Conquering Challenges and Embracing Change with Ernest Swierk

In episode 5 of Tru Mentors, Derek Skubisz interviews Ernest Swierk, from Rainbow Property Maintenance, as he shares his inspiring journey from Poland to the United States, discussing his mindset, challenges, and success in the entrepreneurial world. Tune in as they delve into the importance of mentorship, mindset, and the power of making small adjustments for personal growth.

TIMESTAMPS

[00:01:34] Life Transitioned from Poland to US.

[00:05:32] Mentality and Life Changes.

[00:10:38] Changing Mindset for Success.

[00:15:30] The Importance of Change.

[00:17:02] Comfort vs. Taking Responsibility.

[00:23:22] School System and Education.

[00:24:36] Changing Education System and Orphanages.

[00:29:09] Education and Success

[00:33:17] Networking for Personal Growth.

[00:39:40] The Value of Time.

[00:44:37] Balancing Family and Personal Growth.

[00:50:02] Mentors and Advice.

[00:50:53] Mentorship and Self-Improvement.

[00:57:15] Energy and Interconnectedness.

[01:01:02] Embracing Healthy Arguments.

[01:05:07] The Impact of News Media.

[01:07:58] True Mentors Appreciation.

In this episode, Derek Skubisz and Ernest Swierk underscore the pivotal role of mindset in achieving success and personal growth, emphasizing the power of maintaining a positive outlook and embracing change. According to Ernest, having the right mindset is the foundation for all accomplishments. Drawing from his personal journey, he illustrates how transitioning from a negative mindset to a positive one enabled him to surmount obstacles and attain remarkable success.

QUOTES

• "Mindset is everything. Everything starts with that because if you don't have the right mindset, you might know what you want. But if you have a vision and really believe in it, There's nothing that can stop you." - Ernest Swierk
• "I'm for sure constantly looking for a change because I know if something's not changing, or maybe I'm saying it wrong, something always has to grow and expand. And that requires change. If it's not changing, you're not growing. And when you going down, you're dying." - Ernest Swierk
• "So there's a saying that knowledge is the key to success. I would say ***** because if you don't know what to do with the success, you're screwed." - Ernest Swierk
• "That's the whole thing about mentorship is that small one percent that they open up that little tiny part of your brain to show you that next step that maybe you don't see." - Derek Skubisz

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS

Derek Skubisz

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/derek_skubisz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Derek-Skubisz/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derek-skubisz-b015051a3/

Ernest Swierk

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ernest.swierk.7/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ernest-swierk-b8082738/

WEBSITE

Lifetime Restoration Inc.: https://lifetimerestorationinc.com/

Rainbow Property Maintenance: https://rainbowpropertymaintenance.com/

Transcript

Welcome to the True Mentors Podcast. This is the ultimate destination for aspiring entrepreneurs and business enthusiasts alike. Join us as we embark on a thrilling journey into the dynamic realm of business, where we unveil awe-inspiring tales of individuals who have conquered formidable challenges to attain extraordinary success. Get ready to be inspired and empowered. And now, here's your host, Derek Skubis. 

Intro/Outro

Hey guys, welcome to True Mentors. We have a very special guest for me, somebody who was in the beginning of my entrepreneurial world, who brought me into the mentorship world as well, took me to my first very first event with Tony Robbins here in Chicago, Illinois. His name is Ernest Schwierk with Rainbow Property Maintenance. Welcome, Ernest. Thank you, Darek. 

Derek Skubisz

Thank you for having me over here. And believe me, you're one of the special guys that I'm honored to be part of your success or even start of your success because you did the work by yourself. What? Yeah. 

Ernest Swierk 

So awesome to be here. Thank you. Our episode is going to be a lot about mentorship and then Well, how your life transitioned when you came here from Poland? Cause you did come here. How old were you when you came here from Poland? 

Derek Skubisz

15 or 16. I don't remember. It was right after the, uh, like ninth grade here in Poland, we have eight grades and then the first, um, after that. So it was somewhere in there. I don't remember. It was such a long time ago. 

Ernest Swierk 

But it was an area where you understand every single thing in life. You know what's happening, how the world's running. You're able to see problems in life.

At that time, no, for sure not. I mean, I knew myself that I never wanted to live someone else's life. Correct. And I could feel like I don't fit in a lot of places. There was situations that, uh, I put myself in trouble because I was trying to argue with some people. And a lot of people don't understand a lot about communism, that there's no you, there's a society that tells you what it can do. Exactly. So you're forced to obey and do as you were told. And I never agree with that one. So I came here hoping that it's going to be way better. And then the way it was, but me not knowing English, not knowing that I can even ask for help. I put myself into similar situations here where I fought for what I want and it caused trouble.

Yeah, I mean, I could see that with especially what's happening here. To me, it's just crazy that somebody could come from a different country, not speak English and become as successful as you. You know, it doesn't matter about the language. It doesn't matter how rich you grew up. What it matters is how much work do you want to put into your life and take control of it.

You're right with that one. I think also what matters is your mindset. Mindset is everything. Everything starts with that because if you don't have the right mindset where you really, you might not know what you want, but if you have a vision and really believe in it, There's nothing that can stop you. And I always believed in it. And the other people like in Poland, communism and over here with people with the wrong mentality or old country mentality, because when I came here, I surrounded myself with Polish people because I couldn't speak English. And that mentality was still not something that I wanted to be.

It was a different world, but you still kind of live the same exact life. Exactly.

Perfectly said.

Yeah. But how, how did your life change? Was there a drastic change when you came to the United States from how you lived it? Were you like, whoa, things are going to change or when did your life change where you wanted to take that shift away from the negative talk of the people you surrounded yourself with?

