Overcoming Challenges and Achieving Greatness by Ben Muresan

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
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policy from Denten, you're giving backon a global scale. Hello all,

(00:21):
my entrepreneurs and business leaders, andwelcome to the Michael Esposito Show, where
I interview titans of industry in orderto inform, educate and inspire you to
be great. My guest today wasborn in nineteen eighty five in Romania at
a time when the country was undercommunist rule. His family escaped before the

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revolution and landed in an Austrian refugeecamp in nineteen ninety. After immigrating to
Canada and eventually reuniting with his siblings, Ben developed a passion for life and
a gratitude mindset. His parents sacrificefor a better life developed a deep sense

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of responsibility within him. Early onin his life, his dream of building
an empire, motivating, entertaining andinvesting in other people spawned to become humble
where he gives creates gratitude and growthmindset. Please welcome my guest, Ben

(01:27):
Murison aka Ben Humble. Thank you, thank you, Thank you, Michael
for having me super excited to talkwith you and and impacts some folks that
are listening today. Yeah, Ben, your story is tremendous. You know

(01:48):
what I thought was really neat wasgoing to your website and seeing your book
cover and your book cover. Whoevercreated that, I'm sure you had a
big play in it. You seemvery artistic. Really got the picture that
we just spoke about here by havingthat split image of half of you with
a tank behind you in Romania andthen the other half with the lifestyle that

(02:13):
people aspire to have today, withyour lambeau behind you on the other half,
and it just speaks volumes that picturethere. I am very interested in,
of course, the book. Butwhile we're on the topic of your
upbringings, could you share a littlebit more about that, what you overcame
in order to get to where youare. Yeah, my parents are my

(02:36):
too, greatest heroes in life.Mom and Dad. They shout out to
them, you know more. Inthe communist country, we're told what to
think, what to believe, whatto do, how to behave, where
to stand. There are no freedom, zero, no freedom of expression freedom
of faith. So mom and Dad, being people of faith, had to
make a tough decision. They said, this can't be all of life,

(02:57):
this can't be our future. Wehave to do something thing. And they
made a tough decision to leave theirmother Tongue, their mother lands, and
to leave their family and run ranacross the border. Dad had five children
at the time. He's twenty sevenor twenty eight years old. Five kids.
He can only carry three, sohe has to make a decision about

(03:19):
who would leave. And he ranwith this face and God, and he
also ran with this idea that ifhe got to where he was going,
which was a refugee camp, hopefullyat some point the Red Cross or another
organization would reunite the family. Sohe had to leave two kids at the
neighbor. Hardest thing he's ever done. And we ran across that border to
two and a half days of runningthrough a small caravan of people, very

(03:42):
well organized. Two and a halfdays later we arrived at this refugee camp
in Austria and people weren't really runningwith kids if he would get caught or
shot. So he arrives in Austria, little kids and we're a refugee camp
for the next six month. That'sto be getting of life. So for
me, it's when you start thatway and you overcome that you overcome the

(04:06):
greatest of fears, the greatest ofchallenges, right from the beginning of your
life. Nothing is impossible. Literally, nothing is impossible. The adversity that
we had to me. Adversity isa superpower. If you choose, it
can either fuel you or it couldturn you into a victim. And that
is a choice that we make everysingle day. And so I love adversity.

(04:29):
I love people who come from difficultsituations. I love minorities. I
love the fact that people who startwith tough things and life, I believe,
live with a different type of convictionabout what they can have. That's
incredible when when you're speaking about runningfor two days, so this is just

(04:50):
NonStop movement on the go to thisrefugee camp in this like war torn country.
You were very young the time.What were your memories like of that
situation. I was, I wasabout five years old. I knew that
it took us two days to getthere, and we would have to we

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would have to hide and cross atnight, so we'd have to hide in
the digs in in the brush,and we'd have to try to cross the
border, and if we could crossthe border successfully, then a small caravan,
small car would take us up anddrive us to the next border drop
off. Again, we had toget through two countries because the neighboring country
would return us back to Romania.So, you know, the memories I

(05:34):
have are vague of that excursion,but I do have some memories of being
in the refugee camp, of beingof being a kid who didn't speak We'd
learned in Austria, so I didn'tspeak German and I had to learn.
And I remember being in the refugeecamp, and I remember some of the
other kids there. I remember goingto a local pub every day and they

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had a television, so they wouldhave those old Batman movies from the eighties,
and I remember sitting there watching this, you know, kind of TV
and seeing glimpses. I have glimpsesof Batman from the eighties. And they
they used to call me bos Mine, you know, I like the young
You're gonna watch Batman all day.So there's a couple of memories, but
you know that's five years old.A lot of it is a fog.

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Yeah, you know a lot ofit is a fog. And what's weird
is when when I hear the storiesfrom my parents, you know, I
don't know if if if some ofit I remember or some of it I'm
just imagining. It's a tough,blurry line. Yeah, from that age
suppressed some of this stuff because itwas a stressful period. I'm sure,
I'm sure, and I'm sure someof it is intentional blockage, right,

(06:41):
Um? And what about life beforethat? What was what was that like?
Do you remember or where you toldstories about what life before leaving your
home was like for you guys?Yea, it was communism, so everything
that you saw was propaganda, wascontrol, was manipulation, And people would
be walking down the road and arandom line would form outside of a store

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and you would just stand there forhours in this random line because they were
given out some ration, so youwould wait a breadline. You would try
to get rations. Everybody stole incommunism. Everybody was a thief because you
had to do whatever you could doto get an edge. So if you
worked in a shoe factory, youwould steal material and leather and shoe strings

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and you would go home and builda pair of shoes, and you would
use that to bribe people. Youcouldn't go to the hospital and deliver a
child without an envelope for the doctoror a gift for the doctor. Everything
was gift. Everything was bribing me. It's a horrendous way to live,
but like anything else, people canbecome conditioned to really tough situations and they

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just make the best of it.My dad built us basically a stove in
an apartment because in the winter forthe Communist Party to save money, they
would cut the hydro at like ninepm, meaning nobody had heat all night.
We would just freeze all of usbecause that's how they decided they were
going to save money. So Ithink in some regard them wanting to serve

(08:07):
the people and payoffs to death tosit and do all these different things.
I think it was noble, butit was extremely poor execution because it was
at the expense of the people.And my dad got some metal piping from
work and he literally built himself alittle heater. He was very resourceful.
So the people back then Romanians areprobably the most resourceful individuals, but I

(08:31):
find they're very very have a hardtime collaborating, probably because years of communism.
So Romanians as a group and asa community not that strong. But
the Romanian individual business old adage backhome. Romanian can do anything. He
can fly a plane, he cancook, he can run for offics,
he could do just abou anything.They're very, very resourceful, industrious people.

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But as a community there's really nofellowship, no real community. So
that's that's the pro and the negative. I guess if you're from that culture,
that comes from that. Yeah,And it sounds like your dad had
this incredible mindset in order to overcomewhat was happening at home. Do you
know where he found that mindset forhimself? Totally? It was one hundred

(09:13):
percent because of his faith. Mydad chose to be a Christian in a
time where it wasn't popular to bea Christian. He chose to become a
Christian. And out of that choicecame resourcefulness. You had to become resourceful.
You weren't allowed to just be aChristian or have a different faith.
Everything was spies and hidden agendas.And so I believe my dad was a

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product of his conditioning and my mom. They were born into an era where
they made a choice and they weregoing to be persecuted for that choice regardless.
But they had to become resourceful peoplelike I've heard stories of people sticking
bibles into spare tires and rolling themfrom one village to the next village down
the hill. That's what they woulddo hidden churches. So we grew up

(10:00):
of an underground environment. If youown and if you were labeled the Christian
back then, you didn't have freedoms, you didn't have choice. You're not
going to get the good jobs ingovernment. You're not going to go to
the good schools, you're not goingto get the good trade. You're gonna
get the grunt work in the military, because back then everybody had to go
to the military. So my dadjust said, there's no future here for

(10:20):
me and my children. I haveto go. And then propaganda. It's
hard to believe, but American movieswere illegal. People used to smuggle VHS
tapes and have little watch parties andthey would sit in front of their little
TV that they could find and theywould watch these things. And probably the
most outlawed thing during that time wasto see Americans feasting Thanksgiving and dinner feast

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all those Christmas movies were probably theworst thing for the communist leaders because they
showed one thing that Americans had food. We were told that Americans slept under
bridges, that they had no food, that they were broke. They had
to create an narrative where nobody wantedto leave. And that's how communism works.
They have to control the narrative.That's in I never knew that control,

