and be proud when they step on camera and say something about their products, their company, their stories. And we want them to walk away feeling like they’ve succeeded, but it comes with a lot of pressure and also excitement. So yeah, it’s all of it. It’s

Curt Anderson 18:05
all the above. And I think drop the mic right there. Tony, not scared of making mistakes. And I think that’s, you know, so many people, it’s their fear of like, looking like the fool take, you know, not taking that leap of faith, not tracking through Mexico. I’m not, you know, I’m not going to do this. I’m not going to go on camera, so I just, I really can’t. You know, first off, if you’re just joining us, drop us a note in the chat box. Let us know that you’re out there. We’re here with Tony. Gunn, you want to connect with Tony? Follow Tony. We’re going to dive into some of his content next. But, man, I’ll tell you, this guy is just on fire. Very inspiring. So Tony, let’s go here. So you’ve mentioned multiple times. MT MTD, CNC reaches out to you, and so just share. You’ve scratched a little surface on what you guys do, but just share with folks. How do you guys make the world a better place? What exactly do you guys do? And as you start diving in, I’m going to grab their website and give everybody a peek,

Tony Gunn 18:57
yeah, sure. Um, making the world a better place. I like that. I hope we are. We’re trying. We’re certainly trying. Um, so mtdcnc is a really wonderful, conceptualized idea from about 2007 2008 where we all know manufacturing to be quite traditional, and traditional is okay, and I don’t want to to downplay any of the amazing traditions we have in manufacturing, but we’re very much a trade show. We’re very much handshaking, and we’re traditionally magazines, right? But the world is evolving so much quicker, and I know you guys might want to talk about AI, we might want to talk about automation, we might want to talk about these technologies, but as the world turns so does social media. So whether we like social media or don’t like social media, depending on our industry or depending on our age demographic, it exists and it is powerful, so embrace it. Don’t embrace it. Whatever you want that’s totally up to a person. That’s totally up to a company. But at the same time, if we. Don’t embrace and what is working in the world, then we’re getting left behind. So like it, don’t like it, we’ll get left behind. So MTD in 2007 2008 realized that this was true in an industry that wasn’t truly pursuing this style of marketing. They said, we need we need video content. We need something that lives online. We need the voices. We realize that that you can read something and absorb a certain percentage, you can hear something and absorb a certain percentage, but when you read, watch and hear something simultaneously, you absorb the most percentage. The YouTube is the most watched channel or second most watched channel on the planet. LinkedIn is growing. Facebook now a cesspool was amazing. Tiktok, your silly dances, Instagram, whatever you want to do with that, but it all exists, whether you like it or don’t like it, your Snapchat, your Twitters. This industry is starting to catch on, but we are still very traditional. So going back to MTDC and see they had this idea. They had this concept. How do we best make the world a better place? Thanks for that. Curt. Make the world a better place through the idea that manufacturing matters, and it’s based in the UK. The UK are very much friends with the US. We almost speak the same language, and manufacturing is a big deal. Yeah, right, almost. And manufacturing is a big deal to them like it is to us, but it’s also overlooked a lot of times, just like it is here, it’s still considered invisible. So so the two owners, Paul, Paul Jones and Joe Reynolds, started building a team, and they started in the UK, and the UK, they worked with everyone, and they wanted to expand further and further. So what I did in January 1, 2021, with the help of MTD and the great foundation they have built in in both Europe and the UK, was was broaden. It was take it into us. Take it into Latin America. We had the only Spanish speaking channel. Took it into India. Took it into Asia. We have a Hindi channel, um, and it’s all from the viewpoint which, in my opinion, is the is what an audience deserves. It’s all from the viewpoint of agnostic, of unbiased, so people are intelligent. I don’t need to convince them that they need to buy a product that I’m promoting. I don’t need to be that, that infomercial guy saying, buy my stuff. Now it’s not like that. It is me asking the questions to an intelligent person, and that intelligent watcher can then decide if this resonates with them or not. So it allows someone a viewpoint to say, you’re not selling me something, but I can be entertained, I can be educated, and I can make my own decisions. And that’s kind of how MTD CNC works. It is the true global news channel for manufacturing that provides agnostically From all that want to work with MTD and CNC in one channel to learn about all the technologies, all the customer testimonials inside of factory tours, all the trade shows. We participate and we bring it to life.