You're asking a very hard question because people expect sometimes like a one situation that changes everything for you. Okay, I'll start over here. When I came to the States, I expected that I'll be, you know, in one of those nice high, you know, 91, 92, somewhere around that time. Wasn't born yet. So that tells you how old I am. The shock was that I came here expecting a lot and then they moved me into like a basement with no windows almost. I'm like, holy shit. Is this America? What did I come here for? I knew America and people don't realize that America gives you opportunities like no other country. I knew that. I kind of had it in my head watching American movies in Poland. And I knew this land gives you opportunities like no other. And I came here and I see people with the old mentality. I'm like, no, that's not right.

You come for a change, but you're still not taking the change.

And that's why, you know, I'm going to go back to this mentality. mentality, it's almost everything. Like there's this book and I, you know, I don't want to advertise anything, but think and grow rich.

Oh, it's phenomenal. You actually gave me the book. That's the first time I read the book.

And you know, that, that was one of the books that changed the way I started to think because I knew what I want. I knew where I want to be. I just couldn't change the mentality. I thought I'm programmed that way. And that book opened my mind. It's not, I'm programmed because any program can be changed if you just know how to look at it differently or if you know what do you want to do with it. And, uh, I started reading that and reading that and reading that later on. I'm like, shit, I'm in control of my own life. It's going to be hard, but for every action, there's a reaction. And for everything they want to gain, you have to sacrifice or pay for it, depending on how you label it. And I realized, I mean, you know, I never expected anything easy. And I could say that I'm an adrenaline junkie, that I like things that scare you.

Exactly. I always tell my fiance, I love when things scare me. That's why I go after so much. Like sometimes I do feel like I'm doing too much at once, but I love the scare of it. Right. Cause I, sometimes I'm just like, dude, what if I lose it? But then I'm like, dude, I'm going to do it back again.

And that's, again, you know your limits. A lot of people are different and they should know their limits and they don't know. And we as human beings, we hate change. Maybe to you, you're looking for it. Me, I'm for sure constantly looking for change because I know if something's not changing, or maybe I'm saying it wrong, something always have to grow and expand. And that requires change. If it's not changing, you're not growing. And when you going down, you're dying. Yeah. And I'm not looking to, and you know, not fully live my life the way I want to be proud of myself. I don't care what other people will think about me. and people are easy to judge, label. Yeah. Oh shit, you're not going to be able to do that. Don't think it's easy or something like that.

Well, you always have naysayers. Whatever you do in life, you're always going to have a naysayer, you know. I mean, I didn't have really anybody believing in me before anything and it's like, then they all want to be part of the life. You know, once everything keeps going, once there's the rainbow and sun shines, everybody wants to join the parade. But when there's the shitty storm, everybody wants to wipe away and go inside. But going back to where you said, you know, your limits, I just thought about something. Do you think as a person, your body knows the limits and it pushes you to go to do something further? Or do you actually feel your limits like, hey, I need to stop right now.

And again, it's not your body that knows the limits. Your body is just your body. It's your mind. And if you set your mind to certain limits and you want to extend on it. Your buddy is unlimited. Exactly. You can be crippled. You can be not able to walk or whatever like that. But how many successful people, you know, like even in this movie that thing and grow rich, there's a blind person. I'm not going to Jim Stuart. He's just running his businesses. He didn't stop. this sickness because he was healthy. And then all of a sudden he's lost this vision, but it didn't stop him. Of course he went through the break, but again, it's not his body. It's the mental thing.

Think and Grow Rich, who wrote the book? I forgot that one. There's a, I forgot what the class is in Downers Grove that I did.

That's not by, that's, this is, see, I don't remember it as well now. It's going to come to my mind, but.

Yeah, because I did the class. And when we were talking about change, we had to come up with a quote about like how you see your life. And I came up with, You can't change people, but you can't change yourself, which will change the people around you. Correct. Right? And in class, a lot of people are like, well, what do you mean by that? It kind of doesn't make sense. People are going to be shitty around you. You can't go out there and be angry at yourself and scream at people and, you know, you're not doing this, you're not doing that. Some people will be like, dude, I don't care what you're doing. I'm not doing the stuff you're going to tell me. And they just don't care about it. But changing yourself is not like completely where you just block everybody out. It's changing your mentality of the way you say stuff, the way you present yourself stuff. And then it's going to change the people that come into your life that are actually going to want to be part of your life. You know, so it's all about like back to what you're saying is mindset. When the mindset shit, the whole life shit. Correct. You know, without the mindset, you can't get anywhere. And with my sales guys, the first thing we started off with is on the board. It's a mindset. You know, you can't go into the sales game without a mindset.

And I'll repeat you a little bit with this one. When you said that I kind of introduced you to mentorship and my personality, I'm a servant. And a lot of times I try when I'm able to work with someone else and especially show them the path that if you believe in yourself, you can do whatever. And I remember you as a, sorry to say that as a kid in high school, wanting to do something, but you just didn't know how to approach it. It's just so simple but no one teaches us that you can ask for help. You can just go ahead and talk to someone who went through some things. Don't talk to the naysayers like you mentioned earlier. Talk to someone who actually did something in the past and someone that is open to, you know, talk to you and just go ahead and tell you, hey, Darik, everybody keeps telling you, you're not going to be able to, you know, do something. And that person, just one person is good enough. It's going to tell you, Darik, there's no stopping, especially with your belief, with your visions, with your heart ethics, your discipline and everything else. Just ride the wave.

That was literally you every time I got on a phone call with you is, I mean, every time I get on a phone call with you, it's always positive. I mean, it's insane. It's never negative. It's never about people. It's never about anything. It's growth, business, relationships, networking, right? There's, it's always, that's how there's value. You know, there's a massive value and a lot of people are scared of asking for help, especially successful people or wealthy people. But successful people and wealthy people, and I found this from you when you told me about everything, and when we would go to networking events, you're like, just talk to them, ask them for help. I would go up to them, nobody's mean, nobody's mad, and every single one of them goes above and beyond, and they go, give me your phone number and I'll send you this. Last time we went to the city, like two weeks ago, I'm walking out of the elevator and I was talking to two guys and he gave me his phone number. He gives me his, he was whatever you need for real estate. If you want to get into commercial, everything, everything for free. Yeah. And then you go to a next day and they're like, well, I need $500. Yeah. You know what I mean?