(11:11):
that they control the narrative to thatextent. I have some questions about
your dad, a couple more abouthim, but with what you're talking about
in terms of controlling the narrative,and you're a big believer in mindset,
I mean, this just speaks tothe narrative that people tell themselves all day
long. Right. I Mean you'recoming from a communist rule where the government

(11:33):
is telling you this, giving youthis scarcity mindset. But there's people right
here in America and you know,in well to do countries that have a
mindset that's very similar to where theyhave this scarcity mindset. And my understanding
from what you do at Humble isyou help people out get out of that
mindset. Right. I built Ibuilt kind of an algorithm for getting out

(11:58):
of that non sense and it startswith giving first. Most of us are
waiting to receive before we give,and we don't understand the power of reciprocity
and the power of giving the waythat your heart see. You can live
like this with a closed fist,and no money can ever leave, no
abundance, nothing can ever happen.You never give, you never help,
you never do anything, but nothingcomes in. Or you can live with

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an open hand and money can pourout, abundance can pour in, and
you can live an abundance or ascarcity. And people choose scarcity in a
country like America. Our Canada wasso much abundant resource to live in Scarcity,
to me is a catastrophic sin becausewe lack perspective. We lack perspective

(12:41):
of what it's like to be inNorth America with no surrounding enemies. Right,
we have all this water around us. What a blessing that is.
And then we look at Europe,where it's basically like if you took all
the states made them all different countries. That's Europe. Your neighbor is your
enemy, your other neighbor is yourally, and you can't possible you understand
what it's like to be in thecenter of a group of countries and you

(13:03):
become an enemy. Like it's sodifficult to perceive. So I think perspective's
key for people. I think ifin North America you took the time to
travel, you took the time tosee how other people live. If he
took the time to really understand theway that life works outside of a first
world bubble, I think he wouldgain greater perspective and frankly a lot more

(13:24):
gratitude. But because we are sodistracted by things like social media on Facebook
and posts and algorithms and all thisbullshit. We're so distracted by the stuff
because frankly, nobody wants our awarenessto increase. Nobody wants our perspective to
growth. When I made the mostmoney and I grew the most is when
my awareness grew the most. Irealized what was possible. My dad had

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a vision, my mom had avision, and they realized what was possible.
Like to say, whatever it is, But those Romanian movies I got
smuggled in where people got to seeAmericans winning. That created hope. That's
why they were outlawed, because theycreated hope for a group of people that
were hopeless. That were controlled,that were manipulated. So if you're in

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this country, if you're in America, oh my god, are you incredibly
blessed? You don't need more evidencethat abundance is all around you. You
don't need more proof it's everywhere.You need to get off of Facebook.
You need to stop looking at thenarrative that does not serve you. And
that's the choice. The addiction tothis narrative, the addiction to negativity,

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the addiction to social media, theaddiction to being distracted, is the exact
reason why you're living in scarcity.Stop being distracted, make a choice to
actually open your eyes. That's hugeyou speak about I like how you associated
to addiction. These negative habits thatwe have or that we've learned as a

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culture, and you relate them toaddiction. You said it more than once.
I'm interested in your take on thatanything that you feed grows. A
simple as that anything that you feed, you feed yourself positive energy, You
feed yourself good thoughts. Those aregoing to start growing. They're going to
manifest into reality. You feed yourselfnews and negativity and not understanding what the

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news is. The news is abusiness. The news is driving revenue.
Through ads, through attention. Ifthey can capture your attention, then they
win. That's how the news wins. Of course, it's going to be
headlines and stories. If the newshad no headlines, you wouldn't watch it.
And when you finally open your eyesto realize that you are feeding yourself

(15:45):
this poison, eventually it turns intoan addictive behavior. You are so addicted
to scrolling your thing, to gettingthe latest news event, you're so addicted
to belonging to a group of peoplewho live with There's never been more anxiety
and depress then right now. We'vegot somebody who's a friend of ours talking
about and they're professional psychologists. There'snever been more depression and anxiety than right

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now, which is absolutely absurd withthe level of abundance you have. So
it's as simple as this. Mostpeople are living in an addicted state of
mind. They're addicted to the scarcity, they're addicted to the negativity. How
do I know because I mentor peopleall the time. Thousands of people come
through my ecosystems. And money makingisn't about money, has nothing to do

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with money. The reason you're notrich has nothing to do with money or
the business vehicle. The reason you'renot wealthy is because you're addicted to putting
up walls and barriers, and youhave low emotional resiliency and you have no
real driver ambition. Because you're addicted, you're consuming, not creative. I
think people are consuming every day.They're consuming negativity. They're consuming television,

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They're consuming a bunch of craft thatdoesn't serve them. They're consuming pornography because
they're failing in their marriage. They'reconsuming the internet because they're failing in their
business. Mind. You have toprotect what's in here. Your spirit is.
You're grounding how you feel, howyou operate, what your core values
are. But you have a head, you have a heart, and you

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have hands, and it's your job. Every single one of us has agency
over our lives. We all havewillpower. And I think when people give
up their willpower, they give uptheir agency and they go, it's not
up to me. The government screwedme, my employers screwed me. It's
all negative. People are shooting eachother less or write the vision. You
are choosing that sciocity. I don'tchoose it now, you might say,

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But dude, then are you ignorant? Are you unaware? Are you uneducated?
And I would respond with I'm educatedin the things that produce a purposeful
life, and I am not educatedinto things that produce scarcity. I don't
give a shit. Whose fayment,who's not famous, who's causing drama,

(18:02):
which politician is blah blah blah.You either stand up and do something about
the problem, you hide and gossipall day, or you physically move your
body to another place that has lessconflict. Pick point. I will never
hide and gossip. What do youthink? That's that's my take on this,
on this situation. Yeah, Imean that that's I feel the same

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way. I you know, Idon't watch the news. I don't go
on social media. People are areamazed by that sometimes, and I'm like,
I hired a social media manager forthat reason. Was you know,
in the beginning, I had topost a lot. I had to be
on social media and see what thetrends were and everything, and and what
happens is I mean, they buildthese algorithms in order to suck us in,

(18:48):
and so you get sucked in alittle bit. And I didn't want
to be there, so I hireda social media manager. That's what helped
me be able to put some spacebetween me and social media and what happens
there. But yeah, so Istay away from all of that. And
then the other thing, like whatyou said about, you know, staying
in a place where I focus onwhat is productive, and it's not being

(19:11):
ignorant to what's happening around us.And that's what I tell my team too,
is it's acknowledging. Hey, look, I can acknowledge what's happening that
in a in a bad light aroundus, in a negative space, we
could acknowledge it. But to yourpoint, if you're not writing letters to
politicians, if you're not running forsenate, if you're not at the town
hall standing up and speaking, thenthere is no need to just start going

(19:37):
off about it with your friends ata dinner table. There's something much more
productive that you could do with yourfriends at a dinner table. It could
be like, how can we growour businesses, how can we become better
people? What can we do forour community, how can we serve our
community? And if part of thatis the politics, then great, now
bring it to town hall. Nowrun for politics or whatever it is that
you're trying to change. But Ilove that affirm that real quick, because

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I really agree with you in thatstatement that if you're not part of the
solution, don't be part of theconversation. Right That to me, want
to talk about a shortcut in life. If it's not a solution, if
it's not a level of abundance orimpact, I'm not even part of the
conversation. I'll give you a bighack for your community. It's still simple,
create something, Create something every singleday. My greatest happiness comes from

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growth. In fact, all ofus as humans, we're the happiest when
we're productive because growth is an intrinsichuman need. If you're growing, you
can find happiness. When you don'tgrow, you start to die. Is
that? So you have a choiceevery day. You can create something new,
or you can consume the same thingover and over again. I've heard

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it from a psychologist that over seventypercent of our thoughts are repeated every day.
So if you have negative garbage fromyesterday, you're actually going to repeat
seventy percent of that negativity again today, and then seventy percent of today's negativity
again tomorrow, and then again tomorrow, and you are replaying the same negativity.
Movie the same conversations, the samesituations, the same problem, the

(21:08):
same bullshit, over and over fromday to day. You are carrying your
baggage with you day to day today. That's powerful if you know that.
The way that you break it forme is I create something new today.
And that could be whatever. Thatcould be a business, that could be
a relationship. That could be goingto the gym and creating a new habit.

