Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner - The Podcast That Bites
Shahin's Corner with Special Guest Elijah Desmond - The Resilient and Relentless Pursuit of Entrepreneurial Success
Prepare to be inspired by the roller-coaster journey of serial entrepreneur, Elijah Desmond. With a track record of over 20 businesses since college, Elijah's story is one that’s rich with ups and downs, incredible triumphs, and valuable lessons. From his humble beginnings of riding the bus in Hawaii, selling his first business in Las Vegas, to the continuous growth of his entrepreneurial empire, Elijah's journey is an inspiring testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the relentless pursuit of success.
The episode uncovers Elijah's unique perspective on the ebbs and flows of the entrepreneurial life. Get ready to be motivated by how he grew his event, Dennis Street's Got Talent, from a small gathering of 50 people to a must-attend event with 150 influencers and a whopping 86,000 views. Hear about his creation of the dental festival, Smiles at Sea and the challenges he overcame amidst the pandemic. Listen as he shares the story of his failed CBD business investment and how he turned that experience into a valuable lesson. Elijah's transparent and honest take on entrepreneurship provides a refreshing look at the realities of business ownership.
One of our favorite aspects about Elijah is his innovative thinking. You'll be amazed by his latest venture - a talent-filled tour bus for conferences and events. This unique concept reflects Elijah's understanding of the power of networking and in-person interactions. He reveals his struggles with reading retention, proving that success isn't solely dependent on traditional education. Join us as we delve into Elijah Desmond's entrepreneurial journey, where every failure is a stepping stone to success and every success is a testament to resilience and innovation.
Hello, my name is Elijah Desmond and I am the author of the book Serial Entrepreneur from Startup to Success, and I couldn't be more excited to be invited to this amazing podcast. I personally have started over 20 businesses myself and I have mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs, just like yourself. I'm very excited to come on board and be a part of this podcast and share with you guys shortcuts on what led me to successes but, most importantly, the failures. That way, you don't have to experience the things that I did. So happy to be on and I'm looking forward to sharing the message and hopefully adding as many shortcuts as possible to you as a CEO within your business and entrepreneur yourself.
Speaker 2:Alright, welcome, really excited here. Wherever you are, it's morning time for us here in San Diego. Welcome to Shaheem's Corner Podcast. I have a special guest today, elijah Desmond. Really excited to have him on. I'm going to talk about so many things, but look, at the end of the day, we're all entrepreneurs and I know most of you know who he is, but for those that don't, we're going to have him explain a little bit about his background as well. Elijah, welcome, buddy. Hey, how are you? How you doing, man Good good, super excited.
Speaker 1:You look like a shark man. I dressed up just for you. Hey, you know hey.
Speaker 2:Elijah love the background, man. We're going to talk about some of that, but before we get into that yeah, that's cool man, love it In gold too. Listen, tell us a little bit about yourself, for those that don't know who Elijah Desmond is.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. First I'll start with I am a father, proud father, of two, a two-year-old and a six-year-old, and I have a lovely wife at home. We live in South Florida, wellington to be exact, and I am a recovering serial entrepreneur, and you know what does that mean Recovering?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. I go back and forth with myself on owning the word serial entrepreneur or not and trying to do less, but it's really a struggle. I keep on relapsing because you know business opportunities are non-stop coming my way and I have to learn how to say no better. But anyways, recovering serial entrepreneur. I wrote the book Startup, serial Entrepreneur from Startup to Success and I failed multiple times. But I also had many victories as well and I'm all about vulnerability and you know, keeping it real, keeping it 100 and just saying you know exactly what it is and hopefully giving people shortcuts. But basically, look, I am a dental hygienist by trade. I went to school, graduated from Ohio State University, I realized really quick that I wasn't meant to be working for somebody else. I like to create my own rules and go by my own rule book. I figured out that fast and I was. I hurried up and went into entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Come from a dental family, slash entrepreneur family. My mom, my mom's side, you know we had a dentist hygienist off his manager. But my dad's side he was businessman of the year from the NAACP back in 2013 in Ohio. He's serial entrepreneur himself but he works really, really, really hard, like labor hard. Yeah, I came, came up on a farm, working really hard as well, and I knew that I was not trying to do like this ridiculously hard work. I wanted to use my mind and make my mind work really hard to put my, my ideas essentially that I created up here, bring them to fruition, but not through labor work. And so I've made my way through this entrepreneur journey and not had to lift any big heavy logs with my hands, but I have with my head.
Speaker 2:Well, let's, let's do this. I mean, I know on social media there was a 10-year challenge of what somebody looked like 10 years ago. But what was Elijah's life like 10 years ago, going back to 2012? Who was Elijah in 2012?
