What The Funk?

0:00 And we are back on theWhat the Fink podcast. Yeah, nice to get out. Fink and funk. This is gonna be fun, go ahead. You just give me your podcasts. I appreciate it very much. You actually,

0:16 what you could do is start a podcast calledWhat the Fink and just grab all my listeners to start, right, and just sort of keep that way. But this is a fun one for me, Asher Fink Man, we

0:28 reconnected after like a decade after not having talked for a decade prior to my cousin's wedding, where we first kind of reconnected

0:40 2011. But obviously, I've been keeping an eye on you. We were both part of the Campera Ma in New England Network. Obviously have a very similar last name. Your sister Aviva was my age. You were

0:51 a couple years younger, but we'd basketball together, New England kids, Jewish kids, obviously, have enjoyed. you know kind of following you from Afar and then reconnecting and as adults and

1:03 getting to know you better so you know I have to hit you with a question that I had all of my guests who are human who is Asher Fink Ooh that's that's a that's a tough one

1:18 but before we go can I just can I just ask you a question can I just flip this on its head a little bit there again do you know how like when you're a kid you have these core memories right like a

1:32 like inside out kind of featured this where it's like it's like a it's like a memory that sticks with you forever I have a core memory that is like all you it is it is an experience that I had with

1:44 you and I just need to know if you have this same core memory okay or if this if this is a memory that you share okay so it is Yom Berkshire so it's a no no And we were on the basketball team, which

2:00 is obviously the main event at at Berkshire Day. And you know, we went to Ramah Palmer and we played against Ramah Berkshires. And so Ramah Berkshires called it Palmer Day and Ramah Palmer called

2:12 it Berkshire Day, right? And the main event is the basketball game and we were on the basketball team. And you were basically one of the, you know, tips of the spear on the basketball team. Like

2:24 you were that that was your year with with with with that crew. And so we're sort of warming up and we're training and I think we're doing like layup lines and you know you go for a layup and I'm

2:36 under the basket getting a rebound and you come down and my knee hits your thigh. Like you basically like landed your knee just like landed on I'm sorry your thigh landed on my knee and you just like

2:50 ran down that hill you remember that hill at the bottom of the thing and you were just like in so much pain rolling around you and you I was like I was like, this is it. I just. ruined the game for

2:59 us

3:01 and you were like limping through the whole game and it was all because I just was this awkward 14 year old like just grateful to be on the court with all you older kids right because you guys were

3:13 two years older but you know it's obviously significant when you're 14 right so do you remember this like is this in your like do you remember that game being like basically injured by ashrafink

3:26 yeah yeah i do i remember it extremely well uh yeah i mean that that was a painful charlie horse in fact probably i don't know what your knees are made of bro but you are like a man of steel yeah it

3:37 just got me in like the perfect spa right on my quad right right on the side and had this awful charlie horse i mean i think it was on like crutches for a day or something like yeah it really really

3:49 hurt um but you know like like you're talking about birchears right that was everything you you've I've actually talked about it on a podcast before. I'll send you that link, but just like painting

4:02 the picture, like there's a lot of people that go to these games. And I think, you know, I was a high school athlete. I think you were as well, but not everybody is. Like maybe they go to a

4:12 bigger high school. They're from a city like they can't make the team. And so this is like their highlight of their, their teen years from an athletic perspective So I thought about this game all

4:25 year, every day, I'm envisioning, I'm like meditating, I'm taking hundreds of shots, I'm working out with this game in mind. And yeah, we were just having like a scrimmage or something a couple

4:36 of days before you gave me a Charlie horse, thanks for that. And I didn't play well. That is not why we lost. They were so much better than us. So I can sort of take that to the bank. That's

4:48 really, that's really kind of you But no, there was like, I had so much adrenaline, honestly. No, I didn't feel it, it was, you know, there's like a thousand people or whatever attending the

4:59 basketball game, which is the core event. So, yes. So listen, I forgive you for that. I was never mad. I was probably mad at the time because like you said, you're like this awkward, lanky

5:10 kid. In fact, you know, we, everybody got to pick their number, but we're like, ah, Asher's just kind of a quirky kid. We'll give him number 73. So everybody else got to pick and we're like,

5:20 you know, you're 70. You're like, I guess I don't get to choose You're like, no, you don't, you're just kind of awkward. You're younger, you get 73. That's what we do. Yeah, it was like the

5:28 rook, the rookie, right? Totally, totally. Amazing. But you were a good kid. If you were an asshole, I think it would be a different situation. I'd be like, he ruined Berkshires for me.

5:39 Yeah, he really did. But it's, and I could tell you had genuine remorse, so. Oh my god, terrible. Yeah, no, I can picture it right now, but. It's like 30, no, the 28 years agolaughs

5:55 So to answer the question, who is Asher Fink? He's the guy who gave me a Charlie Horse and ruined my 1996. That's all that matters, really.

