Adam Torres and Ron Coury discuss overcoming challenges.
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Show Notes:
Embracing the roadblocks and overcoming challenges are necessary for business success. In this episode, Adam Torres interviewed Ron Coury, Best Selling Author of Tenacity: A Vegas Businessman Survives Brooklyn, the Marines, Corruption and Cancer to Achieve the American Dream: A True Life Story. Explore what it takes to succeed in business and Ron’s new book, Mission Matters: World’s Leading Entrepreneurs Reveal Their Top Tips To Success (Business Leaders Vol. 8, Edition 12).
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About Ron Coury
Ron Coury is a name that is well-known to longtime residents and members of the business community in Southern Nevada. A U.S. Marine, Coury has seen and done a lot in his 45 years in Las Vegas. Coury is an observational entrepreneur, a “niche finder,” in his words.
Ron has worked as a casino dealer, real estate agent, founder of a limousine service and a partner in bars, restaurants, major graphics and glass companies, along with several automobile dealerships in Nevada and California.
In the 1970s and ’80s, visionaries willing to go for it found Las Vegas to be a prime setting for fulfilling their entrepreneurial aspirations. Ron, year after year, pulled together concepts with his partners, identified funding and implementation, and enjoyed riding the wildest fun-filled roller coaster of business and life.
From growing up on the streets of Brooklyn in the ’60s and early ’70s to surviving the good-ole-boy and Wild-West business and political climate of old school Las Vegas, Coury’s memoir “Tenacity” is a testament to how his courage and perseverance enabled him to prevail against unethical, illegal and seemingly insurmountable obstacles along the path toward achieving his goals and dreams. Coury also chronicles his biggest challenge of all, beating esophageal cancer against the longest of odds.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to mission matters.com and click on Become a Guest to Apply. All right, so I am a thrilled to welcome back Ron Cory, who is the bestselling author of.
Tenacity, but Ron is so much more, I mean, he’s, he’s an entrepreneur, a businessman. He’s a, a veteran long accomplished career. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Ron and, and really, and really digging into the book Tenacity and then also the book that we co-authored together. He definitely brought some great content and Ron’s Al also always a great guest bringing knowledge on the show.
So first off, Ron, I just wanna say welcome back to the show. Thank you so much, Adam. It’s my honor and privilege to be here with you. Oh man. So I’ve, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our previous episodes and times working with each other, and I’m sure this will be the same, but you, you know, the drill.
We’ll start this episode the way that we start them all with what we like to call our mission matters minute. So, Ron, we at Mission Matters, we amplify stories for entrepreneurs, executives, and experts. That’s our mission. Ron, what mission matters to you? I think it’s a twofold mission on, in my life. I, I try to seek happiness and help support my family and friends in every way I can.
Inspirationally and by example and, and twofold. I like to share with people that don’t know me, that I’ve, I feel very lucky to have, achieve, achieve the level of success I did in business coming outta the Marine Corps. Relocating across the country from New York where I grew up to Las Vegas, where, where I ultimately chose to reside and to pursue various businesses, which started with one on a wing and a prayer, and grew to 20 total businesses and, and share with people a very simple axiom.
You never hit the ball if you don’t swing the bat. Yeah, that’s great. And I, I lose, I lose count. That’s why I said, when I said you’re an entrepreneur, I mean, you have, you’ve had a long career and you’ve launched a lot of businesses. So great to have you on. And I think just to get us, just to get us kicked off here, I don’t wanna assume that maybe some of our our newer audience caught some of our previous work.
So maybe just start off with a little bit more, a little bit deeper into your background, really as an entrepreneur and how you got started in business. Sure. I, I was a teenager in Brooklyn, New York. Mm-hmm. And as a result of the draft, I opted to enlist in the Marine Corps rather than be drafted into a random one of the services that the selective service board would dictate.
I selected the Marine Corps because I was looking to be challenged. I was looking for the, Best training I could get because back in the early seventies, anyone who went into the military was going to Vietnam. So I felt the best training would enhance my likelihood of survival. Hmm. As it turns out, during my 90 days of bootcamp and 120 days of advanced infantry training, the president at the time announced deescalation and troops were no longer gonna be sent to Vietnam.