Speaker 1:Man, you hit. You hit a crazy year. I can go back immediately to 2012. For 2012 for me, I was in the islands of Hawaii, I lived in Iwa and I was. I just left riding the bus like I was. I was riding the bus, I couldn't afford to buy that moped. Yet I bought the moped after the bus and then I bought the, the, the sport bike, the crotch rocket and I was knocking on doors as entrepreneur, hustling, I was sweating even though I went lifting logs. I was knocking on doors, I was on business number two, but I was starting a dental temp agency and I also had a consulting company at the time and I was just trying to build, trying to grow, grow the empire, and I finally got a cut of break. I moved to Las Vegas from Hawaii and I got a break and I sold my first business and I moved to Las Vegas. And 2012 I want to say May of 2012 I moved to Las Vegas and I bought my dream car. At the time it was a Cadillac Escalade truck and and started sweet.
Speaker 1:Let me guess it was either white or black, it was white, it was pearl.
Speaker 2:Your clothes doesn't give it away. But you know, it's just, I was just guessing, man. You know either white or black.
Speaker 1:I know the clothes are my skin tone right? I mean, that's me how white. So, yeah, I, I have my pearl white Escalade and I was just starting my journey. You know this is, you know, fast forward. I've now, you know, I'm now starting about 20 businesses since college graduation in 2009, and it's been a. It's been a long journey and I'm in a really good, good place right now, but I learned a ton of stuff on the web.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about the journey, because before 2012, you know, most entrepreneurs go through probably, I would say at least a two, three year period when nobody believes in them. Nobody, everybody thinks you're nuts, everybody thinks you're crazy. You get a lot of negativity around you. So let's talk about that a little bit, because I think that's where most entrepreneurs give up. Right, because the surrounding of the negative noise from the wife, from the husband, from the mom, from the dad, from the friends, from the co-workers it beats you up. Man, right, if you let it, if you let it, yeah. So a little bit about the first two, three years, man man.
Speaker 1:Um. So first off, let me tell you, if you do something that's different and you do something out of the box, the people that have been around paving these roads for years will say buyer, beware, right? They will say to all of the people that your audience is be careful. And you will be hushed from multiple people. I was hushed. I was told be quiet, You're having too much fun, your music is too loud, you shouldn't be doing this or you shouldn't be doing that. I was doing the right thing. I was just doing things differently. And it's the hardest whenever you're the people that have paved the path before you don't allow you in.
Speaker 1:What I realized is you had to earn your stripes right. I didn't realize it at the time at all, because it was a struggle. When you get negative vibes thrown your way, you're not doing anything wrong and people are mean. It's rough. You just got to keep on pushing. So I kept pushing. And here's what I did differently I didn't try to appease the people at the top.
Speaker 1:I didn't. I respected them, but I didn't. I wasn't going and getting brownie points and doing this and that at the people at the top. I didn't do that. I worked from the bottom up. So see, I made it to the point enough to where other entrepreneurs and other people in our industry would say Elijah, can you get, can you help me? Are you able to mentor me? Can you give me a shortcut?
Speaker 1:I focused on superstars that were in the making. I focused on people that had a vision and they had a voice and they were pretty interesting people. Just, nobody would give them the stage right or the time of day. And I gravitate towards those people because I remember when I was in that spot with this vision and I remember how hard it was, and so I naturally gravitated to those people. And I'm going to tell you what when you help enough people, those people that do take off, they make it to the top. And now they're rubbing shoulders with those CEOs that I wasn't about to. You know. I don't know if this is an X rated or R rated.
Speaker 1:It was wrong, but I wasn't about to go kiss somebody's ass.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I just wouldn't. I'll be friendly, I'll help people all I can and I'm not about to not be myself Right? Well, the thing is, is the people that? A lot of people had to go, and you know, they had to impress them. I wasn't doing that. Well, a lot of people were impressive people that made it to the top. Then the people at the top were like, hey, Elijah, or hey, you know, Sue, Sue, how in the world did you skyrocket, get there that fast?
Speaker 1:I said, man, I was mentored by my really good friend, Elijah, and you help enough people over and over and over again and you never go right or you never go left. You just keep staying center, keep your dream, keep your vision and help as many people as you can. Eventually, the people at the top, they're gonna accept you. So I feel like I earned my respect. And it did take, just like you said. It took two, three, four years and the growing was serious, but I wasn't giving up.