Curt Anderson 23:03
Dude. I absolutely love that. And it ties in. And if anybody out there, it’s not following Tony or connect with Tony on LinkedIn. What I love your tagline, the worldwide machine is and so just love your passion, love your energy. As far as, like, you know, just spreading the word. Let’s go. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna, I’m going off script a little bit you do it. Friends are absolutely crushing, you know, these numbers here, you know, and you’re, you’re in machinist it’s not like you’re sewing fashion, or you saw, you know, jewelry, or, you know, whatever, perfume that type of like, you know, you guys are crushing it in the machinist world on social. Just give us a little background, like, why I know, like, you talk about, like, integrity, that mission, agnostic, share, a little bit like, how are you guys hitting these numbers? As far as like social goes?

Tony Gunn 23:47
Well, I think, well, let’s just say, firstly, it is not easy to do. Let’s just say that to to understand the ever changing algorithms of how to make social media work for a company is is a difficult thing. We have so many influencers out there, and most of these influencers are in the industries you just mentioned, Curt, your your fashion, your automotive, the makeup, perfume. It’s almost, it’s almost, I don’t want to say it’s easy, because they’re still putting in work, but it’s certainly easier to do those types of things in places where where social media is embraced, where I can go online right now, and I’ll probably buy my next perfume bottle because I was advertised on Instagram. You’re not going to buy a quarter million dollar to a million and a half dollar CNC machine because of Instagram post. You’re just not, and most people are still doing their traditional research. So how do you how do we as a community create something online, in an industry that doesn’t fully embrace it, but should and create those types of numbers, and it takes dedication. Curt, you brought up, how you doing it? There is a, we have a an iceberg of a team. And what I mean by that. Is if you see me presenting, if you see Megan, if you see Eddie, if you see author, you see our guys in the UK. You know Tom, scabula, Rowan, Lindsey, everybody loves those guys. You see our team in India. You see our team in Latin America, with Fernanda. You see the presenters. We are the show men or the show women, right in the sense of being seen, but the majority of the work is done behind the scenes, our camera crew, our editors, our SEOs, our website designs, the people who understand when to post. I mean, we got a guy named Stu who is absolutely brilliant and understanding when to post, how to post, where to post, who to post. He will delete a post 10 minutes after posting, and if it doesn’t do what it’s supposed to do, and repost it again later. There is so much that goes into this, which is why someone like MTD, CNC, in my opinion, is a great advocate for all people in manufacturing, because we’re here. Look, I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go a little bit deeper into this conversation and go into the influencer side of things, the MTD side of things, and the content creation from companies internally. So a company can hire a video crew to come in and create a con create content for them, right? A great video or a magazine, whatever it might be, and if they share it, they’re going to reach the people that they know already. They’re going to reach the people who already believe in them, who already have their email it. I mean, where do you think these newsletters go? Or what do you when you make a post, where do you think it goes? It goes to the people that are already following them. Influencers can reach a broader audience, but in most cases, cannot create the content. And if they can, it’s not going to be in abundance, and a lot of times it’s not in a very professional way. It’s more of an entertainment way that’s an influencer, style, that’s what they do. Sometimes it’s very professional, but oftentimes they don’t have their own camera crews, they don’t have their own editors, they don’t have their web designers. They’re just, they’re a wonderful voice for an industry or industries that need it, but they don’t usually have their own sets, right? Not normally. And what MTD does is it’s a it’s a thought leader, influencer, style, backed by a complete company of camera cruise editors, SEO, that gives a company that they can, they can create content for themselves, while simultaneously creating with the partnering with a brand that gives them a broader voice across the entire world on places like YouTube and Instagram and LinkedIn and these places where we have millions, billions of views at this point. I mean, it’s crazy. We jumped, I want to say 90k on YouTube to 150k in the last three months. People are starting to catch on to the importance and also the education and entertainment. It has to be all these things. I think there’s a and I know I’m getting a bit long winded, but I think there’s a fine line between being too technical, because the video is often too boring, and although we want to be taught something, and there are machinists who will watch that, and I put in quotes boring technical video, because they need to Learn how to do something the majority of the world and certainly not people outside of manufacturing are going to watch that video so it doesn’t become popular. So where do we find that happy medium? That happy medium is being educated and entertained and proactive in all of this simultaneously, and that’s where we come into play. We can, we can have a video that you want to watch and smile and occasionally laugh while walking away from it feeling like you learned something, or you might want to buy something, or you feel like this is the partner I want to have, right so this is, this is the happy medium, I think, which is why we continue to snowball this excitement at mtdcnc.