6:07 How would I answer this question? I guess the first thing I would say is I am the husband of Marissa Vinick, who is from Ramab Burke's years. Oh, you married the enemy? Yes, so, you know, the

6:23 summer after your last year at camp, you then go to Israel as like all of the Ramah camps in the country meet up, go to Israel. So I met Marissa on that trip to Israel. Nice. We dated that summer

6:40 and it was a big scandal. Oh, tell me the scandal I want to hear scandals. Well, I mean, like, so we went undefeated in Israel, right? Always, oh, so this is the thing too wait before you

6:51 get into the rest of this and end some of the older guys. would say this too. So Berkshires had like a system, right? And they perfected their system and they trained extremely hard and they got

7:02 the most out of their players. And we were probably a little bit more loose about it. Like we wanted to have fun and balance and play multiple sports and all that. So they would beat us most years,

7:12 right? At not every year, but they would beat us for the most part playing basketball. But then you go to Israel, right? Where it's pickup games and it's unstructured. And you beat these guys

7:23 Like it's consistent every year the Palmer kids beat them. We're like, what the fuck, man? Like I thought you guys were like the gods. And it's like, oh, now you're system guys. Yeah, yeah,

7:32 yeah. But this was the year. This was the summer of think and funk, okay? But you're cousin Aaron funk. Yeah. And you know, he's obviously a scrappy little point or was, you know, scrappy

7:43 little point guard. Yeah. And I was, you know, a towering five foot 11.

7:51 center and with that we just. played, you know, like, stocked in a Malone, right? And we just could not lose. We could not lose against virtues, whatever. So, you know, I come in and, you

8:02 know, the first night, it's like the first thing we could do when we landed in Israel was like, all right, where's the basketball? Where's the floor? Like, first year's get up here, right?

8:10 Whatever. And I didn't realize, is the guy that I was harassing and the paint was my future wife's ex-boyfriend. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just popped around and it fell very good Simon Brief is his

8:24 name. He's a great guy. I think he works at Google now and has like never, but maybe the better choice for my wife. But at

8:36 the time, this is what happened. And anyway, so we ended up

8:40 dating that summer and then we kind of went our separate ways. She famously dumped me at the end of the summer. It was funny, I was like, just so you know, Maris, I know it's our senior year in

8:52 high school. but I am totally willing to commit to you, to a long-distance relationship. And she's like, Yeah, I wanted to talk to you and say.

9:04 Good summer, bro. It was a good summer. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, me too, me too. Yeah, we should totally go our separate ways. No, but then we were just like, stayed in touch. You know, I

9:13 went to the army, she went to college, she went to law school. I was still in the army. And then I got out of the army We stayed in touch throughout, through all that. And then when I got out of

9:24 the army, I moved to New York City.

9:28 I should say the last couple of years of the army, I was based in New Jersey. So I basically saw her a lot. Okay. And then I moved to the city. We're friends for the whole thing. I had a

9:39 girlfriend or girlfriend. She had a boyfriend or boyfriends. But then at some point in 2008, we were both kind of single and we made it happen So, and they're amazing.

9:53 So I am the husband of Mersevanik of Berkshire, origin. I have three children. Nice. So I'm a father. So I'm a husband of father. I have a 12 year old girl, a nine year old boy, and a five

10:09 year old girl.

10:12 I am a proud, I would say, Zionist. And Jew, we lived in Israel as a family before I had, we had our third kid from 2015 to 2017 in Tel Aviv. It's the greatest city on the planet. Amazing city.

10:31 And then, but in that time, I worked in the startup scene.

10:39 And well, actually let me just go chronologically. So, okay, so I'm a Zionist, proud Zionist. I am a military veteran I served in the US. Army for seven years. I was an infantryman.

10:54 I carried a sniper rifle in the war in Iraq. We were there for the invasion. So we went into Iraq on March 19th of 2003. So it went from like a sovereign Iraqi nation under Saddam Hussein's

11:08 leadership. And then we crossed the berm and that was over. And

11:14 then I got out in 2007.

11:19 I then got into like some entrepreneurship with Josh Cohen. Yeah, I remember, I remember, was it junk cluggers or something like that? Junk cluggers, yeah. Yeah. So I

11:31 was a sort of early employee of Josh Cohen. Yep. Really, really nice guy. And his brother was involved and some others. We do that, I did that for four years while getting my MBA at NYU. Yep.

11:48 And then left the junk cluggers to get into management consulting for several years. and in the topics of brand strategy and innovation.

11:59 And then we moved to Israel in 2015. I jumped in the startup scene. I should also just add that I started a home care franchise with my sister who lives in Rhode Island. She moved back to Rhode

12:14 Island. No, not a Viva, my oldest name. Okay, okay, okay. So, a Viva lives in Brooklyn now. Okay And so, we've been at that for 10 years. It looks like I'm gonna basically, we're gonna buy

12:30 me out and just like, give the sort of whole thing over to Naomi, which is like a big step for us and for her. It's been an amazing experience.

