036: Finding Strength in Sobriety and Transformation

What happens when the dream of entrepreneurship turns into a nightmare? At just 25, our guest found themselves at the exciting yet tumultuous crossroads of owning restaurants in Las Vegas, only to face bankruptcy and personal upheaval. Join us as we uncover the raw journey from the thrill of owning two chicken restaurants and a milkshake shop to navigating the depths of addiction and the struggle of returning to a conventional job. This candid episode invites you to witness the fall and rise of an individual who discovered that personal growth and mental resilience are the keys to overcoming life’s most daunting obstacles.

Listen in as our guest shares how a commitment to sobriety and self-improvement paved the way for profound transformation. Discover how their passion for storytelling and relentless pursuit of mentors and opportunities launched a successful career in public speaking and sales. Experience the ups and downs of their personal journey, including the challenges of a long-distance relationship that blossomed into marriage. As we explore the evolution of an entrepreneurial identity, we emphasize the urgency of seizing life’s opportunities and the determination to live without regrets. This episode is a testament to the power of reinvention and the courage to embrace life’s challenges head-on.

That Follow Up Guy:
https://www.thatfollowupguy.com 

Manny Vargas on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/manny-vargas-86ba4449

Chapters

• 0:07 From Addiction to Reinvention
• 10:28 Journey to Transformation and Success
• 14:39 Entrepreneur Identity and Urgency

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

wow. So in 25 you're, you're living this crazy lifestyle, this party lifestyle, but yet at 25, three restaurants. How did where did that come from? And and how did they? How did you start that? The first restaurant, let alone the third one I was amazed so.

Speaker 2: 0:22

So when I when that bug was planted and I came back to the States, I just went on this obsession to try to figure out how to start a business and the first thing that I did was I started with at that time it's crazy to think about now with what I was doing, cause I was in the restaurants working the restaurant, so that was the only thing I knew. I'm like, well, I'll just start a restaurant. And then I started really going around. Actually, let me say the timetable. I was in Vegas for the first two years after I got back from college. Then I went back to LA for a year. I lived in LA, tried to pursue some different dreams and some ideas there.

Speaker 1: 0:53

I was not in.

Speaker 2: 0:54

LA for very long. I think I was there for 10 months and came back to Vegas. That's when I really started ramping up this concept of building businesses. Whether I worked in a, a restaurant or the nightclub, or I was just around, I was always going to the wealthy person that owned the restaurant literally when they would come in. Or I would go sit at the casino bars at the Wynn at the time and buy an iced tea, because I had no money and sit next to somebody that looked wealthy, and if they looked wealthy, I'd sit down with them and I'd have a conversation. I'd be that random kid just sitting there, and then I would also always approach the owners of the different businesses that I worked in.

Speaker 2: 1:33

As this bus boy that was like, hey, guys, I have a really good business idea. Would you like to sit down and can we talk about it? And you know, you got some of that. Yeah, yeah, whatever. No, no, no, no, all that nonsense and just it's. It never changes, by the way. And then eventually one of the guys finally was like, yeah, let's do it. And I'm like, oh, wow. So he and I started working some stuff, um, and building our relationship at a fairly young age for me anyway.

Speaker 2: 1:56

And uh, it turns out he ended up partnering with me and then in this process we raised money and my best friend to this day, David, was helping us look for different restaurants that were available, whether we were going to rent out a unit, build it out ourselves and start our own brand. But in that process a guy here in Vegas that owned two chicken restaurants it was chicken fingers, wings, beer, wine and burgers was sort of the bread and butter, OK, Unintended there of the menu and so he was wanting to get out. We were wanting to get in and buy something, and so he sold them to us, basically at a buyer sale. So that's how the first two came to life. And you know, in that timeframe we became the owner of two restaurants and then the same guy that sold me those restaurants, he and I started building a relationship and then I had another friend at the time that also had run into some money and so myself, the other friend and the guy that sold me the first two restaurants, all partnered on a third restaurant and started that one from scratch.

Speaker 2: 2:56

So basically, for three or four years I'm hustling, I'm grinding, I'm trying to figure out what my business opportunity is going to be. I'm thinking about stuff on the strip, like literally front and center for Vegas Boulevard. I'm thinking about this, and all of it just kept going. And then the chicken opportunities came for those restaurants, and then the milkshake shop was the third one right after that, all in the same time period, and then within about a year and a half they were all gone.

Speaker 1: 3:18

A year, Wow A year, and so yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:21

I had no, I had no fucking idea what I was doing 18 months you went from from no restaurants to three restaurants, to no restaurants, right like to bankruptcy, to losing my girlfriend, to moving back in with my dad, to drinking bottles of jack daniels to the face by themselves in one night, just going back to that place of like, wow, I have to go backwards again. Right, I have to go to the place that I was trying to get away from and I still hadn't resolved my issues with what was holding me back, which was really more of a personal thing, less than it was the. The drug or the alcohol is that? So I always tell people this is important, the drug or the alcohol? So I always tell people this is important. The drug or the alcohol is a substance. It is what it is. But the control comes from me. I'm the one that decides to go pick it up. I'm the one that doesn't have the mental fortitude to say no to that. I'm the one that hasn't worked on myself well enough to avoid it and turn it off and say no, I'm good. So anyway, that's important point. The substance isn't forcing you to take it, you're deciding to do that.

