In this episode of "Small Business, Big Moves,". Thomas Bennett is joined by guest Eric Rogers to explore creative strategies and innovative approaches that have propelled small businesses to new heights. Discover the power of mindset.
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Small Business Big Moves is a podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. Join Tom Bennett as he explores all things business growth! From business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses!
In this episode of "Small Business, Big Moves,". Thomas Bennett is joined by guest Eric Rogers to explore creative strategies and innovative approaches that have propelled small businesses to new heights. Discover the power of mindset.
Connect with us on social media:
- Facebook: Thomas Bennett
- Instagram: @Thomas.mbennett
-YouTube:@SmallBusinessMoneyConnector
- LinkedIn: Thomas Bennett
Subscribe to "Small Business, Big Moves" on Your Favorite Podcast Platform for more inspiring episodes on innovation and entrepreneurship.
Small Business Big Moves is a podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. Join Tom Bennett as he explores all things business growth! From business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses!
Welcome to Small Business, Big Moves, the podcast where innovation meets entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Tom Bennett, and we'll explore all things business growth from business funding and business tax credits to conversations with leaders who have grown successful and innovative businesses. Welcome to the show. My guest today is Eric Rogers. Eric, I'm excited to have you on the show. If you could introduce yourself. Yeah, brother. Thank you for having me on here just to give your audience some value and talk with you today, man. It's great. I'm Eric Rogers. Obviously, I only a mortal man. It's a leadership. It's a Christ centered leadership development company. And our mission is to develop Christian men into influential leaders so they can. By unlocking their God given potential. Now I've been running this business for almost a year now, but before that, I, I ran a successful performance coaching business for three and a half years. Done some really cool stuff, been on some really big podcasts and, you know, I've just been able to help a ton of people. So I'm happy to be here. Absolutely. No, excited to have you. And that's kind of the main thing I wanted to to really go into a few of those things today, really kind of focusing on. On the mindset a little bit of the leadership and kind of everything in between so before we jump into that wanted to Kind of take it all the way back to the beginning, right? I know you said you've been doing this for about a year. I know you're obviously doing some things before that but walk us through your journey a little bit and what made you get into what you're doing now? Yeah, so being a leadership development coach didn't come from that. I didn't just choose this, right? It's a big part of my purpose and really what God has, planted me in through the experiences I've had in life. So, I mean, leadership skills wise, I used to run 30. 30 man crews. I was a foreman, electrician, non union, and we built some really big buildings, did some really cool stuff. One day I got laid off when Kobe did. I got laid off and really just had no direction. It was like, man, I had a good career going. And, you know, one of the biggest things that I discovered was that I no longer wanted another man to tell me how much money I can make and when I can work. Right. I had a family at the time. I had a wife at the time and my, my beautiful son and I was the main provider and it's just like everything fell apart. Right. And I made a realization. I'm like, man, I can't live like this. I can't worry about where the next paycheck is going to come from. I mean, and not just that. I don't know if any of your audience has been through this. I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs have, especially when COVID hit. Right. But one of the biggest things is when you get pushed in a hard spot, you have, you have two decisions to make, you know, you'd either, you know, go, go be a victim of your circumstance or, or stand up and make a change in your life. And I believe that the guys that really. Looked at look for the opportunity in those days are really killing it right now, you know, and I was one of those guys, you know, I built a multiple six figure performance coaching business and we were mostly fitness at the time and I mean, we as a coaching company where we, we started hitting 100k 100k plus year. After four months of starting this, right? Everyone was getting fat, everyone was out of shape. And I was like, Hmm, there's something here. And I had helped two people prior to that for free, just friends. Cause I was in really good shape and they saw my transformation. And I, I, I helped two people, they got great results. And I was like. Man, this is just how God planned it. Right? So jumped into it. It all worked out. But three and a half years later, I got to this point where I was like, man, I don't really enjoy this. Right? I don't like telling people what to eat. I don't like telling people how to move their body. Like it's boring. There's no purpose to it just to look good naked. You know, not really my thing. Right? I love fitness. I obviously do it every day. And it's important to everybody's life, but teaching it, there was no passion. And so God kind of redirected my life into being a leadership coach, but that was my purpose all along. And I didn't really know it, but the