Curt Anderson 28:35
Well, I think there’s a ton to unpack right here. I mean, check this out. Awesome, cut using driven tools. 184,000 views over here, 21,000 views, you know, and again, like these are just like you’re just showing machines, yeah, right. I mean, this isn’t the, you know, like you said, the perfume, the makeup, the fashion, the like this is, you know, you know, I must say boring. But like this is like traditional manufacturer rope your sleeves get down and dirty, and you guys have 10s and 10s of 1000s of views here. It’s just absolutely stay, yeah,

Damon Pistulka 29:10
yeah. It’s something. It’s great, I mean, and like you said, it’s coming from people that understand too. I mean, understand the manufacturing and how to get out on these channels, like other influencers do in different industries. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 29:24
look at, I mean, incredible engineering, 185,000 views. So, you know, again, I think for manufacturers out there, I think it’s a two pronged approach that you mentioned Tony. It’s like, you know, taking that first step, right? And though you know you’re the guy that you know loves, you know, surfing in the hurricane and, you know, walking on volcanos. You’ve got, you, you had a picture on your LinkedIn profile with a tranche on your head. Absolutely hysterical, you know. But you know what? Some Damon, we work with a number of manufacturers. We’re, we’re like, you know, doing that first video is like, work, you know, surfing the hurricane. We’re like, Yeah, they feel terrified. And I think I love that. I think I. Love what you’re saying here, Tony, it’s number one, taking that first step and getting that video content out there. You know, we use the tagline, stop being the best kept secret, you know. Get your awesomeness out there. Let people how, you know, let them know how you make the world a better place. Let them know how you could solve their problem, and then partnering, aligning with with someone like yourself, with what you’re doing, you can help elevate them and take them to a whole new level,

Tony Gunn 30:22
yeah? And if I may, I want to bring up something that I think is important to understand. And you guys know this already, I’m gonna say something you’re like, you’re just gonna, I know you’re gonna shake your head. Have you heard of a skills gap, a labor shortage? Have you heard of that?

Curt Anderson 30:35
You know, Dame, I thought maybe there was one time there was somebody, like, there was like, a whisper, yeah. But Tony, you know, do share what’s going on here.

