Achieving Success Without Self-Destruction

 

Tim Westbrook sits down with entrepreneur and CEO Tommy Mello, founder of A1 Garage Door Service, who shares what it really takes to build a high-growth company and how working nonstop could lead to self-destruction. He opens up about workaholism, burnout, identity, and the moment he realized that performance alone was not enough. They explore how ambition can quietly become a coping mechanism, why work is often a socially acceptable addiction, and what it looks like to create success without sacrificing health, relationships, or peace of mind. They also discuss lifestyle changes, stress management, stepping away from alcohol for clarity, and the role of boundaries, values, and purpose in long-term well-being. This episode is for anyone asking: How do I stay driven without destroying myself?

Topics covered:

• Workaholism and burnout
• Mental health and high performance
• Stress, pressure, and coping strategies
• Alcohol, lifestyle changes, and clarity
• Identity, purpose, and sustainable success

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Achieving Success Without Self-Destruction

I’m joined by Tommy Mello. Tommy is the Founder and CEO of A1 Garage Door, a company he started in 2007 that’s grown into a national brand, headquartered right here in Arizona. Tommy’s also the host of The Home Service Expert and is known for building teams, culture, and serious scale. What I want to focus on in this episode isn’t just growth, it’s what growth costs. Tommy has talked openly about his working extreme hours while building his business, and later realizing he needed to make changes around health, mindset, and lifestyle, including stepping away from alcohol for a period and rethinking how he handles stress and pressure.

A lot of our clients here are navigating the same core issues, identity, overdrive, burnout, and learning how to succeed without self-destructing. This is a conversation about ambition, balance, and what it looks like to build something meaningful without losing yourself in the process. Tommy, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Tim.

The Internal Cost Of Working Nonstop

I’m excited for this conversation and so let’s start with when you look back at the phase where you were working nonstop, what did that level of intensity give you emotionally?

What could go wrong did go wrong when I built the business. I had people stealing from me, trucks flipping over, the police were coming in, it was bad. It was a grind. Everyday was a grind. I mortgaged my house to get a consultant in 2017. I was born to work, though, so I never had a hard time. My mom worked three jobs when I was a kid.

Dad was still around but not as much, he went through his own trials. I think for me it was just like when I was four years old, listening to my mom and dad argue about bills through the drywall, standing on the toilet to the master, I just decided money was not going to be a problem for my future family. What that meant is I neglected everything else but the finance department. In meant that I’d work hard and I’d party hard. I wasn’t close to God. I wasn’t working out like I should have been taking care of myself. I didn’t have enough time with family and friends.

It all happened for a reason. I think it’s true what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. For me, I don’t know if I would have changed a whole lot because I definitely had a lot of good highs and I had a lot of bottom out. Overall, it’s tough but what you learn to do is delegate more. You learn to trust more. That was the hardest thing in 2010 when everything was going wrong. The only person I could actually count on in my life, I called mom.

I said, “Would you consider moving to Arizona and helping me out with this business?” She was born in 1954. Her whole life was Michigan. She talked to my stepdad and they moved out within two weeks. They were my rock. Without them being here, I don’t know if I’d be in this seat right now with this business. We have 1,300 employees, we’re in 23 states. We run 25,000 jobs a month and I think trust is like the hardest thing to come by. Without trust you don’t have anything.

At what point did you realize that the grind was starting to cost you something internally?

There was a lot of things that had happened. Relationship after relationship. If you wanted to go on a date, we were going to fix garage doors together. I was walking out of the movie theater saying, “I’ve got to leave. I’ve got to go run a call.” I was everything. Unfortunately, I was the smartest guy in the room. Now I’m the dumbest guy in my business. I’ve hired very smart people, specialists that know what they’re doing. I pride myself on saying this person could run circles around me. I don’t have too much pride. I really go back to my humility of just saying I’ve been very fortunate.

There’s a great book that you know about, Who Not How, get the right people on the bus. Now I’m focused on six Fs, faith, family and friends, fitness, fitness is really important because I want to have energy throughout the day. Finance, future self, and fun. I will say I’ve always had a lot of fun because I could have fun, I’m having fun right now. I go to Impact Church down the street here in Scottsdale and I try to be a little more well-rounded. I know I’m not balanced perfectly because I think I’m off-balance on purpose.

Things are good. I love life. I had ankle surgery and I got the brace off and I’m like sometimes you don’t know what you have. There’s so much to complain about, you could look at what’s going on in Minnesota or going on in Iran or Ukraine and all these things that are uncontrolables. I’ve got perfect health, I wake up with energy, I live in the most beautiful state ever. I’ve got so much to be thankful for and I think that’s sometimes we forget that. There are billions and billions of people that would trade places with you now. Sometimes, we don’t remember that.

What I’m hearing is gratitude. Being in gratitude. Have you always been a person that was in gratitude?

No, but I’ve never been a victim either. I didn’t say life happens to me. I controlled the decisions of the controlables. I don’t control the weather. I don’t control the traffic. I can control getting up and choosing to be happy. I will say there are times that I thought, “Why is this happening to me? Why does things keep going wrong?” I realized I got so much. There’s 2 billion stars in our galaxy, there’s 4 trillion galaxies that they know of. They say there’s at least 20 times that, so 100 trillion galaxies.

My problems aren’t that big is my point. If you really think about like I got my health, my parents are still healthy, my niece and nephews are great. I got a fiancée who’s doing amazing. Death is going to happen to all of us, so might as well live the best life. There’s a great book called Die with Zero. It just says live your life. If you do well on the finance side, give it away a lot and see the fruits of your labor helping people.

How do you think that positive mindset has helped you in life? Is it like making a decision to be happy? We all have situations. Life happens for you not to you. We can either be a victim or we can be grateful. We can either look for the positives and where I’m at now as a result of the things that I’ve encountered. How do you think that’s helped you?

You show me your friends I’ll show you your future. I do an orientation. There’s 62 people right now in our training center. I say, “Misery loves misery. You guys that are going to be victims.” Let’s say you’re in a bad area, the dispatchers don’t like you, you hate your life. You’re going to find other ones. You need those people. You need somebody to have the sympathy and somebody’s shoulder to cry on. The other people that I hang out with, they’re like, “Get your head out of your ass. You’re doing great. You’re going to win the day.”

