Unfiltered Founders
Unfiltered Founders is a raw, real, and refreshing podcast for anyone ready to break free from the corporate grind and embrace the unpredictable world of entrepreneurship. Hosted by Darren Penquite and Andy Baker—two former corporate professionals turned business owners—this show dives deep into the highs, lows, and everything in between of starting and scaling a business.
Each episode features candid conversations about the unfiltered realities of entrepreneurship: the wins, the losses, the sleepless nights, and the lessons learned along the way. Whether you're just considering taking the leap or you're a seasoned business owner looking for perspective, encouragement, or the next big idea, Unfiltered Founders delivers honest insights and practical advice—with a dash of humor and a whole lot of heart.
Tune in for stories that inspire, advice you can actually use, and the kind of support every founder needs but rarely finds.
Unfiltered Founders
When You Know Your Worth, You Change Your Future
What does it take to walk away from a steady paycheck and bet everything on yourself? Ruben Perez, founder of RP Flooring, shares his extraordinary journey from frustrated corporate employee to thriving business owner in just eight months.
After years of building customer relationships and exceeding sales targets for someone else's company, Ruben faced the moment many dream of but few pursue—breaking free from corporate America's constraints to launch his own venture. The catalyst? A company that repeatedly failed to honor commitments and treated him as replaceable despite his outstanding performance. When his employer told him "if I knew you'd leave after five years, I never would have hired you," Ruben knew it was time to bet on himself.
The transition wasn't without challenges. Ruben candidly shares his early struggles with delegation, admitting he initially tried to handle everything from sales and installation to bookkeeping and inventory management. The breakthrough came when he realized his time was better spent leveraging his true strengths—building relationships and providing flooring expertise his customers couldn't get at big box retailers. "I could spend three hours balancing my checkbook, or I could land four or five jobs in that time," he explains.
What sets this conversation apart is Ruben's insight into the entrepreneurial mindset. He emphasizes how surrounding yourself with other business owners creates not just networking opportunities but neurological changes that enhance leadership capabilities. His customer-centric approach—sometimes turning down jobs when materials don't meet his standards—demonstrates how small businesses can outcompete corporate giants through personalization and genuine care.
Whether you're contemplating your own entrepreneurial leap or simply need inspiration to pursue what you're truly worth, this episode delivers powerful lessons about trusting yourself, delegating effectively, and building a business with reputation and relationships at its core.
Welcome to another episode of the Unfiltered Founders. I'm Darren, I'm Andy Raw business talk. How's your week been, man?
Speaker 2:you know it has been pretty good. The uh, the labor day weekend threw me off a little bit. Um, you know no doubt about it.
Speaker 1:It's tuesday, right? Yeah, yeah I.
Speaker 2:I didn't even know what day it was. I get a text from somebody today. Hey, are we still on for lunch?
Speaker 2:I'm like shoot sorry, wrong day, yep and so, uh, but no, I mean good stuff planning up for this. Uh, this event we've got in nashville so it's big, it's our biggest one, yet we've broken records. I'm happy about it, I'm excited and uh, and it's nice, it's all planned, all buttoned up and just doing some final touches. But it's kind of that, the eye of the storm right now. So I'm gonna enjoy the moment.
Speaker 1:Did you work, or did you unwind over the holiday weekend?
Speaker 2:I actually, I actually unwound a little bit, I did a little work. You know I always pull up the laptop. You know a little bit here and there, probably a couple hours throughout the weekend at the very least. But you know, my son made me play hooky one afternoon. Go fishing what?
Speaker 1:did you catch Nothing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:No, fishing is over, I'm pretty sure. And then and then, uh, and then, yeah, we just, it was just he and I for the weekend. The girls were up, uh, at a wedding. So um had a great time they were up in Montana, but yeah, so how about you? How's your week?
Speaker 1:Good, uh, we took off to the Oregon coast for Friday through Monday Nice.
Speaker 2:Nice, when Uh?
Speaker 1:Brookings Okay Okay. Brookings Enjoyed the 65 degree and sunny weather when it was 102 here in the Rogue Valley.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Southern Oregon. People don't know that they can get that hot. I still answered my phone, returned texts. Oh yeah, I did one job while I was over there so I could you know, write the trip.
Speaker 3:Make it a business trip Perfect.
Speaker 1:Can.
Speaker 3:I get another old passion please.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 1:It was my wife's birthday. I took her out to dinner at the Fat Irish Kitchen.
Speaker 2:When was her?
Speaker 1:birthday, august 31st.
Speaker 2:Mine was the day before, okay, august 30th.
Speaker 1:And then mine was August 23rd Happy birthday.
Speaker 2:August 3rd. You too, and one of my daughters is 37 too. That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Wow, no wonder why I'm so hungover this month. Anyways, welcome to the show, ruben Perez.
Speaker 3:Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1:First of all, before we get started in your backstory, tell us the name of your business and what you do Company is RP Flooring.
Speaker 3:Rp as in Ruben Perez, so personal company Flooring company. That covers all means. Property management and multifamily mainly Do a lot of retail. I got connected with a lot of real estate agents so it's kind of their easy pick. When they're selling a house, sprucing it up, adding some equity to it, they call me and I kind of handle it all. I'm trying to get into the more commercial side but a bit in business. Just last time we talked I thought it was a couple months and we're creeping up on eight months and yeah, we're slammed. So, which is great. It's good to stay busy. It means you got a good connection in the valley, but just trying to be safe, not to bite off more than I can chew, but I've always had that saying right, when it's raining, put out the pot.
Speaker 1:so trying to make sure we can keep the hustle going. Yeah, yeah, I've known you for a few years. I knew you back when you worked, uh, for another previous previous company and you know you hustled. Then, man, you, you took ownership of your job, you took ownership of business, you ran it like you owned it and I always had a lot of respect for that. And then when you said you were going to go out on your own and do your own thing, I'm like dude, that's ballsy.
Speaker 1:But I had a lot of admiration for that, and just seeing what you have done, from taking that leap of faith until now, is mind blowing. I mean, we we talked to a lot of entrepreneurs that are you know they're, they're aggressive, they got the desire, they got that burn inside to get out there and do it. I've never seen anybody hustle as hard as this guy right here. I appreciate it, man. Yeah. So what made you realize working for somebody else Isn't, isn't my, isn't my thing't my thing jeez.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean to that point of working and hustling. I always kind of took the last company, which which I appreciate, the stepping stones like.