Speaker 1:But the biggest thing is, I never deviated from who I am. I never faked it. I've always been my authentic self and I teach people to be you. Be your authentic self. Don't fake it just so you can be somebody, because that's not gonna be the real who you, that's not gonna be the human that you are. And if you faked it for somebody that's made it and then all of a sudden you change back into you, people will catch onto that you don't ever have to you never have to make believe or fake it for somebody if you're just real all the time and you're doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:So that was really kind of my short story of the stuff that I had went through. And you go from social media bullying to this passive, aggressive bullying, to guilty bias association, to getting essentially these people will whisper in others ears saying stay away, be careful. And it is essentially the biggest thing. Is is like if you are somebody of respect and you basically tell your peers to be careful that could be rough on somebody's, then you have to prove it yourself. So I felt like I spent a very long time proving myself. But that's done. It's watered at the bridge. Now it's my job to help other people come up and not make it be so hard. As long as you're doing the right thing, as long as you're helping people and they're a kind person, I'm full support.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know and it's kind of important for me to stress this during this conversation, because I think we're all, at some level, entrepreneurs, it depends on how you define it but most dentists one of the goals that they have or maybe hygienists, but most dentists, when they decide that they wanna be dentists and they wanna go into dentistry, one of the things that they enjoy is that they can be their own boss. Right, but they don't really know what that means. Right, I can be my own boss. And then the real world. You realize that that has a lot of different meanings. But here's my question to you when you fail, is it that you fail financially or you fail mentally, or is there another component of failure that hits you when you fail? That's beyond those two terms.
Speaker 1:So when I'm failing, am I failing? Are you asking me what gets to me more?
Speaker 2:So look, here's the thing. The challenge is, I think there are a lot of people at the top that are miserable. Right, they have all the money in the world, but they don't wanna wake up, or they get addicted to alcohol or drugs to release them of the unhappiness that they have. So what are you striving to fail at? Are you striving to fail internally? Let me say it, maybe a better way If you enjoy the journey. I don't know if you ever really truly fail, right, because you're internally happy. So my question to you is were you happy during the journey or did you find that there were some unhappy moments for you as you were getting yourself to where you are today?
Speaker 1:Understood. Well, I'll go ahead and tell you that failure is part of the process and so whenever I fail on something, I don't really feel that it's a failure because I learned from that failure and I also never get deep down and emotionally attached. I never get emotionally attached to a fail because I'm expecting failure to potentially happen. I'm not expecting it like failure is gonna happen. I give it my 100%, I swing nonstop, but I do know that failure will happen on the way. So when failure does happen, I am not upset and emotionally hard on myself, essentially Because it's part of the journey.
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't even start something because they're afraid to fail. Man, I am not uncomfortable failing at all. Let me fail, it's okay. But I'm gonna try my best and as long as you win some of the some of the attempts, you're gonna win overall. But if you take no attempts, you're not gonna win.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's fast forward a little bit, man. So we get now, let's say, five years ago. You're now getting to help people meeting a lot of entrepreneurs I know you mentioned you've helped hundreds of entrepreneurs. Talk to me a little bit about the dental festival and Smiles at Sea that you're a founder and CEO of. How did that all come about?
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. 2015,. I posted in a group that I got booted out of. By the way, I posted in a group would anybody like to go on a cruise and get CE Within five minutes. I had like 200 comments I'll never forget. Well, I never, I, never, it wasn't a business. It wasn't a business, like I hadn't thought of it being like a business. I was just saying a poll, hey, would anybody be interested in a cruise and getting CE at the same time? And after that got deleted after five minutes and I got booted out of the group.
Speaker 1:I realized I was onto something and so I basically created I created a fun space, a space that was okay for you to let your hair down and put a tank top on, go to class part of the day and then have the time of your life, whether it's at the bar or at the pool, at the casino, on an excursion, and let's go see the world. I think blew up and it was different. It was paving a new path. It was essentially creating a path that was not walked on, not a bridge that was heavily rode on, and a lot of people said, oh man, you're having too much fun, like people said that that's the party boat.
Speaker 1:And at first I'm like no, it's not it, it's about education, it's about this. And then I'm like you know what? You're right, you are right, we have the time of our life and we are humans and humans do enjoy their self. They like to have fun, they like to go on vacation. It's okay to have a shot or a drink. We're humans, it's not against the law. And I basically made it okay to have fun in dentistry. And so, because I was able to do that, you know, my business grew 30 to 33% consistently every year.
Speaker 2:From 2015.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just because you said, let's go on a cruise with CE.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's crazy man and we get to 2020 and I'm on target to get over 1,000 people on one cruise in itself, and then we got canceled. The cruise canceled because of the pandemic oh wow. So I how it's forced to pivot and I don't want to skip over this part of the story because it's very important. I remember between April and May of 2020, I get rock bottom. Imagine like you're known for two things in the whole industry. One of them is putting on an event that happens on a cruise ship, and the other one is social media creating these big groups and helping mentor and grow other people's groups and being a voice on Facebook. Imagine if your cruise business gets docked and you're having to reach out to 550 people and say sorry, got to give you a credit, Got to give you an event credit per your contract, and 5% of those people are really loud and they didn't like the fact that I was giving them a credit. When you have an event, you have a cancellation policy. For a reason, Most of that money was spent.