Instead, they would be withdrawn. So instead of going to war, I went to Camp Pendleton and Barstow, California, which is how I found Vegas. And what in 1973 was a very small town. I felt it was a town of great opportunity, so I selected Las Vegas as where I’d wanna live when my military term of service ended.
And in Las Vegas, I became a casino dealer. Yeah. Mainly because I had no training to be a lawyer, doctor, or any professional aspect of a career, and I was good with numbers. I was ambidextrous good with my hands. So becoming first the blackjack dealer and then roulette dealer, bacarra dealer and craps dealer became my pursuit for seven years, and as a result of enjoying the experience of being in the gaming industry.
I ended up wanting to own my own business mm-hmm. And seek my own future where if I worked hard, made good decisions, I didn’t just get a salary, I could reap the rewards mm-hmm. Of my good choices in life. And as I explored different things, I worked as a realtor for several years mm-hmm. And exploring businesses and the acquisition of residential properties for my clients and for myself.
I decided to go into the tavern business. Yeah, the tavern business ended up growing exponentially because a gentleman I grew to know named Sai Red left a small company named Fortune Coin when he invented video poker, believe it or not, interactive Gaming. And the people he worked for at a slot machine company laughed at ’em and said, you know, gamblers.
They, they just wanna pull a handle line up sevens, they don’t want to have to think. The thinkers are going over to the blackjack table and the dice. Yeah. So he opened his own company, fortune Coin, which became I G T International Game Technology. Wow. The portal puzzle. Be the largest manufacturer of slot machines in the world today.
And as a result going into the tavern business when a couple of years after. I first got into that business, he invented video poker, and instead of selling drinks and and chicken wings to generate revenue, we became gaming parlors. Yeah. People would go to their neighborhood, tavern to gamble, enjoy cocktails in a social environment.
Yeah. And the revenues that that generated were astounding. And, and so that’s how I started out in business. But I, I grew antsy. I wanted more challenges. Mm-hmm. So as a result, I, I would explore my community, try to determine a niche that wasn’t being filled, or I thought I could fill it better. And, and that drew me from, from an initial growth of four gaming taverns into the limousine business, the printing business, the car dealership business.
Yeah. Just let him a few. So I think what, what’s super interesting to me about your background too, when you say something like video gaming, so some, for some of the people that are watching this right now, they’re like, wait a minute, this didn’t like, like of course like new technologies and you, as you said, getting kind of antsy and figuring out different ways to add value.
Really you’re looking at ways add valued your community and other people’s lives, which is, you know, my opinion at the core of business. So, you know, looking at, I know, I know you stay kind of I know that somebody like yourself doesn’t stay still. So I’m, I’m just curious, what do you see just in general that comes across your deck?
It could be technology, it could be business ideas, it could be otherwise, but what do you see that kind of excites you right now in the market? Like what do you, what do you see in general, you know, having done so many different things that, that of course my book will describe to your viewers, but. I had to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.
I mean, believe it or not, I’m, I’m, I’m 71 years old and I don’t want to be retired. I wanna find new challenges, and as I explore, I believe that, Ron, that’s why I asked you the question. I I don’t, I know you don’t stay still. Go ahead, please. I, I chose, here’s what I chose to do. I put a couple of years of effort into writing my autobiography.
Yes. Got it. Got it out. Became an Amazon number one bestseller in the first year It was out, so looking for a new way to market it. I looked for a new voice because audio books were so popular. Yeah. And I actually have hired two different people. My first effort was with Michael Madson, the actor from Donny Brasco, and after I felt like we explored that as much as we could for fans of his.
That I, I, I’m, I’m inspired by your story. Of kind of paying it forward through the knowledge. Like, so for example, when you were creating Tenacity, there’s a lot of different things you could have done with your time Of course. And there still is. And the fact that you spend time to the autobiography and like the stories and the things that you told within the book really is to pay it forward and to help others.