Tony Gunn 30:44
So it’s very obviously something we’re all talking about, right? And we think about, how can we get people outside of manufacturing, much like myself, who didn’t know anything about it, to actually care about it, right? And there’s so many different prongs to to this conversation, so many prongs to attack, right? And one of them is, how do we fund it? You know? How do we fund getting some of these thought leaders into middle schools, high schools, and, even more importantly, the parents, right? And then say, your kid can thrive in manufacturing and trades in general, and trades, yeah, and they don’t have to go to a university, right? And and we need to get to get to these folks, but there’s not a lot of funding for it, and I’m gonna come full circle to this conversation in just a minute. But we always talk, we always complain. We always complain without coming up with a solution of how we’re gonna make this, this advocacy, work. Well, social media is a side door or even a back window into attracting people on accident. You just mentioned Curt over 100,000 several time of those videos of traditional manufacture. And roll up your sleeves. I guarantee you those 100,000 people are not 100% machinists. There are people who are accidentally scrolling through and said, Holy shit. This is awesome. And have they’re like, What is this? Right? Yeah. And so that to me is it goes back to when I when I describe how important it is to be educational and make sure that the valued machinists are receiving value for their time while watching a video, it is almost equally as important to be open enough and have fun enough on these videos to attract people that care nothing about manufacturing and get in that side door to help reduce that skills gap and that labor shortage through these videos. Because if we’re not, how are we going to get there? We don’t have the funding. We’re working on the funding. But how do we get into these schools? How do we give these keynotes? How do we attract more people? It’s a two to 3 million person skills gap right now is going to grow between now and 2030 according to predictions. How do we get in there? And I think these videos are a part of attracting an audience that cares nothing about manufacturing and should boom

Curt Anderson 32:56
Tony. So we when, when somebody just really goes off, we have a drop the mic moment when they take it to a whole different level. We have these moments of silence. And so we just want to take, like, a little moment of silence and just kind of like, marinate in just that, that dude that was, yeah, let’s, let’s just take a moment. Let’s just, let’s just savor it. But let’s go here. Tony Dude, you are out man. I tell you, you are such an inspiration. I’m going to, I hope I don’t embarrass you. I’m gonna put you on the spot here real quick. You know, tough

Tony Gunn 33:23
to embarrass me these days.

Curt Anderson 33:25
Could happen. I talked to your dad, he said, Ah, you can’t embarrass him. So let’s, I wanna a couple things. I wanna talk about. Is like, you know, so for the manufacturer out there, that’s, you know, again, they’ve been just nose of the grindstone. They’ve really never done marketing, but you’ve really taken a whole new level. We’ve got the gun show podcast. And again, I want to talk about your book. So, you know, being a content creator, how does somebody transition from being this fierce advocate, this, I’m sorry, first being a machinist, to becoming an advocate to, like, you know, was creating all this content? Was it a natural transition? Was it an evolution revolution? I want to start with your book. Talk about like, how does a guy who’s running machines for decades become an author?

Tony Gunn 34:08
I think all of us have life experiences worth sharing. I think we can all be teachers and students for each other, and some of us are willing to be open enough to share those stories, and some of us aren’t, or don’t, think that we have value enough to share it. I think we all have value. And maybe I am just stubborn in the sense of thinking I have value more so, and I should put mine on paper. Maybe I don’t, I don’t know, but I’m a I’m a big believer and pursuing as many things that bring us joy. And I’m a creative person. I was, I was a hip hop artist for a decade, and I’ve been on the cover of three magazines. I’ve written these books, I do these podcasts, create these videos, an athlete, travel the world, hiking, all of these things. So I wrote these two books when I was doing my international consulting book. Both pre COVID. I’m actually working on book three, four and five right now, but it takes a minute. So book one and two. I actually owned a natural healing company, starting in 2014 when I was traveling around, I started studying shamanism and herbalism and studying with witch doctors and figuring out how to heal things naturally, because when I was 22 years old, viral pneumonia suffocated and killed me in the hospital, and I stopped trusting anyone in the Western world. I was like, I’m gonna do this on my own, for better or worse, but I started doing on my own. So I started studying herbalism, and I just started, I decided that I was gonna write a book about my adventures around the world and my pursuit of natural medicine and and just kind of wrote it down in the first book I wrote. I wrote it in about two weeks. There’s misspellings. It’s it could have been done a lot better, but I feel like it was, it was something I needed to get on paper, almost like a journal. And so I did, and I published it, and I have hard copies, and I I have it on my my whatsapp that I send to people from time to time, but I’ve never pushed it, never pursued it, other than just I needed to get it on paper, and then if it resonates with someone, I’ll share it with them. The second book, the one that you see there, actually went number one in six countries, and it’s I’m co authored with 10 other people, and we each wrote our story about the pursuit of our dreams, pursuing happiness. How to do that? Because, to my knowledge, each of the people who wrote in this book came from a situation that wasn’t necessarily the best situation, and they pursued something that that put them in a position of success. And one of my favorite quotes is victims, find victims. And victors, find victors. And I realized this is I was surrounding myself with people who are suffocating me, and I wasn’t. I was walking on a treadmill and repeating the same things over and over again, and I needed to get out. That’s when I realized I needed to do more and grow and and I actually met the person, the publisher of this book, while I was backpacking through Bali, and he caught me having a glass of wine, watching the sunset, telling my story on accident to a stranger who asked me some questions. And he’s like, Hey, man, I just heard your story. You want to write it in a book? And I was like, Dude, that sounds awesome. So I don’t know the answer. Curt, I think we all have a story to share. I just decided to put mine on paper and publish it just the right place at the right time, and I’m a big advocate of almost like Jim Carrey and Yes man, Say yes. Say yes to things that scare you. Say yes to things you haven’t done before. Be brave and pursue I don’t. I’m not. I’m not the greatest writer. I don’t have the most I have a cool story, don’t get me wrong, but maybe not the most amazing story. I met someone just the other day, who’s one of three people in the world that climbed the north face of Everest by himself. That’s awesome. He wrote a book, and I’m like, Well, my book’s not as good as yours, but I tried my best. You know that kind of, what I’m saying is pursue things that bring you joy, regardless of what other people think of it. And that’s kind of, kind of what I did with these books.