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That could be creating a new productor service from my ecosystem. That
could be creating music that I'm passionateabout, that can be creating anything.
But you have to be in astate of creation if you want to be
in a state of abundance. Astate of consumption will put you into scarcity
because there will never be enough.Ever, when you're a consumer, you
will always find scarcity through consumption becauseyou believe the world is limited and so

(21:53):
are resources. So I would justchallenge people, when you create, you
get out of your horrible thinking.When you consume, you stay there and
you repeat it day in and dayout. That's that is huge. I
love that. Thank you so muchfor sharing that and so speaking about creating.
You know, when I was checkingout your website, I saw that

(22:14):
there's there's a music space for itin terms of your creation. And you
developed a passion at a really youngage for playing the piano in church,
and I'm interested in the music andwhat you create there. Dude. I
love music. It's you know,every person has a passion, Like,
what's your passion? What do youlove doing? I love doing this,

(22:36):
man, so um the podcast cameout of a passion. I tell everybody
that when they asked me, Hey, I want to start a podcast,
I want to do what you're doing, I'm like, you got to be
passionate about it. I believe so, and I think all of us can
find passion. And to me,passions are They're interesting. They're kind of
like this work that flares out theplayers back in. Like when you live
in your passion and you've flared outand you're fully engaged in your passions.

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I think that that helps so manydifferent areas of life. And to me,
that's music. You know, thebest example or the best definition of
music came from a pastor that wehad who said that music has the ability
to reach the corners of the soulwhere the spoken word cannot. And because
I'm highly intentional and everything I dobecause I really care about outcome, because

(23:22):
I really care about impact, becauseI really just love and understand music at
a level most people will never appreciatemusic. I love to produce it.
I love to create it. Andyou know, I got in this whole
business, a real estate thing,back at twenty one with a very clear
intention, which was to become financiallyfree and go back to playing music on
my own terms. I don't wantto be a street performer. I didn't

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want to be just some dude whohas a struggling artist. I wanted to
be an artist and play to music. I love to play and inspire people.
So to me, music has veryinherent, inherently growth oriented qualities that
it helps feel my spirit. IfI do it for me and it feels
my spirit, it may feel yourspirit. And to me, it comes

(24:07):
back to this really pure definition ofhow I live my life is I've learned
that I have two choices. Ican feed the flesh or I can feed
this spirit. And if I seethis spirit that's doing good and I starved
the flesh trying to just always feelgood, I'll eventually get to the level
of fulfillment and fulfillment is better thanfeeling. Most of us are trying to

(24:33):
feel. Most of us are soaddicted again that word, to the dope,
amine, hit to the scroll,to the cheeseburger, to all the
stuff that we're addicted to, tryingto feel good in the moment, and
that we sacrifice the year our life. So I think music is one of
those things that it's just me dogood, you do good. It's the
same with business. I just dogood. I do good. I do

(24:55):
get over and over again until Iwake up one day. People go,
what's the secret to your success?Dude? I starved the flesh. That's
the secret to my success. Iremoved the things that most people are addicted
to. I just remove addictions frommy life. You're not seeing a person
who's successful. You're just seeing aperson who's not addicted. And if you
can just remove the addiction, youcan discover life. So I'm not better

(25:18):
than anybody. I don't. Idon't have a I don't have any any
specific benefit or anything that I couldI could disclose is like this is this
is what makes me better. There'sno endowment. It's just I made a
choice to not live an addiction.I made a choice to choose happiness.
So I think something that makes areally good example of that is, you

(25:45):
know, our conversation off air alittle bit about some of your podcast guests,
because you also host a podcast,and when I was checking out your
list, I saw some really topnotch podcast guests where I was like,
man, how did he get thatperson? And man, he must know
somebody or must be the pr agentthat hooked them up or whatever it was.
And so one of my first questionsto you before we even went live

(26:06):
was how did you book Dean Graziazo, Because you know he's he's a he's
a one of those high level people, hard to get to people. And
I loved your response, and I'mgoing to allow you to share that with
everyone because I think it speaks towhat you just talked about. Yeah,
so, I mean, Dean,it's just outreach, man, personal outreach.

(26:27):
It's no fancy trick, it's nofancy tip. There's no there's no
agency out there getting it done forme. And by the way, I
do pay people for this stuff.But my best reason, my best outcomes
have always comes from a personal connectionoutreach. Right, Hey, I think
the world needs to hear your message. I have a platform, I have
an audience want to I want toshare it with you. It's going to

(26:48):
be incredibly impactful, it's going tobe incredibly special, and we will honor
your life, you will honor whatyou've done. I want to help you
take your message to a broader audience. When you finally appost people from a
personal connection. People know, seepeople know those who are desperate. Desperation
is one of the ugliest human traits, very ugly and very obvious. So

(27:12):
when you're like desperately trying to feelyour podcast real, and you're so transactional
in all your conversations and everything justbecomes about you, and you're a narrative
and you're not really serving or helpin anybody, what are you giving?
I could tell you a big secretfor all my podcast guests, which was
I like music a lot, somuch that in forty five of my episodes,

(27:32):
I wrote a custom rap song forevery single participant. If you go
to my series, there's a rapsong for every single guest. And then
I wrote them the song. Ittook me forty minutes, I recorded the
song, I played the song live, and then I sent it to them.
On a little icond shuffle thing wherethey could watch the video or whatever.
You know, why, Because Ibelieve in giving the kind of gifts

(27:56):
that only you can give. Nobodycan give a gift like I can give
it. It comes from my passions. People go, wow, that's an
awesome trick. I'll try to dorap songs. You'd better be passionate about
it, right. So I believein this idea of giving, give the
kind of gift that only you cangive. Live in the kind of gratitude

(28:17):
where you create abundance and then growthcomes from that mental, spiritual, emotional,
relational, physical, financial. Butyou gotta you gotta be in this
giving attitude. Most people are like, like, listen, the secret to
book in podcast is don't just bea generic podcast. Nobody caress a billion
podcasts, every single one of themwants to be a podcast. You better

(28:41):
come with some level of convictions,some level of value, some level of
professionalism, is some level of care. And if you don't, people know
listen, I like, I likeyou, this is a good show.
I've been on other shows that they'relike, I have seven questions, let
me ask you. I'm like,don't ever email me again. I will
never be a guest on your show, right, And it's not because they're

(29:06):
not trying to do a podcast.It's just it's the transactional thing and it
bothers me. Right. So Ijust think live life in the way where
you're a consciously giving value of peoplehelping people, and give value is very
generic. It's a completely overused termin these days. And what I really
mean by give value is make agenuine connection. That's what I mean by

(29:29):
give value. Make it a genuineconnection, a genuine expression of gratitude,
a genuine expression of appreciation, ofadmiration, a genuine expression of respect.
And I think that that word getslost. It's no longer genuine, right,
it's general. Yeah, it does. You're right. I speak about

(29:49):
that too a lot in terms ofthe genuine, genuine connections is that you
can't make it up. You gotto be real, Like you can find
little things in common, but youhave to be real. And I love
the fact that you touched on thepodcast and the passion there because it's so
true. People reach out to meand they're like, hey, I want
to have a podcast that's just touchedon it earlier, and I'm like,
you got to be passionate about it, because it's it's one it's not easy,

(30:12):
right and you know this with music, you know this with anything that
is kind of like this, likein the creative space, it's not easy.
You're not gonna land, guess rightaway. You're not gonna land the
biggest guests. You're not going togrow your audience to a huge amount right
away. It's going to take time. And in that time, if you're
not passionate about it, it's gonnashow. And you're right, it's going

(30:33):
to become transactional because you're just gonnabe pushing, pushing, pushing, where
when you start off with passion,when it is, when you are passionate
about it, the audience doesn't matter. And I remember this about two years
ago when I first started the podcast. My uncle asked me this at the
dinner table. He said, howmany people are listening? How many people
you have subscribe? You started askingme all these questions that you know typically
are out there, and I said, I don't know. I said I
don't know, I don't know,and he looked at me and he was

(30:56):
just like, how do you runthis show? And you don't know?
And my answer to him was basedoff of passion, I said, I
said, I don't care. Isaid, right now, I'm just putting
in the work. I'm just grindingand I'm learning. And what I care
about is if one person on theother end gets value everything that you're talking
about. I care like, evenin this episode right now with you,

(31:18):
if we have an audience of onehundred thousand people, let's say I wish
right right now it's not there,but one day and only one person walks
away, that one person connected withyou there, they have a story like
yours, they learn something from you. That's what we care about. And
because I know you feel the sameway. Just going back to the walls

(31:38):
and the barriers that people build andthis emotional strength that you talk about,
I'd love for you to expand onthat a little bit, because that is
we go back to scarcity mindset,We go back to why people struggle in
their everyday pursuit of happiness. It'sthe walls that are that they've created around
them, or that someone else hascreated around them, and it's the emotional

(32:00):
strength to break through those walls.I believe that they might not. I
don't want to say that they lackbecause everybody has it in them, they
just need to find that sense ofbelief. And so I'm interested in your
I love that you said hack before, so let's use that word again.
I'm interested into your hack to breakingdown those barriers. And I know you
touched on it a little bit,but I just want to dive deeper there.

