The Hard Truth About Entrepreneurship

Transcript

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Today we're gonna be covering the hard truth about entrepreneurship. One of my favorite topics to talk about. Typically the first 30 minutes, we have different life hacks, fun facts, different personal development shares before jumping into the meat and potatoes of the Breakfast Club session. And again, today we're gonna be covering the hard truth about entrepreneurship. And I know a lot of people in our community, I., Our entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs. We have a lot of people who are interpersonal development, but also into entrepreneurship, uh, which they both kind of go hand in hand. So,, I wanted to be able to add value for you guys who are on your entrepreneurial journey. And, to get us kick started, the very first share that we have is to take down barriers. And this is from the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. A really, really great book for those of you who haven't read it, always recommended it on here. And the very first share is take down barriers. Think about a goal you are working on, identify the obstacles you are facing, and find someone to help you brainstorm ways to overcome those obstacles, which is really great for today's topic as well. And for those of you who are just now hopping onto the Breakfast Club, and maybe you're new, maybe it's your very first time, you're wondering what in the world is this all about? Typically we share all things centered around personal development, entrepreneurship, life coaching, things that could essentially make your life better. So every single week is a little bit of something different. And, uh, last week for example, we covered 21 to-dos on how you can pretty much transform your life in 21 days. Uh, so you have 21 to-dos in 21 days. We actually launched these 21 day challenges as a community, and we're going to be launching the, the very next one is going to be happening, uh, in July. So July, we're gonna be kicking it off with our community. It's always a really great way to reset. And the week before we were covering mental health because we're in mental health. Month for men. So this month is Men's Mental Health Month. Shout out to all of the men who are tuning into the Breakfast Club and, uh, really passionate about just providing value to men specifically, especially as a father, a husband. Uh, I know that it definitely comes with a heavy burden. Um, you know, and, uh, it is, it is important to, of course, you know, check, check in on the men as well as the woman. Of course, you know, I know we have some, uh, single moms as well who tune in every single week and shout out to all of the single moms who are also just filling that role to the best of their ability, you know, for their families. So let's see here we have ask yourself what obstacles currently seem insurmountable if I face it alone. When you approach a problem with the willingness to synergize, you can come up with new ways to overcome challenges. This is really, really spot on as well. So again think about a goal you are currently working on, and it could be maybe something that you said as a new year resolution to kickstart the year. So many different things, that you could be personally working on. Second is identify the obstacles you are currently facing. So it can be, for example, you, you may be going through, uh, mental health obstacles, maybe you've encountered burnout. And I most certainly as an entrepreneur, uh, have encountered burnout recently happened to me. And it is, it's very, very difficult navigating through a lot of obstacles when you don't have the mental capacity to be able to. Handle the things that you essentially need to handle. And thirdly is find someone to help you brainstorm ways to overcome those obstacles. So getting around a support community, I know this most certainly has been super beneficial for me, just getting around a lot of family and friends, uh, seeking their advice, mentors, uh, people who have gone through the storms. And you'd be surprised you know, you may have, for example, uh, a family member or friend, maybe they can't relate in terms of, from a business standpoint, but they can relate from a standpoint of they've gone through life struggles, they've gone through hardship, they've gone through financial challenges and things like that. Marial challenges, health challenges, and getting their perspective on navigating through that. Like I remember recently, I was just curious about the perspective of, of some of my friends who had gone through. A lot of challenges and different seasons, seasons in life where, uh, business was down or, or financial, uh, seasons where, uh, well seasons where financially they were just down and out or uh, maybe they went through bankruptcy, they went through foreclosure, they went through car repossessions. There, there are a lot of people who lived enough life to have experienced that. And sometimes just hearing their perspective on how they navigated through those circumstances and the perspective that they currently take because of the storms that they've overcome. And it's super, super valuable and you'd be amazed at what you can learn, even if someone's circumstances may look slightly different. Obstacles are obstacles and people have different ways of navigating through it, and that's why it is helpful. To have a tribe, have people that you can talk to about how they currently, um, are navigating through it or how they have navigated through it, um, over the years. So lastly, we have a really good quote by Stephen Covey, and that is when you introduce synergy, you unfreeze restraining forces, loosen them up and create new insights. So, very, very true. And we have some more shares before we jump into, uh, the bulk of what we're gonna be talking about here today. Again, uh, thank you to all of you who like, comment, share, tag, all that good stuff. It's greatly appreciated. And here we go. The next share is, now take a moment to write down five of the experiences that have most powerfully shaped who you are. Give not only a description of the event, but explain how it affect how it affected you. If you come up with anything that seems to have negative consequences, immediately reinterpreted, no matter what it takes, this may require some faith. It may call for a new perspective you never would have considered before. Just remember that there is value in all human experience. So true. So again, take a moment, whether it's right now on the Breakfast Club or, uh, at some point in time throughout the day, it could be a really great journal exercise. But the, the exercise is essentially to write down five of the experiences that have most powerfully shaped who you are. And I know for me, for example, one of the things that, uh, come to mind in terms of what has shaped who I am definitely growing up in the environment that I grew up in, I would say cultivated my character in the early years more than anything. But also just navigating through business challenges. As an entrepreneur, it will most certainly have a, a major, major effect on who you are navigating through having a family. For those of you who have families, maybe you're married, maybe you have children, maybe you have, uh, you know, just people that are dependent on you. And family will be one of the greatest teachers of all time Suffering will be one of the greatest teachers of all time. There's so many things that really pop up in our lives that become these, these great teachers, and they're, they're there to teach us a lesson. And I know I, I most certainly have had tons of seasons in the past, just navigating through, just even having the capacity for responsibility, for, for the things that you, you take on in life, the hats that you wear. So if you're a parent, if you're a spouse, if you are a community leader. If you're running a business, there's certain things that you have to do, certain things that you have to take on that become really great teachers throughout the course of life. And it is important to go back and reflect on the, the, the, the very difficult seasons you've got through. And to remind yourself how many of those difficult seasons you've got to remind yourself of how tough you really are. Because there were moments in time where you didn't even know how you were going to get to the other side of the storm, but you just kept pressing on you. You stayed faithful and you didn't give up on yourself. And sometimes we're in, when we're in our darkest seasons, it is important to reflect back on those seasons that we've overcome throughout the course of our lives. So welcome, welcome. I see we have people tuning in from Florida, from Jamaica, from New York, from Texas. Welcome everyone. Happy to have you all with us. Uh, we're gonna keep this show going. And let's see here. We have a few more shares. The very next share is, in order to accomplish anything, we need a sense of certainty. Our references help us to build this important emotional state. However, if we have no experience in or references for doing something, how can we be certain about it? Realize you are not limited to your actual experience. Your imagination has unlimited references to support you. Remember that when Roger Banister shattered the four minute mile record, it was due in large part to his having already accomplished a task. In his mind's eye, his repeated visualizations of breaking the record provided him with the references, thus the conviction to tap his ultimate physical potential. How many barriers could you destroy if you merely use the force of your imagination to give you the