Like what’s your, what’s your comments or any, or any comments on like why people should go out there and tell their story? Because I know, well, at least in my. Experience whenever I’ve seen somebody kind of on, you know, before they do a book, they have an idea about it, but then after it’s out, after they get the feedback, that’s usually a whole different story.
Like, so now that you’re on the other side as published and out there like what, what’s been your experience? Well, I hope to motivate and inspire others to reach their maximum capacity and, and take advantage of opportunity they may not realize is out there. I encounter so many people that think. In talking to me, they may find a secret to success or mm-hmm.
Or, or find a way to overcome what they see as an obstacle in their life mm-hmm. To get out of their humdrum job and do something. Mm-hmm. And, and as I said earlier, you’ll never hit the ball if you don’t swing the bat. So in my case, going back to your first question, I didn’t have the money to purchase a tavern, but I was a realtor and a dealer by night.
Yeah, I sold a property for a fellow dealer who, who had no, in no plans for the money that he would receive as a result of the sale of this property. Yeah. And, and as it turns out the money that he was receiving from the proceeds of the sale was very close to what a tavern owner that I interviewed.
As on behalf of a potential client wanting to buy a bar. He was my, he was actually the boss of my blackjack pit where I dealt. Yeah. He wanted to buy a bar for his daughter to manage. She was a bartender. Mm-hmm. And for him to invest in. Mm-hmm. So I identify a tavern that I think is a good opportunity. The guy wanted 115,000 forward with 35,000 down.
I didn’t have that kind of money, but that never stopped me from exploring options. So lo and behold, as I’m contemplating how do I raise this money to buy this tavern and work for myself? Yeah, I bring Jose Martinez, his proceeds check from the sale of his duplex. And it’s $35,000. Come on. I knew that if fate was ever ringing a bell, there it was, but once again, you don’t find out what opportunity exists if you don’t pursue it.
Mm-hmm. So I brought Jose his proceeds check, which was my practice as a realtor, not have go, go get it or wait for it to come in the mail. I would deliver it to ’em, shake their hand, congratulate them on the completion Yeah. Of the sale of their property. And as I did, and Jose was a fellow roulette dealer with me at the Tropicana.
Wow. He, he migrated here from Cuba after the Castro takeover and, and became a dealer, which is what he did in Cuba. Mm-hmm. And we became friends. So I bring him his check and I asked him what is, what is his intention with the proceeds? And he said, I don’t know. I guess I’ll put it in a bank. Yeah. And I said, Jose, a bank’s gonna give you 5% if you loan it to me, I’ll give you 12.
And he said, he said, you know what I really have faith in you. He said, when all the dealers, when we have our 20 minute break, every hour, they go down and play gin rummy or tonk, and you go down and read a book. You’re studying for a test, you’re always doing something. Yeah. He said, I believe in you. I think you’re gonna do something.
And, and I’m, I’m gonna loan you this money and, and I’m gonna sit back and watch and see what you do. And of course, you know, he said, I’m happy to get a better return on my investment in a passive form of return. He wasn’t looking to do anything like I was looking to do. Yeah. And, and he signed the check over to me on the spot.
Yeah. And I said, Jose, I’m gonna go to an escrow company, get a trustee on my home, you know, provide some security for you. And he said, Ron, if I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t even be talking to you. He signed the check over on the spot. I did the paperwork anyway in case, God forbid I got hit by a car. I wanted my estate to make sure he got paid back.
Mm-hmm. But he loaned me the money. I ran down and, and, and made the deal for the tavern. My buddy from the Marine Corps, Dan Hughes and I had moved to Vegas together at the end of our service. Mm-hmm. And I offered Dan a percentage of it. To, to own it with me. We had done everything together through the Marine Corps and after.
Yeah. Right. So as partners we purchased the bar. I would run it. He kept his business as a, as a printer of SL machine glass. Mm-hmm. And and the first tavern we were able to grow. To four, four total taverns Wow. Gaming properties, restaurants, and three other businesses Before I was looking to do something more and Dan wasn’t.
