WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.840 If I think about myself at the end of my life, I would hope to be somebody who has strong character. 2 00:00:03.840 --> 00:00:07.200 But in order to achieve strong character, you have to go through hard things. 3 00:00:07.200 --> 00:00:08.400 You can't have one without the other. 4 00:00:08.400 --> 00:00:11.280 And so if I had to pick, I'd rather have the character and the scars to show it, 5 00:00:11.280 --> 00:00:14.080 rather than none of the character, it had a soft life. 6 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:19.680 Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get more customers, 7 00:00:19.680 --> 00:00:21.680 how to make more customers, how to keep them longer, 8 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:24.160 and the many failures and lessons we have learned along the way. 9 00:00:24.160 --> 00:00:25.440 I hope you enjoy and subscribe. 10 00:00:25.840 --> 00:00:34.640 It's great how you met and, of course, you and I have, you know, over, I would say what, 11 00:00:34.640 --> 00:00:38.960 six, eight, ten months since you've been here, developed a friendship outside of, 12 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:40.000 you know, the business stuff. 13 00:00:41.040 --> 00:00:44.080 Our girls have gone and had dinners and stuff. 14 00:00:44.080 --> 00:00:45.200 You know, that's rare. 15 00:00:45.200 --> 00:00:46.720 Layla does not do that. 16 00:00:46.720 --> 00:00:47.360 Really? 17 00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:48.000 Oh, no. 18 00:00:48.640 --> 00:00:51.760 I think in, I'd say in the last year, she hasn't done it. 19 00:00:51.760 --> 00:00:53.920 That's the only dinner she has had without me. 20 00:00:54.720 --> 00:00:55.200 Really? 21 00:00:55.200 --> 00:00:55.920 100%. 22 00:00:55.920 --> 00:00:56.640 Oh, wow. 23 00:00:56.640 --> 00:00:57.440 We do everything together. 24 00:00:58.800 --> 00:01:02.240 She and I have been together every night since we met, 25 00:01:03.040 --> 00:01:06.080 or rather since we've been married, except for one weekend. 26 00:01:06.080 --> 00:01:06.960 Done. 27 00:01:06.960 --> 00:01:10.000 Like we don't, we're a package deal. 28 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:12.480 What'd you do with yourself when she was out with my wife? 29 00:01:13.520 --> 00:01:17.360 I just, I was like, wow, look at all this time, you know, that I have them myself, 30 00:01:17.360 --> 00:01:19.440 like no one's saying anything, this is wonderful. 31 00:01:21.040 --> 00:01:22.240 I just worked more. 32 00:01:23.200 --> 00:01:24.480 When's the first time you and I met? 33 00:01:26.160 --> 00:01:28.720 14 years ago, by chance. 34 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:30.880 And then we went our separate ways. 35 00:01:30.880 --> 00:01:34.880 But I was a 19 year old at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. 36 00:01:35.440 --> 00:01:37.840 And a buddy of mine bought tickets to Roy Jones' fight. 37 00:01:38.560 --> 00:01:43.520 And we, by chance, we're sitting in the two seats behind you. 38 00:01:44.480 --> 00:01:49.120 And we were probably bothering you because we were 19 and fans. 39 00:01:49.920 --> 00:01:56.080 And I remember my buddy kept asking all these questions about lifting and bodybuilding. 40 00:01:56.640 --> 00:01:58.160 And you were in kill mode. 41 00:01:58.960 --> 00:01:59.680 No, I mean, you were. 42 00:01:59.680 --> 00:02:04.400 You were 100% like, I remember the, I remember the whole thing. 43 00:02:04.400 --> 00:02:08.720 And at the time, like you weren't, like you weren't flexed Lewis as you are now. 44 00:02:08.720 --> 00:02:10.400 You were like on the comma, you know what I mean? 45 00:02:12.640 --> 00:02:18.640 And you were so in the mode of accomplishing. 46 00:02:18.640 --> 00:02:19.920 You were in the hunt. 47 00:02:19.920 --> 00:02:23.280 And you said, if you want to accomplish your goals, 48 00:02:23.920 --> 00:02:25.840 you have to cut everything else out. 49 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:27.120 You have to stop the parting. 50 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:28.320 You have to stop the drinking. 51 00:02:29.200 --> 00:02:31.760 And you need to go all in on the one thing. 52 00:02:32.640 --> 00:02:36.400 And we continued to bug you throughout the rest of the fight. 53 00:02:37.840 --> 00:02:39.600 Alcohol for words of wisdom. 54 00:02:40.320 --> 00:02:41.360 Alcohol was flowing. 55 00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:43.360 Well, we, you know, we were 19. 56 00:02:43.360 --> 00:02:45.840 So that would have been illegal on underage. 57 00:02:45.840 --> 00:02:47.120 So we definitely wouldn't have done that. 58 00:02:47.120 --> 00:02:47.760 We'll drink it. 59 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:53.440 Yeah, that was just just normal debauchery from 19 year olds out of fight. 60 00:02:53.440 --> 00:02:58.240 But so with a crazy part about this is that we met by happenstance 14 years ago. 61 00:02:59.200 --> 00:03:01.760 You know, Flex was early in his career. 62 00:03:01.760 --> 00:03:03.440 I was non-existent in my career. 63 00:03:03.440 --> 00:03:05.040 I was a freshman in college. 64 00:03:05.600 --> 00:03:12.080 And we ended up 12 years later reconnecting here in Vegas, 65 00:03:12.080 --> 00:03:13.680 because I would start to go into your gym. 66 00:03:14.400 --> 00:03:16.720 And then, you know, after, you know, 67 00:03:16.720 --> 00:03:20.400 a handful of times, like, do you remember these kids that were behind you 68 00:03:20.400 --> 00:03:23.360 at this fight and vent and lo and behold? 69 00:03:23.360 --> 00:03:24.080 Yeah, I don't remember. 70 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:28.720 I actually do remember this circumstance. 71 00:03:28.720 --> 00:03:30.800 I kind of remember the context, because it was kind of, 72 00:03:31.760 --> 00:03:34.560 you know, I was meeting people throughout that fight. 73 00:03:34.560 --> 00:03:35.760 I was super important to you. 74 00:03:35.760 --> 00:03:36.560 That's what you're trying to say. 75 00:03:36.560 --> 00:03:40.000 But I do remember, I do remember two guys sitting behind me. 76 00:03:40.800 --> 00:03:46.880 And we kind of shared, you know, periodically opinions of the fight. 77 00:03:46.880 --> 00:03:47.680 Yeah. 78 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:48.160 We did that too. 79 00:03:48.160 --> 00:03:51.920 And I do remember some other words of wisdom being spoken about. 80 00:03:51.920 --> 00:03:52.960 What I said, I don't know. 81 00:03:52.960 --> 00:03:54.960 Probably the cliche shit that's about 10 to. 82 00:03:54.960 --> 00:03:56.160 No, but I mean, you really did, though. 83 00:03:56.160 --> 00:03:58.480 Like, I remember the conversation, 84 00:03:58.480 --> 00:04:00.640 because you were on the route to champion. 85 00:04:00.640 --> 00:04:02.720 If not, like, you were right there. 86 00:04:04.240 --> 00:04:06.000 And it was just crystal clear that 87 00:04:06.960 --> 00:04:10.720 nothing else mattered to you, that that was it. 88 00:04:10.720 --> 00:04:15.440 And I remember it was enough that I was impacted by it at 19. 89 00:04:15.440 --> 00:04:16.160 Oh, wow. 90 00:04:16.160 --> 00:04:18.560 To enough that I remember a conversation that happened 91 00:04:18.560 --> 00:04:19.840 randomly 14 years ago. 92 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:23.600 It was, it wasn't even the words you said. 93 00:04:23.600 --> 00:04:25.200 Obviously, you're like, don't drink, don't party. 94 00:04:25.200 --> 00:04:26.800 You know, stay out of trouble, work hard, etc. 95 00:04:26.800 --> 00:04:28.000 Like, that stuff was the cliche. 96 00:04:28.000 --> 00:04:30.000 But I think the thing that wasn't the cliche was how you said it. 97 00:04:31.120 --> 00:04:33.120 Was it like, I could hear the conviction balls to bones 98 00:04:33.120 --> 00:04:35.360 that that's what you were about? 99 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:37.680 Like, you weren't saying you were living it. 100 00:04:38.320 --> 00:04:40.480 And I think that was why that's why I carried the weight. 101 00:04:40.480 --> 00:04:41.200 And why I remember, I mean, 102 00:04:41.200 --> 00:04:42.960 a million people probably told me to work hard and whatever. 103 00:04:42.960 --> 00:04:45.360 But like, I remember that conversation. 104 00:04:45.360 --> 00:04:47.360 You have been bad on yourself in a lot of projects. 105 00:04:47.360 --> 00:04:49.200 I don't know if it's anything that you want to talk about 106 00:04:49.200 --> 00:04:52.000 in terms of what you're being that, you know, 107 00:04:52.000 --> 00:04:53.520 that you can't speak about. 108 00:04:53.520 --> 00:04:54.400 Yeah, yeah. 109 00:04:54.400 --> 00:04:56.400 So I probably, I would say like, I have two, 110 00:04:57.520 --> 00:04:59.200 there's three big things I would say going on right now. 111 00:04:59.200 --> 00:05:01.840 One is that we're building out an office here in Vegas 112 00:05:01.840 --> 00:05:03.360 that'll be a headquarters for our media team. 113 00:05:03.760 --> 00:05:06.480 We'll have, you know, we'll put probably a big 114 00:05:06.480 --> 00:05:08.720 four or five thousand square foot facility in there. 115 00:05:08.720 --> 00:05:10.000 We'll do more content out of there. 116 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:12.880 And then I just will have all of my stuff, which I like having. 117 00:05:12.880 --> 00:05:14.720 So I've, it's been in storage for like three years. 118 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:16.320 So I'm very excited to get my own gym back. 119 00:05:17.360 --> 00:05:18.000 It's a big spot. 120 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:19.200 So it's like 17,000 square feet. 121 00:05:19.200 --> 00:05:20.160 So that should be good. 122 00:05:20.800 --> 00:05:22.400 That's one project that's kind of moving forward. 123 00:05:22.400 --> 00:05:25.040 The other one is the book. 124 00:05:25.040 --> 00:05:27.360 So my second book or a second general business book, 125 00:05:27.360 --> 00:05:31.040 third book overall, a hundred million dollar leads, 126 00:05:31.600 --> 00:05:34.400 which is the sequel to 100 million dollar offers is coming out. 127 00:05:34.400 --> 00:05:36.880 We put about 3,500 hours into the book over the last two years. 