Speaker 2: 4:29

So I go back into the real world after that happens. I think I'm 26 now, 26, 27. I go get a job at the airport right here, which McCarran everybody's been to McCarran international here in Vegas as a food and beverage manager Boy. Am I fucking miserable? Like it's just miserable. I'm just slapdicking. I hate it. I don't have my girlfriend anymore, who at the time I cared about dearly. I'm miserable. I'm back in this stupid job. I eventually get fired from that job.

Speaker 2: 4:58

I go out, I get my girl back crazily because I go fight for it, and then I start selling drugs and I start collecting unemployment because I had a lot of people that were still coming to Vegas and they all wanted me. They would call me because they knew they were already coming to Vegas in this process, because I had started working at the nightclub by this point. So I was already building the relationship. So then they were coming to Vegas and talk about an entrepreneur. They're like hey, man, I need some stuff. What you need? Cocaine, molly. Okay, I got you. It's going to be this price. I knew I was buying it at X.

Speaker 2: 5:31

I was selling it for Y and I was building it in there and you have no idea People wanted the drugs more than anything, Because without that it was not going to be a Vegas experience.

Speaker 1: 5:48

So I without that. It was not going to be a vegas experience, so I was able to fucking mark the price up like a maniac and make some good money to take care of daddy manny, provided the man the vegas experience.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Yeah, man, yeah, yeah, and then, wow, and then I gave it to him. Then I started, you know, snorting, popping it with him, and so we had a good old time, man, so it was the best of all worlds in those days, just depending on your perspective. So, anyway, that being said, so that kind of cascaded, I'm now 28, 29. I'm still floating between different jobs. I tried a few different new businesses and then, right around the end of 2015, right before my 30th birthday man is when I decided to get sober and that my man is when it all changed.

Speaker 2: 6:26

It was all changed at the time of sobriety and from there, man, it just took off like a rocket ship, because it was basically me going from this addiction of okay, I'm now I'm still having fun with the partying, the going out, the drugs, gambling, the drinking. I just redirected it back to learning and growing and figuring myself out, and that became the new obsession and it hasn't stopped. It won't stop now. It's just compulsively in me to learn and grow and figure things out, despite how hard it is. You have no idea, and I'm not saying that from a uh, putting it on you in terms of you've not been through this, um, I don't want us to actually let me roll that back and say it differently.

Speaker 2: 7:09

People have ideas about this stuff that have gone through it, but for the, for the lack of the usage of the language, the amount of of reinvention that has to happen from a former conditioned self that has gone through 30 years of life and who knows countless amounts of ways where you've become this thing for 30 years, and then to go back and say, okay, I'm stripping all that out, I'm going out to really recreate myself and, whatever it takes, I'm going to go through that process. That's the journey that I went on, man. And then from there, because of that decision, it got really sexy. I was still promoting. I got sober, I was still promoting and hosting the nightclubs, but I stopped doing the drinking. I stopped doing the drugs.

Speaker 1: 7:51

So you're still subjecting yourself to that environment and around those things. But you had said I'm done.

Speaker 2: 7:59

That's it, man, straight up. Yeah, I was actively around those people and they were actively doing that stuff Drugs drinking. They were like, hey, a lot of people didn't believe that I was committed to staying sober. They're like, yeah, right bro, you're going to last two weeks, you're going to be back.

Speaker 1: 8:12

That's a ton of temptation, right.

Speaker 2: 8:16

But you know what man I was so over that self, that person, I was so disgusted with him that I didn't want anything to do with it. And so a lot of people asked me, how'd you do it? And I said, man, it just became something from years and years of loss that piled up. And then, after that much loss, you get to a point where you're like, hey, man, I don't want to live like this anymore, there's got to be something better. And so, and plus, I already knew remember, I already knew I had an act, that I was always hustling in the middle of all this stuff. I was always pursuing the entrepreneur dream. I was always pursuing a life on my terms. I was always pursuing the freedom right. I didn't like being told what to do, I didn't like having bosses. That was not for me.

Speaker 1: 8:55

So I was already there.

Speaker 2: 8:57

I was just holding myself back and hold myself back. So when I decided to get sober man, it liberated me in a way where I could go figure who I was out and start working that process. And then, because of that, I went and traveled the country for two years speaking on stages without any experience, never having done it before literally.

Speaker 1: 9:16

Where did those opportunities come from?