reference experiences of breaking through? So really, really great share, and we're about to jump into today's topic before we do. So we've got some really great announcements as always. And let's just see here. I'm going to share, uh, I'm going to share, uh, some of our, let's see here. We have some announcements that I wanted to share with you guys on, uh, a lot of things that we have. So we have the, the 21 days, uh, to, uh, transformation. Uh, so we have 21 days to transformation. And I'll share with you what that looks like. Uh, this is going to be starting, I'm kind of sharing it with you guys in advance. That way you can kind of prepare yourself mentally for what it's going to look like. And you guys are more than welcome to take a screenshot of this, or you could always DM me. I'll be more than happy to send it over to you. But, uh, we have a, a private Facebook group and everything like that. So if you would like to be added, just shoot me a message in my, in my direct message. Uh, and I'll be more than happy to send you over that information. Okay. And we also have our Creators conference coming up in the fall. So, uh, really, really excited about that as well. And our Creators conference is, uh, most certainly, uh, last year. It was, it was incredible guys. Like it was a three day event. We did it at a resort. And, uh, the Creators conference, uh, just, just overall. Um, was incredible. Bringing in different creators, influencers, entrepreneurs, and keep an eye out for that. Uh, because, uh, we're gonna be sharing the details. We're locking in the venue. Uh, but if you guys would like information on how you can get, uh, tickets, if you even hop over to the creators conference.com, you can get more information on that. But keep an eye out. It's either going to be the last week of September or the first week of October, so save the date, make sure you don't have anything going on around that time. And lastly, we're going to be doing a Life Mastery event. For those of you who have been a part of our community, you know, we do Life Mastery events, typically one to two times a year. The very first time is to kick off the year. The second time is to get through the halfway point of the year. So halfway through the year, as you guys know, we're going into the second half, which is crazy. I feel like we just started the, I feel like we just started 2025. And it's crazy to think that we're about to. Kick off, um, you know, the second half already. And, uh, we're going to be having our Life Mastery event, uh, June, uh, this month actually. So it's going to be, as you guys can see here on this flyer, June 25th. So keep an eye out. I'll be sending emails, I'll be sending notifications, uh, in our knowledge and inspiration group. I'll also be sending out tons of information on there. So if you're not in that group, again, hit me up in my dms. And, uh, for the most part, the last thing I'll share is, uh, my, uh, my Calendly. I oftentimes open up my schedule for complimentary coaching sessions. For our community. So, um, I'm gonna be opening it up for people who are embarking on this 21 days of transformation. Maybe you need a reset, maybe you need to kind of, you know, go over some of the things that have worked, maybe have not worked. And, uh, this is my gift to the community. So, um, if you guys would like, uh, access to a complimentary coaching session, just dm me the word coach, and I'll send you over my, my private Calendly link and you guys can hop over, um, on there and I'll be more than happy to meet with you one-on-one if there's any questions you have, whether it's podcasting or content creation or entrepreneurship, business stuff, um, or you just need some time to talk to, especially where we're now in men's mental health, uh, month. And, um, very, very passionate about this topic in particular, we just wrapped up a mental health symposium by my really good friend, Pamela Pacheco. And a phenomenal event for those of you who are in attendance. You know, it was an incredible time, but, uh, but yeah, I, I love gathering together with, you know, a lot of you guys in the community from time to time and, uh, looking forward to catching up, seeing what you guys are up to for the year. So let's jump into it. We have a lot of great value that we're gonna be sharing here today. And, uh, also hop over to The Journey Podcast by Josh Valentine. You can hop over wherever podcasts are streamed and there are tons of past Breakfast Club sessions on there, so hop over. You can also go to my YouTube, just type in Josh Valentine. You'll find me on there and a lot of great, uh, past Breakfast Club sessions on there, as well as past interviews. And let's jump into it. Okay. So to get us kick started, we have, uh, the hard truth about entrepreneurship. So here's a really great opening that I found. Uh, everybody wants success, but not everybody wants the struggle that comes before it. So today we're gonna be talking to you about the hard truth of entrepreneurship, the stuff that nobody puts on Instagram. If you've ever thought about starting a business or building your dream life, this is the episode you need to hear before you go any further. So, uh, we're gonna be covering a lot about what entrepreneurship actually looks like. So for those of you who don't know me very well, I've been a full-time entrepreneur since I was 24 years old. 24 from the workforce. I was working as a merchant marine, uh, boat captain. So I had a captain's license. I was piloting cargo all around the United States. I. And, uh, doing very well financially. It was super secure. I had the benefits, the pension, all that good stuff. But what I didn't have was my freedom. What I didn't have was a sense of fulfillment, a sense of alignment with what I was truly here to do with my life. And I was looking for something else. And I embarked on entrepreneurship when I was 22. And when I say I embarked on entrepreneurship, I mean like a, a legitimate business with systems, with infrastructure, with leverage teams, all that stuff. In the past, I've always had side hustles and I grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and you kind of grow up learning how to hustle in different ways. So I, I was kind of going over yesterday, I was doing a, a journal entry, and on my journal entry, I was just covering different aspects of my entrepreneurial journey. So. For example, my very first business, if you will, where I made my first profit was at do running a car wash. So I remember I was probably like nine years old and I was running a, a little car wash business. And I remember, uh, I had a few dollars and I actually went to the, to the bodega, the corner store, and I bought some pines, so like the pines, so that you would normally clean your floors with, and that's what I was using as soap to run my car wash. I didn't know I was a, I was a kid, so I got a bucket. I remember I got some rags, got some pines, so I invested in it and I, I launched my business and me being a kid, a lot of the kids. They were just having fun. And if I knew what I knew now, I definitely would've paid my friends. But it didn't even dawn on me. Like my in, in my mind, I'm like, Hey, I made the investment, then I'm gonna make the money. Right? So I had my friends just kind of helping me out with the business, and we'd stop these cars and harass them to give us a dollar so that we can wash their cars. And I remember, uh, a guy even telling me like, Hey, you, you probably shouldn't be washing cars with this pine soul. But anyway, I say that to say that was the, I guess the, the, the, the, the, the, the tipping of the first domino of entrepreneurship for me. And from there, um, I, I would always have these little side hustles and just find ways to flip money and make money. I remember in high school I would, uh, we used to have these boxes that we would sell, uh, to raise money for, like sports. And whenever the candy would run out, you still had the boxes. So what I would do was. Buy a bunch of candy from the store. And I remember at one point I was even getting it wholesale because in my mind I'm like, I understood profit margins. I understood that, okay, if I can buy each candy bar for 40%, I mean for 40 cents instead of 60 cents, I'm obviously gonna make a lot more, uh, money. And I remember I'd buy these snicker bars for 60 cents at the store and then sell them for a dollar. And then I would go find a, a way to get them wholesale for 40 cents and make even more money. And I'd hang out at the library and all the nerds were at the library while all the other kids were in the, in the lunchroom or the cafeteria. So I'd be in the library and I'd just have my, my candy box open. I'd read my books, and that was kind of like the early days of my personal development. And I'd just hang out, you know, in the library and sell these chocolates. There would be kids who didn't go to the cafeteria to eat lunch. And they'd buy the, the candy. And, and unfortunately in a lot of parts of Brooklyn, uh, you know, kids won't eat the school lunch, you know, because they don't wanna be picked on or teased or laughed at or whatever. And, uh, there were a lot of kids that would literally just be hungry and they'd take their money and they'd buy like, pre tools and all kinds of different snacks. So I was the guy that sold the candy, and that was like another hustle. And then when I went off to college, my hustle was running a barbershop out of my dorm room. I, I literally had, I was telling one of my good friends, I literally had a sign, you know, my, my college friends, uh, used to call me Poncho, and some of them still do. They'll call me Poncho. And uh, and I had like a sign