What I mean is hang out with the right people. Anybody, give me the five closest people they’re hanging out with, I’ll tell you your future. Here’s my litmus test. When the phone rings, do I smile and get excited to answer it or am I like, “Great, here we go.” Somebody that’s going to fill my head with how bad things are going and they look at the cup is not only half empty, it’s always empty. Unfortunately, some of them are in my family. Some of them are very close to me. I had to literally cut them off because I can’t be around that because it’s not a good path to go down.

Attracting The Right People Who Will Make You Accountable

You’ve continued to elevate yourself throughout your life. What I think about is when I first got sober, I was a different person. Different people were attracted to me. I see this all the time with people that are early on in recovery, it’s like you’ve got the five people that you’re closest to. I’ve been able to elevate. It’s taken years and as I continue elevating my life, I continue attracting different people into my life.

The person I was many years ago is a different person than I am now and I attract different people. However, if someone wants to become a better version of themselves, they’ve got to start hanging out with different people. I see again people that are early on in recovery, the five people that they’re closest to, it’s like you attract who you are. How do you start attracting different people?

There’s great books about habits, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, The 8th Habit. There’s another habit book I can’t think of it right now. You got to replace those habits. I can tell you this. When I play volleyball, I like to drink. When I golf, I like to drink. When I go bowling, I love to drink. I’ll probably stay away from those things. I can’t play soccer and drink. I can’t play racquetball and drink. It’s just not possible. You’re moving too much, so you got to replace things.

In my first book I wrote about creative justification. People justify why it’s okay. The easiest person to convince is yourself, like, “It’s fine.” I started reading a lot about Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence. I met Robert Cialdini, goes by Bob. You got to make a commitment. First admit you have a problem then make a commitment and yell it from the rooftops and you got to have a strong why behind it. I’m more likely to be committed to other people that’ll hold me accountable than myself.

Nighttime Tommy’s like, “You’re going to get up at 5:00 and go in the cold plunge.” Morning time Tommy’s like, “You can do that later, you can sleep in.” If I have somebody meet me at 5:00 that’s counting on me that’s my accountability partner, I’m not going to let them down. The hardest thing is get great accountability partners. If you get great accountability partners that want to see the best in you, there’s other people you could have that say, “I got a lot going on at home. The kids aren’t doing well. Can we just miss this week of working out or miss this time of prayer time or going to church?” Those are not great accountability partners.

I want my buddies and the friends I hang out with to be strict with me. I want them to hold me to the highest standard and I’m going to hold them to the same one. I’ve got an accountability call tonight and I got five people doing this fast with me because it’s not easy to do a five-day water, well there’s electrolytes here. The biggest word of my life now is accountability and who’s going to help me stay accountable to my goals, my dreams and what I want in the future.

Finding The Right Hobbies And Passions To Avoid Alcoholism

I heard you talk about health and fitness and getting hobbies. You can’t really drink and do drugs, really, is what I heard. That was the first thing I did. I started focusing on health and fitness. Whether it’s walking, it’s hiking, it’s running, it’s cycling, it’s doing yoga, it’s doing CrossFit, going to church, whatever it is, these are activities that don’t revolve around drugs and alcohol, so finding those hobbies and interests that are not conducive to alcohol and drugs are helpful.

Dana White said, “I used to get high off coke for an hour.” Obviously, you keep doing it so it’s multiple hours. The cold plunge gets me for eight hours. The serotonin, the release, the stuff that it does for me. I’m not saying I don’t know exactly what Dana White I don’t hang out with him. He’s found things that literally give him a natural high.

When I go on a 45-minute walk and I’m in my own head and I’m in nature, in the mountains are around Paradise Valley and I’m breathing the air and I’m grounded and I reflect, it changed my life completely. Just to be happy and say life is really good. Life is whatever you make of it, so might as well make it a great life. I don’t think there’s anybody that ever reflected on their deathbed and they’re like, “I wish I would have just drank more and did more drugs. That really fulfilled me.” I think it’s an escape zone and I think it’s very addictive. Addiction is a real thing.

Joe Polish talks all about this. It’s mind over matter, it’s really the willpower. Simon Sinek would say you need a huge why behind it. The biggest problem I see with people that have addiction is they do it for everybody. “I’m doing this for my family. I’m doing this for this, I’m doing this for my grandma,” whatever it is. What if you just did it for you? What if you saw the potential in yourself? What if you loved yourself enough to say, “I want more, I deserve better and I want to be in control?”

The biggest problem with people struggling with addiction is that they do it for everybody. Share on X

What were the first signs, mentally or physically, that something needed to change? Now we’re going back to the grind and to the workaholism which is workaholism is the respectable addiction.

People are like, “How do you turn it off?” I’m like, “You should see me, I turn it off all the time. I’m very good at it now.” My brain still works in like I whiteboard, I got whiteboards all around the house, I got my vibe boards. I really like to live in the moment. There’s a buddy of mine, Andy Elliott, he’s controversial. He’s like, “You’ve got to have a six pack,” but that’s just a media ploy. He’s like, “Be where your feet are. When you’re at home, don’t be on your phone. You can have plenty of time to go through social media, do what you like to do or watch your Netflix shows, but if you’re going to have dinner with your family, be at dinner, be where you’re at.”

It’s something that’s very hard for me because scrolling just lets off these natural endorphins and the serotonin release, it’s these mini spikes and it’s definitely something where I’ve learned to own my calendar. I’ve got an executive assistant who’s top notch. I was here on time I just didn’t know how to get upstairs, but she’s very good at making sure I’m where I’m supposed to be.

If you guys look at my calendar, I don’t have a whole lot of time to screw off and do things. It looks like the rainbow. Every single day, it’ll have on there, “Read a book, call your mom.” She’ll walk in my office and say, “Let’s do 40 pushups.” She brings me my creatine. I’m very spoiled. That was all by intention as I bought back a lot of time with having great people around me.

A lot of people use work the same way others use substances as an escape, as a regulator or as a way to avoid sitting still. Do you relate to that?