Curt Anderson 37:55
Awesome. Okay, that’s going to be our second moment of science right there. Say that again, Tony, pursue things that that. Say that again.

Tony Gunn 38:04
I’m not even sure if I can just pursue things. Yeah, care

Curt Anderson 38:08
less what anybody else thinks, right? More or less I do i I’m gonna have to go back and catch a replay that was phenomenal. Just, just go out be the yes man. Ray Ida mentor used to say, just raise your hand. Just raise your hand. Just go out and do things. I couldn’t love what you’re saying more. Let’s talk about the gun show. Who are you interviewing on for folks that aren’t familiar with the gun show, they absolutely need to be familiar with the gun show. They need to sign up and follow you on Spotify, YouTube, whatever, so you can catch your podcast. Share a little bit what people expect to hear on the gun show.

Tony Gunn 38:40
Well, second to your podcast, of course, we have a quite an audience, and the gun show is all about humanizing manufacturing. And I know there’s a lot of podcasts out there based on, you know, more technical things, there’s more more company focused type stuff, there’s more product focused type podcast. Mine is just about humanizing, and it goes back to the skills gap we have again, and the fact that we have so many brilliant people who need to share who they are and how they got into manufacturing. And so my job is to encourage them to share that story. So it can be anyone, anyone, in fact, I had somebody from United Airlines not too long ago this past year, but it could be anyone willing to share their story about manufacturing or or, or anything similar to manufacturing. And it started in March of 2021, and it was very basic, zoom. Let’s do it back and forth. It went on to Spotify Apple, Google and YouTube, of course, and and through the through the years, it’s continued to grow. This past year we did the VIP edition. So I was really proud of this idea. So VIP edition means I pay for your flight, I pay for your hotel, I pay for your food. We go out to eat. We have three, 2000 $3,000 bottles of scotch, bourbon, tequila, while we’re on the show sipping it. We have the most expensive coffees and teas, and we sit down in this dope studio in South Florida and. And we just have a ball telling a story. That’s the VIP edition. We had 50 some episodes this year. Everyone loved it. Amazing, amazing journey we did this year. What I realized is that going into next year, we’re actually rebranding the gun show as unplugged. So we’re taking the studio on the road. We’re going into trade shows, we’re going into factories, we’re going into events around the world, or we’ll do it online, or you can come to the studio. It’s totally up to the people. But this is unplugged, but it’s always about humanizing. Tell me your story. Tell me your journey. If you want to talk about some of your products, we’ll do that at the end. I promise you, you’ll get a plug for your company. But it’s, you tell me about you I want to learn about Yeah,