on there on my door freshman year that said Poncho's Barbershop on my dorm room. Door and literally a bunch of friends would come. And teammates, I, I played college and football, so that's what got me through college. And when I was doing my Coast Guard licensing training, um, and we'd be shipping out around the world, I would cut hair while I was on this ship. And, uh, we needed haircuts because we were a part of, you know, this military training and, uh, having a haircut was a requirement, so I was like literally running a barber shop out of, uh, it, it, we, we had these one, uh, uh, these holds, they called them holds where over 150 male cadets slept in one big hole. And they were like these bunk beds with three different beds. And, um, 150 plus cadets would basically, um, a percentage of them would get their haircuts from me. And that was also a hustle for me to be able to, uh, provide for myself. And I never. Not had money. Like I always had money throughout college because of that, that entrepreneurial spirit. And then after that, I remember, uh, I, I was involved in all kinds of different side hustles. So I had a friend who was a lone shark. He used to be my roommate. I had, uh, my wife and I, we actually one summer needed a like, kind of like an apartment to stay in or a room. So we ended up renting a room for a couple of weeks from this guy in the Bronx. And, uh, crazy thinking about it now, but this guy in the Bronx was a loan shark. I, he would have piles of money and I remember us thinking like, man, is this guy like a hitman or something? You know, like, where's all this money coming? And he, he had no issue with leaving the money piled up around the place. Like he had no type of thought. Like, Hey, these people may very well take my money. Anyway, I sail that to say years later. I ended up finding out that, uh, through the night because he would be gone all through the night. So it was always just weird to me, like, what does this guy actually do? And what he did was he'd find people, um, in the subway stations and, uh, and I can't believe after, this is probably my very first time ever sharing this story, but he would find people in the subway stations, uh, like these old, like Spanish ladies that needed some extra cash and maybe they didn't have the credit or they didn't have the ability to get cash. So he'd find these really sweet old Spanish ladies and he would loan them money and they'd just pay him back an interest. And if you grew up in the hood, you know, there's a lot of different, you know, money schemes like this where you loan people some money and they just pay you back with interest. And, um, in short, he was a loan shark. Right. And I remember years later when I started getting money with my, my career. I was getting paid really good money and I had this extra cash, and I'm like, man, I need to find ways to flip this money. And I reached out to him and literally would help fund his, his business and just flip the money that way. And, um, I say all that to say that, um, throughout the journey I've explored what a lot of different forms of entrepreneurship. And for those of you who have aspirations to maybe get into entrepreneurship, I wanna encourage you just try different things, see what works, what doesn't work. You may have to try 10 different businesses before you find one that actually sticks before you find one that you actually have passion for. And just because one didn't necessarily work out for you, it may just very well be that you didn't have the passion for it. The timing may have not been right, the circumstances may not have been right. Go out there, try different things. And during, during that time, um, while I was working my career, you know, I was looking up different business models from franchising to investing real estate. And I always loved business. So I even went to college to study business. Specifically. I was studying international business and, um, I had the opportunity to travel abroad to countries like Turkey, Greece, Romania, Poland, and study abroad and live in these cities and see how they went about business, uh, which was pretty cool. And, um, I remember I had this part of me that really wanted to, uh, build wealth that really wanted to embark on some kind of a business. And during that time, um, a good friend of mine that I went to college with had introduced me to the world of travel home-based business. And I started building my business part-time while working my job full-time. And to make a long story short, when I was 24 years old, I went full-time as an entrepreneur and never looked back, have I, have never worked the job since then. And I've sustained my family of five as well as a lot of other people over the years, uh, through entrepreneurship. So I'm probably a little bit qualified to talk about the storms, to talk about what it looks like to talk about the ups, the downs, the good, the bad, the ugly, uh, all that stuff. And I know that this is going to be valuable for a lot of you guys who are just trying to figure it out. And I, I really wanted this, this Breakfast Club session to be about also giving you some perspective on whether or not you should even go full-time as an entrepreneur. Because I, I personally believe that for a lot of people, entrepreneurship should be a part-time thing. It should not be where you go all in full time. Why is that? Because especially for those of you who have people who are dependent on you, you can put a lot of your family in a, a, a very, very difficult scenario. Um, you can put a lot of stress, stress and pressure on yourself. If, if you are not taking care of your mental health, if you are not just taking care of yourself and, and, and things that need to be taken care of, uh, it could actually turn against you. And entrepre entrepreneurship. There are a lot of people who, uh, hit rock bottom in entrepreneurship and their family pays the price. So, uh, I don't think that entrepreneurship is necessarily for everyone. I don't think entrepreneurship is always for people to do it full-time. I think a, I think it works very well for a lot of people on a part-time basis. That way they don't have the stress and just know that it requires a lot of. Uh, faith, it requires a lot of grit, a lot of perseverance, and you have to determine whether or not you even wanna participate in the game because it is not easy. And I think that entrepreneurship tends to get a little bit glorified, and there's not enough out there like that speaks about the hard truth about what it actually looks like. You know, oftentimes you look at the finished product of entrepreneurship with a lot of successful entrepreneurs. You may see the material possessions, you may see the entrepreneurs on vacation. You may see the nice cars, the nice homes ride, you know, flying in the private jets and all that stuff. But what you didn't see is the, the ugly. What you didn't see are those dark, lonely seasons. What you didn't see is the, the, the mental health challenges that some of these entrepreneurs had to overcome. You probably didn't see the bankruptcies, you probably didn't see them risking everything. And, and questioning everything. And, uh, and, and today I really wanna highlight that part of it because, uh, for some of you maybe you're like, man, I'm, I'm tired of working my job. I I really want to go full-time in my business. Uh, perhaps you may question that after this Breakfast Club session, and this is not to discourage some of you, uh, from going full-time as, as as entrepreneurs, but one thing that I, I will tell you is that, um, going full-time, it comes with a price. And you have to really, really know without a shadow of a doubt that you're gonna go all in. Because sometimes people burning the boats on their job definitely gets the job done, but not everybody operates like that. If you're someone that, that doesn't operate well under stress, then taking that approach is probably not going to be the best approach. Perhaps you going part-time on your business until it's bringing in a certain amount until the business stabilizes and it's bringing in a steady cash flow. Maybe that approach is best. When I went into entrepreneurship, I was barely making$500 a month for my business. My business was actually on the decline. However, I didn't have kids at the time. I also, um, I, I wasn't married at the time and, uh, I went full time with a nest egg of, I, I saved up a bunch of money. I had a bunch of investments that I could fall back on, and I still had an active captain's license that I could fall back on in the event that things didn't work out. In the event that it failed, I could always go back. So there was that safety net. And I just wanna really highlight that because again, sometimes people, they glorify this idea of like, I'm gonna go all in. I'm gonna jump all in and, and burn the boats and figure it out. And that may very well not be the best approach because I've seen a lot of people take that approach and go right back to their job, bitter, go right back to their job, resentful, go right back to the job, even worse off. Right? And, um, again, it's not to discourage, it's not to, you know, uh, even prevent you from doing that. It's really just to highlight the hard truth. And I will say this, to be fair, that may not be your experience. You may very well go all in on your business, and the business takes off and eventually my business took off for me. And, you know, so I, I have no regrets whatsoever. And also I'm not, uh, oblivious to the fact that there are many stories of entrepreneurs who went all in. Had breakaway success. However, how many entrepreneurs that went all in that we never heard