Speaker 1:I'll never, uh, throw shade or any disrespect because anywhere you get in life whether it's from hardships or, you know, scars that you got, they make you who you are so, coming from you, want to do how to do it better, and they can also teach you what not to do.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and to be fair, they allowed some handshakes. But here's the thing is if you got a good friend that's like, yeah, I know a guy, so he does the introduction, but what do you have to do? You have to follow through on what you're saying. Your word has to carry weight. So when they gave me that opportunity it felt great.
Speaker 3:But I looked at it if it was my own company. Sure, there's a different name on the wall at the time, but I made sure my people knew they got me. So if it was work, if it was install material, whatever it may be, they got my personal number, my email, my text, whatever it may be. So I made sure that I don't want to say sold myself, but I promoted that you get me when you get this work. What was your job title? It was. It started out as territory manager, then it was like assistant manager, but territory manager is mainly what it was, because I covered all of Southern Oregon with the flooring needs. They had different branches up north, but anything from like Salem area down was me.
Speaker 3:So it was primarily sales, not operations, a little bit of both mainly sales, but operations was kind of handling, you know new construction accounts. I was you know, going on side and talking to the foremans and so forth. So I did, I did a lot I wore a lot of hats nice yeah, it was it was time.
Speaker 3:That's a lot of territory to cover yeah, yeah, I mean it was whether I'm driving to klamath, I, I'm driving to Brookings, I'm driving up north, like in. The perspective for them was like you get in which or you get out what you put in. So being on commission went from salary to commission. It's like I got to get this grind. But it felt good too, because if you put in the time it'll pay back dividend. So I was like I'm all in. But what was sad about it is with a corporate company and I'm sure you guys know this too it's like anytime somebody is a little bit above you, they're like oh man, we're going to make you rich, cause, guess what? They're going to be richer.
Speaker 1:I want to put a work that you did for them yeah.
Speaker 2:Let's make them look good. The ultimate pyramid scheme, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, good, the ultimate pyramid scheme, right. Yeah, I mean they'll, they did great things. But it's like, yeah, we're gonna send you here, we're gonna send you here, we're gonna take care of this, take care of that. It's like all. Because you know, the more I work, the more they.
Speaker 3:They get those brand new cars, those new shops and so forth and it wasn't even about the dollar, but when 2025 was coming up, once they started putting little stigmas on it of like, hey, we need to make this next year and I need you to do this on top of me, and we got to up the charge, blame it on tariff, blame it off whatever. I'm like. Wait a second.
Speaker 1:These are my people.
Speaker 3:How do I explain that? Sorry, 2025 is going to get more expensive? Because now I look like the bad guy and I'm kind of sticking it to them because they're already locked in.
Speaker 1:They saw the potential and they wanted to push the limits of it. You know my my dad told me when I was a teenager, about to go get my first job. He said you will be successful if you, if your number one job is making your boss look good.
Speaker 2:Yeah Right, and you lose your job if you don't make them look good you guys were saying that briefly earlier how it's like you, somebody made an offer.
Speaker 3:It was like so-and-so wants to hire me. You know what can we do to kind of meet that? Well, I presented it to him Like, look, you know, I might have on the side pocket. I become a real estate agent, I might get in a different field because I want to make something of myself a little more, a little bigger career. And they're like you're there all in or you're you got to find something else. And they kind of stuck it to me.
Speaker 2:I'm like, after this much time and all, all the you'll drop me like that how, how companies can get so non-entrepreneurial and so anti-entrepreneurial.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Because if the person whoever started that company started somewhere and started with the exact same thought of I can do something on my own for myself, to better myself and make some opportunities for other people. But then all of a sudden so you get in a company, people get comfortable it's like no, you can't do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I own you now. Yeah, that's complete hypocrisy. And then they get a little bit. They get a little bit greedy and looking at you as an employee and not as a person. Although it's you as a person who has helped make this company so successful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had. I worked for a company and it was small business, and the one of the owners told me what their sales goal was. Well, I beat it and it found a way to get rid of me. And then there was a time where I worked for another organization and the CEO calls me up hey, you need to turn in your information for us to send your bonus out. And I laughed at him. I said you realize, with all the disclaimers you put on there, the way that that commission reads that bonus structure reads you don't owe me a dime. And so that was when I started to plan my exit from that company too.
Speaker 1:You know what's crazy? You were shying away from an extra, from a bonus.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, they. They ended up making it right and they ended up giving me one. Okay, but when, when you know, he and the chief sales officer got on the phone with me and you know super proud of themselves to give me this bonus, they heard crickets on the other end because I thought to myself no, that's, that's, that's horse. Yeah, that's, that's ridiculous, because of what I generated versus what I got, it's like, yeah, no, guys.
Speaker 1:I mean I you guys probably paid yourself four to five times that in a bonus. Yeah, let's kick him a nickel. Yeah, I've worked for companies where I've hit every metric, every you know benchmark for bonus and then they pull this oh well, company-wide we're cutting bonuses this year because the rest of the company is hurting and yeah it's just it's unethical, it's not entrepreneurial minded, like you said. Well, what's crazy about?
Speaker 3:it is, unless that light turns on or that clock turns for you to figure that out. The sad part is when they're here and the majority is like the majority of the person just wants to clock in, clock out. I had two assistants. I had a warehouse manager, I had people working under me and they would sit at their computer and they'd be on their youtube or their instagram, whatever, because they got paid hourly, yeah, and come 12 o'clock I'm like hey, oh, I'm going for lunch I'll see you at one.
Speaker 3:I'm like everything was just because all they were there was for a paycheck. So then if things get kind of shake over, your bonus is less than what's expected. That's, they're content, they're just right here. But that person that's cut from a different cloth is like wait a second. That I mean my first year. I got a $100 bonus by the end of the year $100 $100, no way.
Speaker 1:That's almost like a smack in the face.
Speaker 3:You know what I did? I gave it away $30.
Speaker 1:I was like yeah, right.
Speaker 3:I, I'm not kidding, I was like what, and I'll give you one more example. I guess where I'm getting to is the average person is like I'm not going to fuss, I don't care, just how much am I getting paid. Is that going to pay for my, my, my new car? Is that going to pay for my rent? Okay, whatever.
Speaker 3:You know they deal with the punches and that's when you get that position. That's what they want is like they. They kind of put you in this circle and it's like be quiet or else you might lose a steady income of 1500 bucks every two weeks or 2000 bucks. It's like that is the work they put in the discipline their kids, whatever. Give an opportunity, right. That's why I didn't mind the commission, cause I'm like, all right, bet, let me go get it myself, yeah, so what was the?