Yeah, I think it’s hard for me. I don’t eat. I don’t have a passion for food. People think I went to prison or something. My dad had twelve kids in his family so if you didn’t eat fast, you wouldn’t get your second meal. I always watched my dad and I eat really fast. I want to do stuff. I’m like, “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go play a game. Let’s go to a movie. Let’s go bowling,” whatever it is. I just find it hard to just sit there. I’m glad I’m not in in Europe because they’ll have like four-hour lunches. What do you do for four hours of just sitting there? I’m trying to work on meditation. Slowing down, really being in the moment.

What is being busy all the time protect you from feeling?

I don’t know exactly. It’s not a negative feeling. I will say I probably out delegate most people. If I don’t have to do it, I won’t do it. Every time someone has an anniversary or birthday, I send them a video. There are times I’ll just be sitting there and the first thing I do is go to Audible or read or unfortunately Instagram sometimes but just sitting there by myself doesn’t really do much for me. It’s something that I know I need to work on, but like I said, it’s identifying these things, admitting that there’s a problem and then building a plan and I’m really good.

I’m connected to you, Joe, all these different people in my life. I’m working with Ed Mylett and Patrick Bet-David and I worked with Dan Martell for a long time. Cameron Herold. I’ll find somebody. Would you go to a trainer that was way out of shape? Probably not. You want to go to somebody that’s like, “This is your profession you do this well.” I’ll go out and ask for help. I’d say probably my best strength is being curious and asking for help every direction I could and just helping people analyze me, psychoanalyze me because it’s hard when I’m in the bubble.

As they say, awareness is 90% of transformation. Being curious and being aware of the fact that something needs to change.

I will say drugs and alcohol don’t do a ton for me. Working doesn’t work, working 24/7. The problem with working is so many people are proud of it. They’ll say, “I’ll outwork you.” I’m like, “You could outwork me.” There’s a lot of people in the coal mines and the landscaping companies that outwork me. I use my brain. I hire great people, we pay them excellent, they can make an unbelievable living with equity in the business.

My job is to get myself out of a job. The company grows. We did a lot of money. Every time I see myself going back in to do the job as we grow, I hire the next specialist to handle those things. I know there’s probably a lot of animosity at work because they’re like, “What does he do? He just keeps hiring these people and the company keeps growing.” No longer do I have pride in saying I could outwork people.

Did that change? Did you used to be the guy that said, “I can outwork you?”

Yeah, that was me. I would be working nights, weekends, holidays. I had the emergency truck. If there was a midnight call, I’d go run it until 2014. I was like side hustles. I was like don’t put all your eggs in one basket and one of my buddies said, “Tommy, can you imagine if you put all your eggs in one basket?” There’s a great book called The One Thing by Gary Keller.

I’m focused on doing the one thing. Not all these side hustles that don’t add up to anything. I quote a lot of books just because I became an avid reader and I think if somebody’s willing to put their life lessons into a book, you should read them and you should learn from them. I think readers are leaders and I think it changes the way your brain works.

Have you always been a reader?

It’s funny, in 2006, I found this CPA who only had ten clients. All $10 million-plus was their net worth and I was talking to him and he goes, “I can’t take you on as a client, you’re just getting started. I really like you. I might just work with you for free. What’s the last book you read?” I said, “To Kill a Mockingbird in 11th grade.” He said, “What don’t you like about books?” I said, “I just don’t find anything I like in them.”

At this time, I only was introduced to like the fiction section, I think. He goes, “This is The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber. Go read this book tell me what you think.” I came back two days later and I was like, “They make books like this. What else do you got for me?” He goes, “I call this the red Bible. It’s called The Ultimate Sales Machine by Chet Holmes.”

Two days, blew through this book. I outlined it like he gave it to me. I said, “What else?” He goes, “The Richest Man in Babylon.” By the third book, I was hooked. 2000 is when I graduated high school to 2007. I read term papers and I was going to school and I was studying but I never read books and I never got into them. I think I read Goosebumps in middle school, that stupid book, like scary stories.

Once I learned a love to read, I realized like right now I’m really big into feedback so I ordered thirteen books on feedback. I go read the summary of every chapter and I’ll probably read 3 out of those 13 the best ones because I’m like, “Somebody is the expert at this. How much could I take out of these books?” All my leadership team we’re just really big on these 360 feedback loops.

I was on with Gary Vaynerchuk and he said what changed his company was kind candor to where you’re not always tearing people ripping them up, telling them how bad they’re doing but just being honest with them, giving them real feedback. I appreciate real feedback. In a podcast, one of the gentlemen asked me, “Would you rather be loved or respected?”

If you think about somebody that changed your life, like really changed your life, you probably respected them before you loved them. If it was like a coach or somebody in your life that literally told you, “I’m expecting more from you. I’m going to hold you to a high standard because you deserve to be held to a high standard.

I’m going to tell you stuff you don’t want to hear but it’s going to be the best for you. I think sometimes we don’t want those people in our lives because we probably already know what they’re going to say, but those are the people we respect we want to do more for and they don’t call us out. They call us up. When that’s done properly, it’s the best thing you could ever have.

That speaks to picking who you spend your time with. It’s easier to pick people that are just going to be nice and not call you out.

Yeah, it’s really easy. Misery loves misery. You’ll call people that are like you and you’ll have the same conversations and the same pity parties and the same reasons why it’s okay to do what you’re doing. When you start leveling up, I tell all the people in orientation at A1 Garage Door service. I’m like, “Some of your friends aren’t going to like it because they’re going to say, ‘What happened to my buddy that would go through a 24-pack with me? What happened to the guy let’s go roll up a doobie? What happened to you?’”

It’s not a bad thing. They’re not bad people because they want that, but they’re still stuck. The minute you go a little bit better they like you. They’re like, “That’s good for you.” The minute you start jumping, they hate you. All of a sudden, the world turns on you. As success continues to happen, in Australia they call it tall poppy, in the Roman days, when the poppy trees would grow too tall, they’d cut them down to equal. When you’re starting to be successful whether that’s getting clean, whether that’s getting a great job, whether that’s going to church, things that are important to you, some people look at you and they say, “You’ve changed.”

