In this episode of the D2Z Podcast, Brandon Amoroso sits down with Alejandro Chaban, the visionary CEO and founder of Yes You Can!, a renowned health and wellness company. Alejandro's journey is nothing short of incredible, having battled obesity, bulimia, and anorexia at just 15 years old, only to emerge as a highly successful entrepreneur.
Brandon and Alejandro explore the intricacies of building and leading a thriving team. They emphasize the importance of clear communication, fostering innovation, and maintaining accountability within a growing organization. Alejandro's insights highlight the significance of adapting to the ever-changing landscape of marketing and communication in the health and wellness industry, showcasing how Yes You Can! continues to evolve and succeed.
The discussion also delves into the realities of entrepreneurship, where Brandon and Alejandro stress the essential qualities of resilience, adaptability, and customer-centricity. They emphasize the value of embracing change, staying open to innovation, and listening to the needs of the audience. This episode offers a ton of entrepreneurial wisdom, providing invaluable insights for aspiring and established business leaders alike.
In this episode of the D2Z Podcast, Brandon Amoroso sits down with Alejandro Chaban, the visionary CEO and founder of Yes You Can!, a renowned health and wellness company. Alejandro's journey is nothing short of incredible, having battled obesity, bulimia, and anorexia at just 15 years old, only to emerge as a highly successful entrepreneur.
Brandon and Alejandro explore the intricacies of building and leading a thriving team. They emphasize the importance of clear communication, fostering innovation, and maintaining accountability within a growing organization. Alejandro's insights highlight the significance of adapting to the ever-changing landscape of marketing and communication in the health and wellness industry, showcasing how Yes You Can! continues to evolve and succeed.
The discussion also delves into the realities of entrepreneurship, where Brandon and Alejandro stress the essential qualities of resilience, adaptability, and customer-centricity. They emphasize the value of embracing change, staying open to innovation, and listening to the needs of the audience. This episode offers a ton of entrepreneurial wisdom, providing invaluable insights for aspiring and established business leaders alike.
I'm Brandon Amoroso, and this is the D2Z podcast Building and growing your business from a Gen Z perspective. Hey, everyone, thanks for tuning in to D2Z, a podcast about using the Gen Z mindset to grow your business. I'm Gen Z entrepreneur Brandon Amoroso, founder and president of Retention as a Service Agency, electric, and today I'm talking with Alejandro Chabon, founder and CEO at yes you Can, which is an international health, nutrition and wellness company that's actually been around since early 2010s. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm excited to have you here.
Speaker 2:I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to chat about our journeys and get some people inspired to take Massey's action.
Speaker 1:So before we hop into all the topics we want to cover today, can you give everybody just a quick sort of background on yourself and how you've gotten to this point?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so let's see, I was 314 pounds at the age of 15. My battle with obesity, bulimia and anorexia affected every area of my life physically, emotionally, mentally and, as a Latino, finding a nutrition program that embraced my culture of foods and flavors was a struggle, so I decided to create it my own. So I share my story through a book which quickly became a New York Times bestselling book. It's called Things Skinny, feel Fit. And then I decided to hire a team of specialists to help me create yes you Can. And basically, yes you Can. It's a holistic and wellness program infused with Latin flavor, and I hire a psychologist, I hire a doctor, I hired a therapist. I wanted to really think about my problem right from different angles so we can really find a holistic approach. So yes you Can consists of four different components, which is the nutrition aspect, with a nutrition guide. It has the emotional health component, with seven steps to to transform your mind first, and then your body, then it has some movement tips and then the healthy supplements that are going to enhance and support you throughout the whole journey.