128 00:05:38.800 --> 00:05:42.560 Which for me, the way that I work is like the first six hours of my day 129 00:05:42.560 --> 00:05:45.120 is where I put, push all my big projects forward. 130 00:05:45.840 --> 00:05:48.880 And then the second, like the next half or four hours 131 00:05:48.880 --> 00:05:53.520 issue or five hours of my day is, is meetings and fires and whatever. 132 00:05:53.520 --> 00:05:56.160 And so I've been working that way for probably almost a decade. 133 00:05:56.160 --> 00:05:57.680 I've just like splitting my day that way. 134 00:05:57.680 --> 00:05:58.720 And that's worked well for me. 135 00:05:59.600 --> 00:06:03.040 So whatever happens in that first six hours is usually like my big focus. 136 00:06:03.040 --> 00:06:07.920 And so for the last like 18 months, the majority of my time of that six hours of creative time 137 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:13.360 has been dedicated to either, you know, scripting out kind of ideas about 138 00:06:13.360 --> 00:06:14.800 content stuff that I want to do. 139 00:06:14.800 --> 00:06:17.200 And more realistically, it's been just book. 140 00:06:18.160 --> 00:06:20.560 And so the book has 18 drafts right now. 141 00:06:20.560 --> 00:06:23.040 So we're on draft 18 of the book. 142 00:06:23.760 --> 00:06:27.760 Probably written like somewhere in the narrative like 800 to a thousand pages 143 00:06:27.760 --> 00:06:31.520 that got distilled down into about 240-ish pages for the book. 144 00:06:33.120 --> 00:06:37.040 Have like 127 pages of doodles that are graphics that'll go in the book 145 00:06:37.680 --> 00:06:42.400 that gets distilled down to maybe, you know, 50 to 60 graphics, 146 00:06:42.400 --> 00:06:45.120 not just pages of graphics, but individual graphics that are throughout the book 147 00:06:45.120 --> 00:06:49.840 to explain kind of more complex topics for advertising to get more leads for a business. 148 00:06:50.720 --> 00:06:54.000 So that's been like a big project and that's going to finally come to 149 00:06:54.000 --> 00:06:56.160 and then in the next, you know, 12 weeks or so. 150 00:06:57.040 --> 00:07:01.360 And then the third one is just doing deals because that's actually how we make money. 151 00:07:01.360 --> 00:07:05.200 And so we have a number of larger deals on the pipeline right now, 152 00:07:05.200 --> 00:07:06.720 which there's just steps to it. 153 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:10.320 You know, there's the L.O.I. stage is where you're, you know, negotiating 154 00:07:10.320 --> 00:07:12.640 whatever the price is that you're buying in for. 155 00:07:12.640 --> 00:07:16.400 And then, you know, the diligence on our side to make sure that everything is hunky-dory. 156 00:07:16.400 --> 00:07:18.640 You know, there's no lawsuits, that kind of stuff. 157 00:07:19.280 --> 00:07:21.680 And that we believe that we can actually add as much value as we think we can. 158 00:07:22.480 --> 00:07:25.600 And then there's kind of executing the deal onboarding the companies and that kind of jazz. 159 00:07:25.600 --> 00:07:27.840 So different deals at different stages and that pipeline. 160 00:07:27.840 --> 00:07:29.760 And that's what I spend most of my time doing. 161 00:07:29.760 --> 00:07:33.360 Yeah. And, you know, you and I try to get a couple of workers in. 162 00:07:33.360 --> 00:07:39.280 But as you said, that that time is, you know, non-compromise for you. 163 00:07:39.280 --> 00:07:43.280 I try to bend the rest and try to get you in the early, but no. 164 00:07:43.280 --> 00:07:45.760 As you said, that is that part of the day. 165 00:07:45.760 --> 00:07:50.400 That first early rise in is all dedicated to your businesses and stuff. 166 00:07:50.400 --> 00:07:53.760 And then the later afternoon is when it opens up for you to. 167 00:07:53.760 --> 00:07:56.480 Yeah. I like to like fatigue my mind. 168 00:07:56.480 --> 00:07:59.520 And then my body's fresh at the end of the day, but my brain is spent. 169 00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:00.560 And then I go workout. 170 00:08:00.560 --> 00:08:03.040 And that's been like my favorite way to do it. 171 00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:04.800 I've done first thing in the morning. 172 00:08:04.800 --> 00:08:06.480 I've done a late morning. 173 00:08:06.480 --> 00:08:09.280 I've done split shift, which is a good, I like split shift a lot, 174 00:08:09.280 --> 00:08:13.280 which is like that lunchtime lift, that's like 11 to, you know, one-ish. 175 00:08:13.280 --> 00:08:14.640 And then you have your second half of the day. 176 00:08:14.640 --> 00:08:15.760 Like that's a nice reset. 177 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:19.600 I think I'll be probably doing more of that when I have the office gym. 178 00:08:20.480 --> 00:08:24.880 But if I don't have that set up, then I think I end up defaulting to like the four o'clock workout. 179 00:08:25.760 --> 00:08:26.960 And then having dinner afterwards. 180 00:08:26.960 --> 00:08:28.560 So it's kind of like marks the end of my day. 181 00:08:28.560 --> 00:08:32.960 I do want to circle back on that new endeavour of the offices. 182 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:38.160 And that's 17,000 square foot, then, you know, new building that you're working on. 183 00:08:38.160 --> 00:08:43.360 But for the viewers who have seen your face all over Instagram. 184 00:08:43.920 --> 00:08:48.320 And, you know, they can recognize you as the serial ultrapreneur. 185 00:08:48.880 --> 00:08:51.520 Just, can you tell if you was in Tick to Viewers Barker, 186 00:08:51.520 --> 00:08:55.360 how you got into the ultrapreneurial sort of mindset, 187 00:08:55.360 --> 00:09:00.320 and what age that started, and what came from that step by step? 188 00:09:00.880 --> 00:09:04.720 So I was, I was actually a pretty good student. 189 00:09:04.720 --> 00:09:08.080 A lot of times entrepreneurs are like, I failed, you know, school failed me, 190 00:09:08.080 --> 00:09:09.520 or like I was never interested in school. 191 00:09:09.520 --> 00:09:12.640 I wouldn't say I was interested in school, but school was fine. 192 00:09:12.640 --> 00:09:13.520 You know, I mean, I did the work. 193 00:09:14.480 --> 00:09:16.400 I graduated early from college, 194 00:09:16.400 --> 00:09:19.280 a Magna Cum Laude from Vanderbilt, which is a school in Tennessee. 195 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:21.760 Did pretty well on standard ice tests. 196 00:09:21.760 --> 00:09:23.680 Got a good job after that as management consultant. 197 00:09:24.400 --> 00:09:27.360 Had a pretty prestigious firm that just focused on strategy. 198 00:09:28.160 --> 00:09:30.800 But we were in the public sector, so it was defense contracting. 199 00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:33.520 So space, cyber intelligence, sounds very sexy. 200 00:09:33.520 --> 00:09:35.360 It was not very interesting for me at the time. 201 00:09:37.280 --> 00:09:39.200 Really, really got depressed during that period, 202 00:09:39.200 --> 00:09:40.720 because I felt like there was nothing else for me to achieve. 203 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:43.280 I kind of done everything that I thought I was supposed to do. 204 00:09:43.520 --> 00:09:44.960 At, you know, age 22 or whatever. 205 00:09:46.240 --> 00:09:48.960 And so I looked into starting a business, 206 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:50.560 because that was what I ultimately wanted to do. 207 00:09:50.560 --> 00:09:52.480 Apply to a bunch of business schools. 208 00:09:52.480 --> 00:09:55.280 They were like, you know, how will this help your short and long-term goals? 209 00:09:55.280 --> 00:09:57.200 After spending like three days thinking about it, 210 00:09:57.200 --> 00:09:58.880 I realized it wasn't going to. 211 00:09:58.880 --> 00:10:01.840 And so I figured I would save the 200 grand in two years 212 00:10:01.840 --> 00:10:03.920 of not making money and just put it into a business. 213 00:10:04.800 --> 00:10:07.280 I'd saved about 50 or 60 grand at the time when I was 22. 214 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:09.520 And just live in Jeep. 215 00:10:09.520 --> 00:10:12.960 And I used that to start my first business. 216 00:10:12.960 --> 00:10:16.080 So I was choosing between test prep, frozen yogurt, 217 00:10:16.720 --> 00:10:20.240 and a gym, something fitness related. 218 00:10:20.240 --> 00:10:23.040 And I couldn't afford the yogurt because it was like 250 grand. 219 00:10:23.600 --> 00:10:25.280 And test prep, I could afford, 220 00:10:25.280 --> 00:10:26.720 but I had like a falling out with the person 221 00:10:26.720 --> 00:10:27.920 who was supposed to partner with me on it. 222 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:29.520 So fitness was kind of what was left 223 00:10:29.520 --> 00:10:31.120 and I could afford to do it and I knew how. 224 00:10:31.120 --> 00:10:33.520 You know, at that point, I was already competing, 225 00:10:33.520 --> 00:10:34.960 powerlifting, not bodybuilding. 226 00:10:35.760 --> 00:10:37.520 And I was just like super into fitness at that point. 227 00:10:37.520 --> 00:10:39.360 I've been training for, I think, like seven years. 228 00:10:40.240 --> 00:10:42.640 Yeah, seven or eight years at that point. 229 00:10:43.200 --> 00:10:45.520 And so then I started a gym. 230 00:10:45.520 --> 00:10:48.720 So I drove out to California and started my first facility 231 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:50.400 against the wishes of everybody who knew me. 232 00:10:51.040 --> 00:10:54.720 And slept on the floor there, learned a lot the hard way, 233 00:10:55.360 --> 00:10:58.720 and was able to open up a second location at month 15, 234 00:10:58.720 --> 00:11:01.440 then open up a new location every six months after that. 235 00:11:01.440 --> 00:11:03.120 And then we had six locations. 236 00:11:03.120 --> 00:11:04.240 I sold five of them. 237 00:11:04.240 --> 00:11:05.360 I shut one of them down. 238 00:11:05.360 --> 00:11:08.320 And then I started doing a turnaround business where we'd fly around two gyms 239 00:11:08.880 --> 00:11:11.840 and get them to full capacity in about 30 days. 240 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:12.960 That's right when I met Leila. 