Dan was pursuing retirement. Mm-hmm. And I, I found a great friend and business partner in Downtown Brew, and we got into the automobile dealership business together. Wow. And my growth continued from there. Man, what a story. And so in, in the book that we published together, so the title of your work was Eem, embrace the Roadblocks, don’t Give Up Before.
And then you wrote a number, a number of different topics. So don’t give up before you begin. Don’t play the the political or play the political game. Listen more, find the right people. And like this story you just told me, I didn’t know that one about, about how the. First deal was done. I didn’t catch that one.
That’s a, that’s a good one because I, I feel like it’s so, it’s so easy for us, myself included, so I’m not, I’ll pick on myself here to look at somebody and where they’re at or what they’ve done and to be like, oh, you know, like they, you don’t, you don’t always know the story behind how they got there, like that first deal.
And I mean that the, the nuances of that first deal when you talk about a sign like. So nobody, you know, nobody gave you that. You weren’t, you didn’t inherit that. It wasn’t like given to you that first deal and then the amount of time and effort I know. It is beyond the context of this interview, but I mean, like to go from one to four, like the countless stories, the hours that you spent to make that happen, because you also didn’t at that point, I mean, you, you’ve been in the business, but you hadn’t run your own tavern at that point, so it’s still different.
You’ve been in gaming. You’ve been in hospitality, but correct me if I’m wrong, you didn’t, you haven’t run a tavern or anything like that at that. No, I was, I was a casino dealer. Yeah, that’s, You know, I, I embrace challenge. Yeah. I, I guess that’s the best way to state it. And, and I try to not be dissuaded by obstacles.
Mm-hmm. So, so when a tavern became available and I didn’t have the money, I just needed to find a way to overcome the obstacle. Yeah. And in that time of my life, Jose, and that $35,000 was the way to do it. Now, of course, I had a note. I had to make the tavern successful. Of course, back in the day when you had to sell drinks, We didn’t, that bar didn’t even have a kitchen at the time.
Dan and I put a kitchen in to sell food and then once again, observe, embrace the challenge. Overcome it. Yeah. And, and fix the problem. So I watched customers come in for a couple of drinks and leave ’cause they were hungry. Mm-hmm. And I said, Dan, we got people. They, we, our marketing work, they, we got them to come to our place and we’re losing them ’cause they’re hungry.
So we didn’t have the, the, the money to build a kitchen. We were living off the bar receipts. Yeah. Supporting the families. We were growing. So I had an aunt in Pennsylvania who. I asked if she would loan me the money for a competitive rate of interest. Better than she was earning. Yeah. Yeah. She loaned me $15,000 and we put a small kitchen in that I, I wasn’t a cook, but I could deep fry chicken wings and french fries.
Yeah. And make it salad. So those were the first items on, on our menu. We charbroiled burgers, deep fried chicken wings and chicken fingers and made fresh salads. Yeah. And I no longer lost my businesses to people that. That were leaving to go get food now. They stayed even longer. They gambled longer. They drank longer.
And, and that bar we were able to parlay it into more you know, talk about challenges. When I, when I identified that the limousine service in Las Vegas was truly horrible. Mm-hmm. You know, they’re believe it or not, this boom town, people consider Yeah. The town only had six stretch limousines. Among the two existing limousine companies.
Wow. Mostly they were formal limousines, which are just slightly stretched to run people from the airport to the hotel. Mm-hmm. So I thought there was a market in the truly specialized stretch business. Yeah. And, and their drivers, my competitor’s drivers were in a space baseball jacket and baseball cap. I put drivers in tuxedos.
I bought only stretch limousines. I stocked the bar. Yeah, these, these other limos had bars, but it was just a bunch of wood. They didn’t even put bottled water on the bar. So we, we raised the bar by doing things different and presidential limousines grew to astounding heights. And when the time came that my competitor wanted to meet me, I didn’t know why, but he wanted to buy me out.
Wow. So we negotiated a price. And, and I parlayed that into doing more taverns that we could buy the land and build our own. Building a dream. Dan and I always had. Wow. And yeah, so, and then we had a car wash, by the way, when we had the limousine company. We were getting, went back when car washes cost 2 99 to do mm-hmm.