12:43 And anyway, so when I moved to Israel, we, I jumped in with a startup there that's like amazing. I love working with Israelis. That led me, and it was in a medical device or digital microscopy,

12:56 so microscopes. Yeah. So I was the first business hire very early stage with SCOPIA, so the fourth employee built up the business capabilities of the company, got into veterinary medicine where we

13:11 built a product, did that for six or seven years We then sold what we were doing to a competitor in the veterinary space. I then became the CEO of the startup my wife founded, Marissa founded. We

13:30 tried to raise money, didn't manage to.

13:33 I did some consulting and now I am the chief commercial officer of another Israeli startup, you know, based just outside of Tel Aviv that is focused on animal health and diagnostic.

13:48 I guess I have developed a niche for myself in veterinary medicine, which I very much love.

13:56 And that's my story. I guess it started with the family stuff and then ended with the career stuff. What else, I don't know. What else can I say about myself? Well, don't worry, I have a

14:06 million more questions, but this is, I wanna go back to the military days, 'cause like you think about most of the kids that went to camp and you've got, you know, everything from the, there's a

14:19 lot of doctors and lawyers, but then you also have the BJ Novax, right? And like famous actors, you have Scooter Braun, obviously of - He was on the team, on our team. He was on the team, yeah,

14:31 of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber, fame. That's great. And you know, you have like a lot of grinders, right? A lot of hard workers, a lot of high achievers,

14:43 people that really wanted to make the most of their lives and careers and educations and all that. Remember talking to my cousin, Aaron Funk, who you mentioned, great, great guy. He's like a

14:52 fine VP of finance, like not uncommon for somebody that went to camp with us. And I was like, hey, what are your friends doing? What are your friends up to? It was hammer, it was no one more.

15:02 Well, somebody said, and he's like, well, yeah. So, you know, this dude right here is, he's going to med school. It's going to be a doctor in New York. I'm like, yep, you know, very

15:12 Jewish got it. He's like, oh, and Asher is a sniper rifle dude in the military. Like, wait, what? Yeah. You got to bring me back to that, right? So like, you know, education in the Jewish

15:27 religion and culture is supremely important. Yep. You decided, I guess after high school, you wanted to defend your country. You wanted to fight in the war. Let's go back to that time a little

15:37 bit. So why, why did you decide to do that? Yeah, I mean, it's an interesting question. I wish I could say that I'm in some way, what was incredibly patriotic and driven by that.

15:51 But the truth is that in high school, I really underperformed. I just, it was not like the format for me. I think, as my oldest is dealing with the effects of ADHD and we're learning a lot about

16:11 that

16:13 and seeing a lot of my own characteristics in my daughter and seeing how much she struggles to just like sit in a chair for an hour or do things that are super mundane. Like when somebody says like,

16:28 first of all, my oldest daughter is fluent in Hebrew and she's now at a Jewish day school, right? So they'll say, okay, Clara, that's her name, write this Hebrew sentence six times in a row And

16:41 she's basically like, I'm sorry, but my. I know how to write the sentence in my Brain won't Let Me Do that like I'm Sorry I Can't do that and I'm like Oh My God I know this kid excuse me so I

16:53 really struggled in high school and I think the pressures that occurred there just caused me to totally revolt against highschool entirely revolt against the things I was supposed to be doing and and

17:05 I was like so that that was me and then on seminar so that when we went to Israel the exact thing you're describing basically slapped me in the face were you going to college now row I'm going to

17:20 Cornell what about you and why you what about you Brandeis right and it's just like everybody had a plan and they were just like this last year is actually just a formality because I already know what

17:33 I'm doing right but for me then they would ask Me I'd look Around and I'd be like not fill out And then I would see these girls on seminar, absolutely swooning over the IDF soldiers. Oh my God.

17:51 Yeah, so every bus, right? For the record, every bus had like, I think we had two absolutely jacked, tan magazine cover, model type, you know, handsome dudes, right? And what, yeah, and

18:06 what a beautiful woman. I was walking around my bus, actually one of them was a woman and I was absolutely in love with her Everybody, yeah, it was like, it was in me. And inevitably somebody

18:15 would have a relationship with them and somebody would get in trouble. Typically the IDF soldier would get redeployed to something else. Yeah, yeah, somewhere else. But then they had these

18:23 massive guns, right? So, and I'm not talking about like Piceps, talking about where we're at in '16, right? So, yeah, so you saw that and you're like, Wait a second, chicks, chicks, chicks.

18:34 No, so then the military. Literally, my answer over the course of that summer went from, I don't know, I'm a loser.

18:44 to, oh, I'm joining the army. Yeah. And then it just changed everything. I went home and instead of, you know, I talked to my parents, I went and saw a recruiter, talked to my parents and I

18:56 was like, Listen,

18:59 I really got to like buckle down hereso I can finish high school and go to the army. And they were like, Really? And they were like, At first they were kind of like, this is ridiculous, like as

19:07 if it was a phase. But then they quickly realized, like, No, actually this is, this is gonna rescue him, right? In a funny way. So that was, so that's what I did. That was September of 2000.

19:22 Okay. That was, this is a peacetime decision. This is a, you know, you get a40, 000 GI bill decision.