241 00:11:12.960 --> 00:11:14.800 And so she was flying out with me right at that time. 242 00:11:14.800 --> 00:11:16.240 I had this idea of this new business model. 243 00:11:17.040 --> 00:11:18.640 And so we did that for about two years. 244 00:11:18.640 --> 00:11:19.840 We did 30-something turnarounds. 245 00:11:20.640 --> 00:11:23.440 And then from there, we got it really down pat. 246 00:11:23.440 --> 00:11:26.560 And so then we started licensing that to brick-and-mortar facilities. 247 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:31.520 And now we have, we licensed over 5,000 facilities 248 00:11:31.520 --> 00:11:33.840 that model over the next five years. 249 00:11:34.800 --> 00:11:36.720 And then we started a supplement company to sell 250 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:39.680 through that distribution base of thousands of gyms, 251 00:11:39.680 --> 00:11:40.720 called Prestige Labs. 252 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:42.560 The other company is called Jim Launch. 253 00:11:43.520 --> 00:11:48.000 And then after that, in 2019, we started Allen, 254 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:49.200 which is our software company, 255 00:11:49.200 --> 00:11:51.600 which also sold through that distribution base. 256 00:11:51.600 --> 00:11:54.960 And in 2021, we sold all three of those companies, 257 00:11:54.960 --> 00:11:57.440 two of them to a private equity firm called American Pacific Group. 258 00:11:58.480 --> 00:12:00.720 For two of those, we're for 46.2 million. 259 00:12:00.720 --> 00:12:03.440 And then the other one, we sold to a strategic partner, 260 00:12:03.440 --> 00:12:05.520 which we were under NDA for the price. 261 00:12:05.760 --> 00:12:10.480 But we did 12 million in the trailing, 12 months leading into the sale. 262 00:12:11.040 --> 00:12:12.000 And that was an all-stock deal. 263 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:14.400 So we basically contributed assets to an entity they did too. 264 00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:16.640 And then the hope is that five years from now, 265 00:12:17.200 --> 00:12:19.680 that next sale will be significantly larger. 266 00:12:20.480 --> 00:12:23.120 And so from there, we started our family office, acquisition.com. 267 00:12:23.680 --> 00:12:26.720 And we started investing our own money. 268 00:12:27.360 --> 00:12:29.680 Because at that point, we'd probably taken about 40, 269 00:12:29.680 --> 00:12:32.320 things 40 million in dividends out prior to our exit. 270 00:12:33.040 --> 00:12:34.880 And so we had a decent amount of cash on hand. 271 00:12:34.880 --> 00:12:36.960 And I had never really done any investing. 272 00:12:36.960 --> 00:12:39.760 And I felt like that's kind of the phase that I wanted to get into. 273 00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:42.160 But rather than kind of putting it all in the stock market, 274 00:12:42.160 --> 00:12:43.920 which I feel like I'd be competing against people 275 00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:45.120 that have an advantage over me, 276 00:12:45.680 --> 00:12:47.520 I was like, well, why don't I just invest in businesses 277 00:12:47.520 --> 00:12:49.200 that I know and understand and can add value to. 278 00:12:49.920 --> 00:12:52.800 And so that's been pretty much the thesis behind acquisition.com 279 00:12:52.800 --> 00:12:56.240 was finding businesses that are simple, 280 00:12:56.240 --> 00:12:57.680 that we can understand, that we can scale. 281 00:12:59.120 --> 00:13:00.960 And so now we have 16 portfolio companies. 282 00:13:01.920 --> 00:13:02.880 Right now in aggregate, 283 00:13:02.880 --> 00:13:04.560 I think they do about 200 million a year. 284 00:13:04.560 --> 00:13:06.480 Depends every month, it's a little bit volatile. 285 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:09.440 But that's kind of the current run rate of those portfolio companies. 286 00:13:09.440 --> 00:13:14.560 And usually we have between 20 and 51% of the businesses 287 00:13:14.560 --> 00:13:15.680 that we're invested in. 288 00:13:15.680 --> 00:13:17.120 And that's our jam. 289 00:13:17.120 --> 00:13:18.640 I'll be all in the same genre. 290 00:13:18.640 --> 00:13:20.160 And we said, no, okay. 291 00:13:20.160 --> 00:13:24.720 So everything from photography studios for kids, 292 00:13:24.720 --> 00:13:26.960 all the way to mortgage sales, 293 00:13:26.960 --> 00:13:28.960 just different businesses. 294 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:31.040 It's really just like, do we have a simple business model 295 00:13:31.040 --> 00:13:32.720 that has one to do products that we understand? 296 00:13:33.280 --> 00:13:35.040 A lot of times, red flags for us 297 00:13:35.040 --> 00:13:36.640 when we're looking at businesses is, 298 00:13:36.640 --> 00:13:38.560 do we see an entrepreneur that's super scattered, 299 00:13:39.360 --> 00:13:41.440 who can't focus on anything? 300 00:13:41.440 --> 00:13:42.560 You can often see that. 301 00:13:42.560 --> 00:13:43.520 Because a lot of times the business 302 00:13:43.520 --> 00:13:45.200 is a reflection of the entrepreneur. 303 00:13:45.200 --> 00:13:46.320 And so if everything's scattered, 304 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:48.560 everything's erratic, there's five different things going on 305 00:13:48.560 --> 00:13:49.680 and they're doing 10 million a year. 306 00:13:49.680 --> 00:13:52.960 It's like, why don't you just pick one and get it to 100? 307 00:13:53.760 --> 00:13:56.160 And so that's kind of the approach that we tend to have. 308 00:13:56.160 --> 00:13:57.840 It's like, maybe there's a front-end product 309 00:13:57.840 --> 00:13:59.360 and a back-end product, awesome. 310 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.600 And most people end up creating new products 311 00:14:01.600 --> 00:14:03.840 because they just don't know how to sell more of the first one. 312 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:05.280 And then end up creating all these appendages 313 00:14:05.280 --> 00:14:08.160 that attach to the business that ultimately make it harder to run. 314 00:14:09.280 --> 00:14:13.920 Obviously, I'm a little privy to it. 315 00:14:15.920 --> 00:14:19.360 Some more sort of the earlier part of the stories. 316 00:14:19.920 --> 00:14:22.880 Alex is a fan because on Spotify right now, 317 00:14:22.880 --> 00:14:26.400 he's assessing what protein body is going to consume. 318 00:14:26.400 --> 00:14:27.520 We'll see which one I'm going to go for. 319 00:14:27.520 --> 00:14:29.360 I'll be a big decision. 320 00:14:29.360 --> 00:14:30.160 This is a big decision. 321 00:14:30.160 --> 00:14:35.520 But I'm a little privy to some insight stories too. 322 00:14:35.520 --> 00:14:38.720 I do want to, and for the viewers watching this, 323 00:14:39.440 --> 00:14:42.400 a lot of people in the early stages of the starting up a business 324 00:14:42.400 --> 00:14:44.400 or maybe they're in the fitness industry 325 00:14:44.400 --> 00:14:46.560 and they're looking at themselves as a brand as a business. 326 00:14:47.920 --> 00:14:49.520 I know that you mentioned earlier 327 00:14:49.520 --> 00:14:54.720 before you went through this incredible history of what you started 328 00:14:54.720 --> 00:14:56.160 and where you are now. 329 00:14:56.160 --> 00:14:59.760 But you really had a rags-to-riches story. 330 00:14:59.760 --> 00:15:03.360 You kind of skimed the earlier part of life 331 00:15:04.560 --> 00:15:06.480 of where you opened up a gym. 332 00:15:07.760 --> 00:15:11.520 But you really had a lot of failures that you've learned from. 333 00:15:11.520 --> 00:15:14.880 And one of the earlier parts of your story is 334 00:15:14.880 --> 00:15:17.280 that you did get a gym, it failed. 335 00:15:18.080 --> 00:15:19.440 And can you tell us about that? 336 00:15:19.440 --> 00:15:23.760 Because I think that's a big and a critical part of your story lane 337 00:15:23.760 --> 00:15:26.400 of learning from your failures to get to where you are now. 338 00:15:28.160 --> 00:15:30.160 Yeah, failed a lot. 339 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:36.080 So I'd say the biggest failures right off the bat, 340 00:15:37.440 --> 00:15:38.640 I started the first gym. 341 00:15:38.640 --> 00:15:40.800 So all the gyms that I had were more or less successful. 342 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:45.440 I had one gym that I was a 90% owner of. 343 00:15:45.440 --> 00:15:49.520 I'd given 10% to an advisor to kind of like help me with it. 344 00:15:50.160 --> 00:15:52.800 But then I met two other guys who said they could help me more. 345 00:15:52.800 --> 00:15:55.120 So then they bought in for very little. 346 00:15:55.120 --> 00:15:57.760 And I used what little money they gave me to buy the other guy out. 347 00:15:57.760 --> 00:16:00.000 But then they ended up buying two thirds of the facility. 348 00:16:00.000 --> 00:16:01.840 So I was a one third owner of my original gym. 349 00:16:02.560 --> 00:16:05.280 And I pretty much didn't take any money out of the gyms 350 00:16:05.280 --> 00:16:08.480 while we were growing them because I would just take whatever cash to open up the new facilities. 351 00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:11.440 Ended up having a falling out with one of the two partners. 352 00:16:11.440 --> 00:16:13.440 So me and the other guy bought the other guy out. 353 00:16:13.520 --> 00:16:18.320 I kept doing and using cash to make payments to him. 354 00:16:18.320 --> 00:16:19.760 And then also open new facilities. 355 00:16:20.960 --> 00:16:23.280 Until we got to about six locations at this point. 356 00:16:23.280 --> 00:16:25.280 I was like, I don't know if this is what I like. 357 00:16:25.280 --> 00:16:26.880 It was very difficult. 358 00:16:27.760 --> 00:16:30.800 We were probably doing, I don't know, two million box and top line, maybe three. 359 00:16:30.800 --> 00:16:31.920 I honestly don't remember. 360 00:16:33.520 --> 00:16:38.960 And that was when I ended up kind of reaching this weird point where I didn't know what to do. 361 00:16:39.760 --> 00:16:41.200 I wasn't making a ton of money. 