Damon Pistulka 40:43
that’s awesome. That’s awesome. There’s so many, there’s so many interesting people. I’ll just say it like that, interesting people in manufacturing. I mean, the stories are incredible. The and the characters you run into and the things that they’ve done, and you just go, you did what you make, what I never even thought about that. Yeah, we have to make that, don’t we? And it’s it. It’s so cool to see that and hear those stories, I’m sure.

Tony Gunn 41:13
Yeah, love it. Absolutely love it. It’s one of my favorite parts of my job is Yeah, is getting to hear from people. And it’s, it’s not often I have the opportunity to share my story. So thank you both so much for allowing me to do that. Often times I’m listening to others, but I appreciate both absolutely love hearing people’s stories.

Curt Anderson 41:28
Yeah, so Tony, as we start winding down, dude. So first off, this was just absolutely amazing. But a question I you know, whether your dad, your hero growing up, maybe as you started off, your career, mentors, people that you know helped, helped you pursue your happiness, your joy, everything that you’re describing, family, daughter, wife, what I’m looking for best advice that you’ve ever received? What is the best advice could be business, could be personal, and you’ve dropped a lot of golden nuggets, so maybe you’ve already said it, but if you could just kind of sum it up for our friend out there, who maybe you know, they’re, they’re, they had a tough year, or maybe, you know, they haven’t rebounded from COVID, but they just need a little inspiration. What’s some of the best advice that you’ve had kind of getting you through up to the next level?

Tony Gunn 42:13
It’s a really good question. And I, and I have given a lot of bread crumbs throughout this conversation, and I probably could give you 20 pieces of advice that have helped has helped me throughout the years, because you’ve heard me mention, you know, viral pneumonia, taking my life, being in a teenage gang, losing some friends at a young age, being being in hip hop music because one of My best friends was killed it. I think it’s to to be resilient. The world is not perfect. It’s never going to be perfect. But find gratitude. If you can’t see the kindness, be the kindness. Have patience with everything around you, because it’s not going to get easier. It’s only going to get more difficult. Without patience, with patience, you can find the joy that’s all around you. Can find the gratitude and everyone fails. Don’t be afraid to fail. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and keep going. What I’ve realized is there’s no such for me, for me only, maybe not only, but for me. There’s no such thing as a bad or negative situation. There is something that I can learn from and grow from, or there’s something that’s just pure joy, but a negative or hard situation is an opportunity for me to take it, learn from it, grow from it, apply it to my life and improve as I move forward. So that’s kind of a random answer, and there’s a lot to that, but, but these are the pieces that I’ve applied to my life to truly find joy and beauty in traveling the world and and truly finding love everywhere and kindness everywhere and passion everywhere. And I think that’s important.

Damon Pistulka 43:51
Yeah, awesome.

Curt Anderson 43:54
Another moment of silence, Damon, let’s resonate that. Let’s just soak it in for a minute, and I’m just gonna recap it so I’ve got resilience. Just be in gratitude. Just consume yourself in gratitude, in all things, the good, the bad, the ugly, be the kindness. Don’t necessarily need to search for kindness. Why not just be the kindness. We got patience and just accept it, man, we all make mistakes. Everybody fails. Tony, brilliant, absolutely brilliant advice. Absolutely love it. Last thing that I want to ask you is, what are you super excited 2025 you shared a couple of things coming up on the horizon. What’s, what are you super excited about for manufacturing, the future? MTD, what’s, what’s that look like for you?