Tori roll through the car wash. Mm-hmm. They would charge us $15 and I would get my, at the time we started with four cars. I’d wash ’em two or three times a day. Think about how much that total. Yeah. In a day’s business, it was a big percentage of our rental revenue. Mm-hmm. So I identified a car wash that wasn’t doing well.
Approached the people that owned it who were based in Los Angeles and struck a deal to buy the car wash. Now we could roll our limos through anytime we wanted. ’cause I mean, it recirculates the water. There’s no added cost. Yeah. The, the water, the guys on the line and the dryers, we were already paying them.
We were doing a couple of hundred cars a day. So to roll my limos through limos through was a no-brainer. So my cars were, was spotless. My shop shoulder being tuxedoed could go to the multiple tavern locations we had around town, wherever their pickup was. Near and, and we kept bottled water and, and champagne at the bar.
They could fill the ice chest from my ice machines. Yeah. Which felt 500 pounds of ice. So to get a couple of shovel fulls of ice and fill the limos, yet another, no brainer. But it was a big deal in my competition, you know, go into the seven 11 to buy ice. They never did it. So the cars, their cars showed up with empty ice chests.
What’s that gonna do for the customer? Yeah, so we just raised the bar a little bit by offering services and a quality of service and vehicle and driver that was un unseen in Las Vegas and Presidential became incredibly popular and successful. So much though my competition bought me out and gave me the chance to build my own taverns in the vision, Dan and I had.
And, and pursue gaming, which is where big Money really was. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So one of the things, first off, that’s an amazing ecosystem and the way, and, and I know as Brick by Brick, I know when you didn’t, when you bought that first. You know, that first tavern or as you kind of, each piece that you build, you were solving a problem for you, for the community.
Figuring out like, that’s genius. Who you bought a carwash? ’cause you’re like, we’re spending way too much on this. Can I get, can I make money from that piece? Take, take that off of of what we’re spending, have a better quality service and like turn, maybe turn the carwash around and make it more profitable than it was all in the same.
So create an asset out of something else and kind of compound it. So Adam, Adam. Think, think about the, the customers that were driving on one of the most traveled streets of Las Vegas would see the car wash as p as cars drove in, drove out and got dried, and they’re seeing stretch limos. That’s the conclusion is that must be a great car wash.
I’m gonna start using it. If the limos are using it, I mean, they don’t know the owner of the car was, is the owner of the limo service, but they’re thinking it’s, oh, that’s true.
Yeah. So we grew our business from using our business. Oh man, that’s a great story. One of the things you wrote about that I wanna make sure that that, that we highlight is finding the right people. So that was one of the stories and one of the things that you wrote about in the book. Like maybe give us a little bit of comments on what finding the right people has made it meant in your career.
Sure. When you have a business. And you’re going to hire your employees. Mm-hmm. You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What are they looking for? Some businesses you need a certain skillset. Some businesses, even more than a skillset, you need a certain look. Mm-hmm. So while it sounds like a no-brainer, I wanted to hire attractive young female bartenders.
Mm-hmm. Anybody could make a scotch and soda. Yeah. But what was gonna drive business into my place? Mm-hmm. No offense to male bartenders. Yeah. But most bar goers are male and, and if I had attractive young female bartenders mm-hmm. I would drive more traffic to me when I did a TV commercial, I, I featured.
Mm-hmm. The dozen or so barmaids I had and cocktail waitresses. Mm-hmm. They were gorgeous and personable and it drove traffic to our taverns. As opposed, there’s a tavern on every corner, if not more than one in this town. So why are they gonna come to me and not somewhere else? Not only is logistics important.
Yeah. People want to drink close to home so they don’t have to drive a great distance. Mm-hmm. But, but the attractive barmaids and servers. Was critical to having good food. Mm-hmm. Keep your place clean. You know, I most bar owners didn’t, they didn’t hire a janitor. I had, I hired a guy to come in every morning and every night clean the floor.