362 00:16:41.200 --> 00:16:43.920 But it was just a weird spot for me. 363 00:16:43.920 --> 00:16:50.560 And so I went to a speech or like a seminar thing like one of those events. 364 00:16:51.120 --> 00:16:52.720 And there was a guy who was talking about online marketing. 365 00:16:52.720 --> 00:16:54.320 And I was like, man, I need to learn some of this stuff. 366 00:16:55.360 --> 00:16:56.880 So I didn't do anything. 367 00:16:56.880 --> 00:16:59.680 I waited a year and then during this weird moment. 368 00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:03.200 I was like, you know what, maybe I'll go join one of his events or whatever. 369 00:17:03.200 --> 00:17:04.640 So I joined this guy's event. 370 00:17:05.200 --> 00:17:07.280 And when I was there, I was explaining my home model 371 00:17:07.280 --> 00:17:09.200 on how it opened up each facility at full capacity. 372 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:12.720 And he was like, you should show other people how you do this. 373 00:17:12.720 --> 00:17:15.360 And so that was kind of the big shifting point from me going from, okay, 374 00:17:15.360 --> 00:17:19.680 I'm going to go from six locations to ten locations to maybe I'll start this turnaround thing. 375 00:17:21.280 --> 00:17:24.480 So I started the turnaround thing and it started working. 376 00:17:24.480 --> 00:17:26.080 And so then I sold all the gyms. 377 00:17:26.800 --> 00:17:27.600 I didn't sell for a lot. 378 00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:30.400 I sold them probably an aggregate for like 250 grand, 379 00:17:30.400 --> 00:17:33.200 which for anybody who's listening, that's not a lot of money for six locations. 380 00:17:34.080 --> 00:17:36.400 It was almost just like the hard costs of the assets. 381 00:17:37.040 --> 00:17:38.720 But I was really committed to this new direction. 382 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:42.400 And so I put all the cash that I got from that sale into this new 383 00:17:43.120 --> 00:17:48.400 partnership that I decided to do with a guy who had been indicted for fraud, which I knew about. 384 00:17:49.680 --> 00:17:54.400 And I filled up a gym and we were supposed to partner only these new gyms together. 385 00:17:55.280 --> 00:17:57.120 And he would come and operate them after I filled them up. 386 00:17:57.120 --> 00:17:58.640 So it was going to be like a launch and go model. 387 00:17:58.640 --> 00:18:01.600 I'd open up one or two facilities every month and he'd come and fill it up. 388 00:18:01.600 --> 00:18:02.800 So I crushed this launch. 389 00:18:02.800 --> 00:18:06.240 It did 380 something new members in the first 21 days. 390 00:18:06.880 --> 00:18:09.040 And these were at 600 bucks a pop for six weeks. 391 00:18:09.040 --> 00:18:11.840 So it was a training facility, not like a membership facility. 392 00:18:12.800 --> 00:18:16.640 And then I looked at the bank at one day and all the money I'd put in plus all the cash 393 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:17.920 that we generated was taken out. 394 00:18:18.480 --> 00:18:20.720 And he was like, well, I know that you're skimming profits. 395 00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:24.720 So I'm just taking my half and I was like, what? 396 00:18:26.000 --> 00:18:28.000 You know, and he hadn't paid for anything. 397 00:18:28.000 --> 00:18:29.280 And I was the one who was guaranteeing the lease. 398 00:18:29.280 --> 00:18:31.200 Of course, because he had financial difficulties. 399 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:32.640 Yeah, of course. 400 00:18:32.640 --> 00:18:35.680 You know, I was like, oh yeah, Dory's just a big misunderstanding. 401 00:18:35.760 --> 00:18:39.680 And so, anyways, so there I am now and I have no cash in the bank account. 402 00:18:39.680 --> 00:18:42.240 I lost everything but I just spent five years building with the gyms. 403 00:18:44.080 --> 00:18:47.520 And I had, I think at this point, just in my personal savings, I had like 404 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:50.240 25, it's not a lot of money. 405 00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:53.600 And I couldn't sell more people because I didn't want to keep doing the gym thing. 406 00:18:53.600 --> 00:18:54.720 I wanted to do this other thing. 407 00:18:55.360 --> 00:18:59.520 And so I basically just had a stomach, the hard cost of the gym with no new revenue 408 00:19:00.080 --> 00:19:01.600 coming in, which was horrible. 409 00:19:02.160 --> 00:19:04.160 So I just basically had to pay payroll and rent everything. 410 00:19:04.160 --> 00:19:07.520 And if you have no inflow, it, you know, it goes down very fast. 411 00:19:08.560 --> 00:19:11.360 And so within six weeks, I was able to close that last facility. 412 00:19:11.360 --> 00:19:15.280 So that was where the, you know, sold five had the one that I ended up closing down was that one. 413 00:19:16.160 --> 00:19:18.320 And so now here I am, I have nothing left. 414 00:19:19.200 --> 00:19:22.960 And Layla at the time was like, hey, we should still do that, you know, launch thing, 415 00:19:22.960 --> 00:19:24.800 where we just like fill out the people's facilities up. 416 00:19:24.800 --> 00:19:27.600 And we don't own it and we just take the cash that we generate. 417 00:19:28.320 --> 00:19:29.840 And so we started doing that again. 418 00:19:29.840 --> 00:19:31.040 And so we did the next launch. 419 00:19:31.760 --> 00:19:33.280 We hired a sales guy to go do it. 420 00:19:33.280 --> 00:19:36.720 He did a hundred grand in a month, which is basically about what we'd average. 421 00:19:36.720 --> 00:19:38.160 So I was like, okay, this is my first start. 422 00:19:38.160 --> 00:19:38.960 I'm going to get this money. 423 00:19:39.920 --> 00:19:42.400 And then for some reason, the money didn't come in. 424 00:19:42.400 --> 00:19:43.680 And so I'm checking the bank every day. 425 00:19:43.680 --> 00:19:44.720 And I was like, where's this money? 426 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.000 Like, I, we process a payment. 427 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:46.720 I see it's successful. 428 00:19:47.600 --> 00:19:48.720 And it didn't come in. 429 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:51.600 And so I call the processor up and they're like, oh, it's a standard annual review. 430 00:19:51.600 --> 00:19:54.000 And I was like, I put with you guys like six years, you've never had an annual review. 431 00:19:54.480 --> 00:19:56.560 And call two days later, same thing, call two days later. 432 00:19:56.560 --> 00:19:58.080 And then finally, it's pretty easy. 433 00:19:58.080 --> 00:19:59.840 Even I'm back at Layla's parents house. 434 00:19:59.840 --> 00:20:00.800 I've never met them before. 435 00:20:00.800 --> 00:20:02.880 This is the first time they're meeting me, the winner, 436 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:06.960 who now had lost everything and had no money. 437 00:20:07.440 --> 00:20:10.240 And the only shot I had at making money, the money was not coming in. 438 00:20:10.800 --> 00:20:12.480 And so on Christmas Eve, I called them up. 439 00:20:12.480 --> 00:20:15.120 And I was like, I'm not getting off the phone until you just give me money. 440 00:20:15.120 --> 00:20:15.760 That is mine. 441 00:20:16.320 --> 00:20:18.080 And they said, no. 442 00:20:19.520 --> 00:20:20.160 Shocked. 443 00:20:20.160 --> 00:20:20.960 Christmas Eve. 444 00:20:20.960 --> 00:20:21.600 Yeah, right. 445 00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:25.920 And so I had a sales guy that I owed about $22,000 in commissions. 446 00:20:26.560 --> 00:20:30.880 And I had $23,000 left after all of this shitiness. 447 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:34.960 And so I wired him $22,000 left. 448 00:20:34.960 --> 00:20:37.680 And it was Christmas Eve. 449 00:20:38.240 --> 00:20:40.240 And so that was December of 2016. 450 00:20:40.240 --> 00:20:42.800 So it's, you know, whatever it is now, 2023. 451 00:20:42.800 --> 00:20:46.560 So I was at $1,000 left in total at that point. 452 00:20:46.560 --> 00:20:48.480 I screenshot it because I was like, I'll remember this. 453 00:20:49.440 --> 00:20:50.480 You still have the screenshot? 454 00:20:50.480 --> 00:20:51.120 I do. 455 00:20:51.120 --> 00:20:51.600 I do. 456 00:20:51.600 --> 00:20:55.600 And two days later, Layla had convinced all of her friends to quit their jobs. 457 00:20:55.600 --> 00:20:57.120 To join this our thing. 458 00:20:57.120 --> 00:21:00.000 So six of her friends had quit their jobs, which was great. 459 00:21:00.880 --> 00:21:03.280 I thought super responsible for that. 460 00:21:04.320 --> 00:21:08.400 And so I told her, you know, I have this credit card from all my gyms that they haven't canceled yet. 461 00:21:09.200 --> 00:21:10.640 I've got $100,000 limit. 462 00:21:11.440 --> 00:21:12.720 And this could go horribly wrong. 463 00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:17.840 And so I think I'm a sinking ship and you should probably get out. 464 00:21:17.840 --> 00:21:21.360 And so she didn't listen to me. 465 00:21:21.360 --> 00:21:23.440 And she said, I would sleep with you under bridge if it came to that. 466 00:21:24.240 --> 00:21:27.600 And that was kind of my, that was probably my moment for knowing that Layla was going to be the 467 00:21:27.600 --> 00:21:30.400 girl that's going to be with for a long time. 468 00:21:31.360 --> 00:21:36.720 And so I put $3,300 a day on a credit card with only $1,000 in my bank account 469 00:21:37.520 --> 00:21:41.200 to launch six locations that next month, which made no sense. 470 00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:43.040 And if I were advising me, I would say that's retarded. 471 00:21:43.920 --> 00:21:47.520 But I just like was wildly insecure and felt like I lost all the money that I was making. 472 00:21:47.520 --> 00:21:50.480 And I wanted to have a comeback and I just went for it. 473 00:21:51.040 --> 00:21:53.920 And so mind you, I didn't have a way to process money. 474 00:21:53.920 --> 00:21:57.120 So I'm doing $3,300 a day with zero ability to generate cash. 475 00:21:57.680 --> 00:22:01.680 And so we were stacking 60 contracts every day that we're selling across these locations. 