Tony Gunn 44:34
Really good question. MTD, continues to grow. That’s easy. That’s easy. We’re we’re doubling, tripling, everything we’re doing. We’re expanding globally, even more expanding the team. That’s the easy part, manufacturing. I think, I think I’m excited about all of these up and coming. We can call them thought leaders. You can call them influencers. I don’t care. I think a thought leader is a more profound. Title than an influencer, but I’ll let other people determine that I’m excited about these folks, that the men and women out there, the women and men out there who who have found joy in advocating, even if they don’t come from this industry. There’s a whole lot of influencers, thought leaders out there, who, who from completely different areas, that have found a voice here in manufacturing because we needed it, and I’m grateful for them. I’m excited about that, because that’s going to attract more people. I’m very excited about the evolution of manufacturing, because if we have a skill shortage, if we have a labor shortage, then we have to implement these automation tactics, these AI tactics, these, what some people could, you know, I was just a gym Toff in Japan, and there’s so much technology that I saw there that won’t be in Europe or the US for three to four years. And it’s, it, yeah, it’s, it’s incredible. And seeing this type of stuff gives me hope, because I don’t know where we’re gonna find these millions of people overnight. I don’t know where we’re gonna educate them overnight, but if we can have one person who is currently doing mundane bullshit, and we can allow that person to get back to their creativity and run an entire shop thanks to automation and AI, that’s optimism, the fact that we’re reshoring and near shoring so much communicating more with Canada and Mexico and other Latin American countries, because we don’t currently have the infrastructure to support all of the reshoring on our own. If we brought it all back, that excites me. The partnerships excite me. So yeah, I could probably go on all day about everything that excites me, about manufacturing, but I won’t. I think those are the highlights. We’ll stick with. Those

Curt Anderson 46:42
are the highlights, you know what? And Tony, you’re gonna love this. I was, I was at a wedding down south over the weekend, and I’m chatting with a woman I haven’t seen in years, probably pre COVID. I’m like, Hey, how are your kids? She has three daughters. And shamelessly, foolishly on my part, I’m like, oh, you know, you know where they at, what they doing, and I’m mistakenly assumed one of them was going to college. She was, hey, my one daughter’s getting into welding. I’m like, your daughter’s getting into welding? I’m like, Man, she’s cool. So I think there’s plenty of those opportunities out there. Yeah. So all right, let’s start winding down. Tony, we mentioned you guys are crushing it on LinkedIn, crushing on YouTube. So everybody out there, follow, subscribe, follow me on LinkedIn. Connect we on LinkedIn. Any I know, we’ve covered most of that. Any other places that folks can find you should be looking for you the gun show. Anything else

Tony Gunn 47:28
me, personally, I’m pretty much on LinkedIn. I mean, with mtdcnc, as on every social media platform you want, you want to connect with those guys, Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, our own website, mtdcnc.com, for me personally, I am going to grow the other stuff, but I’m going to hire some people to do that for me. If you want to connect with me personally, just come to LinkedIn, just that’s or my cell phone I text all the time. So those are the two places where you can find me. If you find me on other channels, it’s most likely somebody helping me grow those things. Because advocacy is important, social media is important. Manufacturing is important. But if you want to speak to me directly, find me on LinkedIn or get my cell phone number. So

Curt Anderson 48:08
perfect. Tony, as we wrap up, Megan asked me that she she sent in one last question that she asked me to ask you, are you ready? Are you sitting down? Are you ready for this one? I am

Tony Gunn 48:17
sitting down, and I love Megan, so let’s see if she set me up.

Curt Anderson 48:21
So Tony, now you mentioned Dad Your hero was, was borderline professional baseball player. Did I not hear that correctly? You did. Now, did I also hear hip hip hop artists that you kind of tipped your toe in there? If you had, I did. Okay, so let’s I’m going to give you a scenario. So when you grew up dad, you got who’s your team, when you Dad, were watching baseball. Who was your team? Atlanta, Atlanta Braves. So let’s go back in time. So Atlanta Braves are playing, playing the dreaded How about the Mets? Man, if you’re a Braves fan, you probably hate the Mets, right?