(32:22):
Yeah, So for me, theidea of struggle leads to this powerful
thing called conviction. I think struggleis a good thing, not a bad
thing. Going to reframe that.For me, I want struggle. I
want it to be difficult because Iknow something about difficulty. Most people shy
away from the difficulty, which meansmy competition those way down. If you're
prepared to struggle through your first realestate deal, you're prepared to struggle through

(32:45):
your first business deal, most peoplewon't. They'll just give up, They'll
go to another thing because inherently theydon't believe or they don't understand that struggle
is part of the equation you arenot. Nobody is gifted or talented enough
to avoid the struggle. Yet somehowwe continue to try to push this narrative.
So I'm like, struggle, itis how you struggle you can struggle.

(33:08):
And I found one of the greatestqualities in people that I hire and
people that I've spend time with isone thing emotional resiliency. See, I'm
okay with getting hit. I'm okaywith the struggle. I'm okay with getting
knocked down. What I'm not okaywith this staying down. Emotional recoil is
the word that I like to usefor my team. Hey, when you

(33:28):
get hit, how fast do yourecoil? It's like hit recoil. Some
people get hit and they stay downfor a month. Oh man, I'm
struggling. Okay, Well you werestruggling yesterday. That's old news. What
else is us? Well, youknow, I'm struggling change some stuff,
adapt. So I think that it'sokay to struggle, but I want to

(33:49):
struggle better, and I want tostruggle on things that are really really impactful.
Like I love helping people, andI love getting on a stage,
and I believe I was made tobe put on stage and inspire people.
It's a struggle, but I loveit. It's a struggle, but I'm
growing through it. It's a struggle, but I'm figuring it out. So

(34:10):
I'm okay with the struggle. WhatI'm not okay with is, oh,
I got hit and instead of recoiling, instead of resurrecting, I lay there
dead. And the only thing youfind when you don't get up is complacency.
You find complacency, which turns intocomplaining, which turns into depression,

(34:30):
which turns into a whole life ofnegativity. So, dude, I think
it's so powerful when people and Irun a group called Hard Knocks, and
Hard Knocks is a group of realestate investors that came together. We built
one company, and we're struggling throughacquiring five million dollars of access under management
for this one group. And they'relike, oh, so, how are

(34:52):
we going to do this. I'mlike, you're going to figure it out
as we struggle. I'm like,you get to struggle together. It is
a joy. It is a privilege. And I think that when a person
finally says that, you know what, I'm okay with the struggle, Man,
I'm gonna put on a smile.I'm gonna struggle and I'm gonna figure
it out, and I'm gonna progressthrough it because I know progression is the
most basic human needs, which meansI need to struggle to progress. If

(35:15):
I don't struggle, then I can'tprogress stagnant, So struggle or stagnant,
pick one. I love the struggle. So I just think for people listening,
it's important to make a distinction andgo if you're in a hard place
right now, if you're struggling toget somewhere right now, if it's a
tough time in your business and yourreal estate and whatever you're trying to do

(35:36):
in your marriage. My dad taughtme that struggling is like two rough stones,
and as you create friction on thosestones, eventually they start to polish,
and eventually you get smooth surfaces.But it requires friction. Without friction,
you don't polish anything. So Ithink you could get to become the
most refined version of yourself through yourpersonal struggle. Your business, through struggling

(36:00):
will find the right customer avatar.Your marriage through struggling will find out how
you can live with the person andhow you can have two different personalities under
one roof in some level of harmony. The struggle. So, I hope
I'm not going too far on thisrabbit hole, but dude, I think
people they avoid this pain, thishardship, this difficulty that comes back to

(36:22):
adversity. If you've never had togo through adversity, then you have a
very polished, wrong word, verybubble life and it's and it's tough for
you to acknowledge an immigrant like mewho says, give me the fucking struggle.
You can't swear on this show.I will swear on you. Why

(36:42):
Because I want the struggle. Iwant to hate to show up after you
if I can get enough people tocall on this show and go I hate
this guy. He folks all kindsof negativity. Drop three F bombs.
I hate this guy. I knowthis. It's not one person that will
love us. There's gonna be allwhole group of people that the connected with.
People fundamentally want one thing, andthat is truth. They want truth,

(37:07):
and that's what the struggle gives you. The struggle is your greatest teacher,
because the struggle will help you determinewho you are and how you show
up in the face of adversity.My favorite version of a man is one
who is struggling, because only inthe struggle does he reveal his true character.
You know that he Real estate investorsare living in a false positive because

(37:28):
for the last decade, the markethas been rallying up. You're not smart,
you got into the right market.You don't have you haven't developed really
like complicated character building traits. Iwant to see the next eighteen months show
me that. And if somebody goesto the next eighteen months twenty four months,

(37:49):
that's the individual you should plug inwith because that person was willing to
struggle and become resilient and become resourceful. And once you finally get those internal
mechanisms going, it's just amount oftime before you find financial success. M
I agree with you wholeheartedly on theadversity. I think about it sometimes with
not sometimes all the time, withmyself in that um. For me,

(38:13):
I struggled UM with with with atemper, with acting out in class and
getting in trouble a lot, talkingback to teachers and things like that.
And what that did for me byby getting in that trouble, by by
having to leave my schools was ithad it caused me? What? There's
choices, right, and you talkedabout choices. The choice I could have

(38:35):
made has been like I'm just abad kid, and I'm going to go
down that rabbit, that that routeof being a bad kid in life and
becoming a bad adult, or makea choice and say I gotta be self
aware and self reflect and how doI change this and so changing those behaviors
to become the person that I wantto become. Um and I and I
always I talk about this with mycoach all the time. I'm like,

(38:55):
I feel bad for the people whodon't have that adversity, who don't have
that struggle, who don't have thatteacher that might have put them into tention,
or that spouse that might say thatyou're you know, hurting my feelings
or whatever it is, right,because they don't. They don't then self
reflect to change, and then theystay to your point in that bubble.

(39:15):
So I think that that struggle isvery important and teaches us so many lessons.
I know, obviously in our conversationit is to two a tremendous amount
of lessons. One of the oneof the things that I remember you talking
about and Dean talking about, andyou also mentioned it in this show here
is about being able to put onthe life preserver first in order to put

(39:36):
it on others. And you talkedabout your success in the real estate world,
and I'm interested in how you wereable to build such a successful company
at such a young age. Well, I was in music school and university,
and my teacher said, you're themost talented but laziest kids we got
it. Really wasn't a hard worker, you know. I used to just

(39:57):
being a musician. I wanted toplay, I wanted to have fun,
wanted to joke. And she said, you're talented, but you're lazy.
And I said, she said,You're never gonna ever, ever, ever
be a high school music teacher ifyou keep this up. I was like,
what, that's what I'm here for. She's like yeah. She instantly
put a cap on what I coulddo. So I dropped out and I
did the only thing that an immigrantkid knows how to do, which is

(40:19):
clean. I started cleaning company cleaning, Flora's cleaning, carpets, cleaning,
toilets, clean and window it's everythingcleaning. My mom was my first customer.
In fact, I went to herand I said, hey, listen,
I think you should pay me toclean my own room. Those carpets
are filthy. I know the guyliving there. It is not a good
deal. Pay Mom paid me onehundred bucks to clean my own room.
My first customer. That's the realhustle. Sorry, that's the real hustle

(40:45):
right there. I was like,I gotta figure this out. I'm like,
I'm going to get into business,and I'm gonna get to a point
financial I could take care of me, my family, mom, and never
have to worry about money again.That's where I want to get to that
point. So I'm cleaning Flora's cleaningcarpets, and I'm progressed of really struggling
and learning. I had to learnhow to go and work evenings because most
hartpet cleaning and scripting and waxing floorsand all that kind of stuff happens after

(41:07):
nine pm. So now I haveto develop a work ethic. After nine
pm. I'm cleaning. I'm workingin the cold. I'm working with hoses
and hot chemicals in the middle ofwinter. My hands are cracking and blistering.
I'm driving a ninety four Dodge Caravanwith a broken handle because that's the
only car I could find for eighthundred bucks to buy it and run by
cleaning equipment out and I'm doing whateverI could do. I joined a local

(41:30):
group, a five hundred dollars groupcalled a B and I business networking is
something or other in this room withten ten other business owners, and I'm
the carpet cleaning guy, and I'min this room trying to do business.
And I got a very very positiveside benefits, which was I got to
learn about all these other businesses.An insurance guy, and there's a bank