Speaker 2:So we started in 2012. Well, I started developing everything in 2009. And then in 2012, we launched the company and our focus has been the Hispanic market right, and, as we know, us based Hispanics is the fastest and growing demographic right now, which is an amazing opportunity for me and for my team to continue pushing on that journey and to continue pushing on our products and our system and our program so we can continue transforming people's lives. So it's been amazing because, of course, we've been able to grow the company. We've been able to develop thousands, of thousands of testimonials that talks about our supplements and talks about our program, and also we have a group of influencers that help me diversify the brand. I was the first testimonial right, I was 314 pounds and then I went through the whole bulimian and orexia process and I was able to share my story. But right now, after 11 years of being in business, we not only share the Alejandro Chavanz story, we're going to share your story. You're the hero of our journey, right, it's your own journey and we just got you. We help you go through the whole process. So it's been great because we've been able to really not only evolve the brand, but I have been able to grow as a CEO.
Speaker 2:Right when I started, I was a Univision host. I was the host of the Univision morning show. So transitioning from well first transitioning from a soap opera actor to a Univision host, and then a writer and then an entrepreneur. It's been such an interesting journey because 11 years ago, when I started it, I did not have the tools that I have now and I'm not a generational CEO. I'm a millennial. I'm 42 years old, but I think the behaviors of someone that's suffering from not being comfortable with their bodies is the same right, no matter what your generation is. You're going through the same things, basically emotionally, mentally. They just vary depending on your culture, your language, but at the end, we're all the same right here. We all want to be loved, we all want to be enough, and I think that's something that we have very clear at ESU. We want to support you with our supplements, but we know that you are our priority, that your health is our priority.
Speaker 1:How did you come up with the name? Because it sounds like the name ties in really well to what you just talked about for the last couple of minutes here. It resonates.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So the first time I wrote about this whole thing, I published this book on Amazon. It was just a Word document and it was called the Gordo Agalan and the translation from that is something like from fatty to hotty. Right, I didn't name that book from fatty to hotty just because I thought I was a hotty. I did not think I was hot, that was the opposite. Right, I was a soap opera actor, so in every magazine cover I was being called the heartthrob, the hot guy, and when I looked at my 70 Mirror I saw an overweight person. So I was sharing my story on how I thought I was overweight and I was ugly and I was fat. I was not enough. But everybody saw something different and I wasn't able to actually feel or see what everybody else saw. So that was the first book I wrote before the one that became New York Times bestselling book.
Speaker 2:So a lot of people came up to me on the supermarkets or the grocery store and they were like I want to lose weight but I can't. So I used to say, si se puede, right. Si se puede means yes, you can, but I would say in Spanish, right. So I did that for a year before I even had the brand, everybody would know my story and they would come like, hey, my kid needs help, he needs to lose weight, but he cannot. And I would be like, yes, you can. So at some point, when I was developing the brand, I called it de gordoagalandcom right, my website, so. But the gordo means masculine. So a lot of women will come up to me and say, can I read that book? Because I'm a girl, right. And I was like, oh my God, this is not going to work out, so I need to change it. So I said, how about si se puede, right, si se puede, that come.
Speaker 2:But I always had the vision that, even though we're Hispanics, made by Hispanics for Hispanics, and we have an infusion of Latin flavor, I want to be a solution for everybody, right, I don't want to limit ourselves. I want to be a healthy solution for you and for every person, no matter your skin color you're, no matter your language. So that's why I was like, how about we do it in English? We are in the United States. Yes, I was born in Venezuela. I was basically raised between Mexico and the US, but what I wanted to be understood by everybody in this country.
Speaker 2:So I went online and I trademarked, yes, you can, because I thought it was super cool. And then when I went through my go daddy or whatever domain I used, I couldn't find YesUKan and I was like bummer, it's not available. But I had to already spend the money and registered and trademarked the YesUKan, so I called it YesUKanDiaplancom. So for a few years, when I was starting, it was called YesUKanDiaplan and I think every entrepreneur that's listening to this do not get paralyzed by the details, right, call it one way, just get it started, just get it 70% out there and go start marketing and selling your solution to that problem. And then the name, the label, the color that will appear and that will change, but at least you're gonna get information from that customer. So when I started researching about the name, the Obama YesUKan campaign owning so when I had a little bit of more money not in the first few months, of course, but after the third or fourth year I hire a team of legal experts and then we started negotiating with the campaign managers for the Obama presidency. So in 2016, after four years of being YesUKanDiaplan, we got the name back and we were able to transition from YesUKanDiaplancom to YesUKan from.