19:33 This is a, so, you know, I walked right into the recruiter and he was like, what do you want to do with your life? What do you want to do in the army? I was like, I want to roll around in the

19:41 dirt and I want to shoot guns. That's what I want to do. Totally, I want to play soldier. That sounds like infantry. I was like, okay, I'm in. That was the conversation.

19:50 And then I turned around and did what I need to do to pass senior year and finish high school and shipped off to the army after the summer. Amazing, amazing. That's the story. I mean, I wish I

20:02 could tell you, I'm like, you know, hoorah, you know, I'm gonna go die for my country, but, you know, by the way, nobody says that. But anyway. Some people say that. Nah, no, actually,

20:16 really what they say is like, I'm gonna go fight for my country and make the other guy die for his, whatever. But anyway, I just -

20:22 No, this is fascinating to get into. So I'm a big fan of the military. I've had a few people on here, even most recently, you know, West Point guys. And it's not always like the traditional

20:36 path. Like the people who went to Annapolis and West Point and Air Force from my high school were like, you know, like the Johnny United haircut. These guys were like, you could tell they were

20:47 typecast and they would never break a law. And they were just like, but I've noticed more and more people had other reasons for going there. Like, you know, it was in my family. So I kind of had

20:60 to do it Or I didn't have any other options or whatever. And not all of them look back on it fondly, I would say. I think it's a mix, but I think what came out of it is a level of discipline that

21:13 has probably applied and carried over to the rest of your life

21:19 and career. As a business athlete, you're the first person that I ever talked to, and this was like three years ago, where you refer to yourself as a business athlete. Oh, really? Yeah, and

21:30 I'm like, I love that term. and I I Kinda want to use it for myself a little bit I probably need to get in better shape before that but but I I really I like that terminology but but for the people

21:42 listening like what is that what does that mean what does business athlete mean to you and more broadly in the in the you know corporate context yet so at the risk of sounding like a jock and

21:57 I'll I'll put it like this rate just to dry out the analogy of being of the athlete thing it's like

22:06 do you ever play basketball with soccer players Yeah play basketball all kinds people for sure sure so you play with a soccer player I have one in mind Adam darter and that name you know the darker

22:19 straight but he's a very very good soccer player and and also he's a terrible basketball player however you definitely want him on your team because he Hustles he has the stamina of like you know a

22:35 track athlete he knows where to put himself on the field because half of like soccer's is knowing where to be facing right so was he like a knockdown shooter definitely not alike if you had to pick

22:46 between some whatever and this guy you always wanted the scanner team right right and that's sort of how I am like I can play basketball I can play hockey not very well but I can play I can play

22:59 Volleyball I could play you know what I Mean I can go to the Jet these kinds of things and and so I'm I'M flexible as long as there's a competition I'm in right and I think when it comes to business

23:09 athlete that's just another way of saying you give me a task a mission -driven all I want to do is win vs and I only do this one thing I so I'm You know what it is it's i guess it's another way of

23:25 saying like a generalist but like a mission -driven generalist Yeah, yeah, I was going to say generalist too, it might underserve you a little bit to say that, but I hear you. And I guess it took

23:41 me a while to like even take my own medicine and realize like, I am a little bit more of a generalist than a specialist. You know, I'm a sales guy, I'm a businessman, you could, an entrepreneur,

23:52 you could sort of put these things in a bucket. But ultimately, a generalist, which made working for companies that grew and were bigger, really, really hard for me. Because they, as a business

24:05 grows, like fundamentally, they need to shift to have specialists. So if you are a generalist, or you like versatility and variety, one day, you're playing hockey the next day, you're playing

24:16 soccer, that's not really what these companies need. They need you to stay in your lane, right? So it makes sense that you've gravitated more toward like these earlier stage startup

24:25 entrepreneurial ventures. Absolutely, so. I think the drawback in that to your point is building on what you said is I'm I have not managed like a you know two hundred million dollar marketing

24:37 budget racer and I've managed like a million dollar marketing budget template below market rate so the the things you do at scale are very different than the things you do early stage but also the

24:50 things you do early stage are very different than what you do at scale right like you're you're choosing which problems not to solve at early stage because all use your problems is right right right

25:03 arm and you're like we're just going to leave that one for the future because this is the one we need to get from zero to one the right and world and we need all hands on deck because like sorry I'm

25:15 not hiring like a facebook specialist to like put up an Ad I need to figure that out and I will I'm not afraid of that you know what I'm saying and so Anyway I know I Dig It

25:29 You are like just a versatile guy, I would say, and in general, thoughtful, interesting. Did you go, so you went right from high school to the military, you were in it for seven years. Like,

25:40 did you do like multiple tours and can Afghanistan in various places like that? Yeah, we, in 2000, so the world changed, obviously, significantly on

25:56 911. It did And I think pretty quickly after that, the US Army went, or the US military went into Afghanistan, right? Yeah.