(41:52):
guy, and there's a you know, a window installer guy, and there's
a gal who does this, andanother gal who does this, another gal
who does that. And then there'sa guy in there who's the mortgage broker.
And so we get to talk inthree months later. He goes,
hey, so how's your business.I'm like, it's okay, you know,
but I really want to find somethingbetter. I read this book,

(42:13):
you know, Rich Dad or somethingelse, Rich Dad, Poor Mom,
something like that. That's the bookyet, Rich Dad, Poor Dad,
and it's you know, I kindof got some different ideas. And I
read a passage somewhere in a book. I forget what book it was,
but it said, if you wantto become a millionaire, all you have
to do is buy a million dollarsworth of real estate and then these people
called tenants will pay it off foryou. And it's twenty five years you're

(42:35):
a millionaire. So I'm talking tothis guy and he says, you know,
real estate's a way better vehicle foryou than cleaning. And he explained
to me and kind of broke itout for me. It's a great I
said, they'll give me some realestate. So he's like, okay,
go to the bank and see ifyou qualify. Of course I didn't.
I didn't have the credit history,I didn't have enough income, I didn't
have all the requirements that's in thebank. Said no. He said,

(42:57):
okay, well, I'm a mortgagebroker to look at some other options.
And what happened was I actually boughta house from him. He had an
old duplex that we used to bea convenient store that he had bought the
fix and flip and it still itlooked like a convenient store. It was
a box with like stone facade onthe outside. And he takes me the
ugliest building in town. He goes, this is my building, and I'm

(43:21):
like, wow, you know,real estate, this is so cool.
And I walked in and it neededsome work, and I'm like, I
can clean the hell out of thisplace. I'm good at cleaning. By
this point. I'm already in thecleaning game, right, I'm already been
in the cleaning game for a year. I said, I just don't have
the money. Says, when wehave things called bee lenders and private money.
We have all these people that youcan get a loan from. So

(43:43):
I bought the place for one twentysix from him. It was probably worth
a hundred, but I overpaid becausehe helped me set up the financing.
So I got into this place.I bought this duplex. I assumed the
pendant when I moved in, andthe day that I moved in, I
was playing one hundred and fifty sixdollars a month plus he alities to own
this duplex. I parked my ninetyfour Dodge Van out back with the busted

(44:06):
with the busted door. I goto the store. I'd buy all the
best cereal I can find cereal becausewhen you're when you're a communist kid and
you're the I'm the oldest of ninekids. We grew up with about a
lot of cereal options. So Ibought like four or five bucks of the
cereal, the expensive stuff. Ibought two jugs of milk. I called
my brother. I was a growWe're gonna party for that the Xbox.

(44:28):
Bring the Xbox. I got Luckycharms on top of count chocolas, on
top of all the sugary cereals.I'm like, we're gonna make this thing
happen. So brother came over andthat was the genesis of my real estate
experience, and I bought that property. I kind of bit the bugs,
and dude, here's the big thing. For most people. I didn't have
YouTube back in I didn't have allthese resources. What I had was these

(44:51):
like weekend seminars that would pop upfor five hundred bucks a thousand bucks,
and I would just go. Iwould drive four or five hours just to
go watching guys speak about real estate. Buy every single book on real estate,
I would ask. The biggest thingI did was I would I would.
I looked up all of the realtorsin town, and I looked at
the ones that I knew from eitherI went to high school with their kids

(45:14):
or at at this age they werebecoming realtors, you know the kid but
I went to high school with.And I started calling my old buddies from
grade school in high school and said, hey, I heard your in real
estate. Can I buy you acoffee. Guy. I want to learn
about this. How does this work? How does this work? How does
this work? How does this work? And one of my buddies from grade
school, from the church. Iended up buying seventy houses with the guy.

(45:35):
Seventy was one guy because after Ibought the first duplex, five months
later I'm looking through the newspaper Ifound another one for sale. It was
a nonconforming secondary suite. I knockedin the guys door. I was like,
I'll buy it. He's like,do you have money? I was
like, no, I need yourhelps to figure out the financing. So
I just asked him, this randomhomeowner, how to figure out creative finesse.
By the time I got married attwenty three, I owned three duplex

(45:58):
because I had five tenants. Iwas living in one of my own duplexes
basically without paying any expect that wasat twenty three years old. So resourcefulness,
a willingness to just talk to people, a willingness to drive four hours
to Toronto back and forth to justlearn from a random person for an hour
or two reading every book that Icould, carpet cleaning in the evening,

(46:20):
and then three or four hours aday of studying real estate, watching HGTV
like crazy, trying to figure outthis business, and it was just that
it was literally I learned something newevery day, and eventually it led me
to enough information enough courage that Iwould go knock on doors and try to
put deals together. You said alot there that I'm want to kind of

(46:43):
just highlight. But my favorite partof everything you just said that I wrote
down was cereal and milk party withyour brother. You talk about gratitude,
right, You were talking about thisearlier and the abundance that we have around
us, and I mean, that'sjust amazing, like how much we'd take

(47:05):
for granted in like lucky charms likeyou said, and count tracula, just
simple cereals that are right on theshelf that are totally accessible to so many
of us, and we don't realizehow fortunate we are to just be able
to pourse a glass, you know, a bowl of cereal and some milk
and just enjoy it. To thepoint where when you first got your first

(47:25):
property, you literally had a cerealand milk party with your brother. I
absolutely love that. So what Iwant to put a finer point on for
our audience. Here is the firstthing you did was you you you developed
a network through bn I And thiscould happen in any business association, community
organization, chamber of commerce. There'sso many out there. And in there

(47:52):
you found someone who you connected with. And for you it was a mortgage
broker. For somebody else, itcould be the real estate agent, or
the insurance broker, or the carpetcleaner, whoever it is. The point
is that you found the mortgage broker. There was something there that spoke to
you. And in that we talkedabout passion earlier, and in that you
found this passion for real estate.And here's what I love. What you

(48:13):
did was you still worked your job, but you educated yourself. And I
mean, like for me to getto where I am today, it's the
same thing that you're talking about.It's like taking that time to watch the
video like I have. Obviously,you know YouTube is so big now.
So I learned a tremendous amount onYouTube about podcasting, about insurance, about
owning a business, and then toyour points, investing in it, of

(48:36):
going to the seminars, of watchingpeople speak, of listening to people speak,
and buying their books, reading theirbooks, their audio tapes, and
then the biggest part, which wasthen you took action on it all and
you started purchasing, and you purchasedmore, and you did more, and
you just compounded upon that. SoI absolutely love that, and I love
that you just shared that whole storyand message with everyone because it is that

(49:00):
is the reality of things, isfiguring all that out. So you speak
on stages, and I think thateverything you just talked about there is going
to kind of answer my question here. But I want to ask it because
I get asked the same thing,what is your desire to speak on stage?
Like? Why do you have thispassion to stand in front of an

(49:21):
audience and share all of this withthem? Every single person is given a
gift in life by our creator givesyou something deep rooted within you that when
you know that's your gift and that'syour conviction, there is no other alternative.
So if the Creator gave you agift today and said, here is

(49:43):
your gift, for me to trulybe grateful, I must use the gift.
If somebody gave you a Christmas gifttwo weeks from now, and you
took the gift and you used itin front of them. It would bring
them utter joy, a lot ofjoy, a lot of gratitude. Right
If you took the gift and regiftedit to somebody and they've found out,
some people would be heartbrokers, right. So I believe if you identify that

(50:05):
the Creator has given you a gift, your job, your duty is to
use it. And I believe thatthe Creator has given me an incredible life,
credible perspective in the life where Iwas able to accumulate wisdom and I'm
able to give this wisdom and sharewhat I've learned for the purpose of inspiring
people to take action and get outof their own way and do it.

(50:29):
It's a duty and it's a privilege. It's both and it's an incredible,
incredible gift that I'm extremely thankful for. Playing music at a young age positioned
me and put me on stage tohave some experiences that most stage speakers have
never had. Like I've done everythingfrom playing piano to creating worship moments to
being on stage doing plays and productions. So I have all this experience that

(50:51):
I've been able to bring into myadult life and utilize for this kind of
purpose. So what I'm really passionateabout is it's not so much the outcome,
like I think people get activated,people take action, and the people
win. When I'm really passionate andgrateful about is using the gifts that I've
been given. And if you feelthat way about your life, I think

(51:13):
every person owes it to themselves toliving their giftings. I think there's three
layers to life. It's very basic. Financial freedom is number one, because
until you have financial freedom, andall your decisions are based on financial scarcity.
Once you finally have financial freedom,then the next one is really freedom
of time, really giving yourself permissionand time is really about self worth.