Vacuum service the restrooms. You’d go in a bar, you, you’d swear the, the restroom. The owner hadn’t looked at it in a week. Yeah. And I don’t wanna describe in detail the fil and then the, the, the odor. Mm-hmm. But my, my restrooms were like a surgical center. Yeah, and I was a fanatic about that. So, I mean, I would go through my bars when I had four of ’em with a white glove test.
We’d have an inspection once a week. My managers would follow me and I’d walk through the place and they’d, they’d say, oh, it’s Wednesday morning. Ron’s gonna do the inspection. And they’d make sure you know that everything was clean. And you know, every once in a while you throw a curve at ’em when, when they check the bins that hold all the silverware, and I’d pull all the forks and spoons out and look at the bottom, make sure it was dust free and clean.
Yeah, well then they didn’t expect me to go through and run my hand along the base of the booth in the dining room where the seat back meets the seat bench. Yeah. And there’s a french fry. What the hell is this whatcha guys doing when you come in in the morning? So they never knew where I was gonna look.
So that would make them do a better job. And that’s the goal, is to get your people to do a better job. So back to your question, to find the right people. You interview them yourself. You don’t delegate that to your, to your managers, and you get a feel for the person you’re interviewing. You ask them questions about their past jobs through the questions that they didn’t know were coming and how they answer them.
You, you get a feel for what’s important to them. What did they think about on their last three jobs when they got to work, what was the first thing they did? And, and you, you hire the right people. So that they will run the place the way you would if you could be on all three shifts a day and in four locations at the same time.
If you could embody yourself and every person at every position, that’s the best employee you’re gonna get when you’re a hands-on observation driven owner. So that’s what I would keep in mind when I interviewed potential employees and hire the people that I thought were my kind of people. Mm-hmm. And then when I’m not there, I hired a service.
They’re called shoppers or spotters. They come in, they look like a customer. They might be a husband and wife team. It might be an older person with what looks like to be their, their adult child. Mm-hmm. For a meal and a couple of drinks. And then they would write a report about what they encountered in their one hour visit.
Mm-hmm. The quality of the service, the quality of the food, the condition of the restrooms, everything they observed. And then I would have a meeting. And my people didn’t know they had been shopped. Yeah. You know, they, hundreds of customers a day, they don’t know. Two of them were shoppers, so every, every six months or so we’d have an employee meeting.
It wasn’t more frequent because with three shifts running seven days a week. Yeah. Every time you have a meeting, you’re taking up someone’s sleep time. Sure. Someone who worked another shift is having to stay awake for this meeting, so I didn’t do it as often as I would’ve liked. But I got my team together and I would share copies of the spotter report with them.
Mm-hmm. And I’d say, see what the spotters found when you walk into the bar before you relieve your, your offgoing bartender. Walk around, look at, look at these things. I would say that to my managers and I would say that to my bartenders. Mm. And when you can motivate them to catch the things before the owner catches them.
Yeah. Yeah. And risk their job for not doing what you ordered them to do. Yeah. You motivate them to do a better job and you end up having a better run operation. Yeah. Better trained employees and a better customer experience. And what does that mean? Your customers come back more often? Oh, I think you had Yelp before Yelp was invented.
Ron. Yeah, I never looked at it that way. You had Yelp before Yelp was invented, like, and now they had their. So many eyeballs and everything else on Yeah. You were, you were pioneering quite a few things and processes that other things are built off of. That’s very observant. Adam, I don’t disagree with you.
I, I, I think running any business, not taverns, not just Yes, of course businesses, you need to identify things, pursue the, the cure, and then reach a conclusion. Mm-hmm. When, when you, you know, you, you could tell your managers, I saw this, this, and this. Fix it. That’s not reaching a conclusion. Your managers may not do it any better than your bartenders or your servers did.
You need to go check things yourself, and that’s a hands-on employer who will have a more successful business because they’ve trained their people, even their key people better. Yeah. That’s awesome, Ron. I wanna spend some, so I know we’ve done some work and talking about tenacity in some of our previous interviews, but I’m always curious like what, and I’m sure there’s lots of things that may not have made the cut.