Yes, I did. You didn’t. You’re still living this life where it’s not adding up to anything. I was on a podcast with a guy that just sold for $2.5 billion. He goes, “I wrote down 187 things that make me extremely happy. The vast majority of those things were free. This world is obsessed with money. Giving my daughter a hug and telling her how great she’s doing. Going to get an ice cream cone with my wife.” This list he made, it was pretty comprehensive and he said, “These really bring me joy.”

Do you ever take the time to make that list and say, “These things mean a lot to me?” Going to Hawaii on a vacation costs money. Some of these things do cost money. Unfortunately, we live in a society where money is praised and money, it’s fun tickets. I’m not going to pretend it’s not important because I made it important in my life and it’s easy for me to sit on this high horse and say it’s not important but yet, this is all I strove for for two decades.

What Prompted Tommy To Step Away From Alcohol

Talk about alcohol, coping, and clarity. You shared that you stepped away from alcohol for a period while you were working on your health. What prompted that?

Ah, so I went and got a DEXA scan. A DEXA scan is the truest form of body fat. I’m sitting in the room with the guy that did it and he pointed to this chart on the wall. He goes, “You’re considered obese.” I was like, “Obese? I played football. I was always in really good shape,” he goes, “Your visceral fat, which is the deadly killer, it’s the fat around your organs, is caused from alcohol. You’re at 6%. You should be under 1%. That’s heart attacks, that’s strokes, that’s a lot of bad things.” I was embarrassed.

My cousin Rachel called me. She is a physical therapist. She got a Doctorate degree. She goes, “You know how much I love you. I’m one of your best friends. I’m going to be honest with you. The whole family’s super proud of what you accomplished, you’re writing books, you’re talking on stage, you’re doing really well, but why don’t you love you?” I said, “What are you talking about? I love me.” She goes, “Go in the mirror and take off your shirt and tell me what you see.”

I did that and I looked and tears came out of my eyes because I was able to get out of the shower and just say, “I’m busy. I got too much going on. It’s hard to get to the gym, it’s hard to eat right. I’m traveling all the time. I’m on planes, I’m at hotels.” It was a self-realization that I could do better. A lot of people look up to me and I can never talk from a stage talking down to people if I’m not going to live it myself. That’s when I got to 8% body fat. Now I’m working on getting back. The two torn ligaments in my ankle didn’t help, but now I’m back, baby.

What changed mentally when alcohol wasn’t part of the picture?

Number one, I just had more energy. My brain was just on. My brother-in-law was like, “When you were on before your ankle, I never seen anybody like what you were doing. You had energy, you remembered everything, you always smiled, you were just all there. When you were in meetings, you were on camera, you were focused.”

Everybody recognized it. What I didn’t anticipate was so many people now changing their habits not because I told them to but because I was living. They were like, “This dude works just as much as I do yet he did it. He removed the excuses.” I had a buddy of mine, Jason Paine, the dude’s got an eight pack now and I could show you guys some before and after pictures but he’s like, “When I came to your event, I just decided no more bullshit. No more, ‘I’m going to start after the wedding. I want to start after this. I’ll get going here,’” but the accountability and who’s going to hold you accountable is the difference maker.

What do you do now when stress spikes and you don’t want to blow off steam in unhealthy ways?

Working out helps a lot. Working out, these long walks help. The fact is most stress is caused from indecision. That’s not making a decision, a lot of people are like, “I just wish,” and they got these choices. I run towards failure. I’m ready-fire-aim. A lot of people are sitting there trying to figure out how to load the gun. I missed the target 100 times. Now I’m hitting the bulls-eye every time.

Most stress is caused by indecision. Share on X

At our business and our culture in our family, if you fall down you get back up and you keep going. I tend to fall forward. Many people are like, “I’m just not sure if I want to do that yet.” They live in this land of procrastination and indecision for years, sometimes decades, rather than just get started. I think that’s why a lot of people stress out.

Bills are tough but I was just one of those guys. I was a busboy at Cheesecake Factory making $5 an hour. My first job was washing dishes when I was twelve. I shoveled snow before that. I was bartending, I was flipping cars, flipping Total Gyms and Bowflexes. I’ve always had four jobs until I started the business. I had a landscaping company that I was bringing in $30,000 a month and I got rid of that.

I always knew don’t spend more than you make. I was always good at that and I always paid myself first. That’s one of the smartest things I ever did. I set up a several bank accounts. When my checks hit my bank account other than tips, they get spread out so my Roth IRA got maxed out when I was twenty. I just said, “That’s not my money, I’m not going to use it.”

In this world we live in, they don’t teach you about money, but money is important. Money is not the root of all evil, by the way. The love of money is the root of all evil. This theory is you pay yourself first and let compound interest, Einstein said the largest thing in the universe is compound interest. When it’s debt and credit cards and you buy stupid shit, it’s working so hard against you.

I took my grandma’s car she gave it to me in 2000, it was a ‘96 Grand Am. I did a payday loan/the title to get back to Michigan. It was 26% interest. It took me two years to pay it off. Don’t spend money you don’t have. Some people will say yes, if you have kids and they need stuff. I get that it’s different but I see a lot of people keeping up with the Joneses. They’re not paying themselves first.

They think they deserve it. You don’t deserve shit. Nobody deserves anything. The government doesn’t deserve to pay you everything because you’re an American. This idea that everybody owes me, woe me. I know those people. I know them very well and they’re in the same spot they were ten years ago, instead of saying, “I’m the one that’s going to go make this happen.”

Life Decisions That Held Tommy Back

Going back to indecision, I like talking about indecision because it’s like you turn right you turn left, it doesn’t really matter as long as you make a decision. If you make a decision, you’re moving forward. What are some of the decisions that have held you back?

At 42, no kids, never been married. I was married to work. I’m just going to be an old-ass dad. There was a lot of sacrifices. I’m happy. One of my main goals, like what do I want on my casket? I want to be the best effing dad that ever lived. That’s probably the most important thing. What comes with that is husband.