Speaker 1:what was the piece of straw that broke the camel's back? Were're like done.
Speaker 3:It was that it was. We had our, our meeting for the following year and expectations and what was required of me based off what I did the previous year and I've seen things throughout the year. I'll give you one more example. Friends and I this is what really helped me was going to a 10x conference with um grant cardone. I went with a bunch of good friends and you know I was like, wow, man, this is what helped my business blow up. Now I just started it, but the year before that we went to Vegas a bunch of business friends and did a couple conferences and what they had told me I'm like I want to make this a business expense. And they told me look, if you hit this number this next month, it will pay for everything.
Speaker 3:Right, okay so I was like all right, great. So I hustled, I put in the time and it was hundreds of thousands of dollars that I made them. I came up short less than 1500 bucks when we came to closing the invoices and they wouldn't pay for the trip. So it was an all or nothing type deal. Yeah, and I told my friends I'm like wait, we already booked flights, we got hotels. Like I can't back out. Now they're like well, the deal's a deal. I'm like what the hell?
Speaker 3:like after all that, but it's more like sticking it to me or just kind of holding me here and that was.
Speaker 3:That was one thing. Another thing was just there's a lot of other things that goes on behind closed doors. That seems kind of funky, that I didn't like the way they were handling our customers and being in the rogue valley I said this it's small enough that everybody knows everybody, but it's big enough. There's a lot of opportunity. And it was just getting funny and their reputation was getting kind of dirty and I'm like no, no, no, I can't be involved with that. Ruben Perez is something not tied into that.
Speaker 1:You've made your role personal yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, when people called that company they got me and they knew who I was. And if that gets tied into, I'm like.
Speaker 1:wait a second, that has nothing to do with me, we've all experienced that we have our favorite rapper, our favorite salesperson with a vendor we use, and when that person's no longer there, you feel lost.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you just leave the company. You don't want to work with them anymore.
Speaker 1:Your connection with that company is over.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny, I've heard I don't hear it as much anymore but people you say, don't take business personal.
Speaker 1:it's like no, when you're an entrepreneur, it's all personal, because it's all you and regardless of what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah sometimes, when you've got to terminate a contract or something, it's like, yeah, sorry. I've got to put that relationship aside, but I've got to do the best thing for my company. It's, it's, it's personal.
Speaker 1:You take it personal when you're, when it's your livelihood and this is what you're supporting. Putting food on the table for your family with and paying your mortgage with, you're damn right, it's personal.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Nope, nope, absolutely yeah. So that that switch um that mindset, and it was a little nerve wracking at first, but I've always had an estate. My dad taught me decide. You never know for me today, kind of. Thing and I didn't honestly didn't think about starting a flooring company. With all the experience I had, I was getting into real estate. I have good friends in real estate and they kind of like wet my palate. I'm like man, no matter what I do, I'll be fine.
Speaker 1:I know I can kill it the real estate was going to kind of be your backup plan yeah, that's initially what my transition was like.
Speaker 3:you know what, with flooring, I know agents and I know how to make a house of pretty in the market and so forth and connections. That's where I started and one of my first jobs was a pretty large house in Ashton. Good friend of mine and I was proposing, you know, getting this house sold for him and he goes, you know what, maybe we'll just like make it look pretty, let's redo the floor. He's like, can you do that? I'm like's like what's gonna take? I'm like, wait a second, I'm just gonna get my ccb, let me get my license. I got some money.
Speaker 1:you know what, yeah, I got you.
Speaker 3:So we did that first job, big job. Word got out. Somebody else asked about it. I did not promote myself like going like what they said in that letter. Um, I didn't go to any customers. I was like I'm just gonna do my own thing. I know enough people, I'll be fine. But once work got on the street, I had messages through Instagram, messages through Facebook.
Speaker 1:They're like we thought, like you left town, we called there.
Speaker 3:They said you, you're out of here and like we're not going to hear from you again, and it literally just snowballed. I was like I can do something that's great that's great. When that switch, I'm like I'm all in so how long?
Speaker 1:from the meeting where you decided I'm out to you, actually to your last day.
Speaker 3:Three months, roughly three months, yeah, it was like. So October was when I talked to the wife about it and I told the company.
Speaker 1:Step one smart man Always talk to the wife. I got some big ideas.
Speaker 3:Are you cool with this?
Speaker 3:yeah, let's have another drink I talked to her about it, we'd shoot on it. I even talked to them and I was like I'll give you guys three months, I'll give you guys plenty of time, I'll train the next person, I'll do whatever you got because just out of respect and name reputation. And then month goes by, two months go by and they're pretty much like you know what, if you're going to do it, you do it, if not, not. And that's when they kind of gave me that push of you can't be flirting with it, because I told them I was like I got to go to school to get my license for real estate and I'm like I'm redoing on the back end, and they're like, if you're doing anything of that, we'd rather you just stop now because they want me fully invested. But it was more like a threat, like any extra time. It had to be with them.
Speaker 2:Isn't that about the most? And this is one of the one of the many things that kills me about corporate America. It's so myopic and just so ridiculous. It's like that doesn't even make any sense. You have somebody bettering themselves. You read case studies in business school about hey, I mean for crying out loud just up the road in Glendale. I read case studies when I was in college about the mill there. The guy was putting people through college if they wanted to go and they didn't have to stay and work there. He was just putting them through school. But then we have people. It's like whoa whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2:Wait, you're going to do something on the side? Yeah, and when we're going to short you on money, when you know?
Speaker 1:you're 1500 bucks short of a goal.
Speaker 3:Wait a second. This doesn't feel like a healthy relationship to us. It's like huh, well, that's what made me nervous. I'm like I'm going to bat for you guys like I rep your business, I'm making you guys look like, yeah, in a sense like I'm making you guys look great. And then I asked a little something and you could drop me like a dime, like I can, I'm replaceable that way. Well, guess what? So are you?
Speaker 1:yeah, you know. So when those months came by the owner.
Speaker 3:Owner, I mean he's, we've gone on trips. He's a good guy, he really is. But he's like what happened? Where did this come from? You caught me on the left field.