Speaker 1:I have a full time to do my marketing for the event. I put this down and I'll tell you I took a beating online on social media from that. It hurt deep. It wasn't anything I could do about it, but it's take the Ls and so I knew I had to pivot and I had to do something very unique. At the time, I still had Dennis Street's Got Talent, which is another event I have with influencers, and we took that event from 50 people to 150 influencers of Dennis Street and made an event out of that, made it in land and it was always land before, but before the pandemic it was always streamed.
Speaker 1:We had 86,000 views for this event back in 2019. And so it was big and I said you know what? I'm going to put Dennis Street's Got Talent and Smiles at Sea in the same building and make it a land event. But I'm going to encourage other dental conferences to join me, because at the time you book a hotel for a meeting space, the cost is so expensive the food you've ever spent. It was hard. So all these people that are meeting planners were struggling thinking about signing this big contract and I said how about this? How about we all come together? You have your own ballroom and we have a central vendor area and we have parties all together, but you still have your own conference. So that's when Dental Festival was created. We started with three dental conferences in last April and then we grew to 10 dental conferences and now we're going to have up to 20 dental conferences this July in Nashville and somebody purchases one ticket and they get access to all of the dental conferences with just one ticket.
Speaker 2:You know what's interesting, Elijah, is at the moments that you are at the bottom are the moments that your ideas magnify in your head. I mean, you took a beating and created an opportunity that is amazing in a very short period of time. And it's interesting because this is what I was trying to get at a little bit earlier. Some people right at that bottom they're not enjoying the journey. It could really be a cycle of being at the bottom for a long period of time and not recovering. So that's why I was saying that if you don't enjoy the journey and you're not really internally happy being an entrepreneur and having over 20 businesses, like you have at some point, I'm sure at some level, each one of those businesses maybe did at bottom, but they turn out to become successes as you enjoy the journey. So I think one thing that maybe you can share with us is never give up, but make sure you're enjoying the journey, because it could be lonely at times.
Speaker 1:Right. Well, let me go ahead and explain to you this. There's no enjoyable part of rock bottom, zero, zero enjoying part of being at rock bottom, so you can't enjoy that part of the journey. But I will tell you how I got out of the rock bottom and it's thinking in my head. I was thinking there's so many people that depend on me and I got to get out of bed, right, yeah, and I'm not saying like literally got to get out of bed in the morning. I'm talking you're sleeping in at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, you want to go back, climb in to bed. At 3 o'clock, you just want to go to sleep. And when you wake up, you just want to go to sleep.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry there's nothing enjoyable about that, nothing enjoyable about that. But when I did finally get out of bed and I started that grind to what's next, that's the enjoyable part. That may not always be easy, but I'm going to tell you there's a lot of very wealthy people who had to start over Because at the end of the day, you can have something fail. But I'll tell you what you can't take away from somebody who's made it already. You can't take away their network, and I worked my tail off to get to this point and that was the journey that you should for sure enjoy. So, looking back, I did enjoy my journey. I did it in Hawaii, knocking on doors, going to different dental practices. I did it at dental conferences.
Speaker 1:A lot of people underestimate dental conferences. Dental conferences are not just about going and getting CE anymore. Dental conferences is about meeting the right people, and those people will get you shortcuts in your career. They will connect you to people. Opportunities will come up. That's why I believe that in-person conferences will never go away. I'm sorry you can't replace someone virtual. I'll go back and forth with somebody all day about this very topic. Virtual is here to stay, but in-person will never go away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I agree, I mean, I think, at certain levels professionals, dental professionals and other professionals they want to see you eye to eye, they want to shake your hand, they want to sit with you and talk to you. There's nothing more powerful than that one-to-one interaction. So definitely believe in that. Tell me one crazy business that you got into. Out of these over 20 businesses that you started, what is the craziest business you got into? Man, and it's you know, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's easy, so easy. So I invested into a CBD business and a CBD factory and I was 50% owner and it was risky to do, because CBD is all about education and changing that stigma right and it's new, it's up and coming and nobody hit our industry in it, nobody went deep in the CBD space. Well, that was, by the way. Let me speed it down to the story that has failed. I failed on that business. Business was called life and the way that we were growing life, the infrastructure, back end of life, was that we had everything start to finish. We had, you know, the factory that created it, we grew it, we basically had the whole everything in line, start to finish. There was no middlemen, and so we were able to offer an extremely high product in a FDA facility and it was top notch. Well, the way that we play into get this out to the industry was through educators, just like a water pick or a Crest, oral B education. It's all, only education, that's it.