Speaker 2:Mr President, no, I'm kidding, I never met him In that regard. I met him in another event, but my legal team got the domain back and it's basically that's the story behind it. But it's basically a way of saying, yes, you can right, no matter what your beliefs are or what you've been told. Yes, you can do whatever you want, and I think the excessive weight represents a lot of things that we don't really see. But that's a heavy weight that we get through life and it's just a reminder that whatever you do right in every situation, it's up to you. Do not blame everybody. You are the problem. Sometimes you create the problem by your habits, but sometimes you can also be the solution to yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really about taking personal accountability and responsibility, which I think is something that you need to do as well as a business owner when you're starting your own company as well Definitely shades into other aspects of life as well. What has it been like being able to use your story as a platform to help others feel like they're not alone and that they're able to reach out and get support? And how have you thought about ways to enable the community aspect of your brand, because it seems like the story, as well as the type of product and your customers, there's a lot there that could be done when it comes to your customers supporting one another as well, beyond just being customers of the brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, throughout this whole journey, when I was growing up and I think many of us have been told that we have to be perfect, right, we have to fit, we have to fit in that box. And when I started this journey, the feedback I have gotten through my own experience is that the more I can share my imperfections, the more I can connect with every other human being. Right, there was this day that really changed that perspective. So I was hiding my obesity journey for years, right, I was an actor, but I never really shared that story with anyone because that was a shame of that story. Right, that story brought a lot of pain to my life, so I didn't want to deal with it. So, for the first time, I went to a TV show called Don Francisco. It was a very popular late night show for Hispanics and I share my story, I share my journey and for the first time, I share those pictures. And I was very ashamed of showing that side of me. Right, I was afraid of showing who I was as a kid, and that was the moment when I went back home and I connected my hotmail. Back in the day, I had 3,211 orders of that book that you know, that it was shameful to me, but all those people connected with that human being. And in that moment I learned the more I can share who I really am right, the more I can create a community and the more I can be like growing together. Right, because before it was me with my own shame. And then, the more I share my story and the more I share my journey, the more I share that I'm not perfect and sometimes I messed up my diet, right, even though I'm the founder of yes, you Can. Sometimes I just have you know my own moments when I just you know I have to have my piece of chocolate, I just don't wanna get up and go to the gym. And sometimes I feel sad and sometimes I'm not as motivated as I was yesterday.
Speaker 2:The more I started sharing my own journey and the journey building the company, the more hugged right I failed. So I said, oh cool, if I share something that's real, I get a hug. And again, as an overweight person, I didn't get a lot of hugs and I didn't get a lot of love. So for the first time I was getting validated for being myself. I was getting validated for being not perfect, for having stretch marks. Today, when I share national television, that I was full of cellulites and stretch marks and my body was not the perfection that the magazines were saying. It was like I got at least 100,000 new followers and I'm talking about 2014,. Right, it wasn't what it is right now, but I think that got me going.
Speaker 2:And imagine now going through this journey with, you know, 500,000 more people that feel like me and that are cheering me up through the journey and I cheer them up through the journey and I still do it. I get my DM, I have my whole team of social media, which is amazing. But I get my phone and I start talking to those people personally and leaving personal notes and saying, wow, you lost three pounds, congratulations. Or you haven't lost anything because you don't want to lose weight, but you're feeling healthier, you have more energy. You're amazing, and that little thing, I'm sure it's changing the trajectory of that human being and I think that's the mission that we leave here and, yes, you can that. It's about those details and it's about relating to that consumer and it's about listening to those calls from our customer service team. Right, I go and I listen to those calls and I understand what pains they're having. So we can solve it. Leave that to us, right? But I think building that community is just about it's just building a tribe, right? That's gonna be with you and it's gonna know that you are gonna mess it up and that you're not perfect and you don't need to be perfect but at least you're real and you're sharing the journey.