Tony Gunn 48:52
Is that back in the day I did, no, I don’t, I don’t fight anymore, yeah,

Curt Anderson 48:55
you know Mets. So anyway, let’s say that the Braves are playing the Mets. Okay? It’s the bottom of the ninth. It’s tight score, okay, there’s a guy on second base, tie score bottom of the ninth, and they need like, we need to wrap up the game like the manager needs a winning run, like, right here, right now. So he looks down the bench and he says, Hey, gun. Grab your helmet, grab your bat, get up to the plate, hitting the one, hitting the winning run, so we can get out of here. You with me? Yep. As you grab your helmet, you grab your bat, you’re walking up to the plate to hit in that winning run to beat the dreaded Mets. What’s your walk up song? It’s

Tony Gunn 49:32
gonna be, I think it’s gonna be the same song that we did at IMTS. So at IMTS, we got on the main stage right, and I requested a song, and for me, the lyrics at the beginning of this song are so important. But it’s, it’s by Pitbull and Christina Aguilera, and it’s called Feel This Moment, yep, and it’s really just about embracing that moment. Says, some people was, some people call it, some people call it something. I call it Life.

49:59
I call it right, yeah,

Tony Gunn 50:01
some people call it a moment. I call it Life, right? Every single piece of what’s going on in my life is these combination of moments. I want to embrace, I want to indulge. I want to be there for it, live in that moment, not thinking about the past, not thinking about the future, but be in there and respectfully be in there. So that would be my song is, is again, being in that moment, Feel This Moment.

Curt Anderson 50:25
Well, get that song was played at the wedding I was at over the weekend. Whatever, perfect, perfect walk up song, Tony, I have to say, Tony, you are and I’m just saying, I’m not just saying it, dude, you are an inspiration. You always say, like, you know when you’re doing I had a friend of mine years ago. He said, you know you’re doing the right thing, or you’re in the right position, when you get chills, dude, you gave me chills like half a dozen times during this episode. And so you are an inspiration. I just, I can’t admire, respect and just love what you’re doing more. Keep firing on all cylinders. There are just 1000s and 1000s of people whose lives that you’re making a positive impact. People follow you on LinkedIn. You guys have hundreds of 1000s of followers on YouTube. LinkedIn, you’re on Instagram. You’re all over the place, dude, thank you. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to share with us, to share with everybody out there. I hope if you, if you just, if you came in late, man, do yourself a favor. Hit the replay rewind button. What am I told my age, if I say rebound button right, hit the replay button, but catch this whole thing. Connect with Tony Damon, your takeaways today.

Damon Pistulka 51:28
What are your thoughts? Yeah, no, Tony, just thanks for being here. Man. It’s just wonderful getting to hear your perspective on manufacturing your story, how you got into it and and just being that inspiration for others. Thanks a lot.

Tony Gunn 51:43
It’s a pleasure. Thank you both for offering a platform for folks like myself to share their story, and you. You’re wonderful hosts, and thank you for listening to my long winded statements all day today, not

Curt Anderson 51:53
whatsoever. So Tony, we gotta have you back again. I can I look for the day I get to finally meet you in person? Yeah. Thank you for everything that you’re doing, hang out with us for one second. I want to give everybody the chat box. Thank you for dropping a note here. We appreciate you. Appreciate everybody here. Timothy says, I have his let he’ll catch the replay. We’ve got movement says, best wishes to all. We’ve got Nami says hello. Asmer says, Good morning. Jeremy says, Good morning. So again, guys, thank you for stopping by. Connect with Tony. For those of us in the North American in United States, we I wish you your family, just a wonderful, amazing, great Thanksgiving. And like Tony said, just do just be filled with gratitude. Take a take a moment of time. Enjoy your family. Enjoy Thanksgiving. Damon, I will be back here next week. And so Damon, what a great episode, dude,

52:40
this was Yeah, all right,

Curt Anderson 52:42
let’s we’re gonna wrap I didn’t want this to end. We’re gonna wrap up. We’ll see you guys soon. Bye.