(51:36):
And then once you have enough moneyand you have enough time, the third
one is your willingness ability to livea purpose driven life based on the gift
things you have. So I'm livingin my purpose, I'm living in my
calling and to me, there's nogreater way of doing life right. But
it took for me having to getthe financial thing in place, the time

(51:58):
thing in place, and live intrue abundance. So I think that's what
you. My desire for people,my desires when I see people in a
place and they're living in bucket waterbucket gets into buckets free. Let's get
you living a purpose or the lifeof this true impact happens there through gratitude,
and growth happens there, not justfinancial growth, but all the other

(52:19):
areas of growth that we have.So I love seeing people when I love
seeing people rally around causes. Lastweek and I was in Dallas with a
friend of mine, Brad, who'sthe Apartment King, and I was on
his stage and in a room ofsix hundred people, we were able to
raise enough money to donate over fivehundred wheelchairs to Mexico. They just came

(52:47):
from Mexico the week before, wherethey're able to put people into wheelchairs that
has zero mobility. I'm talking aboutparents carrying their parents down the road in
like a backpack. I'm talking aboutparents carrying their children place to place.
One wheelchair impacts ten people in Mexico. So for me to live in that

(53:10):
level of impact and be on thatstage and do that and help raise hundreds
of thousands of dollars for exact,it took me having to go through my
own personal growth of financial and timefreedom to speak with that level of conviction.
So those moments, Dud are thereal impact. For me, the
thing that all of us have theability. If you are in North America,

(53:32):
you are a world changer. Youcan absolutely be a world changer.
My goal is to donate a milliondollars of my own every single year,
in addition to all the other moneysthat I raised, and I've been able
to raise something from some incredible groups, five hundred thousand to flight child Trafficking.
A few months to go on stagein Ohio, I was able to

(53:53):
raise one hundred and fifty one thousanddollars to help an orphanage in Mexico.
I was able to raise more moneyfor Haiti to go build homes in Haiti
to the Friend McKinney Foundation. Likefor me, dude, it's all about
impact. So the stage is howI get to do that. And every
single person listening has an opportunity tocreate impact in this world. You just

(54:13):
got to be willing to get outof your way, get out of the
financial poverty, get out of thescarcity, and kill the addition, are
you resonating with me? You seewhat I'm saying? Oh my goodness,
am I resonating with you? Becauseso I'm half Haitian. My audience is
pretty well aware of that. I'vespoken about it on air before. And
we have an organization called Forgotten Childrenof Haiti and that organization supports an organization

(54:40):
in Haiti called the Saint Luke Foundation, where father Rick Frichette founded it and
built pretty much a self sustained communitythere in Haiti, where there's a hospital,
there's an orphanage, there's a school, there's a bakery. I mean,
they just are able to take careof themselves there and they're they're pretty

(55:00):
they're secure to some extent or war. And so recently father Rick actually reached
out to us and in despair isthe best word I can come up with
from from the email that was sentin that you know, the kidnappings are
that are happening. There are rampantUm staff is being kidnapped now, something
that he never had to deal withbefore because of the care that he gave

(55:22):
to the community. The gangs respectedthe people within that community and so left
them alone. But no longer Um. And so because of that, many
of the people his staff are leavingthe camp, are leaving that that secure
place, and so he's struggling.It's something that he's spent he's dedicated his
life too since the nineties, UMto build and create and now is struggling

(55:47):
with and um, you know wecan't go there. Um we most medical
missions have been stopped from going therebecause of the kidnappings and ever and the
danger that's that's around it. Andlike literally within this week, we've been
texting my family and I've been textingon like how can we do? What
kind of fundraiser can we create?What can we do to cause an impact?

(56:08):
My organization, den ten we alreadygive back as much as we can
to different local non for profits,but we also give back to FCHs to
forgot Tranahiti. But I am interestedin how you are able to raise that
much money. And I'm sure wecan get into some more detail offline,
but there's I'm not the only organizationstruggling non for profit organization at struggling to

(56:30):
get donors and donations. It soundslike you have a bigger idea or vision
on how you're able to get thesedonations. So I'm interested in that part.
I believe the powerful collaboration is sohuge, and there's a lot of
people that have stages and audiences.A lot of these audiences and stages they

(56:52):
want to give. When you livewith the ethos the giving first, then
gratitude, then growth, you getto build incredible relationship ships. So I
get called in to use my giftin which is stage speaking and engagement.
So I've been an MC musician,speaker, educator, trainer, and when
I'm on these stages, I'm alwaysasking the host what are you doing for

(57:15):
charity work? What's the purpose ofthis event? What are we here to
do? And either solicited or nonsolicited, I'm usually in that conversation and
I usually go especially in a realestate full of a room full of real
estate investors, it's probably the easiestroom to raise money. Why because they're
talking big deals, big numbers,big aum And when you finally get with

(57:37):
the host of the event and gohigh, I'll come and speak, I'll
come deliver something incredible. But let'sgo do something impactful in this world.
So I think Number one is strategicallyunderstanding that events are better when people do
something corporately. Communities are better offwhen they give corporately. So it's engaging

(58:00):
hosts and owners of communities to finda way to include your charity, your
mission in a corporate giving opportunity,but you have to live at the heart
of conviction, a heart of giving, and if you're able to curate that
room, Like when I was inDallas, my friend says, hey,
you know, we want to raisesome money. And you know, a

(58:21):
couple of weeks before, I said, we're going to raise one hundred thousand
dollars easily. He says, really, I said, yet easily one hundred
thousand. You've got six hundred peoplein the room, all of the multi
families. There's no way on earthwe're not going to raise one hundred thousand
dollars. When we got in theroom, it was just I just thought
it clear as day. People wantto give. Now, you can go

(58:42):
through all the other benefits of itsat tax right off and this and this
and this and this, which itis. But when you're able to create
a moment of conviction, a momentof real engagement with people, you'll find
them opening their hands and their heartsfrom this posture to this posture. And
to me, that's something that I'mextremely passionate about. So it's as simple

(59:07):
as reaching out to your friends inreal estate and business who have communities going
what are you doing not just forprofit? What are you doing for purpose?
My friend Cole has a good calledThrive and his whole thing is to
create four purpose companies across the USfor profit, add another ten percent on

(59:27):
top and now all that goes tocharity. Run a business that's also producing
a charitable element. Every single dollarhas a share to be has a charitable
contribution. So I think it's sad. It's being relational and understanding that people
want to give, and it's reallycreating opportunities where the host and the audience
can come together in corporately and supporta cause as simple as that the cause

(59:52):
be supported. It's called Chair ofthe Love. That was the one we
just did last weekend. Oh youare as Operation Underground Railroad Project finding Human
Trafficking supported the Tebow Foundation also forhuman Trafficking supported Frank McKinney. So there's
we just have to make it apriority for us. And that's what I

(01:00:14):
would challenge your audience and even you, Let's make it a priority. Let's
call friends with groups and events andgo put me on your stage and let's
go do some good in the world. That's great, Yeah, and and
and scale it as well. Imean, that's really the big thing.
Like I do a event every monthand it's called take Action. The events
called take Action. We just hadtake Action Collaborate for Impact. We have

(01:00:36):
another one coming up in January,take Action something about changes. I can't
forget the title because we just plannedit. But we always our entire door
is a suggested donation to a differentcharity, and we usually I've just handed
out some checks, were raising anywherefrom three hundred to five hundred to six
hundred dollars from each event. Nowwhat my goal and I'm definitely going to

(01:01:00):
talk with you more about this affair, but I definitely learned a little bit
just now from what you just shared. Is to get it to that one
hundred thousand dollars mark, because that'sreally what we need for what we're what
we're supporting in Haiti, is thathe needs that money to be able to
keep the hospital going, which ishuge, the orphanage going, which is
huge, and of course all theother stuff, all the other elements you

(01:01:22):
touched on, I would add thisone piece in there. For business and
for charities and for life and forfitness, it all comes down to the
same thing. For me, haveclear targets that people can rally around.
Don't raise money. I'm never justdoing real estate. Doing a real estate
is a horrible practice. There's nooutcome. I'm generating one hundred grand from

(01:01:44):
real estate operations. I'm buying fivemillion dollars of apples under management. I
have a clear target, and thenI share that target with people. So
if I'm ever doing a charity,I'm never raising money. I'm raising one
hundred grands or fifty or thirty ortwo hundred or whatever that is. We
fight like hell to hit that target. Everybody. That's the way that I

(01:02:04):
would instantly recondition or rethink that Ithink it needs. It's a draftic difference
between or raising money or raising onehundred thousand dollars. And this is exactly
why, and I want all ofyou to participate. Love that, absolutely
love that, because we do forgetabout that with non for profit work,
and that we you know, forour businesses, we set the target and
then non for profit work, You'reone hundred percent right, it's it's it's