Right? Because whenever you’re putting together a book in general, I. Or in general especially in autobiography. Things aren’t gonna make the cut only so many pages that you can put in it, but I’m just curious if there’s anything that didn’t make the cut that I can get outta you today that you were like a story or it could be other things like that for, for the Tenacity book that maybe were around that you wanna, you kind of wanna document.
’cause I’m always interested to pick your brain here. Well, when, when you identify a problem. Hmm. I didn’t wanna put things in a book that might implicate me in wrongdoing, but of course to be candid now I’m comfortable speaking about in the limousine business. There was a very aggressive general manager of one of my competitors and to do away with me as a competitor.
He had some of his friends, essentially total, one of my limos. Wow. You know, they, I couldn’t afford to put ’em in garages. My driver drivers took ’em home because we were a 24 hour service. If I got a call at two in the morning, I’d contact the driver and the car was in front of his house for him to go pick up the client.
Yeah. So when I identified who was at the bottom of this, mm, I needed to stake out the problem and solve it so it didn’t happen again. ’cause even if you’re insured, You know, a $5,000 deductible, it’s costing you $5,000 fix 15,000 in damage to a $60,000 limo. Yeah. So in one case, I was able to narrow down this gentleman’s location in an elevator that I had determined, had no perimeter, cameras, whatever.
And if no one else was in it, it was just him and me. And an old Marine Corps hold was grabbing the Adams apple on both sides. And you have inescapable cooperation from the recipient of that hold. Yeah, so pinning him against the wall of an elevator and making him wonder if he was gonna take another breath with the level of squeeze I put on that hold and looking him in the eye and telling him if one more limo gets damaged, like the one you did on such and such a street.
Hmm. This is gonna be the best experience you have with me. Yeah. And I know you’re having trouble swallowing and breathing. Yeah. But trust me, it will get worse. Yeah. Never again touch one of my cars. Hmm. Sometimes I know that’s against the law and I’m admitting to it, but the statute of limitations has run out.
Yeah. But that’s one example. There was a city councilman. Who used his power as a councilman to try to throw me in jail because I dared to wanna open a casino in his city where he was a competitor in the, in, in one of my businesses. Mm-hmm. And he had plans to open his own gaming properties. Wow. So in this small town adjacent to Las Vegas, he has his police department pursue me.
On a bogus claim, and I could prove it was bogus. I’m not just a wrongdoer claiming it wasn’t me. Yeah. But I had someone go undercover and through what we learned through this undercover operation mm-hmm. We learned that he targeted me and said to someone, I don’t care what you do, point the finger at Corey and you’ll get away with this crime you committed.
Oh man. Oh yeah. So being candid with him that I had the goods on him and could ruin his life. Yeah. Came after me one more time ’cause I wasn’t doing anything wrong. Yeah. I just, I just wanted to open a casino in the city that he, he didn’t want me to be in. It was the competition. Yeah. And yeah, so being candid with people and making sure.
They realize, you know, more than they thought you knew. Like before there was Google. Before there, there, there was a way to research. My investigator would, would quickly find someone’s home address. Yeah. For the addresses of some of their investment properties, which was not public information at the time.
Mm-hmm. Now you can do a Google search, run their name and see a list of properties on the assessor’s parcel map that they own. Yeah. But when you would tell someone in, in the In the early eighties. Mm-hmm. Where they live and where their rental property is, you, you shake ’em up and if you’re not doing it for bad reasons and you’re just trying to get them to leave you alone, I’m okay with that kind of a threat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this detective found it better to just leave me alone. Then they’re continue pursuing me. Mm-hmm. And we were able to operate our tavern at a higher level, not be harassed, and I was working towards building them up and selling them. For the next flip. Not if I was gonna keep getting harassed or my customers would keep getting pulled over every time they pulled outta my bar.
Or he would keep a running patrol car in my parking lot where people were afraid to come in and have a drink. Wow. So getting people to back off when they’re messing with you and finding the way, the right way mm-hmm. To approach them and come up with something that matters to them to get them to leave you alone.