476 00:22:01.680 --> 00:22:03.040 And I had no way to process the money. 477 00:22:03.760 --> 00:22:06.320 And so I thought I could get a processor easily. 478 00:22:06.320 --> 00:22:08.800 That was not the case, especially if you've been shut down by a processor. 479 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:10.960 Because it's kind of like a black mark. 480 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:15.040 And just for context, the reason I got shut down was because I was doing 481 00:22:16.400 --> 00:22:19.680 sales through a brick and mortar location not in that state. 482 00:22:19.760 --> 00:22:23.040 So I was basically running all these launch sales through my brick and mortar location 483 00:22:23.040 --> 00:22:26.480 in California because I was in Canada and wherever. 484 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:29.280 And so they were like, this is a regular, seems weird. 485 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:30.160 We're going to shut it down. 486 00:22:30.160 --> 00:22:30.880 Yeah. 487 00:22:30.880 --> 00:22:34.480 And so by the way, they never gave me that money. 488 00:22:34.480 --> 00:22:36.240 So that 100 grand, they just kept it. 489 00:22:36.240 --> 00:22:37.680 They never gave it back six months later. 490 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:38.480 You should have me. 491 00:22:38.480 --> 00:22:39.520 Nope, they kept it. 492 00:22:39.520 --> 00:22:46.880 So I ended up getting a new account that would give me a $50,000 limit to process money. 493 00:22:46.880 --> 00:22:49.200 And thankfully, it was per month, per calendar month. 494 00:22:49.200 --> 00:22:51.440 So I got it live on January 29th. 495 00:22:52.640 --> 00:22:53.760 Might do this whole time. 496 00:22:53.760 --> 00:22:54.560 We're processing. 497 00:22:54.560 --> 00:22:55.920 I'm spending $30,300 a day. 498 00:22:55.920 --> 00:22:57.840 We're getting all the contracts stacked up. 499 00:22:57.840 --> 00:22:59.440 And people are calling us like, hey, 500 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:00.640 why aren't you running my card? 501 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:01.920 We're like, oh yeah, we're going to get to it. 502 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:04.000 You know, like, yeah, it's great. 503 00:23:06.320 --> 00:23:08.880 And so the $20,000 that January comes. 504 00:23:08.880 --> 00:23:10.480 And I run 50 grand in a day. 505 00:23:10.480 --> 00:23:12.960 And I still have another 100 grand in contracts. 506 00:23:12.960 --> 00:23:13.920 Oh, shit, man. 507 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:16.080 And so then on February 1st, two days later, 508 00:23:16.080 --> 00:23:18.160 I run another 50 through the same thing. 509 00:23:18.160 --> 00:23:18.880 So I have 100. 510 00:23:18.880 --> 00:23:20.480 And I'm spending $3,300 a day. 511 00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:22.320 So I can cover my credit card bill. 512 00:23:22.320 --> 00:23:24.080 And now I'm back at zero again. 513 00:23:24.080 --> 00:23:25.440 So I'm still poor. 514 00:23:26.880 --> 00:23:28.800 But I got two more processes online. 515 00:23:28.800 --> 00:23:30.240 And then I was able to bump those. 516 00:23:30.240 --> 00:23:32.560 And so the next month, I was able to do like 180, I think. 517 00:23:33.440 --> 00:23:35.200 And I think we had like 30 grand in profit. 518 00:23:35.200 --> 00:23:37.120 And I was like, okay, we might be out of this. 519 00:23:38.320 --> 00:23:40.080 And so right as I thought we were out of the woods, 520 00:23:40.080 --> 00:23:40.960 March came around. 521 00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:42.800 We started the next few launches, 522 00:23:42.800 --> 00:23:44.720 or six or seven or eight or whatever it was. 523 00:23:46.240 --> 00:23:50.800 And then two of the locations, which for us, 524 00:23:50.800 --> 00:23:52.480 the sales guys weren't as good as we were. 525 00:23:52.480 --> 00:23:53.600 Like I would average about 100 grand. 526 00:23:53.600 --> 00:23:56.640 I think they average like 50 and cash collected per location. 527 00:23:56.640 --> 00:23:57.680 So we're in there. 528 00:23:57.680 --> 00:24:02.000 And two of the gyms that we launched at a six in January, 529 00:24:02.000 --> 00:24:05.920 stood up on chairs and told everybody to refund with me. 530 00:24:06.800 --> 00:24:09.200 And that they would fulfill the same thing for half the price. 531 00:24:10.080 --> 00:24:12.800 So just for context, the way our turn around model worked 532 00:24:12.800 --> 00:24:13.920 is we would fly out there. 533 00:24:13.920 --> 00:24:15.200 I would spend the money on the hotels, 534 00:24:15.200 --> 00:24:17.680 airfare, rental cars, food for the sales guys, 535 00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:18.960 commissions, ad spend. 536 00:24:20.480 --> 00:24:23.280 And our deal was we keep all the cash that we bring in 537 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:26.400 for X period of time, which was like a six week program. 538 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:29.840 And then after that, the gym got to convert however many members. 539 00:24:29.840 --> 00:24:30.640 So it was all free. 540 00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:31.520 It was all free for them. 541 00:24:31.520 --> 00:24:32.560 They didn't have to do anything. 542 00:24:32.560 --> 00:24:34.320 They should like do a good job for the six weeks. 543 00:24:34.320 --> 00:24:36.080 That was their actual cost was delivering. 544 00:24:37.120 --> 00:24:38.720 And then they convert whoever they won on the back end. 545 00:24:39.600 --> 00:24:41.440 But they were like, hold on, let me do the math here. 546 00:24:41.440 --> 00:24:46.320 They were like, you signed up 150 people at my gym for $500 each. 547 00:24:46.320 --> 00:24:47.440 That's 75,000. 548 00:24:47.440 --> 00:24:51.280 I made 30,000 last year and you ripped 75 out of my gym in 21 days. 549 00:24:51.280 --> 00:24:52.240 Which is in half. 550 00:24:52.240 --> 00:24:52.880 Anyways. 551 00:24:52.880 --> 00:24:53.200 Right. 552 00:24:53.200 --> 00:24:56.800 So they just told them all to refund and then sign up through them. 553 00:24:56.800 --> 00:24:58.800 Not all of them did that, but a couple guys didn't. 554 00:24:58.800 --> 00:25:00.560 And now it's because you know, you sell to, 555 00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:02.400 you sell to broke people and people, 556 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:03.680 broke people to broke people things. 557 00:25:03.680 --> 00:25:05.280 And that's a broke person thing to do. 558 00:25:05.280 --> 00:25:06.800 And it was done on my part. 559 00:25:06.800 --> 00:25:08.240 I held the processing risk, 560 00:25:08.240 --> 00:25:09.920 but I didn't have control over the delivery. 561 00:25:09.920 --> 00:25:12.800 So like I could see now that that's a risk that I probably wouldn't do as a business owner, 562 00:25:12.800 --> 00:25:14.160 but I didn't understand I was younger. 563 00:25:14.800 --> 00:25:16.400 And so anyways, 564 00:25:17.840 --> 00:25:21.760 those guys do that and all of a sudden that cushion of the 30 or 40 grand just disappears. 565 00:25:22.560 --> 00:25:25.120 And so then we are like, well, shit, what am I going to do? 566 00:25:25.840 --> 00:25:27.760 And the problem was that it started to happen again. 567 00:25:27.760 --> 00:25:30.800 Another location the next month and Laila comes to me and she's like, 568 00:25:30.800 --> 00:25:31.840 this model is broken. 569 00:25:31.840 --> 00:25:35.440 Like it doesn't work because basically we had to sell more to cover the refunds. 570 00:25:35.440 --> 00:25:39.280 Because I only had 30 or 40 grand and we had like 100,000 or 150,000 in refunds we owed. 571 00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.080 So I told the guys to ramp it on sales and we did. 572 00:25:42.080 --> 00:25:43.360 But then the same issue happened. 573 00:25:43.360 --> 00:25:45.440 So it was kind of this vicious cycle of the more we sold, 574 00:25:45.440 --> 00:25:46.480 the more we had to give back. 575 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:48.640 And like it was very horrible. 576 00:25:49.520 --> 00:25:51.200 I just remember I just couldn't breathe a lot of that. 577 00:25:51.200 --> 00:25:52.080 I like wake up the morning. 578 00:25:52.080 --> 00:25:53.680 I was like, I just couldn't breathe. 579 00:25:53.920 --> 00:25:59.360 And so I'm thinking like I might come up with 150 grand in profit in 30 days. 580 00:25:59.360 --> 00:26:00.400 I've never done my whole life. 581 00:26:01.040 --> 00:26:03.680 And which is why I think a lot of times like desperation is one of the, you know, 582 00:26:03.680 --> 00:26:04.720 the mother of invention. 583 00:26:05.680 --> 00:26:12.000 And so we Laila had this queen transformation program, 584 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:16.480 which was like her, she took her personal training in person's lines to online. 585 00:26:16.480 --> 00:26:19.440 She was making like four grand a month and it was basically paying for food. 586 00:26:19.440 --> 00:26:22.720 You know, I'm trying to, I'm doing all these big numbers and just like losing my ass. 587 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:26.400 And she's just got her like $4,000 a month thing on the side that she spends like four hours 588 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:27.360 a week on. 589 00:26:27.360 --> 00:26:29.680 And so I hit her up, hit her up, she was in the kitchen and was like, 590 00:26:30.320 --> 00:26:32.240 tell me more about this thing that you're doing. 591 00:26:32.320 --> 00:26:35.440 And you know, quickly it was like, okay, so this is all margin. 592 00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:36.800 It's all online. 593 00:26:36.800 --> 00:26:37.920 I think we could scale this. 594 00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:43.520 And so she gave me the go ahead and I spent 48 hours writing the best ads, 595 00:26:43.520 --> 00:26:47.280 best sales letter, best website I could come up with and started running ads to it. 596 00:26:47.280 --> 00:26:51.120 And within 14 days, we're doing a thousand bucks a day online over the phone. 