Speaker 2:And I remember in 2012, when I started this, I was very open on my Facebook and my social media and I said I don't have a whole thing, but I want to grow this thing with you, and I think people applauded that. I think people supported that and in the beginning it was about really wanting to spread the world. So I didn't have a full marketing team. But I went on YouTube and I started doing free consultations with my Facebook followers and I said if you want to get healthier, reach out to me. This is my YouTube, let's do a free session online and I will record it and I will post it on YouTube. And that's how I got the brand going by doing free consultations with people. And I'm leaving the the number right there. And it wasn't a 1-800 number. I didn't have the money to be an infrastructure from a 1-800. It was a Metro PCS right Number that I just bought, and I bought it out of hunger, I bought it out of necessity.
Speaker 2:I launched the brand and I didn't sell one single bottle for the first 21 days and I was devastated. I thought I had failed. I called my dad and I was like nobody believed in this. This is not working out. I have a huge debt that I have to cover and nobody's believing. And my dad said if it was easy, one would do it. So this is not about giving up. This is about consistency and discipline and building something. So I was like oh, you're right.
Speaker 2:So it took 21 days for me to get the first bottle of collagen. And it's funny because day two or three I got super excited because I got to the back end of the website and I saw 42 sales and I was super excited. So I called the guy that was helping me out and I was like, wow, we killed it yesterday. 42 sales, this is amazing. I was like this is easy, wow. And the guy was like, wait, that was me testing. So it wasn't me in sales, he was testing the shopping cart because he didn't see any sales and I was like, okay, so I had to reinvent myself right Many times, and I have had to reinvent myself during the last 11 years.
Speaker 1:So I have a lot of.
Speaker 1:I have a lot more questions on the brand side.
Speaker 1:But you mentioned you know, within your, your customers, you know being able to support one another but also holding one another accountable, but like not too accountable because people do make mistakes and they do mess up, but like there's obviously a line where you can't just, you know, go off kilter every day but you also don't want to beat yourself up too much for making a mistake.
Speaker 1:How does that translate over into you know running your business as you've grown and as you've started to bring on, you know, more team members? How do you toe the line between you know, allowing your team the freedom and ability to you know create and make mistakes but also still be able to hold them accountable, because that there's definitely like a fine line there where you don't want to repress the team and you know it was just all about accountability and you know no mistakes can be made ever. But at the same time you can't just have you know, people dropping the ball left and right and mistakes and no, we'll do it next time, I'll do better next time. So how do you approach that on the business side of things?
Speaker 2:That's a great question, and I think that's a great question that every day, as a leader, I wake up and I try to figure it out. How do I get better at this? Right, because it is a challenge, especially the bigger you get, the more consequences, right, there are from every aspect, from finance or supply chain or social media right, right, nowadays, you know it's dangerous if you communicate the wrong thing or the wrong way. And I think today, right, what has helped me become a better leader and I'm still in constant improvement but it has helped me to basically write down a path. Right, which is basically the same thing we do with our customers. We have a nutrition guide and we say this is what, what get closer to healthy eating, and that's, of course, something that changes depending on what you like and what you are and what your needs are, but this is a standard operating procedure of what you should follow right, for healthy eating.
Speaker 2:I think we try to do it with our team, and I say try because, again, I'm leaving my own experience and sometimes I think that I communicate something super clear and maybe, you know, the other team member is not really understanding it. That way, I have this example that I always use. If I you know, if I'm looking at this, I'm looking at you know, at something very different, right you? I'm going to ask and you're going to say it's a yes, you can logo with a white thing, and then I'm going to be like no, it's a black screen, because it's it's. It's totally different. So two people can be looking at the same thing and we both have different perspectives. So I try to look at it from both angles. I try to create a standard operating procedure about what. What that means, meaning I don't know in the call center, right, how we're going to handle that call and what the what success actually means.