Speaker 3:I was like I talked to the branch manager here over and over again, whether he told you or not, I respectfully I was trying not to get you involved because it's our issue. I was like but you're the one that says the final word, so if you're not going to back me. And then he told me he's like well, if I would have known, you know, five years ago that you would have done all this and then left me at the end. He's like I never would have hired you. I was like well, guess what? If, saying I'm not scared, I'm not, I bet on myself, you got to trust in yourself and if you put your hard work out there, no matter what it is, I hustle shoes for a little bit, I mean as a side gig. Yeah, yeah, I got a whole closet, spare bedroom full of shoes now. But point being is like, if you know what you're good at and you put your heart into it, man, you can be successful in anything that you want to do. This just was like second nature.
Speaker 1:What was it like, and and what surprises and difficulties did you come across when it came? You know time to start a business, get a license file for an LLC, get liability insurance. You know learn all the ropes of hiring and firing and payroll and HR and all that stuff that you had never been exposed to before. There's so much in business operations that you just weren't privy to and you, you know, learn a lot of things the hard way. Tell me about that process.
Speaker 3:Well, going back to like the average person that may just want a paycheck every two weeks, that's easy, right. You don't think about payroll, you don't think about taxes, you don't think about the insurance, that you need the licenses, that you need the legalities, you just show up to work and you get your check. So if it gets scary a little bit, it's like, okay, I'm just going to, I'm going to stay in my lane because boss says this is what I'm supposed to do, so it's easier this way, right? Well, nothing good comes easy. So, yeah, those first thing, I'm like I gotta do my research and, thankfully, the relationships I built, the pool I have is I just start making phone calls to good friends, right, friends who were entrepreneurs. Hey, man, so how'd you get your license here? Okay, so how easy is ccb? How? I'm like all right, step one, two and three, I just check them off. But also, what I learned quickly was some things you can do yourself and some things it's worth delegating and paying somebody.
Speaker 1:Let's hire a cpa right, yeah, hire somebody into your payroll um absolutely get the license right off the bat, so you're legit.
Speaker 3:Get your insurance right off the bat, so you're legit, so nobody can say anything about what you're doing. You cross your t's, dot, your i's, those other nuances. I try doing it myself. Right, I'm trying to balance my checkbook and I'm doing payroll and I'm submitting it. I'm like you know two, three, four hours. I'm like shoot, I could have landed like four or five jobs that's right.
Speaker 1:I just got to be on the streets. You know, I gotta pay a bookkeeping firm who can do payroll.
Speaker 3:A couple hundred bucks a month and it's done yeah, but that's the nerve nervous part is that you're trying to watch all your dollars and like I don't have that much, but it it's again that confidence. What I told myself was, if I are a CPA and I started delegating and I hired a Felicia more recently this is like four or five months ago I'm like I hire an assistant who becomes a partner. You know, now she's like right here with me, but it's like you have to push yourself to do that and that's what I learned from that conference is by doing so, it lights that fire. So what it told me to do, I got to land another contract. I got to land another customer, another property management company. By doing that whether it's two jobs, that pays for my bookkeeper and my partner now, well, great, now those two jobs took care of them and I can just go get five or 10 more because I have the time.
Speaker 1:And that's profit for you.
Speaker 3:Oh, a thousand percent. Do what you're good at, and the rest just delegate it.
Speaker 1:You know that's right. True words, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I've been telling my kid that for years. It's like I, I there's certain things I just don't number one don't want to do, and I know if I spend my time elsewhere it'll be budgets and financials and accounting and HR, and you know you were one of the bad guys.
Speaker 1:I was I was, I was privy to a lot of that information.
Speaker 3:So I feel like I had a good.
Speaker 1:I feel like I had a good platform to where I'm like I can do. I can work for myself better. I know I know how to run a business. I know how to read financials. I know. You know, I know through trial and error, you know what you should spend money on, what you shouldn't spend money on and and I had seen over and over again that delegation saves you money, hands down, you get back to doing what you're good at doing. Yeah, you know. Stop stop the multitasking. Stop wearing. Stop the multitasking. Stop trying to wear six different hats when you're only good at one.
Speaker 2:But what I would say is you've got to delegate what you know, not what you don't know. There's a lot of people out there, at least in my line of work that will reach out to you and say, hey, marketing-wise I can blow up your business. It's like don't you think it would be blowing up right now if it was that easy?
Speaker 2:But that's where I've't you think it would be blowing up right now if, if it was that easy, yeah, Um, but that's where I've seen you know, delegate what you know and then the things if you don't know it, learn it, and then delegate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so that that's a smart to me as a big part of it. I had a buddy call me up one time. He's like, hey, I just got off the phone. He's in the service business similar to me. And he's like, hey, I just got off the phone with somebody that said they can just blow up my LinkedIn followers and get me crazy on social media, which is what I was kind of looking at as part of my strategic initiatives for this year and and I said okay, but what does he know about your business?
Speaker 2:I think it's his business to sell you that he can do his and so now what I've learned from that is everybody that comes to me for marketing or, hey, I can do this or that, my answer is happy to work with you. The way I do that is you prove what you can do and then I put the money behind it, so we work together. It's a contingency based. There we go, yeah, and most people don't want that. They don't.
Speaker 1:Well, it's easier the other way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, way, yeah, nobody will do it. And that just tells me, oh, you can't do this. Yeah, so I've I've wasted a lot of money to learn that lesson too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, and I like that too, because if it's something you know and and that's kind of like how I felt with my new assistant, it was like I know this industry, I know material and I just got to show you, so that I almost kind of give you the tools and then go get to work. There's been a couple times of times that she's like, yeah, what if we do it? I'm like, hey, if it works, it works Like perfect it. I want you to be a better version of me at the end of the day.
Speaker 3:I'm glad I'm good at what I do, but if you can be a one up, beautiful, let's run it. We all win. Yeah, exactly, but then it's like the delicacy. I'd rather have them go to bat to the IRS with my balancing of my checkbooks than me saying, oh yeah, I did it myself on QuickBooks.
Speaker 2:You also want to know because you want to be able to have an intelligent conversation with your CPA and say well, what if we did it this way? Because we can do it that way and this and that and the other thing. They're like okay, well, let me think about that. You know, those are the conversations you want to have with the people that you. They want to be advisors, not vendors.
Speaker 3:Yeah, right, you know, and that's.
Speaker 2:I think that's a big difference, especially with those folks like your attorney, your lawyer and folks like that. So you want to know enough to be dangerous, yeah, and I think that's a big part of being an entrepreneur and running a business.