Became a bit of a mission and finding a very good private investigator who was a retired police detective enabled me to find out things I needed to find out that I couldn’t on my own. Yeah, and use that information to overcome challenges and obstacles. Yeah, I, yeah, that, it’s interesting to hear you tell these stories, Ron.
’cause sometimes I forget because you know, again, when you, when you read your book, which I, I recommend everybody pick up a copy of Tenacity and you’re gonna hear story upon story. If you hear, you think what Ron was just sharing is, is interesting. You’re, it, it doesn’t stop. Like, especially the audiobook as well.
One that I listened to I mean it’s, it’s, it’s great. The acting’s great. Of course it’s delivered right and it’s entertaining, but Ron’s life. Just, just to be candid, if you think about like that time period you’re documenting really the growth of Vegas, a lot of other things, and you’re in some pretty not, let’s just say not the whitest glove business, even though you were wearing white glove looking for french fries and whatever else, so you turned some businesses that weren’t white glove, in the white glove, I should say, because I didn’t know that story either, because you’re, as you’re, you know, making sure everything’s immaculate in your taverns.
So that’s why one of the, I, I’m so passionate about tenacity of the book because you’re documenting a lot of things, but the lessons for. Entrepreneurs for business owners, for people out there that are like, ah, maybe well, well, I’m not in the hospitality space they’re in. It’s not just hospitality. When you look at some of the themes that Ron is, is, is writing about it applies in, in all businesses really, and it’s really what it takes to, to succeed.
Doesn’t matter what, what niche you’re in or what type of business, in my opinion. Well, it’s critical. It’s critical for your viewers and listeners to get that things of value do not come. Effortlessly. If it’s a value, it’s gonna take something to make it happen. And do not be scared off by the obstacles that are gonna be unavoidable.
Embrace them. Find a way through them or around them and, and when you overcome those challenges, you’ll find unforeseen success in your life. Yeah. That’s awesome. Great words, Ron. And that being said if somebody is well, no, let me, let me start with this one. I mean, you, you’re, I know you’re, you’re on promo.
You got a lot of things going on, and we’re still, we’re just ramping up on promoting the book that we just released with each other. I mean, what’s next? What’s next for you? What’s next for Tenacity? Well, before I forget, I want your listeners to know that my book and my life have a website where they could learn a lot more than we’ve shared today.
There’s a gallery that they could click a dropdown box and look at old and new pictures. Mm-hmm. Me and Dan in the Marine Corps my family. So the, the website is Ron Cory, c o u r y author.com. Ron cory author.com. Great website. Very well created and maintained. As we said, the audio book by Dean Kane gives me something to keep marketing, and right now my drive is to continue marketing the book because a lifetime went into it two plus years into making it a book went into it.
So I don’t feel like I can ever really do justice to the job of putting out the word. To either get a paper copy if you’re gonna be flying or download the audio by Dean Kane Superman himself. What an honor to, to work with Dean and get him to record my book. And, and I think people will learn a lot of life lessons about determination, perseverance, and diligence to achieve things that they dreamt only dreamt were possible, but to realize that everything they dream about is possibly attainable.
You just have to find the roadmap to get there, and it’s not always money. I’m excited to continue to help promoting the book and we’ll put that, we’ll put that the website into the show notes of course. So ron corey author.com so that our audience can just click on the, click on the link and head right on over and pick up a copy.
Of course. And speaking of the audience, So if this is your first time with Mission Matters, or listening to an episode or engaging with the content, we’re all about bringing on business owners, entrepreneurs and executives, and having them share their mission, the reason behind their mission, really what motivates them and what excites them about business so that we can all learn from that, right?
So we all grow together. That’s the whole point. We all wanna grow together. If that’s the type of content that sounds interesting or fun or exciting to you, we welcome you. Hit that subscribe button. We have many more mission-based individuals coming up on the line and we don’t want you to miss a thing.
And Ron I know we’re just getting started, man, it’s been so much fun having you, having you back on the show and getting, getting some more stories outta you. So thanks again for coming on and making time for us. It’s been my pleasure, Adam, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity.