the story that end up having to revert back or lost everything. We never see those stories. The stories that we hear about are the people that made it to the other side. However, what, what, what percentage is greater? The percentage of entrepreneurs that went all in and had massive success or the percentage of entrepreneurs who went all in and it didn't work out. So the people who go on to have that breakaway success understand that that is the, the, the minority of the people who go into entrepreneurship. I would say less than 10% of entrepreneurs who take that approach actually make it. To their, their destination. A lot of people don't, A lot of people end up losing it all. A lot of people end up going back to their job. A lot of people end up, you know, uh, just failing and not making it through. Okay? Now, when it comes to failure, I also wanna highlight this. It's not necessarily failure if you look at it as a lesson. So perhaps that wasn't the business that was supposed to take off. Maybe that business was there to teach you something, to prepare you for another business venture. The very business, for example, that I started out with at 22 years old was no longer, uh, the business. It, it wasn't the business that carried me through. Now going into almost 15 years of entrepreneurship, right? Some businesses that'll be your business for three years, four years, five years. But the nature of business is very cyclical. The nature of the economy is cyclical. The the nature of life is cyclical, meaning that you're gonna have ups, you're gonna have downs. And don't hold on to this idea that your business is going to be the business that you do for the rest of your life. Because think about this. How many people stay with one company, with one job for the rest of their life? How many people start out, honestly, what percentage of the population starts out with a career, with a specific job for a company at, you know, right in their early, in their early life, and they stick it out their entire lifetime. It's, it's, it's a small percentage of the population that may have been great for the boo baby boomers, right? You work the 40, 40, 40 plan, you know, you 40 hours a week for 40 years of your life. So then live off of 40% of what you couldn't afford to live off of in the first place, which is your retirement fund or your retirement account, right? A lot of people subscribe to that. You, you work your 40 years and then you get your gold watch or whatever they gave you at the end. These days it's more like a gift card, but that's, that's the case for people in the prior generations. But today, the likelihood of someone working with one company their entire lives, it's, it's slim to none. You, you don't really see it very often. So what makes you think that your business is going to be there for 40 plus years now? It can be, but be open to the idea that how you start may very well not be how you finish and be open to what's possible because the way you finish may end up even being better than you could have possibly imagined in the first place. Okay, so I wanna share seven different. Things that you will endure during entrepreneurship. Okay, so, uh, number one, take notes. By the way, take notes as if you're going to have to deliver a workshop on this later this week. Okay, so, uh, here we go. Number one, you are going to fail a lot, and when I say fail a lot, there's a lot of different ways to look at failure. Again, you can look at failure as, you know, failing forward, and it, it's like you may look at it as a prerequisite for success. You may look at it as, okay, I have to fail forward if I want to accomplish whatever it is that I want. And failure looks very different for some people. For some people, for example, if you run a brick and mortar location and you have to pay thousands of dollars in monthly overhead expense. Then, yeah, if you lose that brick and mortar, you may look at that as failure. However, what happens if your business doesn't have the, that crazy overhead expense? Like some of my businesses don't have a lot of overhead expenses, and literally the only way to fail is to quit. So it looks very different. Now, some of you may have a business that goes bankrupt, and yeah, you may look at that as failure. Some of you, the nature of your business may, may be, uh, reaching out to prospects or reaching out to customers, and maybe you kind of look at failure as it, it's not, it's not working for you. Maybe you're reaching out to a lot of people and nobody is signing up for whatever it is that you have. No one is buying your product, no one is joining your business. And, and to you, that looks like failure. Okay? But it looks very different. And however you look at it. Again, I, I personally don't look at these things as failure, right? Um, but I just understand that it's not optional. It's, it's sort of like mandatory. You're look at it as trial and error. So the things that you try may very well not work the way you expect it to, and you just have to continue to try many, many times before you finally find your way. Okay? So an example, it could be a failed launch. So maybe you did a business launch and you thought the business launch was gonna go your way and it really didn't. Like, I remember when I first started in the travel industry, I, I thought I was going to have like, breakaway success. I, I thought I was gonna come in and just be bringing in millions and, and hit the top level, and it took me six and a half years. Six and a half years to finally get to the point where I accomplished what I had set out to do. And if you ask me, I, I thought I was gonna be there year one. I just, I, I felt that that's the way it was going to work out for me. But it took six and a half years, a lot longer than I expected. Okay. And it was trial and error. Trial and error. There were a lot of setbacks along the way, but you gotta keep pushing forward. So sometimes a failure may look like a bad hire. You bring someone in on your team and they end up, you know, stabbing you in the back. They end up just, uh, let's say taking money from your, from your business. They end up just screwing you over whatever. Uh, but that could be another example. It can be investing in the wrong thing. Maybe you make an investment in something and you thought that that investment was going to have a, a nice return and it just didn't work out. I know as an investor there have been companies that I've invested in and it was just not, and these were companies that were probably recommended by a quote unquote expert, and it just didn't go. I was, I was dead wrong. And I've had those times. Okay, or simply just people not buying your stuff, right? They're just not buying what it is that you have. So when we talk about failure, I'm not talking about it just from the sense of the business stops, it's more, again, trial and error, trying different things and experimenting and tinkering and seeing what works until you finally find that place where things are clicking. Okay? Now, understand that, uh, there's a lesson, and that lesson is each failure is a feedback system. So don't look at it as failure. Look at it as feedback. Your job isn't to avoid failure. It's to learn faster than most people quit. How powerful is that? It's not to avoid failure, it's to learn faster than most people quit. So when you think about a lot of people, you know, people quit everything. How many, how many people you know, have embarked on all kinds of different business journeys or, or maybe they had a dream to be a singer or an actress. Or an athlete. And I, I remember for example, you know, I wanted, I wanted to play in the NFL. That was a big, big dream of mine, and I could have looked at that dream coming to an end as failure, or I simply could have looked at it as feedback. I could have looked at it as well. This opened up a door because if it wasn't for. Football, I would not have gone to the college that I went to. That's the reality. And if I hadn't gone to that college that I went to, I would not have met my wife. I would not have met the, the, the future investors of companies that I launched years later, I would not have been introduced to the very first business opportunity that allowed me to retire from the workforce. Okay? So sometimes those things that we looked at as failure were really just doorways. They were doorways to other opportunity. And that's why it is important to just be open to however life works it out. Okay? Um, so, uh, these are a really great quote I had came across and the, the quote is, uh, it's an anonymous quote, but it's, I failed more times than I can count. But the only difference between me and most people is I didn't stop, I didn't stop. And there are a lot of people that I started on this entrepreneurial journey with, and one thing that I can tell you is, um, for a lot of them, they, they went back, you know, uh, to work. And nothing wrong with that. You, I mean, you gotta get to a, a a point in time where you're like realistic with yourself as well, and especially if your family is suffering because of you just kind of being a dreamer, right? And at some point in time, you have to understand, especially for those of you who are in a relationship and your spouse believes in you, maybe you are with someone who's just like fully vested in your dreams. You have to produce results. There's just no getting around it. After a while, it, it gets exhausting for someone to believe in you for so long and you're not producing the results. And sometimes, for example, I, you know, I, I come across people who say they, oh, I, I have the unsupportive spouse. Or the unsupportive significant other. And oftentimes