Speaker 3:Well, I think that was part of it too. Is doing what you're good at is. Could I do it For sure? I mean, I didn't do anything I put my mind to, but is three or two hours of my time important there or important there, Right? I mean, we talked about golf last time, but this morning I golfed with a bunch of real estate agents and my assistant was doing some paperwork and I have to submit my credit card statements to my CPA. But that's all done within five, 10 minutes, and then I'm golfing.
Speaker 3:It's great and I mean I was laughing, I was like man, I had a lady pull up to the golf course to hand me a check for a job that I did for her and I'm talking with customers. I got another job. I'm like this is what I'm good at. I know, stuff. I know how to help and, to be fair, everybody has that need kind of like healthcare. That's why I joke about it in my head that I'm like real estate agents you buy a house, you got a rental you need floors, and a lot of times people don't know what that means Like, oh, do I get a VP?
Speaker 3:Do I get laminate? Should I do carpet? I'm like, well, what's your budget, what's your ROI that you're trying to get out of this rental property you have, and then let me go to work and tell you what's going to be best. Here's the game plan. Does that fit your budget? Beautiful, okay, let's rock and roll. So kind of like the CPA. I'm sure they could go to Costco and buy it off the shelf and do it themselves. It's going to take you a week to get it done, or you pay a couple bucks and have a professional with a warranty say it's going to be done in two days.
Speaker 1:I learned my lesson a long time ago when it comes to fixing my car, when it comes to doing stuff around the house that I'm like, oh, I want to say 300 bucks, and so I go down to the store, I research the part I buy the part that I need to get home to realize it's not the right part.
Speaker 2:I was going to say how many trips does it take to Home Depot.
Speaker 1:It takes me about three return policy, and then it takes me like eight, nine hours of labor to get the job done. I'm going that would have been the stupidest, easiest 300 bucks I've ever spent in my life to have to avoid having put eight, nine hours and getting pictures done and set up appointments right, that absolutely you just triple your money or you try to figure it out at Home. Depot, yeah, right Right, monday through Friday, but on Wednesdays they would have you go intern at companies that you might want to work at.
Speaker 3:So every week you would go out to the job and intern and it was your school, it was your eight hours, but it applied to the work. So I did Dutch Bros come like oh, that's fun, a bunch of hot chicks, like whatever.
Speaker 1:When you're a young kid. You know, One high school kid doesn't know that.
Speaker 3:I did Foot Locker because I was a shoe fanatic. And then I did construction when my buddy's dad ran a construction company and out of the three one was more fun. The kick scene was cool, but construction I mean. I saw what these guys were making. I saw the trucks.
Speaker 3:They drove the houses they had. I'm like these guys are more successful than you know the other ones. But that's kind of how it started right off the bat with my pallet construction. I jumped into it after I graduated, did it for a couple of years I mean as a young kid I was making good money, but I was still kind of young and playing and then come to find out that later it just it was just exhausting, it was tiring and I'm like you know, I need to switch gears. So I went into management and started thinking more.
Speaker 3:With my degree I went to an associate's just in business. But I'm like how can I work smarter, not harder? So then I started trying to think an entrepreneur right, don't just be the labor. And that's how I feel sometimes, like not the uh, the ethnic card. But sometimes it's looked at like that, like you know, hey, you just just work. That's my dad would tell me work hard, save your money. Put in the mattress, like he came up from Mexico at age 15 and to him he's just like make a bunch of money and save it. But my mindset was like how do I make money?
Speaker 3:and make my money, make money you. So long story short was a little bit of construction, got into business management and then, to be fair, a buddy offered me the job because he saw both sides of what I was good at and I'm like flooring I've installed it myself, I know how easy it is, I know what product's good and what's not. And then it got into the sales part. It's like okay, now take all that knowledge, show somebody who doesn't know and how you can help them. And once I saw that I'm like wait a second, this is my cup of tea.
Speaker 1:And with the amount of new construction, the amount of apartment buildings that are being built, commercial buildings that are going up, rentals that are being flipped, homes, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a great market.
Speaker 1:It's definitely something that's in demand in every market. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I think a lot of it is knowing the product and knowing how to help the customer. Because I mean, even if you're not feeling well, you all have your primary doctors. Why do you keep going back to that doctor? It's because they know you well enough. They've seen what you've gone through. So I almost kind of think the same thing you build a rapport with people that they can trust you.
Speaker 1:I wish we had that relationship.
Speaker 2:Every time we switch doctors two months later oh yeah, this doctor's leaving this practice, yeah, or no longer takes that insurance, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yes, but yeah, you know, trust. Trust the people you work with, and especially I mean, like Dan and I, like the friendships we've built, the people we know it's if you need something done and vice versa, if they ask you for real estate agent or someone who takes pictures or whatever, maybe it's like I got a guy.
Speaker 1:it's not something I do, but so I refer what's it like you know being this little fish in a big, big pond so to speak jumping out into an entrepreneurship venture doing flooring, competing, competing with Home Depot and Lowe's and Lippert's and you know all these major national companies that have this system and this business dialed in. How do you do that?
Speaker 3:I think the biggest thing is give them something that those businesses don't offer, which is what the personableness of having me and being right in front of them. I guess, going to the corporate my last company when I went over to RP I didn't want to skip a beat. What I mean by that is I wanted to make sure that they got their material, they got the install. They had even seen me out there with all my promotional items, that they got what they had before. It took money, it took a lot of work, even seeing me out there with all my promotional items, that they got what they had before. It took money, it took a lot of work, but I went out there full force. I mean, all of our cups have my logo on it and I wear it on my hat.
Speaker 3:I handed out a golf tournaments, but I wanted them to know that if they went to another Lippert's or Home Depot or so forth, I'm still a better bet because you go to Home Depot and I mean it's like going to Walmart sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Like what do you?
Speaker 3:think Well, let me, let me look it up real quick, and you know so I could have done that myself. Right, and a lot of times too they go in with the budget. I had a lady the day. She's like oh, I'm going to buy this material from, you know, lowe's, at 99 cents a square foot. You know, I just bought a house and I want can you install it? I'm sure I got it. You know a one-year warranty on it, but I can't back up the product itself.
Speaker 3:But I'm like I won't install it unless I know what we're working with. Once you show me the product, it's seven mil. You know, super thin, lvp, the cheap of the cheap. I'm like ma'am, no disrespect. But if you want that done, you know I could recommend somebody for you. But I'm only going to install something that's going to last and hold up over time and that you can attach your name to exactly. That was it. Because, yeah, sure, you could take a job and just make a couple bucks, but that's not what I want. It's my reputation and my name. So I coached her a little bit. She bought a thicker product, nicer product, spent 50 cents more a square foot, um, and we're installing her house. This week it's 1700 square,700 square feet of LVP throughout her whole place.