Speaker 1:Nobody had to buy any product you know, to sell on their own at all. There was no, you know, no buy in at all. It was just, if you wanna become an educator come get educated If you?
Speaker 1:wanna try the product you can and then go into dental offices and give continuing education courses so they're more knowledgeable about CBD products. Well, we launched February of 2020. Okay, on my first live video. On my first live video for the event for the launch, I had 972 people live on the Facebook live. It's a lot of people, 972. That is. And during that live, I explained exactly what life is. I talked about our core values, number one being give abundantly right. Full transparency was another one. Another one we had was YOLO. You only live once Right.
Speaker 2:I forget our fourth value.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I forget our fourth value. But at the end of the day, give abundantly was something huge. We had given a portion of every sale to people in need and I remember I got a chance to go give thousands of dollars to the homeless in South Florida. It was such an amazing thing to do. We got it all on video type in life giving back. Anyhow, that was a crazy business to get into my partner, my business partner at the time. He found me and he never went public Like. He never said like hey, here's who I am. It was like I was in the front of it.
Speaker 2:So if it was, L and looked at loss. I was like what?
Speaker 1:the hell right, we both took it away. But at the end of the day I realized something from that whole failure. I came out of that after I realized that, look, it's been a year doing this and we failed. I realized that the community would accept that the failure just as much as the success. I mean, I flat out had came out and said I had to be honest, this thing didn't work because we launched it at the wrong time and it was just we couldn't get into offices and educate them and give the CE and we failed.
Speaker 1:A lot of people spent a lot of time and it sucked. But it's okay to fail, like it's okay to admit failure. It's okay to lose money, to lose time, like it happens. And look, it was by far one of the most craziest business ventures I got into and I grew from it. Now I know about products and create and staying in FDA compliance and I know a lot about the CBD space now and I didn't know that, I didn't know before. So it didn't be an okay, but it was definitely a big L.
Speaker 2:So I got a question for you, man. What is one thing that nobody knows about?
Speaker 1:Elijah One thing that nobody knows about.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, what is one thing about you that not many people know about man?
Speaker 1:One thing about me that not many do you know I'm the most vulnerable person on social media.
Speaker 2:Come on, man, it's gotta be one thing about you. I mean, do you like cross-dressing for Halloween? Come on, tell me something crazy.
Speaker 1:You said that like cross-dressing for Halloween. Nope, I can't say I like that one. Something about me that nobody knows. Oh, I mean, a lot of people know this. Now I'll let you go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, I'll let you think about it, man. If I stumble Elijah, man, I don't know Is that? Has anybody stumbled Elijah before man?
Speaker 1:I mean, everybody knows everything about me because I'm so vulnerable, but I'll tell you something that I just started telling in 2018, and that was the truth that Elijah does not have the ability to read and retain. Right, so I can read you a story, but I can't tell you diddly squat about what I read to you. So for years, I had all of these entrepreneurs and speakers sending me their book, like, let me send you my book, and it didn't do nothing but collect dust because I just I can't retain. I was in special classes. I can't read. Yeah, tell you what I read you, and so well, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Well, gary V talks about Gary Vaynerchuk talks about how everybody processes things differently. He said he's never read a book. And you know, here's a guy worth probably $500 million and he said he's never read a book and he was a DNF student out of school. So everybody learns a different way. Just because you learn a certain way doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just your way, right. So, or processes information a certain way. So I think that's what's important to stress here. Look, let me out of out of. So there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening here right On this podcast. What is one recommendation that you would give an entrepreneur that that can help them scale, can help them grow.
Speaker 2:Besides the what's that. So what is one thing that you would recommend to an entrepreneur that can help them scale and grow their business? Now you said, for example, you said be yourself right, and we talked about enjoying the journey, and those are important components. But you know, is there something else for you that stands out, like if an entrepreneur comes to you and says hey, man, I'm struggling, you know I'm myself, I'm enjoying the journey, but hey, I'm not monetizing right. So you know, or or I'm not, I'm not taking it to the next level. What is that for you? Do?
Speaker 1:things.
Speaker 1:The here's the first thing join a mastermind of some sort. That's number one. My revenues have nine X in the past four years and it happened from joining a mastermind. That's number one. And it does not have to be a dental mastermind if you don't want it to be, but it needs to be a mastermind of people who come vulnerable, ready to be accountable. That will all give each other shortcuts to success. That's a whole bunch of minds instead of one mind working on you Number one. So join a mastermind.