And it's sad, but that's kind of a mentality that, uh, And you gotta be careful when you say success, because success to almost everyone means something totally different. And in society that we live right now, I think it was maybe before that as well, people don't know what they really want and they're not happy with what they have. And they always look for this next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing. You gotta know or what that next thing is going to be to make you happy. And I know from my experience, and I know especially from other people's experiences, they always keep telling, oh, if I'm only going to have this, I'll be happy. No. It's never the end point. It's the entire journey. If you're not happy with the journey, it doesn't matter what you're going to have. If you're going to have, you know, When I was young, I was thinking, oh, if I'm going to have only $10,000 in my bank account, I'll be extremely happy.

100,000.

And you know, it just extends and extends. And it's not about that. It's the journey. It's when I remember myself when we were doing that movie is I'm not doing that for me. Of course, I want to leave a legacy, but my vision was to do it for someone When I was young, I didn't know where I can go and ask for help. And I didn't know that there's books or mentality mindset that can change how I view everything. And I'm glad you brought it up this way that I'm always positive because why should I complain? I'm alive. I'm happy. I have a family. I have great friends like you. And of course, it's going to sound maybe a little bit hypocritical, but I hope the right people will take it in the right way. sometimes you have to be drastic and put the people away that you don't want to be around with. 100%. Because that's the biggest anchor that slows everyone down. And again, going back to the change, no one wants to change so drastically. They're terrified. And that, exactly. And that change, it's probably one of the main changes that you need to do first in your life. Otherwise, but they will always pull you down.

Nobody wants to work anymore or fix the stuff that they have before they ask for something else. Like I'm huge on God, right? I believe in everything. Um, I mean, I pray every single day, but my thing is, is you get the stuff that you're supposed to at the right time, but you also need to take care of the stuff and fix the stuff that you have before you get further stuff, right? Like Andy Elliott says, When your car breaks down, you don't go to a dealership and buy a new car, you go fix it. So if your relationship at home sucks with your fiance or your wife, fix it. You could be the bigger person and go up there and figure it out. And hey, maybe it won't work, but at least you're fixing it to separate from each other and better having a better life for you and your kids rather than nonstop bickering, going at each other massively and ruining all the kids that you have to. Yeah. Right. Nobody wants to fix stuff. Nobody wants to communicate. Comfort is the number one strongest drug in America.

There's, uh, I don't know if it's a good story and if I should even bring it up, but I'm going to bring it up anyway, because, uh, what people believe in, it's so different and they're going to blame everything and everyone they can. But there's this story that the guy, uh, died and he complains at the gate of heaven or whatever you want to call it that oh god you didn't help me you didn't help me and god is like what do you mean i didn't help you and the guy is like uh oh when i was drowning there was a storm and the I didn't want to escape my house. And God is like, why do you think I was warning everybody that they need to run away? Then, you know, another case, another case, and another case. And then finally, God is like, at the end, you were on the roof. Everything was flooded. I sent a helicopter to pick you up from the roof. And you said, no, I believe in God, that God will save me. And I was saving you, but your expectations I don't know what they were. So you don't sometimes see the signs that are around you. And then at the end, you blame everything, including God or whatever you believe in every person in your family. You got to take the full responsibility. You got to own up to your shit. That's it. Because otherwise it's going to be a chase, like a rat race chase. You're going to be always blaming everything else.

Exactly.

Have the guts and, you know, say, I fucked up. You know, it's up to me to make sure it's going to work. It's about the choices that you make. And again, every action has a reaction. Depends on, you know, you never know for sure which road or which intersection should you go, right? Should you go left? It's up to you or everybody else to make the decision. Don't over fucking think it. Just go ahead and take it. And then if it's a dead end, just turn around, come back and go the other way. Do it again. We learn on, on, on, on things that we do. We learn after choices we make, and then you just learn from it. And next time you will know what kind of a decision to make and you're able to do it. But again, the percentage isn't that high of the people that will not see the glass half empty. Yeah. You, me, and other people, we will always see half glass full. Correct. And again, it goes back to mindset.

Because you look at the positive side. That's it. I have half a glass. Other people will be like, well, I have half empty glass. Exactly. You know, it's just that little switch that you have. When did you get into mentorship? When did your, not like the specific date or anything, but what made you What made you just be like, dude, I'm done with this. Like there's got to be a change. There's got to be a way to get out of this. Or in a way, how did you go about that?

Okay. Mentorship in my mind, uh, didn't fully started maybe like seven, eight, nine years ago to understand it, what it is. So you're not born with it. You never born with anything. The only thing you're born is your life and you might not have the eyes. You might not have this or that. You create yourself. Everybody expects that, oh, you were born this, you were born that. No way. There's people who are born in rich families and they end up committing suicide because they're not happy. There's poor people, you know, or people abused. They end up very well. So you're not born with anything. It's only your life. And to me, I was just constantly looking or reading about someone who did something that no one was giving them a chance to do it. They were my mentors. I didn't even know then that they're my mentors. They were more of my heroes or however you wanna call it. Then when I, I always educate myself. I believe in self-educating and never ever stopping to learn something new and improving yourself to be a better person and to prove to fully live. And I was always searching to have someone around me that I could honestly talk about everything and that person will totally understand me. So I want something more in life and that person knows it. Never had the chance because I was not vulnerable. That's the weakness that I brought from Poland and it's probably cultural weakness. And it could be also because we're Guys, men, we shouldn't be vulnerable. That's how we're being taught. You show weakness. Exactly. But asking for help, it's not weakness. And asking for help from more successful people than you are, like you said earlier, is growth. But also, they will give it to you freely because they know how much... Giving up money, it's easy because you can just throw the money at someone. or something, but giving your time, which is the most valuable asset that you have. And not everybody wants to do it, but the successful people, and I'm not talking about money because even the book thing and grow rich, everybody's going to say, Oh, you're only thinking about money. No, it's about being rich here.