26:06 We, I didn't go to Afghanistan, but in 2000, early

26:14 2002, my unit went to Kuwait, okay? Now, Kuwait, not everyone knows this, the desert of Kuwait from 1991 was basically like, is basically like occupied. it was like a small group that was like

26:30 sort of sitting in the desert of of Kuwait and and so we had this little area that we could go and we went and we trained it was hot as fuck oh My God agrees Yeah Yeah so Anyway we were there for

26:46 about seven months just hanging out thinking that at any moment we would go to we we'd cross into Iraq there it didn't end up happening so I think so around thanksgiving of twenty twenty two we came

27:04 home

27:06 we did all our like thanksgiving you know holiday break whatever it's like January it's February and they're like I go back to Kuwait Yeah this time looks like it's for real so in February we went to

27:18 Kuwait so that anyway so two tours but like one of them was not a war or the I was just sort of like preparation training and all that other stuff and I then I Got then we came home from the war in

27:30 Iraq, or the invasion of Iraq. And that was like, at this point, it was 2004. And my enlistment sort of ran out. And I was like, you know, I need to get on with my life. I need to, you know,

27:44 seven months or six or seven months sitting in the Kuwait board in Iraq border, then seven or so months in Iraq itself. It's like, my life was on hold except for, you know, carrying a rifle

27:56 around, sweating, working out, like writing letters, right? Yeah. So I was like, I gotta get out of here. So I went home to Rhode Island, and two months later, I got pulled back in

28:08 by order, by like a, whatever, stop, loss order, or whatever they call those. And I was pulled back into New Jersey. So instead of going overseas, we took Fort Dix, which is, you know, off

28:21 of Route 7 on the New Jersey term or off of Exit 7. It was like a - mostly abandoned military post except for some administrative buildings and just like acres and acres and acres and acres of just

28:34 like pine pine forest and like roads and and an old abandoned like World War two barracks and things like that so we basically me and a group of like forty officers basically and I was not an officer

28:51 and we built up an environment that was meant to feel like Iraq and Afghanistan Yep and then we ran people for the next two years like National Guard soldiers were joining the fight in Iraq and

29:06 Afghanistan through these simulations cool we just like fucked with people for two years you know what I mean like It'd be like two AM and We'd sneak out there with like fake Grenades and we'd need

29:17 and be like are there what do you do now right and kept the knock up Yeah exactly that kind of shit and it was I was I was depressed as Hell We're getting pulled back into that cause I really want to

29:27 get on with my life but then you know looking back on those two years it was actually pretty formative because I was working with officers I was working with leaders of troops like leaders of three

29:36 hundred troops and I was like basically the adviser to these company commanders these battalion commanders and it just it was a window into something else for me so that was that was Pretty

29:50 Interesting I Love I love hearing this perspective now keep going keep going none and I I think that's that's it for me because you asked but Yeah so then when that was finished I was a Guy I'm Done

30:02 now so Hey Yeah I I discharged from Fort Dix and then moved to New York City

30:12 and that's when you got it did you go to college then like you went to undergrad then did you what was your car cause I know you went to business school in New York Right I found a hack in the Army

30:25 where you could take classes, college classes. So when I was at, I was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas, that was like my home base when I wasn't deployed, right? Got it. So at Fort Riley,

30:39 Kansas, I was able to go to Kansas State University, which is in Manhattan, Kansas. It's borders Fort Riley. Okay. When you drive over there, I'd see some girls, I would take some classes.

30:50 Like it was pretty fun, actually. But I was able to take a bunch of credits I took some online courses. Then when I was at Fort Dix, I went to Burlington County Community College and I went to

31:02 Thomas Edison University, and there were some other online courses. So by the time I actually graduated, oh, and when I was in Rhode Island for those two or three months, I actually took a

31:11 semester at URI, right? So I was just like piecing together college credits. So by the time I finished my seven years in the army, I had my batches. I graduated college in the army what's wrong

31:23 with all on the army's diet Yeah, like, so that is quite a hack. So where did you get your degree from, undergrad, technically? Thomas Edison State College, which is based out of Trenton, New

31:37 Jersey. So that was just like the last school you were in, basically? Yeah, and then when I applied to business school, I had to like get all these transcripts. So I got, I submitted eight

31:49 different transcripts. Yeah And to gather all of those credits to go to NYU. It was so definitely like not conventional. No, no, it's really fun and fascinating to hear this. So if you were to

32:08 put your military career in a nutshell, do you view it fondly? Do you miss it? Do you regret doing it? Like how would you look back at that time now? I thoroughly enjoyed. well, okay. The army

32:24 experience was sort of.

32:28 It was,

32:31 I guess when I think back on it, when I was in it, I was like crawling out of my skin because there were, especially when I was overseas because when I was overseas, it was incredibly long,

32:46 sweaty, hot, dirty days where we had to like make shit up to stay sane Like I remember, you remember this was like the, this was the time of like Maxim magazine, remember Maxim magazine? Of

33:02 course. So we would collect up Maxim magazines and we would collect up the women in those magazines, not to like objectify, maybe I'm gonna be canceled after this, I don't know. We don't do that

33:13 anymore, Trump's president. Okay, okay, but we would collect them up and we'd do tournaments, like who would you rather date? Let's just say that. who'd rather date, we'd do like brackets.