(01:02:28):
we need to raise money, butthere's no clear number. So I certainly
will be sitting down with a penand paper and doing that for sure.
I appreciate your insight there, andobviously you're a great resource for any of
our non for profits that are listeningto reach out to to you, and
all of your info will be inthe show notes for them to find.
Um. I want to get intothis idea of self worth because you've got

(01:02:51):
this great picture on your website ofa before and after of yourself of losing
weight. And you know you weretalking about time and finding time and overcome
that struggle of finding time, andyou relate it to self worth and I'm
very interested in that concept and ifyou could elaborate on that for us.
Yes, So time management really isabout self worth because if you can't respect

(01:03:12):
you and you don't value you,how can anybody else value Both of us
don't have time. Because we livea reactive life, we pick up the
phone. I have rules in mylife. These are hacks. I'd ever
answer the phone. Ever, Iagree, Okay, I live a proactive
life, not a reactive life.If you can just make that one clear
distinction, it'll change the quality ofyour day. Don't be responding and reacting

(01:03:36):
to every single thing. Be proactive. So I listen, I believe that
I have so much incredible work todo on this planet. And I think
about the man that I am,at ninety four years old, sitting in
a rocking chair, saying did Ido on this earth with what I was
entrusted to do? That thought it'sso prevalent to me every single day that

(01:03:59):
I don't want to do anything thattakes me away from that purposeful work.
So when you respect yourself and yourespect and respect is obvious. The way
you treat your body, the wayyou treat your mind, the pollution you
allow into your life, the relationshipsyou cultivate. That's respect. Respect is
a very very obvious thing that wecan see in people start working out instantly.

(01:04:20):
Why because you respect your body enoughto create longevity in your life.
If you don't value your health,nobody will value your business. End of
story. Take care of your primaryrelationships, your wife, your husband,
your kids. Make that a priority, not a last minute thing. Take
care of your spiritual developments, youremotional development. That's all self respect.

(01:04:43):
So this is my kind of coresix. If you will, I take
care of my body first, becauseif I take care of the body,
will help me take care of mymind. Simple as that for me,
it's biology before psychology. Take careof the biology, So my body goes
first. Every single day, I'mat at four fifteen to go to the
gym with my NFL buddy John,and I take care of my mind.
And that's simply making decisions. That'swhat mind is. I've made decision to

(01:05:05):
get up at four o'clock every day. I don't feel like it. I
don't want to do it. Idon't like early morning. I'm not an
early morning nut. I just madea clear decisions. So I get up
and I go. Because I madea decision, I stick with it.
Emotional resiliency is the one most ofus need to practice the most. Whatever
happens around you, stop reacting andstart responding. That's emotional resiliency. Things

(01:05:30):
will happen. How are you dealingwith it? What is your relationship to
the events in your life? Thenyou have spiritual and that's your grounding,
your face, your core values,your belief system, your measure of right
from wrong. You take care ofthose four elements and there's only two blockets
left. Your relational wealth. I'ma I'm the richest person I know from

(01:05:53):
a relationship standpoint. I have incredible, incredible people in my life, and
those are things I foster and Ival you and I contribute to and then
your financial well. If I getthese six areas in my life dialed in
this, nobody can ever monetize mytime. Nobody can ever monopolize the things

(01:06:13):
that I'm doing, like I willgive time where time is do. I
live out of a calendar. Iwork about three days a week, about
five hours a day. Tuesday,Wednesday, Thursday. Fridays are for podcast
interviews and fund That's why Friday,Mondays are called music Monday. I've produced,
create right, record music on Mondays. Saturdays are for me, my

(01:06:33):
wife and family. Sundays are forme, my wife, the Lord and
other things we're doing. So I'mnot available Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
Monday. I'm available Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and if you're a podcast
house, maybe Friday. So I'vecreated a schedule for my life where here's
what I've learned. Most of whatwe think are emergencies aren't actual emergencies.

(01:06:56):
Okay, somebody's calling you over aproblem, it's not really a problem.
It's their problem. That's to do. I hire great people, I train
them well, I support them,I pay them well. I surround myself
with incredible friends who are business leaders, thought leaders. Like the person I
work out with used to play inthe NFL for the Ravers and I was
with him this morning and he kickedmy ass. Kicked my ass this morning.

(01:07:23):
And that's who I want to workout with, is the guy who's
twice three times my size, andI'm trying to fight and compete to keep
up with him. That's why Iwant to work out with. I want
that same version and my mental friends, and my financial friends, and my
spiritual friends. I want to bethe most humble person in the room,
willing to lower my ego and growevery day. If you have self respect

(01:07:44):
in that capacity, I promise youyou will have all the time in the
world. It's people have no selfrespect. To cheat on their diet,
who cheat on their relationships, cheaton their goals, watch TV all they
binge, watch Netflix and Instagram andFacebook. Always living in a reactionary environment,
always always surrounded by negativity. Younever ever ever going to find time.

(01:08:05):
You do not find time. Youfind self respect. That's what you
find. And you find respect,you will create time. They have this
old thing that the busiest person inthe room can always take on more work
because the right work always has room. There's always room for the right conversations

(01:08:27):
and the right work, and theright revenue, the right relationships. There's
always room in my schedule, butthere is zero room for the wrong The
people I spend time with, likethe Bible rather hot, we have run
the same race at the same pace. That's my secret. What's my race,
impact, revenue, helping people,charity work, that's my race,

(01:08:51):
and you have to run it atmy pace, then we can be great
friends. But if you don't runmy race at my pace, if you're
not hot, then you're cold.And I think far too many people are
living in luke warm relationships, peoplewho are one foot in, one foot
out the door in your life.If this happens in marriage, it gets

(01:09:11):
the divorce. What about your friends, your acquaintances, your peer groups.
How many people are you spending timewith that you're not actually building with?
And I would challenge people, makeyour circle smaller, not wider, Make
a circle smaller, and dude,you will find and I have a million
other productivity hacks on how I dothis, but you will find that your

(01:09:31):
life becomes extremely sinful and not complicated. I absolutely love everything you just said
there. You do have a wonderfulrelationship with your wife and are planning some
vacations and travel and destinations, andcould you share a little bit more about

(01:09:55):
that in in your personal life too, because the reason why I asked this
question and is seeing someone in yourshoes right now of successful real estate,
successful speaker and crowd you know,crowdfunder or raising capital for non for profits

(01:10:15):
and what you're doing author all ofthe different things. I think the people
think, well, then I don'thave time for family, and I loved
that you talked about your Saturday andyour time work family and carving out at
that time. So I'm interested inthese vacations and how you plan them and
how you you expand in that relationship. Yeah, I'll give you a couple
of main main pointers. Number one, look at your calendar from an annual

(01:10:39):
perspective at the beginning of the year. This is a great time to do
this. I actually got some ofthis thinking from Jackiets where he's got this
thing called the Big Ass Calendar.You can google it, go buy one.
And the way this kind of worksat the beginning of the year,
before you put on all of yourwork and all this other stuff. Start
with start with the big vacation thethings. Start with the things that you're

(01:11:01):
going to actually value at the endof the year. Put the big vacation
on there. Put the things thatbuild your skills on their music. So
I'm gonna be like, twenty twentythree is gonna be an interesting year.
I'm gonna be taken on a wholebunch of music lessons. And I'm already
a very proficient, very qualified musician, but I want to get even better
in some instruments. Taken on music, I'm taking on dance lessons, I'm

(01:11:25):
taking on all this other stuff.I'm putting all that stuff in my calendar.
I'm putting my trips in my calendar. I'm putting the very important things
in my calendar first, and thenI'll build work around that. Not I'm
doing work and when I have time, I'll take a vacation. It's never
gonna happen. Step one, Steptwo is simple. Step two is I

(01:11:46):
decided to create kind of an algorithmfor my day, and it works like
this. The very first thing Ido is I take care of my fitness
because I have to. Now whatdoes that mean. I means I hired
a fitness trainer. I got onthe best possible program, my buddy John's
program called super a Human. Supera Human is the best fitness program for
entrepreneurs and CEOs like on the planet. And I don't do any extra things

(01:12:12):
that I don't have to do,but I do exactly what I have to
do. Okay, my fitness everysingle day has to happen. My mindset
has to happen every single day.So I spend time and then I actually
start the day at nine am withmy wife. We have relationship, we
have conversation. Then I'll go workfor a couple of hours. If it's
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, thenwe go for a walk on about twelve

(01:12:33):
o'clock. So my wife and Ihave already pre planned our day. We
don't just like react in the leftovers. We're intentional on the time that we're
supposed to spend together and put itin your calendar. It's not cheasy to
put your wife in your calendar.It's not cheasy to put time at your
kids in your calendar. I havea believe that if you're a parent,