I want to be the most curious guy but I would say a lot of the stuff suffered. I got a lot of buddies that are like, “When are you going to come on this trip?” A couple of my best friends from Michigan are in my backyard about a year ago. I showed them my schedule, I showed them why I can’t make certain things and why I make certain sacrifices.

He goes, “Tommy, F that, dude. I would never want to live that life.” I go, “I know. I’ve seen where you live in Michigan and I see your life.” I wasn’t meaning to be a dick to him but I go, “You will never have the sacrifices it takes.” There’s the opposite spectrum where everything’s a sacrifice so now I’m going on trips, now I’m having a lot of fun.

We’re building a house in Idaho. I put the work in let the compound interest do its job so now I’m putting a lot of time into relationships. If I think about it, when I was a busboy, working at Cheesecake Factory and Melting Pot and P.F. Chang’s, I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of friendships there. I really do like to work. I really like to be useful with my time. If there’s somebody I could hire that’s smarter that could get me to the finish line quicker, I’ll do that all day.

The Most Surprising Thing About Sobriety

Going back to alcohol, what was the biggest thing that surprised you when you removed alcohol from your life?

I wasn’t really a day drinker. I was like a binge drinker. I’d feel so good on Fridays like ready to conquer the world and then I’m like, “Let’s go drink. Let’s go party.” It wasn’t like I go just to the bar and start doing shots but we’d go to a nice dinner and I’d have a few martinis and then I’d go home and have several beers or whatever.

This euphoria feeling, it could last a lot longer right past that hangover that I had every weekend. I hate the people that say, “You’re not getting any younger you’re not who you used to be.” I hate that because I still feel young but I will tell you the hangover started kicking my ass a little bit harder as I got a little bit older.

What I’ve really made a priority is sleep. I’m getting at least 8 hours, sometimes 9. I hate those people that are like, “I only get four hours and I do fine.” I’m like, “Yeah, but there’s study after study that said that’s not healthy, it’s bad for your body, it’s bad for your brain.” I prioritize sleep. That’s another thing I did when I stopped drinking. I think that’s important.

I’d say one of my priorities as well is sleep. It hasn’t always been and I used to be good on 5 or 6 hours and now I’m like you, I try to get 8 or 9 hours.

It’s the way to do it. There’s a lot of things you could do that are simple things. I think it’s less than 3% of the population in the world will actually sprint hardcore after the age of 40. When you could, just do these little things. I’ll tell you this, it sucks. I got this thing called the assault bike and you get going on that thing for three minutes as fast as you could you get off and you’re a little bit winded but for the next 3 hours you’re like, “I could freaking conquer the world.”

You start getting these endorphins and serotonin and all these different things from other places. It feels amazing. When you wake up and you feel good, there are days that you’re hungover you get up and you’re eating shitty and then that bad food is like a weight on top of it. By the way, I have nobody to ridicule in this room or anywhere else. I understand it. I just feel like I don’t need it.

What you’re talking about, it doesn’t matter how you feel it matters what you do. I know that if I do a cold plunge, I’m going to feel better on the other side. I know if I exercise, I know if I go for a hike, I’m going to feel better on the other side. That’s why we drink. We drink to numb, we drink to feel good. We do drugs to feel good. If we can find some other things that are going to make us feel good on the other side then that would be one of the goals, in my opinion.

There are a lot of other things, it’s just hard to figure them out. I was with Cameron Herold and he said, “What do you like to do outside of work?” I told him I loved to work and he goes, “That’s bullshit.” He’ll call you out he’ll say, “When you were fourteen, what’d you love to do? You got to have fun things that you love to do.” You got to figure out those things and get back into them again. If you could do that, you’re going to find a lot of happiness and there’s a lot of fun created and you just got to look at every day and say, “I had a great time was a good day was a great day and there’s a lot to be thankful for.”

I remember having a conversation with Cameron Herold and he talked about going for a walk or going for a hike and he’s like, “Not just to go and break records. You got to just go for a walk, smell the flowers, enjoy the air, enjoy the sun, enjoy the environment, laugh.” It’s like, “That’s a good point.”

I can get very agitated with simple things but what I’ve learned to say, take a deep breath and say, “I’m choosing to be happy.” Control what I can control. I’m very good at dealing with things now. I wouldn’t say I’d always been. I can’t change that. Woe is me, I can’t go backwards in time. When I screwed up my ankle it was a volleyball accident, my fiancée was like, “You’re an idiot, you’re so stupid. You shouldn’t have been playing,” because it was uneven ground in Colorado and I just had got out of another thing that with my ankle and I’m like, “I’m done with it. I’ll deal with it now. It’s over.”

I’m never going to say, “I wish that never happened,” because the history is over. It’s important what history’s taught us. I’m not going to go play volleyball on uneven ground ever again. It’s important to say, “This is where I’m at now and here’s what I’m going to do tomorrow.” I think a lot of people they live in the past. Everything about them is that divorce or the kids or the job or whatever happened and they just live in this realm of things that happened.

My mom and dad, it wasn’t the easiest marriage. They got divorced when I was pretty young. I didn’t get beat, I didn’t get molested, compared to some people that have been through the ringer. I met a lot of people through Joe, through the people that I work with that have literally said, “I can’t change that but I can deal with it and I can release it and I can forgive.”

I can forgive and it’s not easy. It’s not easy to forgive somebody but you to way to take back power is to forgive, it’s to get rid of those things because so no one else should have control over you or what happened to you. If something bad happened with mom or dad or grandpa or uncle Pete or whatever it is, you could let those things go and say, “I’m releasing this.”

It is not easy to forgive somebody, but it is the only way to take back your power. Share on X

It’s not easy. I’ve been through a lot of programs with these things that you got to confront them and some people need different ways they need coping mechanisms, some people use ketamine or ayahuasca and different things like that to just release these things. For me, it’s just been saying, “This is done. They’re not going to control me.” It’s in the deepest part of your brain. It’s the subconscious.

I’m reading Michael Singer’s latest book, Living Untethered. It’s a good one. I’m just thinking about all the things that have happened in the past. You can’t control those things, you can’t change those things and living in the past, I’m never going to feel good. I’m going to have this yucky feeling right here. Being able to release those things, releasing the things that I can’t control and the things that I can’t change. I can’t change the weather. Complaining about the weather is not going to make anything better.