Speaker 1:How was it and how intimidating was it to be your own business now that nobody's ever heard of, and calling the manufacturers and the vendors for the flooring and negotiating wholesale prices on that?
Speaker 3:You know what the cool part about that and I'll say thank you to the stepping stones is when I made those calls, a lot of these companies wouldn't do it with an up and coming, but because and that's one of the reasons I went with that name RP is people know who I am and once they heard it was me and who I worked with. Because when, when I worked with Mohawk and Shaw before it was Ruben Perez calling from so-and-so making these orders. So then Ruben Perez calls that same person and it's like, hey, guess what I have. And what they're thinking is Ruben kills it. So they actually one of my guys talked to his boss.
Speaker 3:They were like what can we do to get you? And even to this day they're like man, you're one of our biggest up-and-coming customers and our biggest client in the Valley.
Speaker 1:So for most people that door would be slammed in their face.
Speaker 3:It would be super hard because they're taking you at point blank like face value and you could sell yourself to the moon. But your resume is what speaks.
Speaker 2:You know, sometimes you gotta use the fudge factor a little bit. And it reminds me of a story. When I heard Bobby Knight you guys remember the Bobby Knight, the basketball coach. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He shared a story about when he coached at West Point. You know, there were quite a few different colonels or you know high-ranking military officers at West Point. He wasn't one, he was just a basketball coach.
Speaker 2:But there was another knight there who was an actual colonel or whatever. For the sake of the story I'll say colonel. And so he would actually call to get, because people wouldn't return his phone call because it was just Coach Knight. So he started using a colonel or whatever, major whatever it was. People started calling him back and he started to get some traction started working, and so sometimes you got to fake it till you make it because I mean it is true.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you got to fake it till you make it because I mean it is true. Sometimes you got to say I can do that. And then you hang up the phone and you're like I got to figure out how to do that and and I think some people will say, well, that's just dishonest, but it's not, I mean, that's just, you have the work ethic.
Speaker 1:You have the ability to break down.
Speaker 2:Mark Zuckerberg himself admits to having no idea what he was doing at first, but it worked.
Speaker 3:But it, put that fire under him to be like you know what? That's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, and so the people that criticize that, don't understand that and they haven't been in that position. But I think that's absolutely right. Is you just got to go for it and you got to figure out how?
Speaker 3:to make it work Well and that, and to that point too, that's what weighed on me, because when I'm ordering pallets of material or rolls, I mean you're talking thousands of dollars in inventory in order to get the price break. That's what they would sell to corporate company. I'm like, I'm not a bank, right, right. So what happens is I buy this that could sit on the shelf for six to eight months for them.
Speaker 3:I'm like I got to move this stuff because I got to make sure I get my money back to pay for the next material. So that kind of put the fire into me. It's like, look, you know what. We negotiate a price on how many units, how many rows of carpet. I'm like, all right, let's go. So they did their part by saying, yes, give me a chance. Right, kind of a little fluff being like I can do it, and they're trusting that my name from the last company can. So after that we end that phone call. I'm like, all right, rube, get to work.
Speaker 3:Yeah hustle yeah, let these, let these customers know you can provide the same and out, because I'm knowledgeable of what I used before. It was kind of easy to transition to it because I know the product I'm moving. If it's a rental, if it's a roi investment, yeah, 25 ounce carpet all day long, a couple bucks. They're going to trash it anyways. You know, depending on the units and locations, other ones it's like no, you need a 45 ounce car.
Speaker 3:You're going to flip it when they move out in a year anyway, yeah, yeah or and I know owners and they just see numbers, they just want rent coming in, so, like, keep it cheap, like bet, this is what you need, right? I know another customer who's like no, I want my money to last, okay, so we're going to go lbp throughout carpet in the bedrooms. So I have to coach you. But by me making these commitments to these vendors, I got to get to work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want this stuff bulletproof so their kids and pets don't damage it, so I don't have to replace it when they move out and get in my new tent. That's right, yeah, I was.
Speaker 3:It was laughing cause our good friend Adam. He posted something on Facebook and was like dogs are never potty trained.
Speaker 1:They will piss on the carpet. You know what I mean and I'm like I preach it to the choir. I saw that post. That was funny.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's just, you know, being able to know the product and offer the right thing to the right person, but it's having that confidence in yourself and yeah, it's nerve wracking and it takes money, but I mean that's why I think we're all where we're at Like we were talking about this last time when you can sit at the same table with entrepreneurs and have that confidence, it's because you've had those hard nights, long days, those exhausting hours. But it pays back, you know.
Speaker 2:Well, and and you know we talk about and I think it's a it's talked about a lot about entrepreneurs doing it ourselves. But I think you've hinted to this a couple times, let's talk about it directly is you've got a community around you of people, of entrepreneurs. You've mentioned, you know, buddies that go to vegas, going to conferences and things like that. Like, talk about that and how that played into where you are today and how you got to where you built it yeah yeah geez.
Speaker 3:um, it's funny. It's kind of like a sensitive subject because like growing up and my dad left home really young and didn't know left from right. So what does he do? He finds whatever job they can offer him. So he's working up in the woods planting trees, getting paid cash, trying to do the table. Got my mom pregnant at a young age. This kind of stems from that because he didn't know any better. He just did the best of what he could with what he had. And then I grew up you know straight out of the park, young kid on the streets, whatever, you don't know no better. But then I see I go to Crater I think we talked about the last time I go to Crater and there's like a bunch of hot chicks wearing Abercrombie and Fitch and I'm shopping at Payless and it's like what you know.
Speaker 3:But it opened up a little light that it was like what am I doing wrong? What? So going to you know, like that saying is tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are. Right, it's put yourself in the right circle with the right people. Take care of those relationships, treat them how you want to be treated like the golden rule is and that's what's contributed to the success that I'm having now is whoever I shook hand with, I showed respect, the friendships I've built, I've manifested and trusted and grown off of them.
Speaker 3:What you put in is what you get out, and a lot of these guys I mean. Every year I go up to the lake with a group of dudes, all business guys, and we take off three or four days and we talk, shop and we play and we jump on a pavadi boat and it's a lot of uh, camaraderie, but it's giving back that time to one another to boost each other up so when I get those phone calls that, hey, I need a painter, that's what I got one of my buddies oh, guess what?