33:22 And it'd be like Angelina Jolie gets Halle Berry. And like that would be like, oh, that's so interesting. Like we'd go around voting, right? That's fun. And that would be like a three day

33:34 exercise. Because we'd have to like figure out some way of just keeping our minds occupied. Otherwise you're just sitting there reading and just sweating in the sun. So there were very long days,

33:46 very, you know, a lot of downtime And I absolutely, when I was overseas, I was

34:08 like, I cannot wait to get the hell out of here. Right. I think a lot about those days actually during this hostage crisis and how excruciating every single day must be. Oh, so frustrating. But

34:08 then when I look back on my military experience, I'm like, man, that was some cool shit. Like, you know, on Tuesday, you know, you're firing the M240 Bravo machine gun Like, who gets to do

34:18 that, right? And.

34:21 In my sniper training, we'd spend, you know, we'd go walk in the middle of the night and find a hide, make a hide. And then it's like playing a hide and seek professionally, right? Spend very

34:31 few days like completely indoors or like under, you know, fluorescent lights and, you know, a lot in the, you know, drilling and when I say drilling, I mean like how to take a bunker, not like,

34:44 you know, walking around with the rifles like in Full Metal Jacket, although we did that too So anyway, so like there was a lot of really cool stuff that happened. We got to travel the world. The

34:56 people were just from all, absolutely all walks of life from like, you know, post criminals to, you know, valedictorians from Yale. Like it really ran the gamut and we also had to figure it out.

35:10 So I think I brought a lot of,

35:14 I bring a lot of that with me

35:20 civilian life because you know, I know the dude from Shreveport, Louisiana. I know how he thinks. I know how he talks I know and I know the dude from San Francisco and I know the dude from the

35:32 middle of nowhere Who all he knew was a thousand acres of cornfields and sure, you know, so That's actually very rare to see like a Jewish dude right from the Northeast actually So I was like, you

35:45 know going from a place where it's like You know, you're very comfortable to a place where you then everybody is absolutely fantastically different It's it's it's a

36:01 lot of It's just a lot of food for thought I guess it's just you know, yeah, yeah, well well said and it's funny you mentioned drilling This is an oil and gas centric pot Technically we talk about

36:11 drilling at something else. Also, you were basically like right smack in the middle of the largest oil field in the world when you were. overseas.

36:23 It just bubbles up over there, right? And then you said Shreveport, and I've probably had five or six dudes from Shreveport on this because it's like an oil and gas. So you say, like, it all

36:34 kind of comes together. The universe gets smaller when you spend time with people from different places. This is this is cool stuff. So I want to I want to pivot a little bit to we got a few things.

36:46 God, we only have a little bit of time, but but a few things So raising a family in New York City. How do you do it? How do you do that? First of all, we don't we live in the suburbs of New

36:57 Jersey. Okay.

37:00 There are some people. My sister, for example, lives in Borum Hill or Cobble Hill or like I think it's right on the border of the two, but in Brooklyn, they have a two bed, one bath apartment,

37:17 and they love it. How many kids? Two kids, two girls. Girls are in one room and they're in another, right? Wow. Yeah. And it doesn't look like they're leaving that anytime soon.

37:32 We lived in Brooklyn when we had two kids, then we moved to Tel Aviv.

37:37 And then we moved here after Tel Aviv. We live in West Orange, New Jersey. We have a decently sized house with four, basically five bedrooms and three bath, you know what I mean? So it's like,

37:50 you have the perbs. But it's the least interesting place I've ever lived. Yeah, but you're close to interesting things, right? Yeah, sure, sure. West Orange, New Jersey, shout out, Capes

37:60 got ticker. Yeah. That's cool. And then Tel Aviv. So I've got to talk about this. So why did you move to Israel? And what was it like,

38:11 right? 'Cause I think people, and it's unfortunate, if you haven't been to Israel, you get this perception of, well, just, you know, bombed all the time and it's constant war and everyone

38:21 hates each other. It's not like that, right? So tell me a little bit about why did you go there? What was it like living in Israel with a family?

38:30 So why we went there?

38:36 Marissa and I are both locally very aligned in terms of our proud Zionism. Yep And in 2014,

38:48 Marissa was working for a non-profit. She was the executive director of a non-profit that would raise money for Bitzalel, Academy of Arts

38:59 in Jerusalem.

39:03 So she went on this donor tour in

39:07 2014 and brought a group of like 12 donors And I just, so she was there for one week for the trip and then I visited for the last, for the second week.

39:20 And so the two of us were basically on like a little honeymoon because our two-year-old daughter, who's now 12, was stayed home with my in-laws. Yeah. And it's Israel. And this was during the

39:30 time of, it was

39:33 called Suge Tan, which was like an incursion into Gaza, basically.

39:42 And it was a really foul mood in Tel Aviv There were rockets, the airport got shut down for the day that we were flying back, so we got our trip extended by a day. And it was just like, it just

39:53 felt very profound to be there.

39:58 And

40:00 also, I hadn't been there since seminar, and it's just like, Oh my God, this place is incredible.