597 00:26:51.120 --> 00:26:51.920 She was. 598 00:26:51.920 --> 00:26:54.960 And I was like, this could work because we had eight sales guys at the time. 599 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:57.840 So I was like, if I get all eight of those guys to sell, they each do a thousand of 600 00:26:57.840 --> 00:27:02.160 a day. We could do 8,000 day, pretty much all profit that we'd make 240 into the month, 601 00:27:02.160 --> 00:27:03.440 cover commissions in ad spend. 602 00:27:03.440 --> 00:27:04.880 And I'd make about 150 in profit. 603 00:27:04.880 --> 00:27:06.320 I was like, we could do this. 604 00:27:06.320 --> 00:27:09.040 And so I called all the guys that were supposed to launch the next month. 605 00:27:09.040 --> 00:27:13.120 So in April, the net, the HMS, and I was like, hey, we're not doing this anymore. 606 00:27:13.120 --> 00:27:17.600 And you know, they're like, well, you said you were going to. 607 00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:19.360 And I was like, yeah, but you haven't really paid me anything. 608 00:27:19.360 --> 00:27:23.360 So like, you know, sorry, you know, you haven't, you haven't, 609 00:27:23.360 --> 00:27:25.360 there's even lost anything by me not coming out. 610 00:27:25.440 --> 00:27:30.080 But one guy was just like the first call that I had was like, dude, I need this. 611 00:27:30.080 --> 00:27:31.040 I refinanced my house. 612 00:27:31.040 --> 00:27:32.720 I maxed out my credit cards to do this gym. 613 00:27:32.720 --> 00:27:35.120 And like, I know you launched my buddy's gym and crushed it for him. 614 00:27:35.120 --> 00:27:37.120 Now, this is one of the good guys who didn't do anything weird. 615 00:27:37.760 --> 00:27:38.960 He's like, I know you can help me. 616 00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:41.520 And at this point, I'm really beat up by the gym industry. 617 00:27:41.520 --> 00:27:42.400 I just felt really betrayed. 618 00:27:42.400 --> 00:27:43.840 And I was like, dude, I'm not flying out there. 619 00:27:43.840 --> 00:27:45.200 Like, I don't, I don't really care. 620 00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.320 And so finally, it was like, dude, can you just show me what you did? 621 00:27:48.320 --> 00:27:49.440 Just show me at least. 622 00:27:49.440 --> 00:27:51.200 And like, I could, I could get this going. 623 00:27:51.840 --> 00:27:57.680 And so I said, fine, I'll show you, but I'm not going to flat there to save your ass if you can. 624 00:27:57.680 --> 00:27:58.560 Closing said that's fine. 625 00:27:58.560 --> 00:28:00.080 And so he said, how much? 626 00:28:00.080 --> 00:28:01.360 And so I just picked the highest number. 627 00:28:01.360 --> 00:28:03.120 I could think of it at the time because I just wanted him to say no, 628 00:28:03.120 --> 00:28:04.000 he already said he was broke. 629 00:28:04.480 --> 00:28:05.680 And so I was like, six grand. 630 00:28:06.320 --> 00:28:08.160 And he was like, six K. 631 00:28:08.160 --> 00:28:09.440 And I was like, yeah, he was like, done. 632 00:28:10.480 --> 00:28:14.800 And I just remember looking at the phone and me like, holy shit. 633 00:28:14.800 --> 00:28:15.680 So that's more. 634 00:28:17.040 --> 00:28:18.720 So good thing I had seven more calls that day. 635 00:28:18.960 --> 00:28:22.240 And so I got it, you know, credit card in the back of a napkin or whatever. 636 00:28:22.240 --> 00:28:23.120 And I was like, holy shit. 637 00:28:23.120 --> 00:28:26.560 So I called the next guy that we're supposed to launch in same conversation. 638 00:28:26.560 --> 00:28:27.200 And he was like, how much? 639 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:28.080 And I was like, eight grand. 640 00:28:28.080 --> 00:28:28.960 And he was like, sure. 641 00:28:30.160 --> 00:28:30.960 I was like, what the? 642 00:28:30.960 --> 00:28:34.000 And so I called the next six guys, same conversation. 643 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:35.360 Next one was 10 grand. 644 00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:35.920 Okay. 645 00:28:35.920 --> 00:28:37.120 Next one, 12 grand. 646 00:28:37.120 --> 00:28:37.840 Okay. 647 00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:39.600 I made $60,000 in one day. 648 00:28:40.640 --> 00:28:43.600 And I looked at Layla when she came back in. 649 00:28:43.600 --> 00:28:46.880 And I was like, so I think we're still in the gym business. 650 00:28:46.880 --> 00:28:48.400 And she was like, what are you talking about? 651 00:28:48.480 --> 00:28:50.160 I just got this whole weight loss thing. 652 00:28:50.160 --> 00:28:51.360 Like it's actually working. 653 00:28:51.360 --> 00:28:52.320 Like, what are you talking about? 654 00:28:52.880 --> 00:28:54.240 It's like, I think we're still in the gym business. 655 00:28:54.240 --> 00:28:55.360 I think we're just doing it wrong. 656 00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:59.040 And so that's when we switched to the licensing model, 657 00:28:59.040 --> 00:29:01.120 where I basically took all my internal trainings, 658 00:29:01.120 --> 00:29:02.880 which is what I trained my sales teams on, 659 00:29:02.880 --> 00:29:04.800 what I trained for like the nutrition consults, 660 00:29:04.800 --> 00:29:06.080 everything that we were already doing. 661 00:29:06.080 --> 00:29:08.240 And I just like made a external. 662 00:29:08.240 --> 00:29:09.920 I just gave everybody else access to them. 663 00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:14.160 And the, so then as soon as that worked, 664 00:29:14.160 --> 00:29:16.640 I called all the 30 gyms that we had launched before that 665 00:29:16.720 --> 00:29:18.560 had those conversations and we ended up doing like, 666 00:29:18.560 --> 00:29:21.360 I think something like $300,000 in that month. 667 00:29:22.080 --> 00:29:28.080 And that covered my $150,000 pending refund thing that I owed. 668 00:29:28.880 --> 00:29:31.520 And then it just took off like a rocket. 669 00:29:31.520 --> 00:29:33.520 Because the first 30 guys that we put through it 670 00:29:33.520 --> 00:29:35.920 averaged $30,000 on additional cash collected 671 00:29:35.920 --> 00:29:37.840 in their first 30 days using the system we had. 672 00:29:38.480 --> 00:29:42.960 And then it was just like, we could barely keep up with the phones. 673 00:29:42.960 --> 00:29:44.640 You know, Layla was getting on the phone with like, 674 00:29:45.280 --> 00:29:48.240 she had eight calls a day and each call had five gym owners on that. 675 00:29:48.240 --> 00:29:50.240 Like it was, it was just like hard even comprehend. 676 00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:51.920 Like one guy was like, wait a second, 677 00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:55.280 you're charging each of us $16,000 and there's five of us on this phone 678 00:29:55.280 --> 00:29:57.280 and you have calls all day and she was like, 679 00:29:57.280 --> 00:29:57.760 yep, yep. 680 00:29:58.960 --> 00:30:00.240 And it was insane. 681 00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:02.720 And so it went, you know, I think we did 480 the next month, 682 00:30:03.360 --> 00:30:05.680 just under 800 that we did a million that we did one two, 683 00:30:05.680 --> 00:30:08.880 then one five, then one eight, then two, then two three, 684 00:30:08.880 --> 00:30:11.040 and then two five and then it just kept going. 685 00:30:11.040 --> 00:30:13.200 And then 20 months later, we were at four and a half million a month. 686 00:30:13.840 --> 00:30:17.040 And I mean, our first full year of business of the licensing model 687 00:30:17.040 --> 00:30:20.000 we did $17 million in profit and it was crazy. 688 00:30:20.800 --> 00:30:25.200 And yeah, so that's the story for Keep On Going. 689 00:30:27.680 --> 00:30:30.480 Real quick guys, if you can think about how you found this podcast, 690 00:30:30.480 --> 00:30:32.960 somebody probably tweeted it, told you about it, 691 00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:35.200 shared it on Instagram or something like that. 692 00:30:35.200 --> 00:30:37.600 The only way this grows is through word of mouth. 693 00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:39.920 And so I don't run ads, I don't do sponsorships, 694 00:30:39.920 --> 00:30:40.880 I don't sell anything. 695 00:30:40.960 --> 00:30:43.280 My only ask is that you continue to pay it forward, 696 00:30:43.280 --> 00:30:45.760 do whoever showed you or however you found out about this podcast 697 00:30:45.760 --> 00:30:47.200 that you do the exact same thing. 698 00:30:47.200 --> 00:30:50.320 So if it was a review, if it was a post, if you do that, 699 00:30:50.320 --> 00:30:51.920 it would mean the world to me and you'll throw some good karma 700 00:30:51.920 --> 00:30:53.040 out there for another entrepreneur. 701 00:30:55.040 --> 00:30:56.320 It's fun. What about you with this? 702 00:30:57.360 --> 00:31:00.160 So lost everything in 2016. 703 00:31:00.160 --> 00:31:01.200 Yeah. 704 00:31:01.200 --> 00:31:04.000 And then lost everything again in the first quarter of 2017. 705 00:31:05.360 --> 00:31:08.000 And then the turnaround of like when the model switched from, 706 00:31:08.960 --> 00:31:12.000 you know, us flying out to then trying the weight loss thing, 707 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:13.760 to then trying the true licensing thing, 708 00:31:13.760 --> 00:31:17.840 that happened like April, May, of 2017. 709 00:31:17.840 --> 00:31:19.920 We finished that year at I think six, eight top line, 710 00:31:19.920 --> 00:31:20.960 three million in bottom line. 711 00:31:20.960 --> 00:31:23.600 And then the first full year, so 2018, 712 00:31:23.600 --> 00:31:25.120 I think we did 26 million top line, 713 00:31:25.120 --> 00:31:26.800 17 million in bottom line. 714 00:31:26.800 --> 00:31:28.800 And then next year we did 37. 715 00:31:28.800 --> 00:31:31.040 And you know, that was when we started the problem company 716 00:31:31.040 --> 00:31:31.840 and they got more from there. 717 00:31:31.840 --> 00:31:33.600 And you scaled that to what? 718 00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:38.080 I think the biggest year of those combined was 37 million top line. 719 00:31:39.520 --> 00:31:41.280 And then COVID hit 2020. 720 00:31:41.280 --> 00:31:42.880 And so that hurt both of those businesses. 