Speaker 1:Number two the second thing that's I feel most important is to hire fast. Hire before you need to, hire slow. But when I say fast before you need to, so hire the right person, but hire before you need to. When you can't afford them, that's when you hire them Interesting. Don't wait to go and get that team member until, like, you made the money because you're going to sit down on the treadmill right where you're at nice and slow until you take a step back financially and go hire. So hire for sure first.
Speaker 1:Also, I am not a huge believer of going and stealing people from these other big companies and, you know, taking their top recruit. I am a huge believer of grooming people. I believe everybody has the ability to do something. You know some things within reason. I think you should hire on personality, not hire on expertise. In most scenarios that's not every scenario but if you can hire on personality and hire somebody that's coachable, you can mold them into whom you want to be and also empower them to be an entrepreneur. What's an entrepreneur? It's an entrepreneur working in someone else's business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well hiring somebody and trusting them to go and get it done. You know like I have now what? Close to 50 team members? Yeah, right, and am I checking in with them constantly, every day? No, I might check in and say, hey, can you do this pivot? Yeah Right, sure, but I'm not like micromanaging what they do, like I'm hiring an entrepreneur, I'm not hiring an employee. I hate when somebody calls me a boss. I'm not their boss. I'm sorry, I'm not your boss, I'm your team member. Yeah, you might get some ideas from me, but you have ideas as well, and so I want everybody to work in their zone of genius and just carry out. You know my vision, essentially added with theirs. They're part of the part of the vision.
Speaker 1:But back to the original question is hire before? You need to hire in order to grow fast. Don't wait. I'm sitting on this treadmill of life and business and tell my wife like hey, it's time to hire, and she's like we can't afford to hire another person, and I'm like we can't afford not to. So I'm going to go ahead and take this L right, I'm going to. I'm going to lose financially right now because I need to to invest in our future. Yeah, where you know that we go from three members, six to 10, to 20. I mean, we keep growing faster and faster and at the end of the day, if I wouldn't have took that leap of faith and hired, I might still be where I'm at. I won't have nine X my business. I might have doubled in four years. Nine X is a big, that's a big number.
Speaker 2:Certainly is a big number. Certainly is a big number. Those are some great advice, elijah. That mastermind I think is huge because, especially in dentistry I believe we talk a lot about mental health today I believe people ask for help too late. Right, and, and the challenges is because we're doctors and because we're smart and because we know everything, it's difficult to ask for help.
Speaker 2:You try to grind through the process yourself and and I think that's a huge part is that vulnerability of going in front of others and saying look man, I suck at this, I suck at that and I can just speak for myself.
Speaker 2:I think one of the things I'm focused on right now is is working on that can lead me through exercise, lead me through more discipline and more clarity. Right, so when you bundle a lot of things together and everything doesn't work, great. But if you bring everything and focus on one thing or two things and you do great things for that one thing, I think that's going to be a great opportunity for growth. But that mastermind I think is huge because a lot of doctors today I can tell you and I'm sure you talk to doctors all the time is that they're not really sharing their truth with you, because they're just hiding behind their pain, and I think that vulnerability is really important. So talk to me about the dental festival. Man, I know you got some exciting things coming up in July. Tell me what's going on with the dental festival.
Speaker 1:Well, we have a whole bunch of conferences, you know signed up for for dental festival and you know I'm looking to bring over 2000 people to Nashville July the 6th to the 10th and we're going to have the time of our life. You know, one of the one of the conferences is actually the dental and tell mastery summit, which I'm excited about. You know, when you have close to 100 of dentistry's biggest consultants in one building, then you have, you know, another 50 of these major social media icons and then another 50 to 100 speakers. All of those people in one, one location is dynamite. It's going to be awesome to have and I'm really excited, you know, to bring everything together. But I may be just as, just as excited about another project, if you don't mind me, may mention in this the dental is it on land or is it on sea?
Speaker 2:at sea which?
Speaker 1:one. This is on the road. The dental festival has purchased a tour bus Love it.
Speaker 1:A 40 foot tour bus 2021. I'm so excited. Listen, every entrepreneur needs a hobby Like it's. Like a lot of people say what's your hobby? Well, I don't have a hobby. My hobby is business. No, your hobby is not business. Even though you want to say it's not work because you're not working any day, because you love what you do, you still don't have a dang hobby.
Speaker 1:Well, I decided that I wanted to be a DJ. I wanted to be a DJ and I wanted to bring energy to different conferences Right? So what did I do? I became a DJ. First, I went to I paid for a shortcut. I went to scratch Academy. That's where they put out all the famous DJs from Miami and New York City. I went, I paid for that shortcut.