40:11 Like, I truly can't describe it like. It's magical. Yeah fully walkable city. It's - basically has the shoreline of Miami. Yeah. But it's all completely contained. Like Miami has like sections

40:29 of Miami, but Tel Aviv is basically like fully accessible anywhere. You want to go to the beach, go to the beach. You want to go to Rasheel? Do you go to Rasheel? Have you been in a while or?

40:38 1997 was the last time. Okay, yeah, yeah. So you got to get there. But anyway, the food's amazing. Amazing, amazing The people are younger, even when they're older, right? They stay in

40:51 shape, it's an outdoor run, you know, getting, you know, you go up the tai-e-l-ed and everybody's working out all the time. You're just healthier there, you're more alive. The men are

41:03 beautiful, the women are beautiful. It's just like, you just feel so much more alive when you're there. And we always, so, so we just, anyway, when my daughter, My oldest daughter was, so

41:15 that was 2K time we were like, Dude, should we?

41:19 take steps to move here, both of us were like, yes. And then we were like, well, if we wait too long, then our oldest is gonna be too old to move and it's gonna be traumatic. And so there, all

41:33 of a sudden, became this like urgency. It was a window. Actually, yet there, which I think helps because we're always thinking about moving back, but there's not that same urgency now. In fact,

41:44 there's like the opposite because we need it to like, we need the war zone element to like kind of calm down. There's always this something, but whereas and then it was like, do it now, do it now,

41:55 or it's not happening. So we just like did the paperwork, took it one day at a time and before we knew it were just like in Tel Aviv living and we loved literally every day of it. And then

42:06 ultimately we decided to move back because our parents are getting older.

42:14 Stuff like that. No, I like that and I liked some of the visuals too. I remember how soft the sand was in Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean and just the vibe. I'm like, yeah Miami's probably a decent

42:28 comp, but you know what, it's not nearly as humid, which is super nice 'cause it's like the edge of the desert. Yeah, this is fun stuff. My wife recently took a job. She's been in the nonprofit

42:41 world too. There are some synergies here

42:44 Besides just our last names being super similar, she took a job at University of Colorado Boulder as the executive director of the Hill Owl. Oh wow. So she's like really leaned into Judy as some

42:57 really big job. Dude, it's like moth to the flame stuff right now with anti-Semitic graffiti on campus and

43:07 she's amazing. She's a great leer and I think she

43:11 does really, really well with kids of that age Um, to. bring them in and then it's like encouraging those students to go to birthright and you know and really lean into it but it's been fascinating

43:24 and interesting to see so she went to Israel this past summer because it's like encouraged like part of the job right like yeah sure you know we'll pay for your trip um she went over there and you

43:33 know so you see all like the videos and face time and all that i'm like all right yeah this is bringing me back she's and she kind of came back with that like we we could totally live there i'm like

43:42 yeah i feel like that's that's how you feel when you when you come back from from isra listen we we've only got a couple minutes left so i'm going to hit you with a couple rapid fire questions we'll

43:52 just jump right into it so one and i'm curious where you take this but what what would you tell to your younger self like what advice would you give to the 17 18 year old asher fink or even the fresh

44:06 out of military asher fink the 24 year old 25 year old version what would you tell him um

44:16 I think what I would tell my 18 year old self or just early is just

44:25 start things. Build. Yep, just build. I never did. And I think I didn't until I joined up with like Josh Cohen. That was like kind of my first experience of actually building things. And by

44:42 then I was already 25 And every time I did, like when I finished four years at the junk cloggers and went into consulting, the building of those things really helped my consulting. Yeah. Then the

44:57 consulting really helped the building of Scopio. And then so on and so forth. And like building with my sister, for example, really helped everything else. So it's just like get the reps in.

45:09 Don't even worry about where it ends up. Yeah. Just get the reps in and it could be anything. like start a landscaping thing just to sort of get through the summer or

45:21 little,

45:24 especially when you're 18. I mean, like, it feels like everything started to pile on

45:30 when I got married and had kids and all these things and everything just the risks are so much higher. Whereas when you're 18, all you have is time. Like, I think back on,

45:45 I think earlier in this conversation, just sitting in the desert, you know, coming up with ways to fill our time, I could have made me come up with like 15, you know, I don't know, started up

45:60 something, who knows, right? I don't, like a letter writing company, right? No, no, totally. Like, how can I automate something, right? I like that, you know, build and don't be afraid

46:10 to fail, right? get your reps and coming back to the business athlete mindset. I mean, one of the things I try to tell my kids is like, you know, just do something. Like, you know what I mean?