Speaker 2:But I also try to look at the other person and understand what success means to them, right, because because it can really mean something different for both of us. And I think also it's I've learned and I'm sure I've made mistakes in the past, many, but at least for now I have learned that it's also the way we say things, right, and the way we communicate, and sometimes we can point out at an opportunity. I wouldn't say it's a you know pros and cons, I would say it's the pros and the opportunities, and we take a look at the opportunity or or an error or something, and it's the way you deliver the message that really, you know it's going to make the difference between having an empowered team member or someone. That's sad because I believe and again, I might not have believed this in the past because I was younger and I had a lot of you know eagerness for everything to be perfect, right. So I also understood that in the business, I can get closer to what perfect means to me, but it doesn't mean that it's the same meaning.
Speaker 2:So I try to define what success means to the company as a whole, for both the team member and myself, build an operating procedure and also work with them, and it's an everyday learning, right? It's not a on and off button that you're going to switch and everything is going to get great, and also there's constant change nowadays. Before, I think you would build an operating procedure and an operating procedure standard operating procedure it would stay like that forever, right? Try to do that with social media right now, right, you try to build something for your algorithm and next day it's changed, or Shopify or anything. It changes so much that you need to be really open for change and open for evolution and transformation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the last part is very important, because we spent a lot of time, you know an effort on creating those procedures at Electric.
Speaker 1:You know, like everything was documented there were guidelines, there were processes, there were ways that you should approach and do things. But what I tried to emphasize and stress throughout it all was that just because we have these procedures and processes doesn't mean that you know this is the best way to be doing them or this is the way that we should continue to be doing them. So when you're going through and following it, you know we're not robots here. Like you know the team members that were at Electric and are at Electric and you know, I hope, that most companies are valued, for you know their opinion and their creativity and ability to make things better. So just because there's processes and guidelines doesn't mean that you know that's the way that it should be, and so bring those feedbacks and insights back to us so that we can work on continually refining them and making them better over time. But it's just that mindset of a continual improvement which I think is very important. Yeah, you know professionally, but also in your personal life as well.
Speaker 2:I love that and that's something that I continue to learn. Like sometimes I've gotten greatly surprised by a new team member who's been with us for a week and they bring new, amazing and innovative ideas that I never thought of and you're like, wait, that person has not been trained, they don't know anything about the brand and they're bringing, like, such a treasure. It's because, also, they're bringing, you know, the fresh perspective. They're not in it yet and they're bringing the fresh perspective. So I think that by keeping that open communication with the team and leading everyone to speak freely and no matter if you're here for 11 years, like me, and you know you might be in your own turns, but if you're here for a week, we're all. We're all looking at this with the same willingness to make it better, right, and we're all trying to do our best, right.
Speaker 2:I do think that, like we're all trying to really make our best, nobody's going to work and spending half of their days into trying to, you know, mess things up. So I think, by giving the opportunity, I think that's something great that you're saying, because it is very important nowadays, especially with such a massive tsunami of change, right? Social intelligence and social media and TikTok like and also understanding that I know I don't know at all. Right, even though I created the brand. I founded the brand. I've been with the brand for 11 years. Sometimes I'm the person that knows the least on that table because my team is really out there also and they have fresh and great perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think, you know, empowering team members to be able to bring ideas to the table, whether they just started or they've been there for 10 years, is super important and engenders more ownership within the team of the business when they're able to actually bring those things to light and then, at least in my case, you know, helped tremendously in shaping and crafting the vision of electric, because it was a lot different, you know, when we were like five people versus 50 and you just lose.
Speaker 1:You lose sight of the day to day minutia of every single thing that's going on, and it would be impossible to be this, like you know, sort of helicopter CEO of even that size of an organization.
Speaker 1:So I can only imagine what it's like for some of these companies who you know have hundreds of employees.
Speaker 1:And so I think it's important that your culture is strong from the get go, because as you get bigger and bigger, you need to make sure the right people are in place to get that message down the chain, because if it, if it like, if the chain breaks anywhere, it's not a good thing. And and you need to make sure that everybody's in sync so that you're all rolling sort of it's the same beat in the same direction and have, you know, similar goals, but not everybody has the same personal goals and professional goals either. And that was like a learning lesson for me. Was that not everybody wanted to be, you know, a manager, or not everybody wanted to be the CEO of the business, and so and I put people in some positions where, like they really just didn't want them, they would have preferred to have stayed an individual contributor and just being, you know, open and having that conversation with the team would have saved us from having some of those issues in the early days.