what I find is, uh, you usually will have that when you don't have the best track record of following through on doing what you said you were going to do. You want your significant other to be more supportive of you get results, back it up. And some of you may feel like you need your significant other to be on board in order to become successful. There are tons of people who have figured it out without the support from their significant other. And if you really want their support, simply get the results. There's no, there's no sugarcoating it. Right. You, you have to get the results. They, they can only have so much faith. They can only hold on for so long. Right. And at, at some point in time, it becomes like wishful thinking. You have to execute, you have to do everything in your power to produce results. Okay. But going back to what I was. Mentioning earlier about people that I started out with, if there's any trait that I would say is going to be super valuable for you throughout your entrepreneurial journey, it's going to be adaptability because what do you do when the economy isn't a conducive economy for your business when there are rules and regulations that change? I remember when I was doing drop shipping and there were a lot of rules that changed, uh, in the world of drop shipping and it completely like decimated the business back in the day. And um, again, you have to be able to adapt. And entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, I always say that entrepreneurship for me isn't necessarily a profession. I look at entrepreneurship as a state of being. It's a mindset. It's, it's what you embody. It's, it's someone who is willing to take insurmountable risk to embark on an endeavor that they believe in, right? And you're taking these calculated risk and with the expectation that you're going to have success. And to me, that's what entrepreneurship is about. That's why the very essence of entrepreneurship is embedded in faith. Because in order for you to truly have success as an entrepreneur, you have to have faith that you are going to make it to the other side in, in fact, faith is a prerequisite for success in entrepreneurship. You have to have faith that is going to work itself out. You have to have faith in yourself. You have to have faith in your product or service or opportunity. But faith is is something that you're going to have cultivate along the way. Okay. So for a lot of people that I started out with that kind of reverted back to, let's just say a, a traditional nine to five, oftentimes I, I see that there's either a lack of faith or a lack of adaptability, and that's another thing. Darwinian theory talks about survival of the fittest. And a lot of people don't realize that the word fittest, what he meant was not the strongest to like, not the strongest or the the smartest. It was really the most adaptable. So look at survival of the fittest as survival of the most adaptable, the most adaptable to change, because change is inevitable there. If there's anything that we know about life is that it's always going to change. And you have to get really good at persevering through those storms and know that the stormiest seas. Create the most skilled sailors. And if you continue to navigate through those storms, you will get to the other side. If you have the faith, but you also have the adaptability, how, how fast can you adapt when things get tough? Uh uh, one of the stories that come to mind for me personally was during the pandemic. During the pandemic, a lot of my business was centered around travel and people were quarantined. Travel was one of the worst industries you could have been in during the pandemic. And a lot of travel companies were completely decimated. And our travel business came crashing down. And I personally had to adapt. I had to pivot. And the beautiful thing about going through those seasons is they really cultivate character. They really draw out the very best in you if you continue to press forward, right? You can't just. Subject yourself to this ostrich effect. You know, when ostrich, when an ostrich encounters danger, oftentimes what it does is it'll dig its head in the sand or dig its head in the dirt. And it, this is like it's survival mechanism and, and it also correlates to the business world. There's a lot of entrepreneurs that when times get tough, they just dig their head in the sand as if the problems are just automatically going to go away. But sometimes you don't have the luxury of running away from your problems. Sometimes you have to continue to persevere through. And, uh, this message is interesting when I was thinking about what to talk about on today's Breakfast Club session. You know, we're in Men's Mental Health Month and I know for a lot of men who are embarking on entrepreneurship, your mental health is a big, big part of what makes this thing work. If you're not taking care of you. It's gonna be very difficult to manage a successful business. And oftentimes when we're going through these mental health challenges, because we're so anxious, we're so overwhelmed, we're so stressed out by what we're going through in the business that sometimes we, we just wanna dig our head in the sand and run away from the problems, but that isn't necessarily going to help you. Now there are moments where everything is outside of your control, and yet in those moments you have to surrender. But when there are moments where all you can do is dig your head in the sand, just know that the problems aren't just going to go away. If an ostrich digs his head in the sand, does that automatically mean that it's, its predator is going to go away? Not necessarily. So when, when you're, when you find yourself in these moments where you just wanna run away from your problems, listen, take some time to regroup, take some time for your self-care. And sometimes you just need to take a day off and you need to just catch yourself and you need to focus on your mental health. You need to focus on your self-care in order to regroup and, and say, you know what? Today was a day where I'm just gonna catch myself. But don't go too long like that. Don't stay in that space too long. Get yourself right mentally, em, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Yesterday, uh, what I did was I, I went to the sauna with my, with my boy Jay. And, uh, we stayed in the sauna for about 30 minutes. And sometimes just detoxing your body and getting your mind right. Prayer, meditation. I went to the stretch lab the other day. It's kind of like a chiropractor, but just specifically for stretching, right? They're not like necessarily cracking, you know, the different parts of your body. But I got stretched out because my body needed it. And, uh, it was, it was super important for me to get, again, get back to self-care. And as entrepreneurs it's very, very important to focus on your self-care because if you hit that burnout, you're not gonna have a capacity for responsibility. And I've been there and I know what that's like. Okay. Number two, we have, it's lonely at times. That's another hard truth of entrepreneurship. It's lonely at times. So the truth is, a lot of the time your family's not gonna understand. They're not, it's not going to make sense. I was telling one of my clients recently how this entrepreneurial journey I. You, you, it, it, it doesn't necessarily work off of just logic. There are a lot of things that you do that do not make sense. So when I left my career that was paying me up to a thousand dollars a day with benefits and a pension and all of this stuff, it did not logically makes sense to leave that career, to pursue a business that was barely making me$500 a month just did not make sense. However, if I didn't embark on that, I would not be here talking to you guys. So there are times throughout your journey where you're going to have to take that great leap of faith and a lot of people are just simply not going to understand. You can't expect for them to see what you see. It's your vision not theirs. And sometimes what your vision, there's a gut inclination, there's a part of you in your soul that's like, this is right for me. This is what I need to be doing. Your family and friends that they, they're, it's not going to hit them the same way. So don't expect to be understood. Okay. Your friends will probably even think that you've lost your damn mind. Like, man, is everything okay with them? Like, I, I don't know. Whatever they're doing is not making sense. Okay. So that's, that's something that you do have to take into account. It can be very lonely, the entrepreneurial journey. Think about this. I'm a full-time entrepreneur, but I, I only know about 1% of the people that I, and I know tens of thousands of people, and there's only 1% of everybody I know that are full-time entrepreneurs. 1%, not 20%, not even 10%. 