Well, because the Bob Marley explains it the same. I don't know if you ever saw that video. A guy asked the Bob Marley, are you rich? And Bob Marley says, what do you mean by rich? Am I rich in family? Am I rich in money? Am I rich in happiness? He's like, I'm rich in family. Correct. I'm not rich in happiness. Correct. Right. So it all depends back again to the mindset and your perspective, what you think about that. But everybody just thinks riches money.

Because that's the society we live in. They like to label things. And that's the first thing that should be removed from schools, but where everything starts. Family, it's one, and then schools.

I'm massive about schools, you know, that topic's insane with me. Me too. I just can't believe that our school system has not changed. at all and our whole world is changing and our school system hasn't and then you go to a college and teachers non-stop complain and do all of this stuff while they have a class of 20 students and then they want them to go spend 200 grand on college. Go to the parking lot of a college and look at what the teachers drive that teach business. Go on 294 where they're working on the highway and look at all the brand new pickup trucks that the trades have. They want to devalue trades because they put it in there that trades are for stupid people.

Yeah. But let me ask you this one. I'm big on schooling too. And one of my dreams, a few dreams that I have is change the entire education system. That's why I want to build orphanages. So that way I can have, it's a, it's a messy business as well because there's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of issues with, uh, uh, paperwork and they allow you to do certain things and they don't allow you to do other things and everything, everything like that. But I'm big on changing how schooling system works. Yes. I want to build those orphanages to have the chance to educate the kids. They might still go to school, but it's going to be a big part of learning at the home that they're going to be living with. Correct. And why do you think this culling system is not changing the entire system?

Because the system that they created works. Works in whose benefit? The government favors. Because it's controlled. So they could control the people to not become stronger and bigger and better than them.

And that's one of the things I was running away from. Because communism, that's what they do. They program you. They make it look so nice. That you're getting a lot and you're living a good life. At the end, you have no control. Yeah. You say something wrong, you end up in jail. You do something wrong, you end up in jail. The only powerful people then are the politicians or people who work for the government. That's all. And is it good? I have no idea. But the system that we have so far still in America It's good, but it's getting worse and worse and worse. Some people might hate me for it, but I lived it.

I mean, you don't see a positive outcome of it nowadays. You're really like with the schools, how it is going back to where you said people might hate you. I mean, let them hate you. There's no outcome of it. There's no positive outcome of that.

They see the picture that someone painted for them. They don't see the real picture. It's almost like someone put the, uh, blindfolding glasses, like sometimes again, maybe wrong comparison, but the blinds, like the horses have, you see only ahead of you, just the tunnel, but nothing on the side. Is that the vision that you want to have? Nope. Exactly. So this cooling system was created for, When, when the industrial age started to create workers and they're still doing that. So there's a saying that knowledge is the key to success. I would say bullshit because if you don't know what to do with the success, you're screwed. Exactly. Success or the key to success is knowing what to do with someone else's knowledge. Exactly. So there's plenty of. Educated people that have a piece of paper and they think they're way smarter than me or you or someone else who might not have the perfect degree. And I'm not saying colleges are bad. They have monopole where they control how education happening. And only certain people within that circle can do something, but the others, Not much. You might gain some different experience. You might get some connections. But in reality, you're an average of five people that you surround yourself with. And if you know what do you want in the life, do you really need to have all of the people like you? No. I always thought that if I'm not going to agree with almost everyone around me, I'm going to be a bad person. Until someone told me, Ernest, there's no freaking way that everyone's going to like you. You're still a good person, but it's just that not a lot of people will like you.

Because everybody thinks differently. Exactly. Different things in life. But going back to what you were saying about knowledge, I mean, the thing is, I don't want people to think this in a wrong way. We're not against schools because everybody needs education. You have to get educated. You need to educate yourself as well. And when you come out of school, you should continue the education every single day. That should never stop in your life. The thing is that I know a lot of people that never graduated college. barely finished high school and they have Harvard students working for them. Knowledge is not the key to success. It's what the government said that it is because more people will go on colleges.

I'm not sure if it's the government. See, there's a thing that me personally, I try not to mix it and I try not to talk a lot, even though I'm trying to be involved with politics as well. And still do something about it. And I have to, if I want to change education, if I want to change other people's life and still kind of a seed, little seeds in everybody's head that you really can do whatever you set your mind on. I try not to talk about politics, religion, but still be vulnerable enough to talk about my weaknesses and learn from it. And hopefully it's going to be some kind of a lesson to I'll be able to educate someone else, not by telling them what to do, but sharing my experiences with them. What you went through. Exactly. And will they take it or do something with it? It's up to them. Again, I even teach my kids, I'm here. I'll support you in any way I can. But I'm not going to be able to fight your fights. I'm not going to be able to make your decisions. I'm not going to be able to make you happy with what you do. It's fully on you. I'm here as a support. But when I started this, I started to go to high schools and colleges. and mentor some kids. And of course I was labeled like this privilege white dude and what the hell he knows about anything. But I bet there's big chance that 99.9% of people didn't even experience a lot of things of what hunger is, what waiting for bread for hours is, and then you're like sixth or seventh person and they tell you there is no more bread. and living someone else's life. They don't look at it. People in society right now, they love labeling things. They love judging the book by its cover, but not actually trying at least a little bit putting themselves in someone else's shoes. And I realized that I'm not going to be able to change their life. Why, who am I to force them into doing something? If they're going to be ready, they will come and ask. They're going to change. Or they will use it. So, you know, if there's, there's so many different opportunities, but no one talks about it. That's why I want to go ahead, create some access for especially younger people to really know that they can ask for help. Know that they, where they can ask for help. And then just go ahead, do the work themselves. Don't expect that that's going to be given to them. Don't expect that someone else is going to do the work for them. They have to, I heard you saying you have to be disciplined. Sure thing. But if you have a discipline, but you just don't know what to do with that,

Consistency, discipline, and getting the help that you need.