Speaker 2:I love that. Yeah, I think that's such a powerful lesson because, yeah, I think, I think that has a lot of value to also understand. What is it that you want to do, but what, what someone wants to really add value to? Because it will, it will, you know, it will empower them to also be that individual and go full force into what they know best and they want to do best.
Speaker 1:So flipping the conversation a little bit more into the tactical DTC and Ecom stuff, what are some of the things that you're looking forward to? You know this holiday season going into, going into next year, and I assume you know that Black Friday, cyber Monday, is a pretty big moment for you, but that you know the new year is probably even more significant, given, you know, the New Year's Eve. I don't know why I'm blanking on the term, but what is it like? The reset, the, not the reset New year, new you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly New resolution. That's what you're saying. The New Year's resolutions there we go. That's what. I'm looking for.
Speaker 2:We're really looking forward to it. I think again, right, I have fallen in love with change and before it was scary, and every time like something new came up I was intimidated by it. And now I think I was like, okay, bring it on right, it's new change, let's go. I think there has been a lot of change in the way we market, the way people consume the information, the algorithm, the different platforms we're using to communicate, even the email cadence, which are some of the ways we communicate with our customer. Right, which is social media, email marketing, but also e-commerce. Right, the way people shop right now and the information they want to look for. It's very different.
Speaker 2:I think it's continued to update and also to continue to understand the health and wellness. It's getting more open and more inclusive right now. In the past, the conversation was about lose weight, get to this goal. Right, we're telling you what healthy means and what healthy looks like. Right now, it's shifting the conversation and saying wait a second. That's a different meaning, right, healthy means something different for you and it's different for me, but we both can be friends and we both can be part of. Yes, you Can, we both can get to that, to whatever that goal feels great for you.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be really interesting to continue updating the information so we can continue serve our customer and our demographic right.
Speaker 2:I think we are also in the process of expanding, for as a health and wellness platform with a line of flavor right, we want to be the place for people to come and shop for the healthy options and we want to also bring our protein bars or a mirror based, and we want to continue adding that line of flavor.
Speaker 2:We're very excited because I think it gets actually more interesting when you really have to sit down and think about it and come up with ideas so you can connect with that consumer, right, and also as a content creator, the same thing. What works last year the static pictures or the very long videos or maybe those Instagram lives that we used to do throughout the whole pandemic season right, they're not as effective anymore, so we have to come up with different ideas in order to connect with that consumer. But it's pretty exciting because at the end, we talk about transformation and because we're a holistic plan, we have different ways to communicate with people so they can learn a new recipe or they can find out about new ingredients so they can get a new workout session. So it's a lot of fun to get into a new year and really find ways to keep connecting with the audience.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, change is constant and I feel like it is only happening in faster cycles, now more than ever, and so the businesses that are successful are the ones that don't get too attached to anything and have core values, but are able to change strategy, change tactics very quickly and not let themselves get in the way of one another and not be afraid to break things and test and iterate, because if you use an extreme example, like if you still were reliant on your Facebook page for getting company updates out there and people seeing it, then you are, you're going to be irrelevant with the rise of some of these other social channels that have significantly more reach and influence now, which just goes to show that this industry, I think, is an exciting one to be in because of the fact and it rewards those who love change and want to constantly be learning, because there's always something new, whether it's new technology or a new way of reaching customers, and because of that, there's an opportunity for brands who are willing to just dive head first into things to get outsized returns before everybody else starts doing it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and also listening to your audience, right? We have a robust call center on our audience steal calls, and so people are surprised when I tell my friends are like what you got a call center? People steal call and yes, so it's serving your audience and understanding what your audience needs, because it's different, right? So by understanding what your customer wants and how they want to be helped, I think it will help shave the business, because sometimes, as entrepreneurs, we want to shake the business the way we want to consume the information or the way we want to buy, right, and I've learned throughout the years that it's not about me, right? I'm just guiding someone through their own journey and through their own success, but I'm here to help. And how can I help you? And sometimes it might be something that is not as cool, right, as all the other tools, but it helps them. So I think it's also being aware of who you're talking to and what that person wants. It will help shave your business instead of trying to follow every trend, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I totally agree. I got one final question for you, but what's one thing that you would tell any other aspiring entrepreneur or actively building a business who's listening that you know. You wish you knew before you started. Yes, you can, hmm.