I moved to Arizona outside of the summer. It’s a little hot here but it’s okay. Get up early. Make your bed. Those habits will change your life. These little habits about just little wins throughout the day. If you could start your day with a few wins, it’s amazing how much better your day will be.

Do you do gratitude list?

I’ve got a vision board and I try to say three things I’m grateful for every day but I don’t journal. That’s one of the things. What I have here, I’ve got my goals this year so I bought Jesse Itzler’s big-ass calendar it’s like $60 and it’s got the whole year on it on things that are a must for me. Time with mom, time with dad, time with my niece nephews. There are things that have to happen. I time block what the most important priorities are and then I’ve got a whole document here of my life at 45. What needs to happen to get to that level? What do I need to manifest? What things do I need to do? It goes through my six Fs, family and friends, faith, fun, future self, finance, and fitness. Every one of those are separate goals and I think that encompasses everything I need.

I think that you put something like that on paper, it’s like your subconscious mind is working. What do we have? 50,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day, 90% of them are subconscious and if I start putting things on paper and I start talking about things even without me knowing, those things start to happen.

Yeah, you’re right. If you could manifest it, reverse engineer it and say, “What would I need to do today?” Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen overnight. You got fat the last decade. It might take a few months to see results and I’m like, “I want results now. I want the shortcuts.” Consistency. If you brush your teeth for ten hours straight, you’re not going to have great teeth.

Just 2 minutes in the morning, 2 minutes after a meal, 2 minutes at night, you’ll have great teeth. It’s this consistent pattern and what happens is people start seeing the changes and it keeps you going. People that have a serious problem, that’s why AA works so well is there’s accountability there. What you don’t realize at certain levels of alcoholism and drugs is the people it’s tearing apart around you.

Understanding what trauma caused you to get into addiction is the first step to overcoming it. Share on X

It’s very selfish but I understand. I’ve never done heroin but I know that one is like you’re going to steal from your grandma you’re going to sell her house. It’s not even you. Your brain is just being held captive and so I don’t want to blame the drugs or you. You just got to find a way out and make sure you never go back.

One of the things you said made me think about it’s like we want change right now. We want to stop drinking and I see people that get sober and after 30 days, they start making amends and they want everybody to forgive them. It’s like it doesn’t happen that quickly. It’s like, “I don’t understand. I’ve changed. I’m sober now, but my family still doesn’t want to accept me.”

It’s like with AA. You go to a meeting every day. You do a gratitude list. The very small, incremental change is what is going to change someone’s life. It’s just like an airplane. If an airplane takes off and you’re headed towards New York, if you’re like 1 degree off, you’re going to end up in Florida or something like that.

It’s the showing up every single day and doing the next right thing and prayer and meditation and exercise and getting enough sleep. These are all the things. Also, doing things that are going to give us a dopamine boost and give us serotonin, the cold plunge, exercise, sleep, eating the right foods, these are all the things that are going to lead to a better life because at the end of the day, we just want to be happy.

I’m happy some parts of the day, not so happy some parts. I don’t like this, “I just want to be happy.” What does it even mean? I will say I want an abundant life full of rich relationships. I don’t want to say I’m overwhelmingly happy. I’ll say one thing that I was thinking about is most people overestimate what they can do in 1 year and underestimate what they can do in 5.

It takes patience and consistency and a little bit of discipline. I’d rather be more disciplined. Probably the number one characteristic is this idea of discipline. If you work on your discipline skills, that happens for me through accountability with other people. If you got good at those things, it’s amazing what you can accomplish.

There are five love languages and understanding how you want to interpret love and let people know around you. I’m probably more of words of affirmation. I’m not I am a hugger but not really like certain people you need to show the there’s gifts. I think my fiancée’s more of a gifting person. Yeah, it’s interesting. If you study trauma, everybody has trauma in their life. For someone that grew up in a very good household, it could be their cat died. That trauma could be worse than watching somebody get killed. It’s just how do you deal with trauma. Some people I grew up in Detroit, not super far from Eight Mile and there’s certain things that I see and you build this tolerance for it.

There’s a lot I’ve learned at Joe Polish’s group just talking about trauma and forgiveness. Were you there with Mary? I forget her last name but she had been raped as a child and she went to the all the prisons and all the rapists in this room and she told the guards to leave and she stayed there alone with them. She’d hug them all and say, “I forgive you.” I don’t understand where she was coming from or how that was possible, but understanding what trauma caused us to go in this direction and trying to figure out the root of that and trying to become one with it and just overcome that.

How To Find The Right Accountability Partners

Speaking to accountability, what’s one thing that someone can do to start creating accountability in their life?

If you want to be a bad person, maybe a bad husband that’s not loyal to your wife, you might find a guy that likes to go to the strip club and you go to the strip club every night. If you wanted to be really good and you chose faith being number one in your life, you’d probably find somebody at the church that’s super dedicated that’s going a couple nights a week that’s having daily prayers and you’ll meet them. Hopefully it’s in person so I like to say people like neighbors, somebody you could get to within a five-minute walk.

What I did is I called all the neighbors that I really like and I say, “Will you do the cold plunge with me once a week?” If you got 5 of them, you’re knocking 5 days out. “Will you go with a walk with me for 45 minutes once a week?” There’s a little variety there. I said, “One thing. If you’re going to do this, you can’t cancel.” I know life happens and travel happens but if we say we’re going to do this, let’s lock in each week and each month. We can work around each other’s schedule but just don’t cancel on me last minute. If you do, you’re replaced. It’s not that we’re not friends. It’s no big deal. I still hold you at the highest regard but I’m going to tell you right now that I’m not looking for people that are just pushovers.

Find someone that you can be accountable with.

Why? What’s the goal? For me, walking is a stress relief. It’s really healthy. It’s getting me to my fitness goals. There’s a lot of things that that does for me. It allows me to reflect, which is a rare thing. People don’t reflect enough. I choose to walk a lot. I’ll do a couple walks on my own but not the long walk. I like to go with people on that. I do sometimes by myself. I don’t even bring headphones. I literally just walk and think.