And mindset, again. I keep repeating that. Mindset. Just set your mind on something that you want to do. Surround yourself with the right people. And then do the hard work. You got to do the hard work. Because I'm not going to do it. You know it yourself.

And that's the whole thing is like how me and you started is people don't realize it's like when you want to change and you want to know what direction you want to go to, figure out networking groups in that specific field and go over there, do the hard work and talk to them. Dude, it's uncomfortable as shit. It is uncomfortable, you don't wanna do it, you're scared, you don't know how it's gonna go. Go and test it out, see what's gonna happen.

But if you're only gonna do comfortable things, you're not gonna change. So, you know, Einstein said, if you expect different results and they keep doing the same thing over and over, you're insane. And that's why I'm going to fight always for what I believe in. I'm not ever going to give up. And you know it because you went with me to Tony Robbins. Then I met The Circle with other mentors that I kind of pulled you into it because I saw your hunger to do something with your life, to be not an average person. You want to fully live your life and That makes me happy. I'm just, when you tell me that I'm just that little part of your, you know, expansion and growth and mindset, shit. I was in a group, I was in a group like maybe 10 years ago. And back then, I felt like a misfit because there were people who had companies averaging over a hundred million dollars per year and creating some amazing stuff. I'm like, holy shit, a small dude like me, you know, who has almost nothing in life except will to drive and, you know, being competitive and wanting something more. I'm sitting in there, everybody's talking about everything. And they asked me, what is making you happy? And I said, I feel fulfilled to that point that I can die now. and they look at me like, is this guy trying to commit suicide? Is he struggling with something? I said, hey, you misunderstood me because again, society is labeling other people, not fully hearing what are you saying, but creating their internal visualization of what do you say? And I said, I can die and I'm fulfilled because I know I changed one person's life for better. but I'm not planning to die until I'll be past 100. Would I? I have no idea. But I know I try, not try because I don't like that word, but I do my best to really fully live my life. And if I'm able to change someone's life for better, why the hell not? But it's not on me. Exactly. It's not on me. It's on that person. Correct. Exactly. So I'm not going to make your decision because I think the mentorship or people's imagination, especially people who never had mentors, they expect that mentors will give them answers to their problems.

100 percent. They think that they go and they're paid them and their life's different. No way. They'll give you advice.

But if you don't know, not even advice, because advice, it's almost like giving you the answer. The better option is if the mentor knows how to ask you questions and you seeing something that you were not able to see by yourself.

Answering your own questions. Exactly. But then you have to, when you go home, you got to work on that. You got to, you have to put the work in.

But now you know what do you need.

Before you didn't. Like a lot of people say mentors suck. They do all of these seminars. They don't work anything because you don't do anything.

Seminars are not mentors. No, they're not. They're not. But people think they are. And that's the problem. That's where the problem starts. Communication, it's a huge thing. I always talk to as many people, even at interviews. Communication, it's so complicated. We could be talking the same language, but because your life experiences, my life experiences, you understand one word differently than I do. Could escalate really bad. You can put number six on a piece of paper. I see six, but you're going to fight with me and you might even kill me that you see nine, how wrong I am because I keep telling you it's six and you see nine. Exactly. So that should start from there. Communication and knowing what you're looking for. If you don't know what you're looking for, there's no way anybody will be able to help you in life. Exactly. And you're going to, again, blame it. Oh, I went through the seminar. I expected this and that and whatever, whatever.

But another thing is, I see a lot of people going to seminars and they start recording, you know, my life's about to be so different and everything. A week later, I'm like, what are you doing? Nothing. No, those suck. They won't. You don't go to a seminar to change your life. You go to a seminar to grab a small little inch of information, implement that into your life. and then you're better than everybody else by 1%. Next year, you go do it again, now you're 2% better. And now you do that four times a year, you're four times, 4% better than other people.

But would this statement sound familiar to you? No one wants that 1% change. What's just 1% of my life being better? I want 100%.

I want the total change.

I don't want to go there for a day for 1%. Exactly. Bullshit. If you think like that, you're not getting anywhere.

It's those small changes you make constantly. They'll add and compound to your successes. Huge. It's insane. But it's that kind of a sacrifice or the payment that you got to make. It might not be a money payment. It might be your time payment, it might be your hard work payment that you have to make to actually earn something or achieve something. If not, nothing comes free. But people only think that, oh, money will save everything. It helps. It's a tool like anything, any other tool. But you just have to know that the most valuable thing in your life is your time.

Well, that's the only thing you can't stop at all. You could make money, you could travel, you could be with friends. That clock will never ever go back. It just keeps going forward. Exactly. You know, just like the last 10 seconds, what we talked about before, we'll never get that back in our life. It's going over and people don't realize that. Yeah, you know and I can't stand when people waste my time in my life or when people go like I'll wait for people and they're late 20-30 minutes and they don't tell you or you know, they It's just like it is so disrespectful to waste somebody's time because I think they they Expected that everything's gonna be old to them.