reason why I understand it's my purpose. I figured out why God created me is because of my past, right? Seven years old, I was molested in a church by one of the superiors there. Eight years old. I started using drugs. I used drugs from eight years old to 24 years old, and I barely missed a day. Right. I grew up in a household with a father who loved me, but he was a disciplinarian. He was a fulsome prison guard. He was tough. And he didn't know what happened to me, but my behavior changed. And he disciplined me for that. So here I am thinking everyone hates me. No one understands me. Right. I'm this kid that's been it. abused by authority my whole life and I fell into this victim mindset where, you know, the only thing that would really keep me alive was staying high. I use drugs to stay alive. I didn't use them to get high. I use them to stay alive. I probably would have killed myself a long time ago. If I didn't get into them, you know, it's a lot of pain, but no one knew what happened to me. No one understood. And I slipped into that victimhood mindset. It led me into more and more addiction. 17 years old. I'm addicted to cocaine. My dad catches me, kicks me on the street. Right. First time he caught me. He's like, you're out. I'm done. You know, first night I'm out. I go sleep on a buddy's couch. I tell him my story. I'm like, man, I got to quit doing drugs. This is really messing my life up. I lost everything. And he's like, yeah, man, he's like, you want to hit pulls out a bag of white powder, took a hit. It was methamphetamine. You know what I mean? And so next thing I know, I spend the next two years, That's amazing. Sniffing smoking methamphetamine at high amounts of concentration. I was sucked up. I was homeless, I was jobless, I was an addict. And then I started getting tied into some really bad groups, right where methamphetamine. That's a fact, right? And one thing that I, I realized now looking back is that the biggest problem I had was I struggled with identity. I didn't know where I belonged, I didn't know where I fit in because I wasn't really accepted growing up, right? And so anyone that would accept me, I attached to. Yeah, I was looking for a dad, I was looking for a father, I was looking for a family. And so when, you know, a group of individuals, some of the most evil people on this planet, decided to accept me, I, I fell right into it. And then I experienced some of the worst, most evil things a man could ever witness. I mean, I watched kids get trafficked their mothers selling their kids for dime bags. They're, you know, for sex. I wasn't a part of it, but I watched it. I didn't do anything about it. I watched murder. I watched suicides. I watched overdoses. I was there. I've seen it all. And so being this victim in mindset, not understanding my identity, being a drug addict, being suicidal, all these things just pushed me into more and more trauma. And you know, and it started, the first thing wasn't my fault, being molested wasn't my fault, but Every decision I made after that was right now. I can say that in an ownership perspective looking at my life and saying, you know What it's my fault and the reason why I do that is because I'm not choosing to be a victim anymore, right? This happened my switch in life happened six years ago And I got to the point where I put a Glock 23 in my mouth and decide I was gonna pull the trigger I'd lost my family. I'd lost everything all my money again for the second time and I decided that everything I touched went to shit And everything that I did didn't work, and nobody loved me, and I put my finger on that trigger, and that was when God started talking to me, right? At the end of me is where God began, and I didn't pull the trigger, and I had this vision instead of I had a vision of my son calling someone else dad, and that was enough to pull that gun out of my mouth and decide right then and there that I'm not going to be this guy anymore. If, if my actions got me here, then my actions now can get me somewhere else. And so I started putting in the work and I started changing who I was. I wasn't, I decided not to be a victim and take control of my life. And, you know, and in the last six years, I've. built an incredible life and walking into my purpose of being a leadership development coach is my way of, of becoming who I always needed in my darkest times. Right. It's looking back at the problems that I experienced in the world and understanding that it was a lack of authority. It was a lack of leadership in my life. And if that was changed, if I had people I could trust looking over me, I probably wouldn't have gone through any of that. Right. And so my purpose is to change that for the course of the world is to develop men, right, make men, men again, and not, not just become more masculine, but to, to work on becoming in the image of Christ and how he walked this earth when he was here. Right. If you look, you want to know the definition of masculinity, it's looking at Jesus's life. And I truly believe that. And so that's really what we focus on here. And we we hold each other accountable to the highest standards possible. And watching these men's families succeed and their employees succeed and their clients succeed because they're finally doing the work is absolutely. Powerful. No, I appreciate you getting right on here and jumping right into that. Right. I always try to get it out of everyone. Right. I mean, you know, we see, we see all the wins. We see all the good stuff and all the exciting things going on on social media, but very few people really get in there and tell their story. What