1% of my entire family, friends, everything are full-time entrepreneurs doing it at a high level. Right? And. That's why it's lonely. You can't expect to have someone who has not gone through that process to really empathize with what you're dealing with. You. You can't expect a person that has the security of benefits and a pension and a stable paycheck every single week to really understand what it is that you're going through. So that's why it becomes lonely. And, and I wanna encourage you guys who are business owners, seek counsel from other business owners, seek counsel from those who've gone through a lot of business challenges because they're, they're the ones that are truly going to understand what it is that you're going through. Another reason why it's lonely at times, because there are gonna be a lot of moments where you have to skip vacations because you need to do what you have to do for your business. Maybe the financial resources aren't there. Right. You are gonna be missing a lot of events at times. So there, there are plenty of moments where I would love to be at the barbecue. I'd love to be at different events or the baby shower or the anniversary celebration. But guess what? Business has to be run and, and if you don't run your business, who's gonna run it for you? Right? Unless you have really great delegation and maybe you have a, a solid team who can run it, but there are gonna be a lot of things that you turn down a lot of things and it's because you're building something bigger and maybe just going out and hanging out with your friends at a bar doesn't take precedence over this dream that you're working on, and most will not understand that. Okay? So the lesson really is to get comfortable with being misunderstood because success requires seasons of isolation before elevation. I'll repeat that. Success requires seasons of isolation before elevation. There'll be a lot of lonely moments, and you are going to have to find a tribe, find people who you can tap in with. My really, uh, good friend, my brother, uh, MASU, uh, he runs a, a trucking company. And whenever I'm going through or encountering business challenges is super helpful to just give him a ring because he's gone through so many storms on his entrepreneurial journey. And again, having someone who can understand you, and that's why it is, it is essential to have people in your corner who you can seek counsel from. Okay? Number three, money will be tight at first, money will be tight. The truth is entrepreneurship often means working for free. Before the money comes in, listen, a lot of people, a lot of entrepreneurs aren't going to mention this part, and there are gonna be tons of things that you invest in. You're gonna be investing in yourself, you're going to be investing back into the business. And many times you may even question it like, man, I, I'm just putting so much money into it. It doesn't logically make sense for you to go and spend. I mean, I, in, in the early years, I was spending tens of thousands of dollars back into my personal development, attending seminars, attending or, or investing in masterminds and coaching and, and all of these different things. It, it, it's not going to make sense and you're gonna be spending a lot more money than you're making. Even launching my podcast, launching my podcast cost a bunch of money because we have world-class production and I. It's not necessarily something that was like super lucrative getting off the ground. However, it's an investment and you have to think, you know, with, with the end in mind because if you don't think with the end in mind, you, you stand no chance because it's logically not going to make sense for you. You're gonna be like, the math isn't math. And when, when you're at that place, that's why it is important to say, you know what, I'm sowing seeds for something at the end. Now you do have to have a sound plan. You can't just be out here with wishful thinking. So you have to know that, okay, this is the path. And every great entrepreneur I know has initially invested more money than they were making. Okay? I find that a lot of people, they, they don't make it an entrepreneurship simply because they can't get over this idea of having to put in way more money than they're making. There are so many people that are so damn logical, or maybe they have more of an employee mindset where in order for me to get this, I have to do this. Right? So you do this and you get this, but entrepreneurship is like being a farmer. You're sowing seeds and you don't know a hundred percent whether or not those seeds are gonna grow into fruition. You're going off of fate, but you do have a plan, right? You're not a, a good farmer is going to be very calculated with how they go about sowing their seeds. They're not just gonna be wastefully putting seeds out there, so they're gonna be calculated. However, the rest, once they sold the seed, the rest is in God's hands. There's nothing that they can do. Okay? So it's, it's the same with entrepreneurship. Logically, you, you can't go in. And, and I find so many people, especially the naysayers, the naysayers are like, oh, this doesn't make sense, or Why would I do this? And, and they, they, those are the same people that get into it and they quit because they couldn't wrap their minds around sowing seeds and thinking long term, sowing seeds with things not necessarily happening right away. And if you can wrap your mind around that, then that's, I don't, I don't wanna say half the battle, but it's a lot of the battle just wrapping your mind around you will have to lose money before you start to make money. Doesn't always happen that way, but many times it does. So, for example, you may have to invest in your branding. You may have to invest in ads, invest in coaching, invest in inventory with no immediate return. In fact. A lot of businesses don't even break even their first year. It takes even over a year just to break even. Do you know how many years Uber had gone without making any money? Like you, you're talking, if I'm not mistaken, over a decade of not making any money. Logically it doesn't make sense to the average person, but there are a lot of people who invested in it because they see the potential of it. Okay? So the lesson again is, think of it like planting seeds. It takes time before the harvest shows up. And if you go in with that mindset of farmer's mentality, it will most certainly help you. Okay? Um, and this is a really good, a great quote. If you're not willing to be broke before you get rich, you are not ready for this game. It's just what it is. You have to be okay with that. I have, I have tons of friends. For them. Uh, the idea of entrepreneurship is way too overwhelming because the employee mindset is, is going to say, okay, let me work this these amount of days, and there's a paycheck right then and there. And you can become so indoctrinated into that mindset, into that way of living that anything foreign to that, you're going to experience a lot of dissonance. And that's the very thing that prevents you. Like, like for example, I almost got indoctrinated into this idea of having benefits in a pension. Like I remember one of the things that was preventing me from going all in into entrepreneurship was the idea of losing my benefits, losing my retirement. I, it's, it, it's crazy how the job market will, will convince you that, oh, benefits and pension are why you should keep this. Listen, you can be an entrepreneur and still have a retirement plan in place. Like, I had a self-directed IRA for many, many years, and you know, again, I rolled over my 401k right into that. Um, I pay for my own benefits, my own insurance. So you don't, you don't need to work for a, a, another company in order to have benefits. You understand? But the system will program you to believe that you, you need these benefits in order to survive, like is something catastrophic is going to happen. Now, this is not to say you shouldn't have benefits, you shouldn't have some type of investments or, or retirement. These things are essential, right? But it doesn't have to just come from a job that you work for. Okay? Now, number four, we have, you'll question yourself. You'll question yourself. So the truth is imposter syndrome. Is real on the entrepreneurial journey. Imposter syndrome is real. You will encounter this and you'll wonder, am I good enough? What if this doesn't work? And I, I remember when I first started coaching, I had a lot of the imposter syndrome and there, there were moments or even just higher levels of leadership feeling like I wasn't qualified to lead people who are world class leaders, right? Just feeling, not feeling worthy or feeling too young. Because when I started entrepreneurship, I was super young. So even, even feeling young, I remember I wouldn't even share my age with people because I didn't want them knowing how young I was. And, and having that perception of a young person kind of taint the way they viewed me as a leader for, for many years. Like when I was in my twenties, I would never tell people how old I was. Right. I'd rather them maybe think that I was older than than I was, and a lot of people did. Um, again, because imposter syndrome does creep in, so you'll have those aspects of your, that, that creep in during the entrepreneurial journey. And I, I remember when I first started coaching, oftentimes I, I share this, I didn't, uh, I didn't, I, I felt weird charging people. Like I, I think I was charging right around 300 to$350 an hour, uh, for coaching sessions in the early days. And I remember I, I had this whole plan in place that when I first started charging that it was super uncomfortable for me. And I would, uh, tell like those early clients, like I was gonna donate a portion to their favorite charity just to justify me charging those rates. Right? It's crazy to think now, like I charge more than three times that. And there, there's no, oh, I'm gonna donate it to your favorite charity. It's like, no, I, I give back to whatever I wanna give back to you. Understand. But I don't have to question the value that I bring to the table anymore. In the early days I did because of imposter syndrome, just not feeling worthy of being able to charge that feeling like a fraud in a sense. Like who am I to charge someone that amount? Right. And I'm just starting out. So, so that was another thing. And I, I remember early on too, uh, just even identifying as a life coach, as a young person, right? Like, who