They expect that they're better than you are. They expect that or your time, I bet there's probably plenty of people around you, they think, oh, you got money, so screw him. He can wait for me. I'm more important because I gotta finish this, or I gotta finish that. They don't look at you that you might not be working physically, but I bet you're working 24-7. And they do eight hours, 10 hours, and they'll complain and bitch about it.

But only valuable people like you see that. You know what I mean? People with value respect other people. Correct. Yes. Sometimes. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's really good. You were talking about your kids. And when I see you and your family, you're successful with that. You know, your kids, they love you. I see that happiness when they're around you. How is it that Like, because I know parenting's hard, especially nowadays and, you know, I'm 26 and I'm getting married next year and we're going to have kids. What's the, what do you do? How are you raising your kids for, because when I saw your kids, I mean, your kids are phenomenal.

Thank you for saying that. Uh, you mentioned 1% and you mentioned Tony Robbins that, you know, that's kind of a word. The first thing that we went to, what I've learned from that event, is I don't know if you remember that. He introduced us to a wheel and divided it into different things. I divided my own wheel into four things, four categories. Me, my personal, my family, my business, and my spiritual life. Okay. And balancing all of that, it's pretty hard, but you know, you have to know your limits and how to balance that. Because imagining like Tony Robbins, we're talking about it. If one part of that wheel is more and the other is less, you will have a very bumpy ride and you don't want that. So who's the only person that can know the gaps or they can know how to adjust things? You, exactly. In my case, I am. And kids, I didn't have kids for a long time. My approach to family, it was the only place I can fully belong to. And I'm not talking about my mom, my dad, my brothers. The family, chosen family. Exactly. Something that I chose. And I'm going to fight for them. And I'm, will I make a mistake? Hell yes. Because no one's perfect. But I'm learning. And I'm trying to treat them, since they were kids, as adults. So I will talk almost about everything. And there's going to be some times that I'm not proud of myself, how I talk to them. So I kind of erase my ego, because a lot of people would like to have some kind of ego. I go to them and I tell them, and I remember that there were five, six, and someone might say, oh, they don't understand you. I don't care. I'm seeding something in their head. And I keep telling him, guys, you might not know what I'm saying. I'm not perfect. I might be this old dude that you see me like a giant or whatever like that, telling you what to do. I'm learning that. I was never, ever a dad. And if I was every kid, it's a different situation. So I'm learning that with you and I'm becoming this vulnerable, dude that tells you as it is. It's not easy. And it will never be easy. If someone thinks it's going to be easy, then they're making a huge mistake. So to answer it may be better. I try to balance it. But there's going to be arguments. There's going to be some challenges. But if you know how to only look at the half glass full and be positive about it, You can fix anything.

Well, it's like they say, it's not, it's not about how you fight. It's about how you solve the problem after. That's it. Amen. You said it perfectly. You know what I mean? Cause I mean, you get into fights and everything. What do you do afterwards to fix it? You just go hide and stuff or do you actually sit down and be like, Hey, what I said is not right. And then actually go and fix it. Yeah. Don't be that idiot that keeps going on making the same mistake. Well, I said, sorry, I apologize.

Yeah. And people like to, they think that, oh, shit, this marriage is not working. Fuck it. You know, I'm going to get divorced. Try, do your best. If you worked on it, you try to work it and you see there is no fixing it, then maybe it's the time to change it. But don't just go with the, society flow that if something's not working, you're just going to go ahead and change it.

Do you think people give up really fast nowadays? Yes. Or has it always been like that? Well, they might give up fast because it's so easy to get everything now.

I'll tell you something that maybe you didn't hear. It's just my personal opinion. Mentality and society changes along as we go. When I was growing up, I heard a lot of times my parents, my grandparents were telling me that, oh, if you would be in my times, you wouldn't be allowed to do this or that or whatever like that. Right now, people are going through something like you said it, and they always try to find the reason to complain about something. Yeah. Why? Easy. They rather live with something that they know and complain about it than do small adjustment, including myself. I thought long time ago, and I didn't realize it as much that I believe that I, when I change some things, I'll become a different person. Exactly. It's not that, because your personality is going to be your personality always. No matter what. And you don't need to change. Change the word you use for that and just make adjustment, just 1% adjustment, 1% adjustment. And then you become this person that you really want to be, not for others, but for yourself, for your family and for people that surround you.

Yeah. I mean, That's exactly true because a lot of people do go towards the easy route, but like, the funny thing is, is, I mean, I hate being wrong and I do a lot of stuff that I'm not supposed to. And my fiance is like, Hey, you need to like, you maybe you should slow down and this and not do it. And I still go do it and it doesn't work out. Then I have to hear it from her. And I'm like, dude, well, I did it wrong. Like, come on. No, no, that sucks to admit that you're wrong. But you have to do the screw up in order to learn and keep going.

Correct. I was going to say that, but you finished it. And that's also when you work with mentors, they'll share their experiences with you. They'll ask you questions for you to see it, but they're not going to be responsible for your choices. they'll do whatever they can to prevent you. You know, if you come as an example, you come to me and you'll be like, Ernest, should I spend that hundred bucks to buy some booze? I'll be like, probably not, because then you have a headache and this and that. Will I be able to have the influence on what are you going to do with that hundred bucks? No. So. I know that I'll tell you, okay, when I spend the money on the booze and I drank, next day I had a headache. Next day I regretted it that I could have probably invested or do something else with it. Anxiety, brain fog, three days out. So I'm sharing my experiences with you. I'm giving you what I experienced, but you might be a different person. You might enjoy alcohol and people are, hungry to give advice, but then if exactly, but also if I give you advice, it's almost like, I'll tell you, you got to do it. And you don't want to hear advice because that means almost like I'm telling you what to do something because what are you doing right now? You're doing it stupidly. Yeah, exactly. You don't want to hear that. No, you don't. So I'll give you advice saying that if I would be in your shoes, I would do it like that myself. But I have different experiences. You have a different life. I might have different budget. I might have different options. there's going to be ton. So you just have to be open-minded for that change and accepting that no one's going to do anything for me.