(01:12:54):
your kid doesn't want to spend fourhours with you while you're all watching TV.
Your kid wants to spend one hourwith you while you're actually playing with
your kids. Right, But peoplesit there for four hours like I'm hanging
out with my kids. No,you're not. They're on an iPad and
you're watching the game. That's notspending time with your kids. You're better
off to take the kid, godo something awesome, and then go and

(01:13:15):
do other things. So I thinkit's that, dude. I just the
relationship with my wife, So I'mreally excited. We're actually planning a trip
to Bora Bora, which should bereally cool for us. By the way,
we travel a lot across America becausewe speak a lot, so I'm
speaking a lot or visiting friends thatare speakers, and you know, we're
probably here for about one week ofevery month or less, and we're typically

(01:13:40):
on the road traveling. I justcame back from Dallas and then Vegas.
We've got properties in Vegas, orwe're kind of all over rather doing real
estate stuff or running retreats, orgoing to events or speak aet events or
doing music or whatever. So you'rekind of all over. But I think
doing life with your partner together andbeing super cleared, intentional on it's us
and then everything else. It's meand my creator first, right, That's

(01:14:03):
how I have self worth, Meand my wife second, and then me
and everybody else. A customer willnever well, I will never take a
phone call when I'm with my wifefrom a customer. Why would I do
that? And I think it's thatcreating clear rules for your life. I
call the rules of engagement, right, And if you have clear rules of

(01:14:24):
engagements in your life, life becomesvery simple, not always easy, but
simple. And I just think that'sa better way to live life. I
don't want to create the rules asI go. I want to be clear.
One rule that has I don't negotiatewith terrorism. If I have a
customer who's terrorizing us, a friend, an employee, I don't negotiate instead

(01:14:46):
of getting anything the back and theforce and the drama and all this other
thing. So I think people needto create more rules. Rules. Super
healthy help you live the life bydesigns, not life by desault. That's
fantastic. There's there's a lot there, And I love that intentional. You
talked about it but before being proactive, being intentional, and I like that

(01:15:11):
you brought up design because that's actuallythat is the name of the take action.
It's design your future. That's aword that we actually really liked when
we came up with it. SomethingI want to touch on that that you
said in there that I want tomake sure our audience is very well aware
of what you just said. Youare proficient in music. We talked about
that before on how you create music, and yet you're still seeking to become

(01:15:33):
better paying investing in becoming a bettermusician. And the reason why that that
stuck with me is I teach publicspeaking and there's people that say, hey,
look I get I can get upin front of an audience and speak,
and it's like, yeah, that'strue. But to become better you
need to invest in it. Justlike I invest in public speaking courses,

(01:15:53):
I follow a men, I havea mentor in public speaking, I rehearse
in public speaking. And it's anything. It's in business. It's what you
talked about with the real estate,with everything. If you are doing something,
there's always room for improvement. Andit's about self investment and you yourself
just said it. You're investing insomething that's fun too, right, that's
a hobby and so I absolutely lovethat. As we start coming to a

(01:16:15):
conclusion here, something that stands outon your website and in the name of
your company is humble, right.And what stood out for me and when
I was reviewing your website was youhave this this really cool image of yourself,
this black and white image leaned upagainst your Lamborghini and these bright red
sneakers, and then it says humbleand being humble. And there's this contrast

(01:16:38):
in the name humble and what wesee there, right, And so I'm
very interested in how you can helpshare with us the reasoning behind all of
that, because I know that thereis. Yeah, what I'm trying to
do is liberate this word, loveit, we define this word. I
think a lot of people look athumble, they look at this thing called

(01:17:00):
humility, and they see a weaknessand I see a strength. There's a
dichotomy. For me, Humility isa superpower, not a weakness. Humility
will allow you to reach the cornersof your mind and heart to pull things
out that you can't pull through arrogance. You know somebody that I heard speak
when time said that you know there'stwo kinds of people. There's those people
that are arrogant and ignorant, andthen another kind of person is arrogant and

(01:17:27):
humble. Sorry, ignorant and humble. Ignorant and arrogant. Either way,
we're ignorant. We don't know whatwe don't know. So to me,
humility is this asking great questions,not developing an ego, not speaking on
top of people, being kind,really seeking to understand, versus seeking for
agreement, which is a whole notherpodcast. I'm not trying to I'm not

(01:17:49):
trying to convince you to come tomy side, but I will argue to
understand because maybe I'm missing something.He again, progressive learning is so powerful
of my world, and I wouldrather take I'll take the underdog position.
Ah, he's just a humble dude. That's right. I'm a humble dude.
I'm a humble due to practice thishumility. The other reason for this

(01:18:11):
is as a young man, Iwas very easily prone to anger. Very
I could snap into heartbeat and aggressionand ambition and anger will help a young
man make a little bit of money, but they'll never become truly wealthy because
you end up working by yourself,you end up knowing everything, you end
up being arrogant about life. Andthere's nothing worse than arrogance because it stopped

(01:18:34):
all growth. So I adopted myown personal mechanism, which is practice humility.
Hey man, I need to practicein humility. I need to learn.
I need to take an l that'sfine, and humility is good.
It's not bad, just like adversityis good, also not bad. But
I'm redefining this word humility. So, yeah, you see a guy humble,

(01:18:57):
and it's like, he's not humble. He has red shoes, He's
not humble, he has a lamborWould you rather my shirt? Says arrogance?
So I think what you have hasnothing to do with who you are,
Like an album, Honda or aLambeau. It hasn't changed the content
of my heart. I live ina very and you'll see both humble and

(01:19:20):
extremely hungry. You will see both. I believe in the power of and
not or it's not humble or strong, humble and freaking hungry. I'm humble.
I practice humility and I practice aggression. You'll see both. And it's
okay to be both. It's okayto have moments of solitude and moments of

(01:19:42):
productivity. It's okay to have momentsof struggle and moments of success. I
think I'm not about throwing labels onpeople and doing this or that it's this,
and that we can be struggling andhappy, we can have a good
marriage and trying to work through someproblems. We can be working to awards,
becoming more healthy and struggling with weightloss at the same time. So

(01:20:04):
just I want to embrace people.I want to embrace life. I want
to embrace growth. I want toembrace opportunities, and I don't want to
I don't want ego to get inthe way. I won't like out response,
but that's how I live. Ilove that response, and I know
our audience does too. Finally,the book that you put out, we

(01:20:25):
touched on it in the beginning ofthis really awesome cover. I'm very interested
in the book. I'm very interestedin what it shares, the message it
has in there, communism and capitalism. It's basically my story. It talks
about a lot of the life lessonsalong the way, and I think the
main message, if you read betweenthe lines, is you have to choose
internally where do you want to live. You want to live in a place

(01:20:46):
of communism, a place of doubt, shame, a place of guilt,
a place of fear, a placeof victimness, or do you want to
live in a place of capitalism?And it's not just financial capitalism, it's
the ability to pursue a purpose orof the life full of abundance. So
if you read between the lines,that's really what the book is saying.
But it shares the story and ithelps people understand the contrast. And I

(01:21:11):
hope the book and give somebody perspectiveon this versus this, and perspective I
think is the gateway to abundance.And how can people get the book?
Amazon? My website humble dot ceo. All the proceeds go back to caring
House Project in Haiti. In fact, all of my content, everything I
ever do, that's that's content orbooks or all that stuff, all of

(01:21:31):
it goes to charity. So humbledot ceo is a great place to go
Amazon, and you guys got itthere and it goes to the caring House
Project in Haiti. So very muchappreciated, as as we've touched on already
in the podcast, very near anddear place to my heart, and so
I really really appreciate your work thereand I do appreciate all the work that

(01:21:51):
you do with all the non forprofits and giving back. This has been
just fantastic meeting you here. I'mlooking forward to having you not just as
a podcast guest, but end afriends. So we'll talk more about dat
off air. But thanks so muchfor coming on today. Thank you,
take care, Thank you for listeningto The michaels Posito Show. For show

(01:22:12):
notes, video clips and more episodes, go to Michael Espositoinc. Dot com
backslash podcast. Thank you again toour sponsor, dent Ten Insurance Services helping
businesses get the right insurance for alltheir insurance needs. Visit Denten dot io
to get a quote that's d Nt N dot io and remember when you

(01:22:34):
buy an insurance policy from Denten,you're giving back on a global scale.
This episode was produced by Uncle Mikeat the iHeart Studios in Pikeepsie special thanks
to Lara Rodrian for the opportunity andmy team at michaels Posito Inc.

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