am I to give someone life advice as a, as a life coach, who am I to tell someone how to go about their life? And, you know, these people are twice my age. And, and it took years to finally get to the point where it's like, no, I am capable. I am worthy. I, I do have value to offer. And you have to get to that place if you're truly going to thrive in entrepreneurship. Now, uh, understand that everyone doubts themselves. The difference is that successful people move forward despite the doubt. So even when you feel doubtful, you still move forward. There. There are moments where I, where I launch things where it's a little bit scary, like for example, even launching the Creators conference, bringing in creator and putting my name out there, running ads and, and, and putting my, my name and reputation on something that could be a epic fail, right? That was super scary. But one thing that I learned early on with this journey is that if your dreams do not scare you, you simply aren't dreaming big enough. And I'll say that for those of you in the back of, of the classroom, if your dreams do not scare you, you simply aren't dream dreaming big enough. You, you, it's okay to embark on a journey where you're excited and fearful simultaneously. In fact, biochemically speaking, fear and excitement trigger a lot of the same emotions. And if, if you are dreaming really big, some of your dreams are going to scare the hell out of you, and that is okay. Some of the dreams are going to require you to become more, to do more, to be more, in order to bring that dream into fruition. And if your dreams are calling you to be bigger than you are mentally, emotionally, spiritually, then that dream is worth it. That dream is worthwhile. It's a noble dream if it require, if it requires more out of you. Okay? So again, the difference. Between those who manage to end up having success versus those who do not is the ones who become successful, right? They fear the doubt and move forward anyway. They, they feel the fear and move forward anyway. Alright, number five. This is a, this is a tough one, right? And this is probably one of the most difficult aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. People will betray you. People will betray you. And what do we mean by that? And I don't want to project this onto everyone. Maybe you might have, depending on what level you play at, right? Maybe you might have a situation where you're not being betrayed, but from my experience, you will have people betray and it looks very different. Sometimes. It's not like super extreme. Maybe it's people who just flat out lie to you and, and maybe in their eyes it wasn't a major lie. But for you, it, it, it, it, it cost you. I've had business decisions that I've made that cost me tens of thousands of dollars, right? Tens of thousands of dollars because someone did something that I didn't know they were gonna do and they weren't very open and transparent about it. And again, they may have been doing it not out of malice, not out of place of malice, right? Or out of the intentions to hurt me. But they, they didn't realize the, the, the negative consequences to their actions. Okay? So you will have people that will either betray you or lie to you or cause you harm, uh, with your business. And understand that this is also part of the process. Not everyone clapping for you is really happy for you. That's also something that you have to come to grips with. Some people will use you, copy you, or even turn on you as, as hard as that is to here. This, this. Many cases happens in the world of business because sometimes people are operating out of survival. Sometimes people are just trying to make a name for themselves and they're going to do their best to just exploit you or whatever it is that you have going on. Some people are opportunists and they, they, they're just seeing what they can get out of what you already have going on. You know how many people I meet in networking events and it's crazy. I'll meet people at networking events and I'm from the streets, so I have very strong discernment. I, I, I grew up in the hood where you learn how to read people really well. I, I can read someone by the shoes that they wear. Honestly, it sounds crazy, but talk to someone, uh, from the hood and they'll tell you exactly what that means to read someone by the shoes that they wear, and, and I grew up like that. My sermon is very strong, and I meet people all the time. You know, they're like, oh, this guy has a podcast, and he, he's connected with this person and he's got that going on and this going on. And, and people will look at you, um, as a doorway and it doesn't make it a bad thing per se, right? But you, you also have to be cognizant of the fact that sometimes these things can cost you. It's like if, if, uh, someone who has a really bad track record might want to leverage your credibility, I've had people like business partners in the past who had really bad reputations and I didn't know this going into the business relationship. And I end up getting caught up in, uh, them trying to leverage my credibility so that they can excel with whatever it is that they intended to do. Right? These things happen in the world of business, but what do you do? What do you do when you encounter that? Right? And, and that's the biggest thing. Uh, the first thing is you have to have the awareness of that. You have to have the awareness. And this isn't to not give people the benefit of the doubt. It's not to diminish your trust in people. It's more so to have a healthy awareness of it, because it can very well lead to you sabotaging your business or someone else sabotaging your business because you just simply weren't aware you were naive. Okay? So the biggest lesson also is to protect your peace, but don't become bitter. Betrayal is a sign you are playing in bigger arenas, the bigger you go, the bigger the betrayal, just the way it is. For those of you who have studied, uh, you know, the Roman Empire, and you're probably familiar with like Marcus Aurelius. Uh, his, his journal entries became the book Meditations. It's a really, really good book for those of you. I haven't checked it out. I definitely recommend it. Uh, it's called Meditation by, uh, Marcus Aurelius. And Marcus Aurelius was known as one of like the great emperors, uh, a man, a great man of integrity, uh, a stoic, uh, you know, he, he grew up with the stoic philosophers and, uh, his, his frame of thinking, his perspective, despite everything that he was going through, he went through massive betrayal. You can only imagine being the emperor of the Roman Empire and seeing his perspective on how he navigated through that was absolutely incredible. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's amazing because when you think of the Roman Empire, that's probably the biggest arena you could possibly play in. And the amount of betrayal that this man went through. It's almost as if the betrayal grew in proportion with the level of his influence. And when you're influencing a lot of people at the highest levels, this is part of the process. There's just no getting around it. Now, is it to say that every single person is going to encounter it, encounter it? Not necessarily, but be mindful and be very careful with who you go into business with. This is a big, big part of it. If, if you're a lot more cautious with who you go into business with, this will prevent a lot of this from happening in your life. This will, this will prevent a lot of it. I see so many people out of desperation. They'll go into business with people and they don't properly vet these people out, or they're just so desperate for opportunity that they just go into business with people and I. And just for the paycheck and end up screwing themselves over it time and time again. And it's crazy how many people do not learn this lesson. I've seen it happen so many times where people that were my peers in the early days, they'll go from business to business to business being screwed over, to being screwed over, to being screwed over, over, and over and over again simply because they don't know how to choose the proper business relationships. You have to go with people with integrity. You have to go with people who have a really great track record, especially when it comes to their integrity. Okay, so, uh. Remember, betrayal is a sign you are playing in bigger arenas. So just embrace it when it does come and when it does come, remember Josh told you this was going to be a part of the process. So if you're getting value so far, drop a v in the common threads if you are getting value so far. Just wanna make sure you guys are still with me. And I know that, uh, for those of you who are hopping on, on Facebook, by the way, uh, I, I I'm not sure if Facebook is not allowing us to go live at the same time. I think I have to repost it. So, you know, my apologies on that. It's kind of out of our, our control at the moment. But, uh, you can hop on live on YouTube. On LinkedIn. Instagram was also giving me a similar, uh, problem. I'm not sure if it's a meta thing, but I just wanted to give you guys a heads up on that. So number six is success takes longer than you think. The truth is what you would, what you thought would take one year, might take three. Five or even more. Okay. Now remember, uh, you know, going to scripture, David, David, for example, it, it was, uh, you know, he had, he had a calling on his life to be a great king. However, his journey took about 15 years with all of the battling that he went against Saul and, and all the hardship and, and, and turmoil and, and all this stuff that he went through, the betrayal, all of that. And