Vincent Mezzetti guest speaker at Green Team real estate agents awards ceremony

WARWICK — On Friday, Jan. 27, Broker/Principal Geoff Green, and agents of the Green Team Home Selling System in Warwick and Vernon, N.J,. celebrated the firm's annual awards ceremony at the Albert Wisner Public Library.
Vince Mezzetti, founder and CEO of Myles Wealth Management in Florida, N.Y., who recently published his memoirs in a new book titled, "Crossing the Bar: My Life, Changes, Challenges, Choices," was the guest speaker.
'Have empathy for your clients'Mezzetti praised the real estate agency for its successful year and offered a motivational talk, referring to his own experiences in purchasing homes in Warwick.
"Be creative," he said, "and have empathy for your clients."
Mezzetti described his book as a memoir for his grandchildren who may not pay close attention now but will one day want to know their heritage.
The metaphorical title, Crossing the Bar, he explained, refers to the poem of that same name by Alfred Lord Tennyson. And the photograph on the cover of the book is of Howth Harbour near Mezzetti's birthplace in Dublin, Ireland, where a sandbar separates the safe waters of the harbor and the uncertain seas.
He told the agents that, like his own life, it is necessary to challenge yourself by crossing from the calm safe place you are in to battling the rough waters beyond.
'I could not go home ... without my son'Near the conclusion of his talk, the audience was spellbound as he described an actual "rough water" incident that occurred during his own life in 1982.
Mezzetti and his son James, 14 at that time, were on a charter fishing boat out of Pt. Pleasant, N.J., and about 8.5 nautical miles east of Manasquan inlet, which capsized when it was struck broadside by a huge wave. Of the 22 persons onboard, both crew members and six passengers were drowned or missing and presumed dead.
As if by a miracle, Mezzetti searched and found his son fighting the huge waves in the stormy ocean. He shouted instructions until both made it to a life boat lowered by a nearby Portuguese freighter.
"It was the only time he did everything I told him to do," he said. "I could not go home to my wife without our son."
- Roger Gavan