46:22 You don't have to love it, just do it so that you know then what that is. Yeah, you know, you've got three kids. I've got three kids. It's fascinating to see the way that their brains work. My

46:35 middle definitely has the most business mindset 'cause you'll see like, I'll buy something with my funk futures credit card And she'll be like, why are you doing that as opposed to just using your

46:47 personal credit card? I'm like, well, on this trip, I'm actually going to have some business meetings. So I'm going to expense the food and the flight and the hotel while I travel there. And

46:59 she's like, well, what's the benefit of that? So then I start explaining taxes, right? And going down that rabbit hole and it's like seeing the wheels turn. And those are things I had shit about

47:07 when I was that age, right? Like my parents were teachers. It's cool to see like the kid's brain operate and just even knowing some of that stuff from a younger age makes you more inclined to take

47:17 risks. I was afraid to go off on my own because I was worried about insurance. Like I didn't understand enough that something like that could hold me back.

47:27 Rapid Fire question number two, you're in a land of great pizza, both from Rhode Island and New York City. Give me your favorite pizza place in Rhode Island and in New York City.

47:42 Okay.

47:49 I Can't think of a single place in Rhode Island. I'm sorry. Wow. Okay. Um, I mean there's like cuz growing up It was like Ron Zio's pizza and it was just a run of the mill and then there was like

47:59 Papa Gino's Do you ever have Papa G? Oh, yeah, I like I don't know. That's like a chain, right? It's like a Northeast New England type chain We had some in New Hampshire, but we were I think

48:08 we're pretty corporate like that's the pizza life. We live in

48:14 But but here we have and again, like New York City was feels like a while ago like pre

48:23 2015 Before moving to Tel Aviv and and the pizza scene in Brooklyn was like there's two kinds of pizzas like the traditional New York City pizza That's like huge and relatively thin big slices and

48:38 that was like three Luigi's in Clinton Hill, but then there was like this new kind of tavern pie which was Romeo's and in Clinton Hill where they would like cut it into these like little squares,

48:49 you know what I'm talking about, it would be round and put it in a brick oven, but then it would come out super thin and whatever. And then there was Saragena, which was in Bedstuy, which is like

48:58 in cre - So anyway, that's more of a sit down, nice place, okay. But in New Jersey, that's where it's at for pizza. All right, okay. So we've got a place around the corner. It's pretty

49:09 controversial 'cause some people like it, some people think it's just okay, but it's Fortissimo, it's quality pizza. Kha But then we also have places called like Angelones where they have like

49:19 thin crusts. There's Tony D's, which is also thin crusts, those sort of competitors in the same neighborhood. And then we have these tavern pies at a place like a sports bar that is just amazing.

49:31 It's packed every day. It's called Star Tavern. Have you had tavern pies, you know? Yeah, that's like a thing in Massachusetts, right? So I've had that a bit. Bar pies. Yeah, I love tavern

49:44 pies. That's like where it's at. Yeah, the burn edges. Burn cheese to the edge, like small, you could take down one by yourself, that kind of thing. I could take down a big one by myself too,

49:57 for the record. But dude, this is really fun stuff. And you know, I have family still in New Jersey, so I'm definitely gonna hit you up when I'm back there. Likewise, if you're ever out in

50:07 Colorado, I would love to reconnect. Final question for you, where can people find you, right? If people want to get to know somebody like you more, talk to a business athlete, learn more about

50:15 your business. Where do people find Asher Fink? I would say LinkedIn is where I do most of my stuff.

50:26 Yeah. Asher Fink on LinkedIn. I'm not a super public figure. I mean, I'm shocked that you want me to be honest. You know what, I wanted you to be honest. Well, first of all, I like you, but

50:36 second of all, you made a post about the military. And I really wanted to tie, and then I thought about your business athlete comment. And I thought, all right, you've got like a really

50:46 interesting background, and I think a fun story to share. So I am glad that you came on. First camp friend, I think that has come on. So yeah, maybe, I've been, you know, I do some stuff with

50:57 Zev Young, if you remember Zev.

51:01 He is a professor of sales at Bentley University and he has like, you know, his friends who are like sales people, leaders, entrepreneurs, come in and talk to these like juniors and seniors that

51:12 are in his sales class. So I do that once a semester, you know, via Zoom, and it's awesome. Like they come in, they're prepared, they checked out my profile, they have like in depth, well

51:22 thought out questions to ask. So I thoroughly enjoy that. So I was on his podcast, but I need to return the favor and have him on mine. Final question, before I let you go. Better last name,

51:35 Fink or Funk? Oh, it's gotta be Funk.

51:39 Like Fink doesn't mean anything outside of my last name. Funk is. It's a thing. Yeah. If Funk is a vibe, right? Yeah. Not just the name, it's a vibe. Well, listen, if you decide to change

51:54 your last name to Funk, I wouldn't be offended. Yeah, I think this could be pretty, pretty easy. I'm just gonna do that. I'm just gonna be like, guys, you know, you like you change your job

52:03 on LinkedIn and it's

52:06 like, I think, you know, congratulate Ashrafink for starting a new job position. So changing his last name to funk. Yeah, exactly. Your congratulations. You're celebrating two years as Ashraf

52:17 funk. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, brother, appreciate you coming on, doing some fun things out there. Keep pushing that Zionist movement forward and sharing your story 'cause it's a valuable one.

52:28 Appreciate it, man. Yeah, man, thank you so much. Good to see you. You look good and we'll talk again soon.