Speaker 1:I'm on level three of four and I'm about to be a battle DJ Right, and once once hygienists, recovering serial entrepreneur and I bought a tour bus and I'm going to take this tour bus to one major dental conference every month. And when I get, or on the way to getting to the dental conference, I'm going to stop to major major cities along the way and get a caravan of people to follow the bus to the conference. When I get to the conference, I'm going to get off the bus and I'm going to DJ. I'm going to DJ the main event, I'm going to MC some of those events as well, and conferences will have the ability to add a band to the bus, to add a comedian to the bus, to add another DJ for a DJ battle when we get there, and then to add social celebrities to the bus, and so I'm essentially creating a band.
Speaker 2:They can write in the bus with you. They can write in the bus with you.
Speaker 1:They can ride in the bus with me and when they get there, like I'm right now we just got a band that's touring with Alan Jackson Corey Farley band. So you know, I talked to Corey Corey's like absolutely I'd love to join you on this journey of yours, to send me some dates. So basically it's like okay, if a dental conference wants to bring a band, boom, I got the band. If they want a comedian to stand up comedy show, boom, I got that too. Mr Carlos Rodriguez, right. And then if you want a DJ, I'm your man. Mc, here we go. I got speakers, I mean I have like the talent agency.
Speaker 2:So let me understand this we can actually purchase the bus for the conference with all those components in the bus coming to the conference. Is that what you're telling me? Yes, that is exactly. That is exactly what I'm telling you.
Speaker 1:So, like right now, the bus is sponsored by an amazing staffing agency by the name of On Diem. Okay, and basically a minimum three month sponsorship, the bus is wrapped and we're gonna go to the conferences and we'll have like launch parties for On Diem at the event, right, and I'll DJ an event when I get there. Now, conferences like, for example, right now I'm in talks with Yankee Dental, I'm in talks with the Arizona Dental Association, dykema, and we're talking with CEO about coming to their conference. Now, I don't know exactly what I'm gonna do when I'm there, but I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna promote the crap out of it and we're bringing a lot of people to the event and then, when I get there, I'll DJ or MC or, if not, I'll just bring the fun.
Speaker 1:A lot of people, just like good energy and positive vibes. I'm gonna bring that to the conference for sure. So, yeah, people, a conference can hire the bus to come across the country to bring people, to bring sponsors and then, on top of that, to bring the talent and the energy. So where is?
Speaker 2:the bus parked right now. Are you in the bus right now as?
Speaker 1:we're talking, no, the bus is parked right now at the Daytona Raceway. We have a NASCAR driver right now that is using the bus for the next four or five days until it goes back to from Daytona down to Fort Lauderdale where on DM is gonna be wrapping the entire bus for our February journey to Chicago midwinter.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, man. That's crazy. Who came up with that crazy idea? I think that's a crazy idea in their life, man.
Speaker 1:You. Yes, that was I, yeah, that was I. When you get a chance, though, to put see here's the thing I'm not afraid to fail right. That bus cost a few thousand dollars. You know what? If it didn't work? You know what I do Sell it, it's okay, it's all right but I'm not afraid to fail.
Speaker 1:So as soon as I release the bus, the first company I talked to about it on DM, they're like I'll do it, I'm in, I will 100% sponsor that bus. And then the conference is they're like we need energy, we need to bring people, we need to do something different. Okay, we'll hire a DJ, a comedian, a band and bring some major social media influencers and blow this thing up. And it's working. It is working and I'm not afraid to fail because it might not have worked. It's working.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm gonna get in that bus soon, I'm sure, at least for a ride somewhere, I don't know where yet, but I'm sure I'll get a ride in the bus. Right, can I ride a bus man?
Speaker 1:Hey, we're coming out to see the effects. You can find me, of course. We're coming out to CDA. We're gonna do CDA. That's an.
Speaker 2:Anaheim right.
Speaker 1:Sure, that's an Anaheim. We're driving all across the entire country all the way to Anaheim. Yes, man, I love it.
Speaker 2:You know, I think in this conversation, I think this is what's really important and we've touched on it a couple of times, but I think it's important for me to bring it up. Look, access and networking is so. As much as you try to do everything yourself, it's your idea. You know, once you start building assets and once you start creating a vision of where you are and sometimes that takes two, three years right and you go through some hard ache but the next step is go out in front of people, shake hands, meet people, talk to people, build relationships, connect outside of your own network with others, and I think Elijah's really stressed that throughout this whole podcast that how important that's been in his journey. As much as we talk about Elijah and what his successes are, I think one of the things that he can talk about nine Xs over the last four or five years is the network and the access right. Is that fair?
Speaker 1:I have the best you can have the best idea and this idea could be something so different, but if you don't have the channels to put that idea in front of people and not the right people and the people that you tell it to, if they're not the right people, it's gonna stall out. But if I have an idea and I take it to the right people in my network, it will fast forward. I will have a shortcut to success, or I could try to earn my stripes the long way, and it takes a long time. But once you build your network, you have the industry on speed. Now, whoever you need, you call them. Hey, here's what we're doing, here's how I could benefit you. And, at the end of the day, if you take one thing away from this, take this Stop grinding so hard on your own business and start thinking really hard how you can help other people, how you can help other people's businesses.