Speaker 2: 9:19

So I met a big speaker in Vegas and I really believe that the power of because it's happened and so it's really tricky. You're in a happy place in your life and you find a path because you're thinking and you're cooperating properly with what you want in your life and what the actions are that you're taking. And then in process you go and you start eclipsing where you were. You get to these new levels and then you realize that you have to re-engage that person for yourself and fight back at that next level, because naturally you want to go back and start thinking about what didn't work and why you're behind and what's not working in this, and so you could roll the tape back and end up getting stuck again and what you kind of were before. So you're always engaging in that fight, that dog fight, to outpace your previous self and stay there so that the negative lessens itself. So now I'm answering your question in this way because I would go to the I'm man of Lake Bay every night and I was promoting nightclubs and every day I would get up and I would go. This is going to be the day that I'm going to meet this speaker, because that's what I wanted to do.

Speaker 2: 10:28

At that time, sobriety came. I started working on myself, I started going to the seminars, I started listening to the podcast and I was like I want to do that because I had great stories. So here's where the story comes in, because at the time time everybody was like dude, if you got a story, you got to tell that story. If you got a story, every stage, every event I went to the biggest speakers were like you got a story, I'm like they sold me, man. I'm like I got a really good fucking story. Like I got a good, I got vegas at that.

Speaker 2: 10:56

People want to know about vegas I got some good shit and so, crack right, I got that crack, you're gonna want to come back for it. And so I decided that that was going to be my next path. Because it was just speaking to me and I'm like, oh, this is definitely it. Like I got sober, I have the story from the background, this journey setting itself up very nicely. What do I need to do? Write a book, start podcasting, um, and then, in that process, to get to that point, though, I was actively thinking in my head that I needed to get around the right people, and the right people bring me up to the next level, like that. So that became my mission at that time, which was get around the right mentor, let him bring me into his world, and, man, I would go to that hotel every night and I would think about well, there's basically a convention, a day here, which, literally at the Manawik Bay, there always were.

Speaker 2: 11:44

True true, yep, anybody and everybody could come walk through this hotel. And because I was promoting, I could walk around the hotel wherever I wanted and I was paying attention to who was there. I was very aware. And one day I'm going to be on this floor and some guy's going to come in and he's like all right, kid, I like you, what do you want to do, let's go. And sure enough, man, that happened that one night that I met one of those guys and he came in. I saw him dead on. I was like I know you, I love your work, I think you're doing amazing stuff, you know. So he's like, small talking with me and he invites me to his event the next day, highlights me at his event the next day. I'm like, oh shit, is this happening? And then, about an hour and a half later, after a few more steps, he basically said come on, kid, you know let's go out and you know, do some great things. And I'm paraphrasing there a little bit because I don't want to take all the time on this because I'll be here all day on it.

Speaker 2: 12:36

But the idea was the intent there, of me finding that opportunity at that time and putting in the work to support it really allowed me to get in that position to capitalize on that, and from there, that's when I went off and started traveling the country speaking. Then I came back to Vegas, started working at a company here because I wanted to learn how to sell on the phone, because I was learning how to communicate on stage for two years and I was learning how to sell on stage. And then I wanted the other skill of picking up the phone and learning how to make a phone call and close a deal, because I was still nervous and doing that at that time. So I went into that company, did incredibly well right away, started calling into really large size companies, talking to all the decision makers in the C-suite, and then I pivoted in that company and started running the celebrity division, calling into Hollywood, securing deals with celebrities, agents, managers, working that whole thing for about a year as part of that transition, and then, after that, basically went on a journey to start to work on my own stuff.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Similarly, around the same time at that time in 2020, met my now wife. We started dating long distance. After eight months, we moved in together in Vegas and then that was hell. And so you talk about transforming moving into a small place together on Las Vegas Boulevard and me being comfortable, being in a long-distance relationship, but then having to come face-to-face when I'm still not who I need to be. Dude, if you knew what my wife went to and through to be with me, you'd call her crazy, because any woman would have left my ass for lots of times. But we fought through it and again, man, because of both of our commitments and our desires to be better, we were able to withstand all those storms and come out on the other side. And we still have our bickering matches and we still disagree on certain things, but we're foundationally set on a grouping of values and principles.

Speaker 2: 14:39

And then, in that, I kept trying to refine my entrepreneur identity, which was hard, trying to refine my entrepreneur identity, which was hard. And so, yeah, man, brother, it's like you know, you think about all this stuff and it gets exciting and there's these ups and these downs, but then you look back in your life and you're like, man, I've come a long way, I've done a lot, I'm excited about it, and without, yeah, without all that, without all that journey, without all that adversity, without all that challenge, without all that stuff, you don't think back in 50 years, you know, when I'm 90. You don't think back at that time and go fuck, I wish I would have did something more. You know, I wish, I wish, I wish, and that for me really gets into me. Man, I don't agree with that. Let's play it safe and let's wait and let's do these things later. It's like no, and I'll final this thought here before you transition with my, with my monologue here. That's been going on for about 25 minutes, the.

Speaker 1: 15:46

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