it was a 15 year journey, even though it was, it was known that he was destined to be the king, right? He slayed Goliath and everybody loved him and all of that. It was a 15 year journey, and I'm here to tell you it's probably going to take you a lot longer than you expect, and it most certainly did for me. Like I mentioned earlier, I, I thought I was gonna be at the very top, within the first two to three years and. Respect your process. Be okay with God just working things out. Because sometimes what, what what really happens is that you are cultivating patience in the process. You are cultivating resilience in the process because it's taking so longer. My, my dreams, the, the where I thought I would be is it, it took far longer than I expected and it's still a work in progress. Sometimes you make it and then you end up going right back through the process. You may make it and then it comes crashing down and, and I've been, I've been there as well, right? To make it all the way to the top, to go almost seven years to finally get to the top, to then see it crumble right before my eyes. Think about that for a second. I had every reason to just throw in the towel for entrepreneurship, throw in the towel, and just revert back, like, man, screw this. This is for the birds. I'm gonna go work a job. Right? But again, adaptability, resilience. I had learned so many different skill sets, and I had learned a mindset during that germination process. During that, that seven year window, there was so much learned. There was so much character development that even though things had came crashing down, I had fortified my mind. I had built the resilience necessary to build it back over again. If I'm not mistaken, the, the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt about 17 times, right? It's okay to be in a season of rebuilding. Just know that every time you rebuild, you're a lot stronger. You're a lot wiser, you're a lot more resilient because you've gone through these seasons. Okay? So lean into it and just know that it's probably gonna take you a lot longer. And remember this, those who win aren't usually the smartest. Those who win are simply people who just kept pressing forward. Okay? And, uh, you know, the people who win are simply just very persistent. It is like digging for gold. The people who quit didn't realize that they were three feet away from striking it. Rich, could you imagine quitting right before you reach the treasure, right before you reach the prize? So sometimes having that healthy, uh, uh, I, I, I say having a healthy ignorance could be very valuable. Ignorance on fire is better than intellect on ice. I remember hearing that early on my entrepreneurial journey. Sometimes it's just good to be ignorance on fire. Just continue to keep pressing forward because if you get your logic tied up into it, you end up, you, you, you'll, you'll have paralysis of over analysis or you end up talking yourself out of the dream because you're just thinking about all the reasons it can't work. So it is good to, again, just take action and have the faith to continue to press forward. Lastly, number seven, nobody's coming to save you. And this is also a very hard truth, a very tough pill to swallow. Nobody's coming to save you. A great mentor of mine, he was my business mentor. He would always say, if you want a helping hand look at the end of your wrist, you have to participate in your own rescue. There's not gonna be someone out there that's just going to throw you a life raft when you want it. You have to be okay with that. You have to be okay with taking full responsibility for whatever happens. Waiting for the right person to discover you, fund you or help you is a major mistake. You have to proactively go out there and create opportunity for yourself. If you don't have a seat at, at the table, build your own damn table. Build your own table. I would've never have thought that I'd be doing my own events now. Right? Um, for me, for example, uh, when it comes to speaking, I charge$25,000 for a one hour keynote at the time of talking to you guys. I'm sure in my lifetime there'll be a point in time where I'm charging over a quarter million dollars for a one hour keynote speech. And why do I mention that? Because there aren't a lot of companies and a lot of organizations who can even afford a$25,000 an hour keynote, right? Not a lot of companies. Usually it's like the Fortune 500 companies, the fortune thousand companies that can afford to, to have a budget for that. So I, I understood this very well, and I was okay with that. So my mindset was, I'm not going to wait for a company to open up a budget. No. I'm gonna create my own table. I'll create my own platforms. And sometimes you have to have that mindset. Don't wait for the handout. And the biggest lesson is to take responsibility for everything. When you do that, you stop waiting and you start winning. You. You're no longer just just waiting around because listen, what happens when you're just like, you know, waiting around and you know the whole time there are people out there. Who are just pushing forward, who has a better chance of making it to the destination? Is it going to be the person that's there waiting for the rescue boat, or is it going to be the person that's at least trying their best to just swim and go in that direction and say, you know what? That rescue boat may come, but it may not come. And I'd rather put the odds in my hands. Okay, so as we close out, I just wanna recap the seven lessons, okay? Seven hard truths, seven things you will encounter on your journey of entrepreneurship. Number one, you're going to fail a lot. Number two, it's lonely at times. Number three, money will be tight at first, and maybe you'll go through many seasons where it's tight. Number four, you'll question yourself. Number five, people will betray you. Number six, success takes longer than you think. And number seven, nobody's coming to save you. You may have grace fall upon you from time to time. You may have a living angel who comes and supports you from time to time. But I wouldn't depend on that. I wouldn't put all my chips on that happening. I would put all of your chips on what you can do, what's within your control. And when you do that, when it's faith and works, you inhale faith so that you can exhale works. When you move in that way, things just magically happen. Luck they say, is an acronym for laboring Under correct knowledge. The harder you work, the luckier you get, it's just the way it is. So understand, as we close out, entrepreneurship is not for the weak. It's a thousand percent worth it if you are willing to pay the price. Don't just chase success, earn it. And remember, if you can handle the hard, you'll earn the harvest. Okay, so I, my hope is that for those of you who are on right now, I hope that you make a decision on whether or not going full-time as an entrepreneur is your path. Maybe you just wanna do it on a part-time basis. That's also okay. But just honor where you are and who you are, and maybe who you are in this season may very well not be who you are in the next season. And that version of you in the next season is what allows you to go full time. So work on yourself for the meantime. Continue to build yourself up, continue to pour into your personal development. Continue to invest in the audio books and the, the read more books. Tune into the personal development. Get yourself a coach. Invest in the masterminds, the, the seminars, all these different things are super helpful. Build yourself up in, in, in the meantime so that you can become a person who has the capacity to go full-time. As an entrepreneur who has the capacity to lead, many people that has the capacity to take the weight of responsibility, that comes with success at the highest levels highest. And my hope for everybody here outside of that is that you take a chance on your on, on your entrepreneurial journey at some point in time, whether it's now, whether it's 10 years out. But if you feel in your heart and soul that you were called for this big dream, listen. You can plan it out, but at some point in time you're gonna have to take that great leap of faith on, on going all in if you want to win at the highest levels. And if that's not you, understand that it's okay to be able to just do it on a very part-time basis. It's okay. It's a very honorable thing to be able to provide for your family, you know, by being able to cover the bills because of that job. And perhaps you work full-time in your job and then part-time on your dream. And that's a very noble thing as well. Okay? And if you're not an entrepreneur, go and support one. Whatever product service, I just support one because it is not easy. And entrepreneurs mold the very world that we live in. Entrepreneurs are responsible for so much of what we get to enjoy. We would not have internet, we would not have smartphones, we would not have cars on the road. We would not have these, these beautiful structures and, and modern civilization if it wasn't for the entrepreneurs. So for those of you who are still fighting the good fight on your entrepreneurial journey, thank you. We honor you, we appreciate you and we'll be seeing you all next week. Breakfast is serve. God bless you all. Thank you so much. If you got value, like comments, share tag, I read through all the comments and uh, you know, hop over to the Journey podcast. Leave a review if you can as well. You could also follow me at the, um, the world Traveler on Instagram as well. And uh, if you're on the YouTube, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel as well. Take care. God bless breakfasts served everyone I.