Wow. Um, this is a perfect example. When you were saying about Tony Robbins, this is where we're going with this, this whole 1% thing. When you started with Tony Robbins, you said, do you remember the wheel and how you put your life? You didn't give me the advice. You opened up in my brain what I actually do in life and showed me that, hey, this is how you do it. And people need that. Because when we sit down and we talk about stuff, you will point out stuff that I do that I never saw. And it's going to open it up. And then your brain starts seeing that. And then, hey, you go and do it. That's the whole thing about mentorship is that small one percent that they open up that little tiny part of your brain to show you that next step that maybe you don't see. Somebody didn't tell you or anything, but they did.

And you brought up a perfect point because I prefer to teach people how to fish instead of bringing the fish and giving them on the table. And there was a lot of times in my life that I heard something over and over and over. But I only heard it, but didn't fully register because I wasn't ready to register. And people sometimes want to rush things over. But I bet there's going to be a lot of people that will think, if I only have $100,000, I'll be set for my life. I'll bet you that, or anybody else, that if I'll give all of those people that $100,000, probably 99.9% of the people will just waste it, spend it, and they will have nothing pretty quickly.

within probably maybe a week and that 0.1% is going to invest it and become huge, massive.

So, so to that point is that you have to be ready sometimes to hear something or start doing something. Yeah. You might, we might not realize that, but how many times I had to read, think and grow rich to understand certain things or Tony Robbins book, Awaken the Giant with Idiom. When I read it the first time, I'm like, nothing clicks. I read it the second time. It's almost like Bruce Lee was saying, you shouldn't be doing 10,000 things once. You should do one thing 10,000 times. And then that's how you become master. And that's why I want to do mentorship. And I want to get mentorship because when I do mentorship, I see things from different perspective.

That the people don't see that you're mentoring. But also I learned from that.

Yeah. Because it's easier to know, you understand things better if you know how to simply explain it to a different human being. If you think you understand it, but you struggle how to explain it to someone else, you're not fully understanding the thing. at least in my mind, and someone else could have a different opinion.

And another thing is, like, do you think people should be giving other people advice that aren't taking their own advice and doing it?

You said it earlier. You saw how many professors, they call themselves professors, drive cars or whatever like that. They teach about business.

Well, they never owned a business. Exactly.

How can you teach about a business? So do you think it's good? And a lot of people, they might see some people advertise themselves that they're specialists and something like that, like professors, you know, they're teaching business, shit, they better know something. But how can they know it if they've never experienced it? Second thing, I mean, you're Catholic, Roman Catholic. How am I supposed to go to their priest and learn from them how my marriage should be? if they were never married. Exactly. So that's that's that's a scary thought that a lot of people take advice from the people they shouldn't be taking advice with. And how many fake people you see, they drive above their standards. They live above their standards. And whenever you go to the meetings, they're the loudest in the room. So if you at least in my opinion and what I teach my kid, if you hear someone Ragging and being the loudest person in the room run away.

They have nothing. They have nothing. I literally had this conversation with my trainer yesterday at the gym. He's um, he's extremely calm and he was a bodybuilder for 32 years and he is a black belt jujitsu. And then, um, he's a security guard for, um, famous people when they come to Chicago. Um, so he's the first one that's in the frontline presidents and everything. I told him, I was like, I'm not going to say his name, but whatever. And then I was like, you would literally be able to hurt somebody so bad with, I mean, his arms are huge and he knows how to fight. I was like, you would be able to kill somebody if you got into a fight. Did you ever have to experience that? And he goes, he's like, I'm really happy to talk to you about this because Every time somebody wanted to fight me when I was a bouncer or anything, I told them, you don't want this for yourself, just walk away and stop it. And I was like, dude, that is the number one thing you got to be scared shitless. When a guy talks to you like that in a fight and you're still going, the calm guy in the fight will destroy you. And that is known to be for years and years.

And he said it perfectly, perfectly. I believe that with a power like that or any other power, it becomes a big responsibility. And you not being able to control yourself. But that's a problem. That's a problem. But then other people are constantly going to be challenging you because they want to see where you can be able. Exactly. So they're talking about not bullying someone, but who are they bullying? And again, that starts at schools, that starts at homes. And at the speech that I had, I was talking about how I drive and sometimes how I get upset with people. What? Not able to, exactly. And I had to learn and just change the sentence how I viewed it and don't put any labels on that. And just control myself and control the choices I make. And then realize that everything else I'm not able to control. And I believe you said you're, you know, you believe in God. I believe in God. I believe in this, that we're all one. and one we're all. It's almost like your body. There's so many different smaller things in your body, and you don't realize that, but it creates you, just your body. The energy that is around, like Tesla was talking about, like Einstein was talking, a lot of other people that we're all connected in some way or form by energy.

Well, that's insane because like for me, I feel energy in a room. When I walk in and I know it's not right, I just feel it in my body and I know it's not right. When I go in a room and it's positive and I know I'm surrounded by good people, I'm open. You know what I mean? There's a massive difference and stuff and it's like a lot of people will probably be like, When they see me, they're like, oh, well, you could communicate. You're so good at it. But when I go into a room and I know something's not right, it just won't be me because you could just sense it, that there's bad energy in the room.

And what do you do with a situation like that?

Well, I don't run into that anymore. But when I did before I left.

OK, but even, you know. You're walking now to the room and it doesn't feel right. What do you do?

If we were in a room well, so it depends like if I'm gonna if I go up to a table of like Let's say we get in a room like this and the energy is not right I'm gonna try to probably figure out where the energy is coming out bad what people who's the bad person in the room, okay?

Will he be able to?