they went through all the ups and downs and it's a powerful thing, right? I mean, it's just your story. It's it's incredible what you were able to turn that into. And like you said, just finding that That God given ability and that really having that why and vision is so powerful. So yeah, I know I appreciate you getting right into that. Of course. And then, I know you said six years ago, you really had that shift, right? You really got that got that wake up call and were able to really turn your life around. Talk, talk to us a little more about that. As we kind of have bigger of an impact that, that had in the turnaround to where you are now. Yeah, man. So it the part that changed me is I was no longer responsible just for my own life, right? I had a son. I had a wife at the time. I had, you know, it was no longer about me, right? And when everything's about you, which is a victim mindset, then You can go through your entire life and not do a single thing to fix yourself. But when you start losing things that you love or things that you're supposed to love and protect is when it really starts to hit you, right? You're a, I'm a father here. I'm, I'm thinking about how I felt betrayed by my father, my whole life. And here I am doing the same. And even worse to my own son, thinking about what he's going to do to his kid, thinking about how he's going to live his life, you know, but when you're a victim and you're just in your own head and you're just thinking about yourself and you can't even think past yourself, you cannot see past this mirror of, you know, defeat and destruction. And so I believe personally that most men have to lose everything to become something. Not every man, I believe there's a lot of men out there that were raised, right? And that were taught correctly, that have the skills and, and all the, you know, all the life skills and the mindset that they were taught correctly by their fathers and the leaders in their life that do very well, and they don't have to go through this transformation. But I also believe that there's so much power in a man that struggled through life and went through absolute hell to become who he is today. Those men are something different. They're wouldn't say they're self made. I don't believe in that. God got me here. If I look at my life, there's no way I did this on my own. There's absolutely no way. I've had a lot of help. I've had a lot of mentors. I've had a lot of brothers a lot of people praying for me. And I think that's the biggest thing is like when, when I was struggling the most, I was in absolute isolation and that's the devil's playground. Right? And here's the thing is like when you go through things and God separates you from people, the wrong people in your life, like there's a moment where isolation is okay, where you have to learn how to be okay with yourself, but it can't last forever, right? When it turns into a victim mindset and you're like, I don't trust anybody and blah, blah, blah. It's like, if you don't trust other humans and create relationships with people, then you're, you're only learning what you know, you're never going to grow. You know what I mean? Yeah. And it's, I mean, it's so powerful, right? I mean, the, like you said, that victim mindset and like, you said it, I mean, you can explain it better than anyone. You went from having that gun in your mouth, ready to pull the trigger to turning your whole life around and where you are today. And I don't think people realize how big mindset is right at the end of the day, it's everything. In that victim mindsets running rampant out there. And I think it's getting worse and worse every day. it's truly that lack of identity, right? I believe everybody needs to feel a part of something accepted, understood. And here's the thing, whoever is out there that maybe doesn't feel like that right now, you, you're looking at the wrong, in the wrong areas. Right? Don't look at your father. Don't look into your parents for that. Stop looking at people that aren't going to give it to you. Right? You gotta go out there and find it. And you also, the only way to really truly find something is to become it. So, and on top of that is you have a Heavenly Father. I don't know if you're a Christian, Thomas, but like, Jesus is that person. He says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. He's always there. He's always been there. You just have to recognize that. You'll no longer be a victim. I, I promise you that. Definitely. No, and I know the other thing too that you mentioned is another thing I wanted to touch on a little bit as well is you, like, we talked about it too during, during the pandemic, right? There's so, and there still is now so much opportunity out there. And I think it does go back to that victim or victim mindset, right? Is there's so much opportunity. A lot of people just let that kind of destroy their lives or either make them decide. What I've been doing is good enough. It's I'm going to stay average. I'm going to stay in the spot or I'm going to destroy my whole life. And then it's the people that really saw the opportunity and did something big with it, or found that ability, found that why, found that purpose, whatever that might be able to turn their life around and say, yeah, it's a powerful thing. And like you said, those are the people that are killing it right now. Yeah. And the difference is the, the difference between a boy and a man is a man looks at things as a challenge. A boy looks at things as an obstacle. You know what I mean? Like a man searches for answers. A boy looks for problems. And he stares at it