721 00:31:44.480 --> 00:31:47.680 But we still had a very stable base. 722 00:31:47.680 --> 00:31:51.200 And so it still made the company pretty valuable in and of itself. 723 00:31:51.200 --> 00:31:56.160 And so that's what we sold to American Pacific Group for 46.2 in 2021. 724 00:31:56.160 --> 00:31:56.720 46.2. 725 00:31:56.720 --> 00:31:57.600 46.2. 726 00:31:57.600 --> 00:31:58.240 To the game? 727 00:31:58.240 --> 00:31:59.440 46.2. 728 00:31:59.440 --> 00:32:00.400 Million. 729 00:32:00.400 --> 00:32:01.040 Yeah. 730 00:32:01.040 --> 00:32:02.080 Incredible man. 731 00:32:02.080 --> 00:32:02.560 Yeah. 732 00:32:02.560 --> 00:32:03.680 Do you ever say back and think? 733 00:32:04.400 --> 00:32:08.800 Do you have any more months where you kind of go back into that time of 734 00:32:08.800 --> 00:32:12.800 waking up with that crazy anxiety of thinking, 735 00:32:12.800 --> 00:32:14.160 oh, am I going to get to this day? 736 00:32:14.160 --> 00:32:19.360 And how am I going to, you know, deliver all the time? 737 00:32:19.360 --> 00:32:21.520 But you give yourself a, you know, 738 00:32:21.520 --> 00:32:24.560 flow as to be like, wow, I've taken myself from. 739 00:32:25.840 --> 00:32:26.960 You had you had yourself. 740 00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.600 Did you celebrate yourself after your second Olympia on your right or your third? 741 00:32:30.480 --> 00:32:32.960 This is not my, this is my, this is my, this is my podcast. 742 00:32:35.120 --> 00:32:38.240 I understand the mentality when I actually share off the podcast, 743 00:32:38.240 --> 00:32:41.920 but for me to, for me to, to explain to the viewers like, 744 00:32:43.440 --> 00:32:48.640 to see on, you know, and hear these stories on, you know, 745 00:32:48.640 --> 00:32:52.240 and see you walking around and staying as humble as what you are. 746 00:32:52.240 --> 00:32:53.680 Because let's be honest, there's guys who are, 747 00:32:55.040 --> 00:32:58.240 make a million bucks and now they're driving this, they're driving that. 748 00:32:58.320 --> 00:33:01.920 You are probably one of the most humblest guys who have got, you know, 749 00:33:01.920 --> 00:33:06.080 an insane work ethic and you don't come off the gas for nothing. 750 00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:12.880 And for me to, to see that, I think that's a good person for me to have a role in me in my life, 751 00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:17.680 just to see what your mentality is to, you know, grow and scale in 752 00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:22.880 and, you know, back into the next project or consuming yourself with the next big thing 753 00:33:23.440 --> 00:33:25.520 and not coming up forever. 754 00:33:25.520 --> 00:33:27.280 You might want to sense I've known you anyway. 755 00:33:27.280 --> 00:33:32.960 Yeah. It's, um, I think it gets into a wider world view perspective of like, you know, 756 00:33:32.960 --> 00:33:35.440 for me, I think the purpose of my, my life is learning. 757 00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:39.360 So like, that's, that's people like, what's the meaning of your life for me and learning? 758 00:33:39.360 --> 00:33:41.680 And so learning I can only do through doing. 759 00:33:42.320 --> 00:33:51.600 And so if I want to leave no potential Alex on the table when I die, then I have to expose to 760 00:33:51.600 --> 00:33:55.520 myself, you know, I have to expose myself to as many hard things I can. 761 00:33:55.600 --> 00:33:58.960 And it doesn't have to be hard like, yeah, cold plunges and whatever, you know, 762 00:33:58.960 --> 00:34:02.800 I mean, it's just like challenging circumstances that will create character. 763 00:34:02.800 --> 00:34:06.320 Because you know, if, you know, at least for me, if I think about myself at the end of my life, 764 00:34:06.320 --> 00:34:08.320 I would hope to be somebody who has strong character. 765 00:34:09.040 --> 00:34:12.640 But in order to achieve strong character, you have to go through hard things. 766 00:34:12.640 --> 00:34:15.120 And so it's kind of interesting that like, we want to have, 767 00:34:15.120 --> 00:34:18.560 all of us want to have really good character, except none of us want to go through hard things. 768 00:34:18.560 --> 00:34:20.160 And so it's like, you can't have one without the other. 769 00:34:20.160 --> 00:34:23.040 And so if I had to pick, I'd rather have the character and the scars to show it, 770 00:34:23.040 --> 00:34:26.960 rather than none of the character and had a soft life. 771 00:34:27.840 --> 00:34:33.200 That being said, I mean, we're born and I was born in America to an opera middle class family. 772 00:34:34.000 --> 00:34:38.800 So I haven't, you know, the biggest contributor to where I am now is luck by far. 773 00:34:39.360 --> 00:34:42.160 And so I've done what I can with what I've been given. 774 00:34:42.160 --> 00:34:45.600 And I still think I have a lot that I have underutilized. 775 00:34:45.600 --> 00:34:50.880 And so I just live in constant fear of that, which is, I'm not religious, 776 00:34:50.880 --> 00:34:54.800 but my favorite verse in the Bible is to how much is given, much is expected. 777 00:34:55.840 --> 00:34:57.440 And so I feel like I've been given a lot. 778 00:34:58.080 --> 00:35:01.040 And so to the same degree, I feel like a lot is expected of me. 779 00:35:01.040 --> 00:35:03.920 And that's mostly just me expecting that of me. 780 00:35:03.920 --> 00:35:08.000 Because during the year that we sold the business or three of the businesses in 2021, 781 00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:09.680 I actually didn't work at all. 782 00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:12.480 And that was a terrible year for me. 783 00:35:12.480 --> 00:35:13.600 I was very depressed. 784 00:35:13.600 --> 00:35:19.520 And so I realized that for me, I am good in motion. 785 00:35:20.320 --> 00:35:26.880 And so it's just about constantly having that pursuit of betterment, of growth, of challenge. 786 00:35:27.440 --> 00:35:32.640 And the goal for me is always to just have challenges that match my ability. 787 00:35:32.640 --> 00:35:36.640 And then over time, hopefully the challenges get bigger as my ability grows. 788 00:35:37.920 --> 00:35:39.280 And that's kind of the idea. 789 00:35:40.000 --> 00:35:44.000 You have talked about depression in some podcasts of old. 790 00:35:44.880 --> 00:35:51.520 Is that something you're very weary of in your day-to-day or you catch elements of yourself 791 00:35:52.640 --> 00:35:54.480 going into, and you can stop it? 792 00:35:54.480 --> 00:36:01.360 Because I can, for me personally, there's traits that I see if I don't to your point. 793 00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:03.920 Keep active, keep moving, keep evolving. 794 00:36:04.800 --> 00:36:06.000 That's similar to you. 795 00:36:06.000 --> 00:36:10.560 Yeah, and I'll be clear, when I say to press, when I say to press, 796 00:36:11.520 --> 00:36:13.440 I say that more, not in a clinical sense. 797 00:36:13.440 --> 00:36:16.240 I just was really aimless and felt like, what's the point of everything? 798 00:36:16.240 --> 00:36:18.240 Not like I was in bed and couldn't get up or anything. 799 00:36:18.240 --> 00:36:20.240 Like it was one of those kind of situations. 800 00:36:21.520 --> 00:36:23.680 I mean, the status I've ever been was actually when I had that job, 801 00:36:23.680 --> 00:36:24.960 and I had to quit way back when. 802 00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:28.080 That was when I was, that was actually when I was the most depressed in my life. 803 00:36:28.080 --> 00:36:29.600 I was 22 years old and felt like there was nothing. 804 00:36:29.600 --> 00:36:30.480 There was no point to living. 805 00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:33.680 That's where there's levels to it. 806 00:36:33.680 --> 00:36:36.000 But for me, I think they call it passive ideation. 807 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:37.840 But basically, you just hope that you don't wake up the next day. 808 00:36:38.800 --> 00:36:40.320 That's what I was. 809 00:36:40.320 --> 00:36:41.520 Yeah, what else do I mean, too, for sure? 810 00:36:41.520 --> 00:36:42.720 Yeah, I just hated my life. 811 00:36:42.720 --> 00:36:45.760 And I lived a life that was for my father. 812 00:36:45.760 --> 00:36:47.760 And so it was all about making him proud. 813 00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:49.280 And this is not his fault, this is me. 814 00:36:50.640 --> 00:36:52.800 But I lived the life that I thought he wanted me to have, which I was. 815 00:36:52.800 --> 00:36:55.680 He was happy that he could have ever been during that period of my time. 816 00:36:55.680 --> 00:36:57.200 And I remember thinking to myself like, 817 00:36:58.000 --> 00:37:00.640 either his dreams die or mind do. 818 00:37:01.280 --> 00:37:04.400 And so I depict whether I was going to die to him or live for myself. 819 00:37:04.480 --> 00:37:07.440 And so that was ultimately, and you know, a lot of people like, 820 00:37:07.440 --> 00:37:08.320 oh, I'm probably exaggerating. 821 00:37:08.320 --> 00:37:10.240 He's like, no, my dad and I didn't talk for like years after that. 822 00:37:10.240 --> 00:37:10.720 Not really. 823 00:37:10.720 --> 00:37:12.800 I mean, like one text every whatever. 824 00:37:12.800 --> 00:37:17.600 But me making this the switch to going from like the trot and path of 825 00:37:17.600 --> 00:37:20.240 doing the prestigious consulting thing to being a gym owner 826 00:37:20.240 --> 00:37:22.960 after going to like a very good school and doing all this stuff, 827 00:37:22.960 --> 00:37:23.920 he was not happy about. 828 00:37:24.960 --> 00:37:28.640 But at least for me, I was free to fail on my own. 829 00:37:29.360 --> 00:37:33.040 And you know, at least in the early days for the first, 830 00:37:33.520 --> 00:37:37.600 let's say five years, the biggest motivator was 831 00:37:39.120 --> 00:37:44.960 proving him right that I was going to be a failure doing the new path. 832 00:37:45.520 --> 00:37:50.240 And so that was more painful to me than anything that I could go through. 833 00:37:50.240 --> 00:37:51.680 And so that was always my reminder. 