Speaker 1:I was grinding so hard on the treadmill and I was saying put the minute that I realized that I need to help a whole bunch of other people and a lot of people could grow from me and I took my hands off the steering wheel. It was scary to go and drive somebody else's bus right, but to take my hand off the steering wheel and focus on their business and helping them, that is whenever I had massive success. And you would think it wouldn't be that way, because I'm not focused on my business, I'm focused on yours. And when I started doing that without a dollar sign okay, this is this was with. No, it was with giving. I was giving, giving, giving of my time to hundreds of people and as a byproduct of that, my stuff continued to go higher and higher and grow bigger and bigger and bigger, because I changed so many people's lives and I got addicted to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, here's what you need to ask. The question is not how can you help me, but how can I help you. So when you are networking and you are shaking hands and you're trying to talk in collaboration, the first question is how can I help you? Right, and I think that's what Elijah is touching on. That's really important is take a step back away from your business, and I think that's a great point that you bring up Elijah. We got a few minutes left, man, and I know you're a busy schedule. You got a busy schedule, so talk to me about what's the next crazy thing that Elijah's gotten the works. What's what's in the pipeline for you in the next two, three years, man?
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well, I'll tell you, a big goal for me is to grow my marketing business, my implant marketing business. I'd like to 3x that in the next two years. That's a huge thing for me. The next thing is outside of my implant marketing business. Something else that I really really want to focus on is I basically have to get back into the cruise ships, so I need to get back on the boat. Once I get back on the boat, I'm sure that my festivals will grow.
Speaker 1:Smiles at sea and the goal with that is the first thing. I wanted to get that tour bus right. I got the tour bus and that tour bus is monetized itself. Now, after I have the tour bus, I need to go get a party bus. The party bus is I'm usually spending $10 to $15,000 in event on a party bus. Now I'll own a party bus and I'll rent it out in Miami. Third thing full circle smiles at sea. Okay, which is not the Del Festival? Two different things Smiles at sea, that cruise. When I charter an entire ship in three years I will buy a super yacht. Love it. When I buy the super yacht for people that aren't able to go to the dates that I offer.
Speaker 1:The number one requested question and we get 40 to 100 quotes every day. They say can you tell me when, can you tell me about how much your event would cost? Essentially, when we have the cruise? When are you going to cruise on a different day, you know, or a different time? When are you cruising in the fall? When are you cruising in the winter? Now, all those people that are coming to the website, I'll say unfortunately, our event is only in April. However, if you wanna have a private team building event to the Bahamas or wherever, we have a super yacht here's the airport to fly in we'll pick you up. And so, when you talk about my three year goal, I wanna charter a cruise ship and I wanna get a super yacht. That is a business that I can use when I'm not putting it in business. That's the goal.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, man. You better go get your captain's license too. Man, you got your bus license, you gotta get your captain license now. Man.
Speaker 1:I'm hiring a captain.
Speaker 2:That's awesome man. Elijah listen man. Thanks so much for coming on. You really gave tremendous amount of value to the listeners and I hope that the listeners take action on the things that you mentioned. Look, you're a great success story and three years from now you're gonna own your own yacht, man. So life is good, bro. Life is good. I love the outfit and I love your direction. I can tell you, elijah, that you've been a great help for me. That's important to stress here and I appreciate you for that. So thank you. Everything that he's talked about I'm an example of that. He's helped me over the last not quite a year, but he's been very beneficial for me and been great. Love the relationship, elijah, that we've built over the last year here and I'm looking forward to more exciting things for you. And hey, man, come back on Shaheen's Corner. I wanna hear about this yacht that you got going. You got a bus, a yacht, you got events on land. Next thing is you wanna go to space, man, in like 10 years, right? No, I'm not going to space.
Speaker 1:Come on bro. That is my the ultimate thing is to take what I've built right and put it into other professions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Right, not just dentistry, but bed, Different verticals.
Speaker 1:yeah, no, I get it Same thing, different vertical.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's awesome man. Great ideas. And Elijah, thanks so much for your time and I appreciate you. Man, thank you, my pleasure. It was great to have Elijah on today. Look, listen to the man he's grinding, he's networking, he's partying, he's having a great time doing all of that and he's enjoying the journey and, at the same time, he's building an enterprise that is gonna benefit him, his family and generations to follow. So I appreciate you all joining me. This is Shaheen's Corner and I'm Dr Shaheen Safarian. Until the next episode, we'll see you soon.