and he's like, why is this happening to me? And a man says, what this, why is this happening for me? Like he tries to understand what it is. And the biggest thing is like, I was already on a good, in a good place. When COVID hit, I'd already been sober, And I got my life together and I started following God and all these things. I was working out, I was waking up early. I was reading the Bible. I was doing all the things I do today. And because of that, it allowed me to have a clear enough mind to find opportunities. Like when God opens a door. And you're, and you're completely unhealthy, you're not going to see it, you know, but when you're obedient to God, you're disciplined and you're taking care of yourself, you have self respect and God opens a door. It's so obvious. You're like run through that door. Right. And I, I really think that the, the problem is that people just don't want it. They want to see out of the perspective that life is hard and it's unfair and it's not for them, it's against them. And that's just not the, that's not the mindset that a man needs to have, right? Why? Because you have, probably a lot of guys watching this, have families. You have people that they have to provide for, you know? And it's important to understand that as men, as leaders, it's not about us. And we have to be willing to fight and take those sacrifices necessary, take care of ourselves, no matter what the circumstances, which is a character development thing to build a character that no matter what happens around you, no matter how chaotic it is that you're going to be consistent. Right? Your character will stay consistent. And the only person that's mastered that was Jesus, right? He nailed you a cross, and, you know, by the people he came to serve and love and save, and he still says, Forgive them, Father, for they don't understand. Right? True masculinity, bro. Seriously, 100 percent man, it's powerful. it's the stuff that a lot of people don't realize, and if they do, like you said, they, it really, there's so many things it comes down to. We obviously talked about the mindset piece, we talked about the the vision, the ability, the why, really, going after it and making it happen. But like you said, a lot of people would just don't want to do the work or they may think it's like an overnight success and I can just kind of sit back and then one day my, my day is going to come and my life's going to turn around but like you, you said it best, it doesn't happen unless you, you make it happen. Yeah, yeah, too many people pray for things that they need to take action on, you know what I mean? Like, not everything needs prayer, some things need discipline, right? Like, one of the things that we see in the Bible, Jesus, it was, you know, somebody came up to Jesus and said, Lazarus, he died, right? And they were like, they were, and Jesus wept, right? That was the moment where Jesus wept once in the Bible, it's the shortest verse, I believe, in the Bible, Jesus wept. And he. You know, they're like, will you, will you help us? And he's like, yeah, I'll be there in three days. Right. There's so many like points of this story that are, that are powerful. Number one is he's like, don't sweat it. Like I'm not in a rush. He knows what he's capable of. Right. And he also wanted to extend that time so that, that, so that Lazarus would rot a little bit more and die a little bit more, right? Well, when, when he got to the tomb, he, one of the things he did is he asked the disciples to roll away the stone. Right? And then Jesus went in the tomb and he told Lazarus to rise and after three days of being dead, Lazarus rose from the dead, right? Now, why didn't Jesus move the stone? If he can raise someone from the dead, why didn't he go and just move that stone with like a finger or just like with the force, you know? The answer is because Jesus came to do the impossible, not the possible. Right? It's up to us to do the work. And that's something that a lot of people don't understand. Right? In this world of manifesting and, you know, over praying. I'm not saying praying is bad at all. It's great. There's nothing wrong with it. But, faith without works is dead. As it says in James. Right? Like, you can pray all you want, bro, but if you ain't putting in the work you're not going to build a life. Like, stop asking God for a life that you're not willing to do the work for. Right. He's not And the reason why God ain't gonna give it to you is because you couldn't maintain it anyways. If you can't build it, you can't maintain it. And he knows that, right? He'd rather you not lose something'cause he knows how bad that would destroy you. That. And he would rather you not lose something than give it to you and you lose it, right? Like the character that is built through building a business or building your body or creating a solid family or creating an organization, right? Men are supposed to be creators and builders. Like as you build something successful, which there's nothing wrong with that. That's what we were called to do is give, you know, jobs to people and, and help this economy and help. You know, cultivate an environment for people to thrive and to bring order to chaos. Like, when you've become the man to do that, like, it can't be taken from you, right? Well, it can, of course, things happen. You can lose things, but you know what is built and never taken from you? Even if it's lost as your character. Right? And that's, and God, no, God's only purpose for us as Christians is to become more in the image of his Son. Right? And, and that takes pain, that takes suffering, that takes