Speaker 3:I you know. So you have those connections with your people and you take care of them, it'll take care of you. It becomes kind of like a family, an extended family that has paid dividends just with helping me get my name out there, because now they're repping rp flooring for me absolutely I like it and I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:I've used that network a lot. Anytime I needed screen to replace at my house. I call up adam. Hey, who do you use? Who do you recommend he's like I'll text, you, I'll text you the contact right now and tell him I sent you and he'll make sure, and I'll tell you what I text him. I said hey, adam, sent me your way. He's like oh, dude, okay, I'll drop whatever I'm doing, I'll be there today.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny. So every now and then I kind of share some of the books that I've read and some of the stuff that I've learned from it and what I've found recently too, and I've always believed it, but it's nice to actually read it and see that there's science behind it. But it's called our social brain, and so it's when you connect with people, you enhance your brain and perspective, and so research actually shows that people collaborate. Your medial orbital cortex and your frontal pre-orbital network are actually activated, and the latter which aids in the development of executive functions, and so neuroscientists refer to that as your social brain. So you can actually, when you're connecting with people, you're actually creating more of an ability to lead from an executive level mindset and you're changing that brain, and so interpersonal connections also have been proven to be successful.
Speaker 2:So they they actually studied people like Henry Ford and they found out that 15% of the people who are raised that were successful came from supportive families. Yeah, the other percent that actually said 75% had grown up in families that had significant conflict and hardship, and in hardship, people do better when they maintain self-belief and connect with other people. So it actually has connections with people, with other entrepreneurs with your own community Actually does. It's scientifically proven to help you. Wow, I believe it, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I know people have grown up. You know, typically when your parents are successful, you tend to follow in those footsteps. I love seeing the stories of people breaking out from living in a trailer park to owning a business and living in a million dollar home Right. That that is a cool thing because and I know plenty of people and and myself included to a certain degree we didn't have much hardship.
Speaker 3:Um, I had a very blessed life.
Speaker 1:My parents were together. You know no, no step parents or anything. You know, um, we had a stable household. You know my parents worked, worked hard. We were solid, middle-class family, um. But I had a lot of ambitions as a teenager and a lot of times my parents told me you know, that's not going to be for you, you don't want to do it, and it pissed me off.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Good, that's right. As soon as I kind of got my driver's license, I had fire in my gut to go out and say watch this yeah yeah, for sure, and I think that's a thing too.
Speaker 2:And when people hear that they can take it one of two ways, like they can let it crush you, you can crush you or you know, like you know the michael jordan posters. Tell me I can't, yeah, and then watch me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know yeah well like that, even that statement of you know kind of where you're coming from a little bit and having a hard time. To be fair, a good friend told me he's like you know, pick your heart right. Everybody has hardships with one thing or another. It's just a matter of how you handle it and how you push through it. But what I looked at too with my mom and dad like they're amazing. My mom's got a huge heart, my dad's got crazy work ethic. What I took from it was like, look, my dad came up with little to do and he did the best of what he could. What did my dad and my mom give me? My mom gave me a good heart which allows me to embrace others. I think that's what's helped with my relationship.
Speaker 3:Is I care? And the Home Depot, the Lowe's Lippers, whatever the difference is? I care further than just a paycheck. I've turned down jobs. I've coached people on jobs. I'm like, look, you don't really need this. How about we do this, this and this? And they're like, oh, wow, that's way cheaper or way more, you know, cost effective. I'm like I'm not looking for the quick buck, I'm looking for the next 10 years. Right, I want you to anytime you think of foreign.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for the five star Google review. I'm looking for the reputation builder.
Speaker 3:Well, if that's my house. I would appreciate somebody handling it like put like again with the last company is I looked at it as my own, even though it wasn't. I treat it like as my own. So if I'm taking care of you, I'm thinking the same thing, what's going to be best for your interest, and I'll encourage you to like to put a couple bucks out if it's going to be better. But I'm looking at it and I'm caring about it. So that's my mom's side. Of thing is just your heart kind of speaks more than you know your mind at times. It's you know good and bad, because sometimes you get too far.
Speaker 1:Your heart gets in the way. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:But then the dad's side of it was that work ethic. So I'm like this is what they brought me. How do I one-up that? Yeah, how do I show them that, thankful to what they taught me?
Speaker 1:I can take it to the next step.
Speaker 3:What was the biggest mistake you made in the transition to entrepreneurship that you can share and say I did this, I learned from it?
Speaker 1:don't do that Probably the delegating part.
Speaker 3:I tried to do it all myself and I was spinning wheels and exhausted, going nowhere. Yeah, and it was like even initially I'm picking up material, I'm dropping off material'm calling this customer. I'm yes, sir, yes sir, whatever you, I'll take whatever job and, you know, whatever you can, because I'm thinking I need this business to blow up. I can't not have work because I don't get a two-week paycheck anymore.
Speaker 1:It's on whatever I put in.
Speaker 3:So I thought probably the the thing that I'd say be careful with is don't be the yes man right off the bat. Know your worth, be patient, close your tabs. A friend told me once is because I have so many open, I'm doing a hundred hundred things but you know 50 of them aren't being done effectively. Or it's better that you close most of those tabs and do these ones now and 80 of those tabs could be delegated yeah, oh for sure, and that was the thing is like.
Speaker 3:I'm going to balance my checkbooks. I'm going to, you know, even when it comes to picking up and dropping off material, I'm going to have the boys do that. That's part of their job you know, but I was so used to corporate doing it because they paid a warehouse manager and I'm trying to fill those shoes but it was tiring.
Speaker 2:And then I jobs or payments and I'm like I need to slow down and you do it because you think you got to. You know, to protect that margin, I got to get paid, I got to make my money, but you know it's it's instead all right, delegate, and I can do more. I expand my bandwidth as opposed to just this business being dependent upon my bandwidth.
Speaker 1:You know sometimes you, we all make mistakes, right, we all make mistakes in our businesses. What has happened where you just felt completely defeated? And then how did you? You know what? What did you do to get your mind back on track? Um?
Speaker 3:go to the golf course. Yeah, take the stress out somewhere else. You know, to be fair, I don't. I haven't gotten to that point where I felt defeated by any means. Um, I've had, you know, the seven day work weeks and you know the wife has been super cool that I'm like I'm getting home late or I'm up early, so I appreciate her backing me with it. But what gets me through is looking at the five ten-year plan. Is, you know, nothing good comes easy. If you want, make something of it, toughen up buttercup and push through it like what's your goals to grow to?