This has been a great conversation so far and I want to hand it out open it up to you guys. Do you guys have any questions for Tommy, anything that he said that’s resonated with you that want you want to comment on?

How To Build Trust When Delegating To Your Team

Yeah, I have a question on delegation. I know that’s a big difficult one. How do you learn that delegation? How do you give over responsibility to people and trust that they’re going to take care of it? I know one that I struggle with is I always want to take everything on myself because at the end of the day, I’m responsible for it, I’m accountable for it. How do you get that delegation trust and turn it over to somebody?

I hired a consultant in 2017, his name’s Al Levy. He said, “Most people don’t delegate. They dump.” He gave me eight things. “Here’s what needs to get done. Here’s why it needs to get done. Here’s the resources you have to get it done. Here’s the timeline, here’s what you get when you get it done.” Now we fill out these forms and then the person you’re assigning it to you both sign it. What’ll happen when you sign your old John Hancock is, “What am I signing here?” It’s just like the psychology of it. You’re saying that you’re going to get it done and there’s what’s in it for you and there’s also if you don’t hit it on this timeline. We’ll talk through it and then we’ll make sure they understand. Now they got to repeat back to me exactly what’s expected.

Most people say, “Can you go do this,” and then they do it completely wrong like it’s not done properly. What if I said to my assistant, “Book me a ticket to Michigan?” She could have me on three layovers, she could pick Frontier Airlines and I got 2 bags and I’m paying $200 a bag. There needs to be more direction involved in it. They got to make sure that they understand what you’re delegating.

Set expectation. Follow up with it.

Other questions?

I’m sorry. Can I just clarify, are you sober or not?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. I wasn’t sure. I just wanted to ask.

I’m not sober for life. I’m not saying I’m never going to drink again. I’m not in a program or anything but I right now, I’m on a fitness journey.

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you.

I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad thing in this room.

How To Use Your Influence To Give Back To Society

Forgive me. I walked out of the room when you started talking about stipends because that really irked me a little bit. Maybe you covered this but I didn’t hear it. What are you doing for your community? There’s a lot of impoverished people that can’t rise above. There’s a lot of restrictions on how people operate in the society. What are you doing to give back to people that don’t have the advantage of being a White male with your privilege?

We just donated $1 million to the church because that’s something I could get behind. We do every single thing from Make-A-Wish to Wounded Warrior. I volunteer time we do. We painted the YMCA. We do help hungry children. I would say the majority of our staff at our office is female. There are four women technicians in the field and we’d hire every single one of them. They just don’t apply.

I think it’s important that Black, White, Cuban, Asian, male or female, old or young, we’re going to give as much as we possibly can. The problem when it’s given through the government is it goes to bureaucracy and we can see what’s going on with a lot of these programs. They don’t make it to the end user. That’s why I like giving straight to the source. There’s certain nonprofits that literally the CEO makes $5 million.

I like to give straight to people. For Thanksgiving, we handed out 200 turkeys. I was with my group of people that did that for Christmas. We bought two truckloads of gifts for kids because I think every kid should have a gift for Christmas. We’re always looking for great causes. Right now, we give millions and millions of dollars to charity and to good great causes. I think we’re just getting started with that. That’s what I meant with die with zero. Don’t hoard all the money learn to see what happens with the money. I think a lot of people they don’t even get to enjoy what impact they have in the world.

Does that answer your question?

I think that people need mentors and things of that nature.

The Genius Youth, I’m volunteering with a couple. They haven’t assigned me any kids yet but I want to help out as many kids as I possibly can. It’s very hard, I would say, because I also have 1,300 people depending on me. I think some people give to charity to get on the news. I’d rather look at the single mom with bald tires trying to pay for five kids and make sure that everybody in my own backyard is winning first.

I’m not trying to do these publicity stunts. I want to make sure that people that depend on me the most I’m there for. Some of these, male or female, they didn’t have a dad growing up. They never were taught how to read and those are the people I want to work with the most, the people that I’m responsible to be a good mentor for.

Keith, Jackie, do you guys have questions?

The Right Way To Conduct a Feedback Loop

I got one for you. What you were saying about feedback was I think pretty powerful. Good feedback is a call up not a call out. I was wondering if you received any feedback recently that could talk to that a little bit.

I’m the type of person that I just say tell me all the bad news. Tell me what I need to work on. I was on a mentoring call. He’s mentoring me. He said, “You need to learn how to frame better.” He’s just walking through all the things that I could be better at. There’s a great book called Firm Feedback in a Fragile World. There’s another great book called Fierce Conversations.

The most people do not want to be given the feedback because they’re going to get very defensive. When I do it, I say this comes with love. I don’t want to be very open but it’s very hard because now we got these generational gaps. Baby Boomers just like to work. They were going to stay at their job for 30 years. They didn’t enjoy it.

I’m right at the edge of Millennial. I want to have a stake. I want to know what is this going to do for me? How are you going to grow me? By the way, I love every generation. They all have so many good things but they communicate differently. My niece and nephews, they’re like Gen X, Gen Z. They are machines. They know ChatGPT and all these different Gemini and they could build websites with a click of a button.

It’s understanding the power that they have but feedback is difficult and hard to hear but when it’s done correctly and it comes from a place of love, it’ll be the best thing possible because nobody should be walking on eggshells wondering if I’m doing great or not. What do I need to work on and why don’t you be transparent with me and just let me know how I could do better because I want to do better?

You’re not doing anybody favors by not giving them feedback. I’m not a dad yet. I’m not a parent yet but I’m not going to read books on parenting. I’m going to look at the kids that I see are well-behaved, that respect and love their parents and that love life and I’m going to ask those parents because success leaves clues everywhere.

What if I told you if you wanted to get to the top of Google or learn how to be an influencer or learn how to do a reseller through TikTok, all you got to do is pick up the phone or not fear rejection. Someone’s going to say yes. I’ve been very fortunate that people let me in without knowing me, gave me all the answers I needed and never asked for anything in return. One thing that I’ll tell you guys is don’t be afraid of rejection because you’d be surprised how many people will help out just by asking.