Speaker 2:I think, to just get out there and put the product, whatever product you have, put it in front of people and just market it, share your solution, share your knowledge with other people, without really waiting for that product or that song or that book or to be perfect right, because again we go back to what does that mean?
Speaker 2:What does perfect mean? Right? It's very different and nowadays something we just have to get curious and explore and put that product out there and see what the customer tells you and then you can go tweak it and improve it and change it a little, depending on what the customer wants. But don't fall in love with your own vision, because sometimes you're falling in love with what you like but you're not the one really uh you know out there consuming that product. So I think that that's something that I that I struggle with. I think that I spend seven months with my labels and my logo and, you know, after I launch it, they shift it. It has shifted many times. It has changed and evolved. So I will tell everybody to just get out there, just be disciplined to what you want, develop a plan and execute the goals and then the soup goals that are going to take you there and do not get distracted by the noise, right? Um, I wish I knew that the whole story about become a millionaire in a month I don't know if it's true or not. It wasn't my own experience, but I don't know if it's true for someone else, but it's not as rewarding, right.
Speaker 2:I think the more beautiful lessons I've learned have been through the journey right, falling down and then figuring out a way how to get up again and how to do it all over again and understand that sometimes we get into business because we want a flat line. I want my life to you know, to be like this. I don't want surprises, I want just stability in my life. That's, that's why I got into business. Right, I was like I want stability, I want and we just have to understand that a business is this and you, you have to learn just to serve through this and you're starting to like put up fires every single day. But you have to like those fires, you have to be eager to see those fires, and I think it's a different perception from from the TikTok videos we see, which is like what car are you driving? Right, and it's like wow, I wish I knew that because I worked so hard for that, that thing.
Speaker 2:And you know, I think the the most, the most threshold moments and experience I've had throughout 11 years been about small conversations with team members about their lives or the hiccups that we've gotten and me trying to figure out right how do I turn this thing around Right. Or the hard conversation I've had to have with someone that I really love but we're not aligned anymore and sometimes we have to have those conversations and we have to learn how to let it go. Or we have to say no. Or the most difficult conversations I've had is with myself and saying you have to let go this part of yourself because it's not serving you anymore.
Speaker 2:And I think that's that's. You know, that's that's what's fun for me and I wish people talk about these more. And you know the rest will come. When I figure it out that by serving more people and solving their problems not my goal of a million dollar or two that will multiply everything. Everything changed for me when I forgot about my own goals and my own selfish needs and I focused on someone else's needs, everything shifted and I started. You know, I started to grow the business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is really critical to not sort of underscore how difficult, how challenging and how like not glamorous it actually is. Because if you just look at, you know, social media, you just see the cars, the houses like all the, and you know most of it's fake too, which is something especially that gets that gets forgotten about a lot. But the I think the the value I found the most in having your own businesses, the opportunity to bring a bunch of different people together and things like the holiday parties or, you know, the team dinners and stuff like that. Those are very fun and shared experiences that can't be replicated and it's really unique to get to Be the one that's sort of shepherding that forward. And yeah, it comes with a bunch of no crap they have to deal with every day, but it's something it's fun like. You have to have that problem-solving mindset and not be afraid to Fail and then also be able to admit you know when you're wrong, especially when you're dealing with, you know, external stakeholders and things like that.