Speaker 1:to expand different offices? To just grow locally or or franchise?
Speaker 3:to bring on more people or franchise rp flooring yeah, I honestly I want to make sure that I cover that. It sounds funny, but I cover the territory that I covered before on my own Right and if that expands up north and on the West coast, beautiful running. I'm not planning on slowing down, but that's where I'm thinking. Like you know, my new assistant and my next assistant I'm not wanting an office person, I want a partner. I want someone who sees things the way I see it and wants to grow it the way I'm doing things right now.
Speaker 1:What's been the most rewarding part of this so far?
Speaker 3:I mean what?
Speaker 1:have you done to re? I mean twofold.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 1:Once one part what's what's rewarding on a daily, weekly basis? And two what's the biggest thing you've done for yourself as a reward in the last 10 months of being a business owner?
Speaker 3:So the immediate reward would be that I dictate my path. So at the end of every day I choose my course, I play my, my cards and it's how I see fit. It sucks when you do a good job and it's never enough because they want more and the greed it it's exhausting. I mean when I was having they would make me right. They wrote me up one time because weekly I'd have to report the customers I've talked to.
Speaker 2:You know hot, cold, you know what's the progress and what did you do so we can manage in lieu of management?
Speaker 1:you have to tell us what you did, your sales report and all the data you have to enter into the crm and you're like this will take me two hours a day to meet your criteria for data entry, and that's two hours a day. I ain't selling your product, yes it's the never enough.
Speaker 3:That was exhausting. And I remember one time, uh, saying that he came into my office and he shows me a paper he wrote me up and he's like I need you to sign this because you didn't submit your spreadsheet. And I'm like it's monday, like I, you saw my jobs that were going through, I was almost working the weekends and he's like I need to show the bosses. You know, mike? Signed it there you go.
Speaker 1:It's like take it, you know, but my mind was like really okay, just have the bosses look at the damn financials but that, that's what it was it's like it still wasn't enough it's in the pudding.
Speaker 3:It was almost like the micromanagement. It's like I don't care how much you made, I said do this I said jump yes, you didn't ask how high. I know every single listener out there right now is so preach it, yeah, everybody is still working for somebody else.
Speaker 1:Oh well, I think that's the thing, too, about being an entrepreneur.
Speaker 2:It helps you be a better boss it helps you learn how to trust people.
Speaker 3:It's like you know what, yeah you know what.
Speaker 2:Go for it. You know, I trust you because you know what I had to start off on something I I know the risk of a decision and that's not a decision I'm worried about you. Go for it. You do it. You know, and there's certain things where it's like, you know, every entrepreneur that I know and I network with and stay close with is the one that wants to lift the other ones up. Yeah, like we all want each other to be successful.
Speaker 2:And that's just a simple difference of a of a winner mindset and what I call is the loser mindset. You can't cheer somebody else on and be happy for their success and want them to be successful. That's a loser mindset. Yeah, tom.
Speaker 3:Brady.
Speaker 2:That's corporate America, baby.
Speaker 3:I saw a reel from Tom Brady who was talking about what's Schroeder, who came from Colorado and plays for Browns. Now what's his name? Quarterback? Just got drafted from the Browns Schroeder or something. Ye rounds shooter or something. Yelling me? Tell me, gosh, we'll get it my tongue. Look it up anyways. Um, he's the guy who always points at his watch oh shit, here sanderson, sanders yeah, yeah, dion sanders kid, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, so didn't he get released, he might have anyway he might have.
Speaker 3:So raiders were talking about possibly drafting the ass Brady, because Brady's associated with the Raiders. It was like you know what happened and he's like anytime this is Brady. Anytime I scored a touchdown, I was the first one to the end zone celebrating with a running back, with a wide receiver. He's like I would tell the O-line, I'd give them props and I'd tell them you meet me at that end zone and we share this together. But brady was like saying that he needs someone with ethic and that team mentality and not one just there for the show. Right, and that's kind of dm.
Speaker 3:You see him with the glasses and how he is, and I and he's just here and tell him, like dang, that's true man, tom brady was a nobody when he got drafted right. He became a stud because his work ethic and who he was and I think brock purdy's kind of on that path right now too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a solid individual. That's very relevant.
Speaker 1:You know, last round draft pick, yeah, yeah, got thrown in and he delivered and proved what he was worth and it's, and he's still obviously got a long ways to go. But he reminds me of Brady and it's funny. Brady was a better leader than he was a quarterback. Yeah, there are definitely more quarterbacks in the league with more athletic ability. Who can throw the ball further, who can run faster? Who can but his O-line?
Speaker 3:his receivers, they trusted him.
Speaker 1:They knew that guy was going to battle for them. They knew that he held himself to a high standard. Belichick got so much of the credit for that. And then, when Brady left and took the Texans, which were nobody- no Buccaneers, yeah Buccaneers.
Speaker 3:Buccaneers, yeah the Buccaneers.
Speaker 1:Took the Buccaneers, which were awful to a record season and watch the Patriots just fall off the map in one season and the only variable was Brady.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's got to feel good. That's an entrepreneur right there. That's the story of the way you watch me.
Speaker 1:That's right, just watch Coach Belichick knew that the writing was on the wall that season.
Speaker 2:He's like yeah, well, not long for this career and he started off a rough season this last weekend at UNC. Yes, he did. He didn't need to go into debt.
Speaker 1:It doesn't help that his 24-year-old was on the sidelines.
Speaker 2:Oh man, all right Well.
Speaker 3:Ruben awesome man. Thanks so much for being here. Tell us what you got.
Speaker 1:Any last words of wisdom. Shoot Anybody who's in the corporate world right now, who's just grinding and hating life, who's wanting to take the step, but they're scared to what?
Speaker 3:do you? Got to say surround yourself with with the right people. Bet on yourself. Don't let you know that scared mentality keep you in that box like trust in yourself process over outcome.
Speaker 2:outcome folks. You got this Indeed. Beautiful, ruben Perez. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 1:Thanks.
Speaker 3:Ruben, I appreciate you guys. You're an inspiration.
Speaker 1:You're probably one of the most inspiring entrepreneurs I've met to date.
Speaker 3:I appreciate that brother.
Speaker 1:Thank you, sir, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 3:We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1:Much love.