Thanks.

Speaking to hard conversations, I think one of the most powerful things that I’ve learned in sobriety is one, how to have hard conversations and two, I always start with gratitude. You started to speak to that. It’s how you deliver the news or the feedback. Whether it’s my girlfriend, whether it’s an employee, whether it’s a friend, I always start with gratitude.

“I love you. I love our relationship. I want to continue building our relationship.” What I noticed is XYZ. For me, that’s always worked really well. Even in breakup conversations, it’s always like, “I’m so grateful for this opportunity. I’m so grateful for our relationship and this is not a good fit,” has worked really well for me.

I’m no expert in personal relationships by any means but I would say with the people I work with, I like to set the expectations upfront before you want to work. Are you willing to better your best? What’s your big why behind this? What are you doing it for? What I want to hear is, “I’m ready to go to the next level. I want to win. I want to participate. I’m a good team player.” I’ll always remember and write these down. We write down their big goals, big hairy audacious goals. We’ve got a full-time dream manager. Our job is to help people on our team start dreaming big again and removing all of the things that are interfering with their dreams, especially the things that they can’t control.

Any other questions?

Providing Training Programs For Technicians

I think it’s important in the company that when you’re giving back to bring people up in the training. Do you guys have a good training program in the company where you’re taking a technician and building them up within your industry?

Yeah, the 95% of our technicians never were in the field before. We’ve got a pretty massive training center. I don’t care if you’re good at sales, I just care that you smile. You make eye contact. When you talk, you mean it. If you say you’re going to do something you keep your word you respect things. I think it’s hard to teach people to like when I walk up to a house, I’m going to say, “Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much.”

That’s something I just look for. Call it the old Southern charm or something, but just being very respectful of saying, “We’re glad we earn your business today. We know you have a choice out there. We want to do the job right, make sure your door is safe, and we want to be your garage door company for life and we really appreciate it.” It doesn’t cost anything to smile. Very few people do it these days.

We practice in the training center in front of mirrors, smiling and talking. It’s definitely not easy and it doesn’t cost anything. Our job is to change everything if they want to change. These things of being well-mannered and being nice to people and finding the best in people is free. They can use it outside of work.

How To Break An Unhealthy And Unproductive Pattern

If someone here is trying to break a pattern that looks productive but isn’t healthy, where should they start?

I think we’ve talked about it just admitting it’s a problem and then finding some accountability. As I said, success leaves clues. Find somebody who you really love. Not somebody famous or an actor or somebody like a TikTok influencer but find somebody you know, that you respect and just say, “Will you help me? I really appreciate it.” My favorite three letters is A S K. Ask. My dad and my grandfather were not the type of people that would go in the wrong direction two hours because they didn’t want to ask for help. I just learned from a long time ago is if they say no, I’m no worse off. A lot of times they say yes.

Is there is there anything I missed? Anything I should have asked you that I didn’t?

I just say listen, life’s not easy. We all have our ups and downs. Things don’t always go our way. If you could identify the things that really mean a lot to you and the make you happy, do it. My mom text me. I don’t ask her to text me. I get about 3 to 4 text messages, sometimes they’re voice memos, of just how much she loves me and that she’ll do anything for me and that I’m very important to her.

I don’t ask for that. I don’t need that. I would say if you guys get an opportunity today, I’m sure you have somebody you love in your life. Maybe there’s a parent or an aunt or a family friend or somebody you grew up with. Maybe send out a love bomb. You could make it short and sweet just say, “I was thinking about you. You mean a lot to me. I probably don’t tell you that enough.” Tomorrow’s not promised so every chance you could to tell somebody how much you care about them, it’ll make their day better. It’ll make them smile. I do believe it makes a world a better place. If you could do that, just one text, one voice memo, that would make my day better if you did that.

It’ll make your day better too.

I leave little Post-It notes on people’s computers like, “I was thinking about you. I really appreciate you very much and you’re a great asset to me in this business.” That’s it. I bought a couple gift cards for a few women in the company and I said, “I see how hard you’re working and it doesn’t go unnoticed. I want you to go have a steak dinner and you deserve it.”

I walked in two of the probably the backbone of the company, Leanne and Joan’s office, and there were no pictures of their family. I got these pictures. I was able to get a hold of their significant others and get the pictures blown up so I’m putting the pictures of their family in there. Just because that’s their happy space.

Get In Touch With Tommy

Where can people find you, connect with you, learn more about you, learn more about your business, your podcast?

TommyMello.com has all my social media and everything.

All right, that’s all the time we have.

I appreciate you guys. I know it sometimes isn’t fun, so thanks for being in here and I wish you guys all the best luck in the world.

All right, give it up for Tommy Mello.

Thanks, guys. Appreciate it very much.

 

Important Links

• Tommy Mello
• The Home Service Expert
• Who Not How
• Die with Zero
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• The 8th Habit
• Influence
• The One Thing
• To Kill a Mockingbird
• The E-Myth Revisited
• The Ultimate Sales Machine
• The Richest Man in Babylon
• Goosebumps
• Living Untethered
• Firm Feedback in a Fragile World
• Fierce Conversations

 

About Tommy Mello

Tommy Mello is an entrepreneur, speaker, and CEO best known as the founder of A1 Garage Door Service, a home service company he launched in 2007 and grew into a nationally recognized brand headquartered in Arizona, Arizona. Under his leadership, A1 Garage Door Service has expanded across dozens of markets and built a reputation for operational excellence, company culture, and customer service.

Tommy is also the host of The Home Service Expert Podcast, where he shares insights on leadership, business growth, marketing, systems, and personal development with entrepreneurs and operators in the home services industry. He is widely known for his candid approach to discussing the realities of scaling a business, including the pressure, long hours, and personal challenges that often come with high performance.

Beyond business, Tommy has spoken openly about the importance of mental health, lifestyle changes, and setting boundaries to avoid burnout. His perspective resonates with leaders and professionals navigating workaholism, stress, identity, and the pursuit of success without sacrificing well-being.

Tommy’s work focuses on sustainable growth, leadership development, and building businesses—and lives—that actually work long term.