Leave the room if you're not gonna feel comfortable and I think it's me. That's gotta leave I

Yeah. So, but would you leave the room if you walk in? I probably would. Yeah. Okay. I would leave the room. A lot of people would not. Yeah. Why do you think it's that? Scared. Scared.

And they want to, Oh, they, they want to, what's all them? Oh, they want to fit in. Exactly.

You know, cause like for me, it's, it's, so it's about the longing.

A lot of people, oh, the black sheep standing out with the group of white sheep. Exactly.

And there's only so few that are willing to do what's right. Even if it might not please the others. But that's people like you. And how can we teach that? How can we educate it? That standing out, it's not bad. Like I told you about orphanages. I don't know if you ever saw the movie X-Men. Like there's those people that have different strengths, not human-like strengths. They can walk through walls or whatever like that. They're right away marginalized, put on the side as bad. So we live in a society that if you're just a little bit different than everybody else, you're already judged and labeled as a bad person, as a black sheep.

What's so wrong about it? Yeah, because I mean, they want to hear the easy stuff, you know, like for, that's a fantastic, Example, because like for my sailors reps, I told them right off the bat. If you screw up, I'm going to call you out on it. They won't be. Oh, no, don't worry about it. It's you're doing well. No, you're not doing well. You need to pick it up. I don't care if you like it or not. I'm going to tell you the truth. A lot of people won't tell you the truth just so they like you or you like them.

Because they again want to please someone else. They want to... Why are we so afraid of saying that something is bad? Why are we afraid of having a healthy argument? Because people labeled the word argument as a bad thing. But the arguments should not be about fighting or killing someone. The argument should be considered as a conversation to fix something or to improve something. If you're not agreeing with me, I like it because then I'm becoming a better person, more educated, and I'm sharing my opinion with you. And we're having, people will say in an argument, why not a healthy conversation that's benefiting both of us and everyone around us? Manipulation. Why people want to have power in the wrong way. Like before we said, success, people will label it differently. Same thing with power, same thing with the conversations that they have. They wanna feel powerful, but why? Let's just work together. I always keep telling my kids, if you act by yourself, you're like this one small stick. Is it easy to break it? Of course it is. But if you have three, five, 10, There's going to be a level, I bet if there's going to be three or five, you're going to have a hell of a harder time to break it than that one. But again, we're taught to separate, to diverse, I mean, not diverse.

Just I get what you're talking about 100% because they teach you separation. Get away from this. Be lonely. Don't be with family. Don't join groups because they say that you're creating a cult. Yeah, you know what I mean? And it's not you need to form a. There's a saying that they say you're born into a family and you pick the chosen family and the chosen family is building a company, grabbing the friends that you want in your circle, grabbing the fiance and your kids. That's your chosen family. That's the shit that you build and you're able to relate to them and show them how stuff runs.

Exactly. And then again, you know, it's going to show if you did the best and your kids will want to stick with you or not. Exactly. But you did your best and who, how are you going to be able to know who they're going to be around with? You can't. Exactly. You can only go ahead and seed or share as much as you can with them. And will they lessen? Who knows? Same thing goes with the mentorship. And then just hoping and doing your best. Again, making the choices and it's never going to be easy. People think that I had this belief that on the other side, it's gonna be easier. Or the saying that I grew up around is that if you're under the card or like under the hood or whatever, I'm not sure how to translate it in English. But if you're gonna be under, there's no way for you to be above. And that's why I was so shy to approach people who are way more successful than I am. And successful in different meanings. How do you say it in Polish? If you're... That's for the Polish-speaking people. But again... Why it came or where it came from, I have no idea.

I mean, somebody thought about it.

For sure. And then, you know, it's spread out. Why the bad stuff? Like when you watch, I don't know if you've even watched the news. When people watch the news, all they hear about is the bad stuff.

Well, if you watch the news every single day, you'll go crazy. I mean, it is insane. That's why I don't watch it. Yeah. And like the stuff on social media and stuff, if you focus a hundred percent on that, you're going to go lunatic. I mean, the thing is social media, it's your choice. It's a hundred percent your choice. It could make your life or break your life.

Yeah. But again, people don't believe in that. And I know I said I don't talk about politics, but it goes again to this 1%. People keep saying, oh, I'm not going to be able to do anything because I'm just one person. But everybody thinks that. So that's why one person doesn't go and try to change something for better. But if you don't want to change it for yourself, think about your kids. Think about your grandkids and then you'll see that that one crazy mosquito can make your life really, really miserable because it's just going to try to, you know, bite you. Exactly. And if every human being will do what they think they should do and don't say, Oh, I'm just one person. I'm not going to be able to do any change. you're wrong, because everything has some kind of effect. It's like just throw the rock in the water, you'll see the ripple effect. One change, that's all it starts with.

And how big the flow gets. Exactly. I mean, that's huge. Well, that was really good. I mean, I bet we could keep on going for another two hours and stuff. We'll get another episode in. Thank you for everything. I really appreciate you, Ernest, for being a part of my life. How can people find you for mentorship or how do they get a hold of you? Through social media texts?

I mean, you can probably have my name, first name and last name on your podcast. Correct, yes. Just have them look it up and there's plenty of ways. If someone wants to get something, they'll find a way to get it.

And Ernest is a person that's going to give it to you. A hundred percent. I believe it. I trust it. He never expects anything from anybody, but he is always willing to give you the most.

I expect something. Commitment and really doing something about it. Don't expect any... I shouldn't have anyone expect that I'll do it for them. A hundred percent. Yarek, thank you very much for having me over here. It's been my honor. I'm proud of you.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you guys for listening to True Mentors. Like, share, comment, bring your friends, invite everybody. Thank you for everything.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of True Mentors. We sure do appreciate it. If you haven't done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcasts. This way you'll get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review. It is how the show grows and how new people find the show. Until next time, friends.