834 00:37:51.680 --> 00:37:55.040 So like no matter how hard it was, I was like, I'm just not going to let him be right. 835 00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:57.920 And so that just like got me through it. 836 00:37:58.640 --> 00:38:01.440 And so a lot of people have like these really motivational like speeches of, 837 00:38:02.240 --> 00:38:05.200 I just wanted to change the world and I just wanted America to be fit. 838 00:38:05.200 --> 00:38:06.400 Like, I don't want any of that. 839 00:38:06.400 --> 00:38:07.840 Like I just wanted my dad to be wrong. 840 00:38:09.120 --> 00:38:11.520 And so, you know, then I, you know, progressed through that. 841 00:38:12.080 --> 00:38:16.240 First it was like, I want to make, you know, more money than my dad. 842 00:38:16.240 --> 00:38:19.040 And then it was, or as much money as my dad, then it was making more money than my dad, 843 00:38:19.040 --> 00:38:20.080 then it was making more money than my dad. 844 00:38:20.080 --> 00:38:28.480 So for me, and then I realized that I was trying to win at a game that was not mine. 845 00:38:29.040 --> 00:38:31.200 So I was trying to beat my father at his own game. 846 00:38:32.400 --> 00:38:36.640 And then that's when I realized that I was like, this is the game I really want to play. 847 00:38:37.520 --> 00:38:41.760 And so I kind of shifted gears and were like, well, what is the game that I want to play at? 848 00:38:41.760 --> 00:38:42.720 Where do I find meaning? 849 00:38:43.680 --> 00:38:45.680 And that kind of went to a different place. 850 00:38:45.680 --> 00:38:49.920 And now it kind of is what I say now, which is it's just learning for me. 851 00:38:51.440 --> 00:38:55.120 And I think we can create our own meaning around the things that we want. 852 00:38:55.120 --> 00:39:01.200 And so that's the most depressed I was was when I was 22 and having to quit that job or that 853 00:39:01.200 --> 00:39:04.960 life for the new path was by far the hardest decision I made in my life, by far. 854 00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:07.520 Like, still number one, hardest decision I ever made in my life. 855 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:09.680 But after that, it all got easier. 856 00:39:10.240 --> 00:39:13.600 It was still incredibly hard, but that, that to me was like death. 857 00:39:14.400 --> 00:39:17.440 Like, I actually had to leave my dad, not my dad. 858 00:39:17.440 --> 00:39:22.240 I'd leave that Baltimore which dropped from and I didn't tell anyone until I was already halfway 859 00:39:22.240 --> 00:39:28.000 across the country because I knew that because I already tried to leave and I couldn't do it. 860 00:39:28.720 --> 00:39:31.600 And because you'd always talk me out of it and you had a lot of authority over me at the time 861 00:39:31.600 --> 00:39:35.680 because he was the really successful, you know, he was a doctor and yeah, so you know, 862 00:39:35.680 --> 00:39:40.640 he was a doctor and he was successful and he had, he wielded a lot of authority over me. 863 00:39:40.640 --> 00:39:43.680 And a lot of my early days was like trying to make him proud. 864 00:39:44.720 --> 00:39:49.520 And I realized that over time, the approval of my father was something that was always 865 00:39:49.520 --> 00:39:53.680 going to be out of reach. So, it didn't matter where it was, he would always move the goal post. 866 00:39:53.680 --> 00:39:57.200 And that's fine. I mean, hey, I've got, I've come a decent way. 867 00:39:58.560 --> 00:40:02.400 But I think it was like five, no, it's probably seven years after I left for the gym. 868 00:40:03.280 --> 00:40:06.480 You know, start the gym since like when Jim won't started really crushing it. 869 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:11.040 And he called me to, you know, give a momentous apology. 870 00:40:11.040 --> 00:40:16.720 Never apologized to me in my life and I remember we were out to dinner and he called me and I was like, 871 00:40:17.440 --> 00:40:20.880 this is weird. Like, he doesn't really call me that much. So I took the phone and was like, 872 00:40:20.880 --> 00:40:24.160 hello, he's like, you're going to want to sit down and I was like, okay. 873 00:40:25.200 --> 00:40:33.040 And he said, I'm sorry. And I was like, for what? He was like, you know, everything. 874 00:40:35.040 --> 00:40:42.320 Okay. And you know, rather than having that just be a nice moment, which I probably should have done, 875 00:40:42.720 --> 00:40:49.840 I was still very angry. And so I was like, you know, pops, you know, when they have those 876 00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:53.840 speeches that there's a word ceremony and people get up there and they're like, you know, 877 00:40:53.840 --> 00:40:57.680 I just want to thank my mom, my dad for always believing in me. I was like, I'm not going to say that. 878 00:40:58.240 --> 00:41:02.240 I was like, because you didn't. I was like, because you only believed in me once it was obvious. 879 00:41:02.240 --> 00:41:04.640 Once I'd meet more than you than you've ever made in your entire life. 880 00:41:05.040 --> 00:41:13.840 And he was like, well, we'll see how long it lasts. And so, you know, we had a little bit of that kind of 881 00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:18.480 competitiveness or whatever. I don't even know what you want to call it. I was disrespecting him. 882 00:41:18.480 --> 00:41:22.880 It's basically what that was. And I shouldn't have done that. But I was younger and I was angrier. 883 00:41:24.080 --> 00:41:28.800 But now I think we're on we're on decent terms. And I think he has come to respect me in a real way. 884 00:41:29.040 --> 00:41:37.120 Or, you know, who I am because the thing that I also said in that conversation, which I probably 885 00:41:37.120 --> 00:41:43.120 shouldn't have was, you approve of me now. And I was like, but I stopped caring about what you thought 886 00:41:43.120 --> 00:41:49.040 five years ago. So your approval doesn't mean anything to me. And to be fair, it was true. 887 00:41:49.040 --> 00:41:54.400 Because it was me having to like die to that vision of what he had for me. That was the thing 888 00:41:54.400 --> 00:41:58.880 that allowed me to do this thing. Because he made it very clear that he didn't approve the decision. 889 00:41:59.600 --> 00:42:04.240 So I had to go on my own. And that was why it felt like death. Because it was like death of a 890 00:42:04.240 --> 00:42:07.920 relationship, death of the mentor that you have or whatever that, you know, you end up to that point. 891 00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:12.800 That was the major driving force in my life. It's like, I got grades to impress my dad. I 892 00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:16.560 went to a good school to impress my dad. I took the job that he wanted me to take. I did all those 893 00:42:16.560 --> 00:42:21.520 things. But it always felt like the approval was like one more thing that yeah, okay, then go to 894 00:42:21.520 --> 00:42:24.400 a business school and then graduate from Harvard. And then after that, like, and that's okay. Because 895 00:42:24.400 --> 00:42:28.960 like a lot of people have a tougher than that. You know, that was just, that was my story. 896 00:42:29.680 --> 00:42:36.960 You guys are okay now. Yeah. Yeah, we're good terms. Listen, it's not. I don't think 897 00:42:39.040 --> 00:42:43.760 there's no way that he looks at what you've achieved and is any shape or form, not proud. 898 00:42:43.760 --> 00:42:47.040 You know, maybe it's just he's one of them old school people. I'm not, again, I don't know 899 00:42:47.120 --> 00:42:53.680 this question. But some people are just hard and hard in compliments and trying to, you know, 900 00:42:53.680 --> 00:42:58.560 my parents obviously are a little different. And for me, they, you know, come in from a very 901 00:42:58.560 --> 00:43:05.520 blue collar upbringing. And from the tone I was brought up in, there was, there was only a few jobs 902 00:43:05.520 --> 00:43:11.920 that were highly successful that I was going to achieve, right? So I done pretty much similar to 903 00:43:12.400 --> 00:43:17.440 you. I went off my own to my apartment front failed so many times, but I got the stories to tell. 904 00:43:20.160 --> 00:43:24.400 But listen, that is a story that that has obviously got you to where you are. I know. And 905 00:43:26.080 --> 00:43:32.320 and I don't think it's hardened you. It's probably made you more focused on on all these endeavors. 906 00:43:33.040 --> 00:43:40.240 But one thing I have learned to do over the years is give myself sort of, 907 00:43:40.800 --> 00:43:48.560 of muscle looking back the, the flowers that I never give myself at the time. And like, I hope 908 00:43:48.560 --> 00:43:52.480 that you're able to do that. No, looking back. That's why I kind of mentioned what I did because 909 00:43:53.920 --> 00:43:58.000 I'm so focused forward that I would always on to the next like everyone in these trophies 910 00:43:58.000 --> 00:44:03.760 are you every one of them. I was always on to the next. Everybody else was celebrating for me. 911 00:44:03.760 --> 00:44:07.520 And I was like, I gotta show next week. I gotta get my way back down. Yeah. And I'm on the road 912 00:44:07.520 --> 00:44:11.040 again. I know I retired. I probably can more sort 913 00:44:12.720 --> 00:44:18.000 except more of that praise, even though it's come a gone now. But I wasn't there at the time, 914 00:44:18.000 --> 00:44:23.600 even though the after parties and everything else, I wasn't there. But yeah, there's so much more 915 00:44:23.600 --> 00:44:27.120 stuff that's going to be achieved by you. I think in the moving forward, I hope that you're 916 00:44:27.120 --> 00:44:34.560 able to be present and celebrate. I don't know. I think you're just so focused though. That's 917 00:44:34.560 --> 00:44:38.400 what I get from you every time I'm around you. And every time I give you a compliment, even if 918 00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:45.440 it's about your physique. It's like, it can be better. You know, my calves are not as big as yours. 919 00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:50.080 Am I wrong? Let's be honest.