Speaker 1:But it's definitely over glamorized in the media and actually thinking about launching a new podcast called the Like the dark side of entrepreneurship, which my my buddy who owns a Shopify plus agency down here in Miami as well, you know was chatting about it at dinner and I was like why don't we just or it actually came out of my podcast with him, because it went from you know what's talking about e-com tips and tricks, to hear all the things that we really hate about running our own business and I don't think that gets talked about at all and all the, all the back-end stuff you know accounting, finance, operations, the crazy stories of you Know, you know a potential lawsuit, things like that Really opening up the behind-the-scenes. Look at what's going on at some companies. So I think I might do that, because that'd be really fascinating.
Speaker 2:I love that idea. After like Many years of being an entrepreneur, I heard this guy called Keith Cunningham he's amazing and talks about finance and he said do not spend your revenue. And I was like, oh shoot, I've been spending my revenue for four years, right, he's like the only thing you can spend is your cash. If you have no cash, you cannot spend your revenue. That's not real money. And he was such a such a total different perspective of, like, what I was doing. Right, I was making a thousand dollars and I was spending a thousand dollars in Marketing. And it was like, oh, how do I pay for product? How do I pay for my team? How do I pay for the rest of the stuff? Right, it's just revenue.
Speaker 2:And that totally shifted. But nobody really talked to me about that, right? They said, oh, you're all these different coaches online. I'm gonna teach you how to make a hundred thousand dollars in a week. And I was like, I mean, you know, I didn't do that, right, the first few months I wasn't doing you know anything and I was just trying to figure it out. But I think at the end, it's about persistent and resilience, right, if you really want something, it's it's gonna cost you and you have to be willing to pay the price. It's not gonna get easy and it sometimes is easy and I've known people that for them has been easy. But also acknowledging that's not my story, right, and my story is different, and and and blessed their heart. But I'm also gonna try to to create my own pavement right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for me, like I love being busy, so I am just constantly pushing the gas pedal in different areas and taking on too much, and I know sometimes I feel like I'm teetering on the edge, but ever I'll figure it out somehow. But that's what. That's what keeps me like I have to have stuff to be focused on.
Speaker 2:If I didn't, like I don't know what I would be doing and I love that you're saying that, brian, that because I Think that's also really cool to be aware of and to acknowledge. Right, not all of us Love to be busy. There are some people that need certain hours of the day to be focused. You know something else, and I think that's beautiful. But also to start to stop to judge ourselves, because we love to work Like I have to also learn that through therapy, right, because it was so Negatively labeled, right, like oh, then I'm a workaholic, then I mean I'm obsessed, then I mean I'm twin chins and it's like no, like some people use some other type of, you know, pacifiers.
Speaker 2:I use my passion and I love it and I'm okay with it. And I think I found people that are now supportive of that right, and you know, my partner is supportive of that my family, my friends, because for so long I was being judged for being me, for being in love with my mission and my passion. And I think it's something also to be aware of, right, that we all are different and some people are gonna be In love with different things and that's okay. I love. I love that podcast idea. You should pursue it. I want to be a guest on that podcast, you can be.
Speaker 1:You can be our inaugural guest.
Speaker 1:I actually I'm gonna go get dinner with him next week and we're cuz I, you know, we've already got all the equipment, we got the setup, so we just got to start booking people and put it into rotation. Once you have, you know, the idea, it's not, it's not too hard to execute. Yeah, I think we get some pretty cool people on to to share they're like you know they're, they're, they're Entrepreneurial horror stories. I'm gonna have to have, like you know, a form that you have to submit that says, like I am willing to tell Things that I would not usually say, because we don't want the, we don't want the glamorized fluff we the press release one.
Speaker 1:Exactly no press release here. Thank you so much for coming on. This is really great. I appreciate you taking the time before we hop. Can you let everybody know where they can find you? And yes, you can online.
Speaker 2:Yes, you can follow me online on Instagram, facebook. Take talk, alejandro Chaban, yes, you can as well. At yes, you can. You can follow us in social media. Or you can also go to yes, you can dot com to. You can try some of our amazing products.
Speaker 1:Awesome for everybody listening. As always, this is brand moroso. You can find me at brandy and morosocom and electric marketing dot com and we will see you next time. Thanks for listening.