hard work, right? And everybody out there that's seeking happiness, I'm sorry, bro. You, it's just the wrong thing to focus on. as a man. It is the wrong thing to focus on. Like, I, I seek surrender and I know suffering is on its way. I know it because that's been my whole life experience. That's what made me who I am, right? And I, if you have the perspective of this is a good thing, when something bad is happening around you, this is a good thing. You'll get through it so quick. You thank God for the struggles. I mean, that's a level of character that can move mountains. Absolutely. It's a game changer. No, and I know we I know we threw a lot at him of anything else that we might've left out or that we didn't cover that you wanted to leave the listeners with today. Yeah. I would say just the accountability that we need in this world as men. One of the biggest this is, this is a wormhole that a lot of people may disagree with, but I'm going to say it. I'm a disruptive person. I like disrupting people's belief systems. Almost every motivational quote you can find out there is absolutely unbiblical and against God. So what I mean by that is nobody cares that one, like nobody cares, just do the work, right? That's not true, right? I believe that's absolutely the opposite of what Christian men should be like. There are men out there that care and I want to help and I want to guide you, you know, and to believe nobody cares. It's one of those things that isolates men. Another thing is you know, nobody's going to save you is absolutely not true as well. I'm not now in a perspective of. People aren't going to come give you money just to like, when you're struggling, like you still got to do it. But there's a lot of people out there that are willing to guide and support and to hold you accountable and to give you resources, right? It's another one of those things that we believe that isolates us. but really the point of this is it's like the world is trying to. Ingrain inside your mind that you have to do this alone. Self made. I got this. All these little things that are pushed onto men every single day that men go, Hoorah! Yeah, that's right. Right? They do that, but yet they feel so alone and sad like nobody cares. And I know that because I was that guy. Right? I'm saying that from experience. That is a mindset that will destroy you from what is truly important, which is, is entering the kingdom of heaven. Like, we need each other, right? Our society is broken because men aren't men. Right? There's no fellowship, there's no accountability, there's nobody, you know, helping and supporting each other because we have to do this on our own, like, bro, put down your ego and ask for help, because I guarantee you surround yourself with guys that actually understand and care, you will You will be able to move the needle in your business and your faith. Like there is nothing more powerful than a group of men that understand you, support you and hold you to the highest standard. And that's what we do here at the immortal man, right? That's what we provide is you want, you want the result. Will we give you the blueprint? You do the work. And the cool thing about this, if you don't do the work, our accountability system will correct that, right? So I'm kind of going to explain our atonement system. It's pretty intense, right? Now, a lot of people go, I don't, I don't know. That's a little intense. But look, you want to be somebody and you know, the kind of work it's going to take. Well, what we do is if you don't do the work, if you don't complete one of those tasks that you have to complete every day, well, it counts as a certain amount of burpees. Okay. And so you have a small group of guys and, you know, throughout the week you accumulate this, these burpees by slipping. We add that number of burpees together and everybody in your group has to do them in one sitting. So I did 120 burpees this morning, right? What, what does that do for you? You go, I'm going to do better next week. Right. You go, I don't want to be that guy that makes everybody do burpees. So I'm going to do better. Right now, the rewiring aspect of this is you start to gain ownership of your slip ups. You start to become accountable to every task that you're supposed to complete, which is. Real life. Anyways, a lot of guys don't understand that every time they have inaction in their life, their family is suffering, right there that every night when you lay your head on the pillow and you can't sleep because you know, you're not going to make it, you know, you haven't done the work to pay the rent or whatever. And you're stressing out like Your family is suffering twice as much, right? They're a product of that, right? Of your inaction, they're suffering as a product of your inaction as a leader, right? And so what this does is it rewires you to be accountable and take action every single day, which forces our clients to get a result. So the accountability aspect of what we need in this world is, is so important. And so that's how we are changing the world. That's huge. Yeah, no, I appreciate you sharing that. I love what you're doing. I'm excited I was able to have you on here. It's a great episode and I think a lot of people get get some value or at least something out of this. So I appreciate that. And in the meantime, it's going to be the it's going to be a wrap for this episode of Small Business Big Moves. If you like this episode or know someone that may get some value out of it, what we ask is that you share that with someone. And in the meantime, we look forward to seeing you all in the next episode.