When Life Labels You a Failure… Build Anyway | The Eric Lopez Journey

Eric Lopez shares his journey from growing up in small-town Illinois with an absent father to being raised by his mother, stepfather, and influential older brother, including a turbulent period living with his dad in California that led to drugs, quitting other sports for bowling, and eventually college bowling. After graduating from the University of Illinois, he was kicked out of MBA school and earned a felony after being arrested with marijuana, which pushed him into entrepreneurship when traditional jobs were unavailable. He built a logistics book of business, worked from home, and later sold it for $1.4 million due to rising fraud in trucking. He then pivoted into AI Agency USA, focusing on inbound/outbound AI voice systems for businesses, while also pursuing fulfillment through a baseball-focused podcast, The Pen, and emphasizing family, resilience, and legacy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:23

But, you know, ultimately, you know, like, bro, I have way more fun doing the podcast that I do on Sunday nights. Yeah. Then and and that's where I'm at in my life now. It's like, how much time do we have left? You know, 30 years? I mean if I die when I'm 82, right. I have 30 years, I'm 52 now, so I've already, you know, I can live the last 30 years of my life having fun and doing what I want and maybe make some money. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_05 0:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 0:48

That's my goal.

SPEAKER_05 0:49

Hey there. Welcome back to Above and Beyond where Excellence meets elevation. I'm your host, Jan Simon. And this season we're raising the bar, diving into the passion, purpose, and defining moments of leaders who don't just aim high, they live there. Big ideas, real stories. Let's get into it. Today's guest is Eric Lopez, and this is one of those conversations that hits both the business mind and the human heart. Eric is an entrepreneur who has built, sold, and completely reinvented himself through different seasons of life, including selling a business for over seven figures. But what makes his story powerful isn't just the success, it's what came next. Now Eric is leading the charge with the AI agency USA helping businesses use AI voice technology to become smarter, faster, and more efficient. At the same time, he's on a deeply personal mission to improve his health, grow mentally and physically, and become the best version of himself at 50 and beyond. So if you ever wondered whether it's too late to pivot, rebuild, get healthier, or chase a new version of yourself, Eric's story is proof that your next chapter might be your most powerful one yet. Eric Lopez. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_05 2:08

That's it. So hey, welcome. Thank you very much for having me. Welcome, welcome. Well, hey, I appreciate you coming on. I I think I met you about a year ago when I started APN, maybe a little bit before that.

SPEAKER_04 2:18

Yeah, I remember really our first I think encounter was the beanbag tournament. Yeah. And they told me you were going to be the mayor of Mesa, is what I had heard. I thought it was true at that time. Yeah, no.

SPEAKER_05 2:28

Is that not true? I don't I don't know. It's funny because Frank has me in his phone as mayor.

SPEAKER_04 2:33

You know what's funny about that? I still have Frank in my phone as Frank APN. Oh, no kidding. I still keep everybody in my phone as how you do it. I lived out here, I moved out here 11 years ago. Okay. And I still keep everybody, and I purposely don't go back and change it. Yeah. That's crazy. I just like to have that kind of grounding or like, you know, bring it back to like this uh or maybe not to even blow him up more, or not Frank particular, but any person of, you know, like one of the guys that I met early on coming out here, uh Dan uh Acre, he's a Chicago guy, Chicago cop. Still on my phone as Chicago Dan till this day. And I met him 11 years ago and have hung out with him a million times. Yeah, but I'll never change that on my phone because he's still Chicago Dan to me. That's pretty crazy. I just keep it, you know.

SPEAKER_05 3:20

Like well, someday, like 10 years from now, I'm gonna ask you how I'm in your phone because you'll have it. Yeah, right. It's just uh it's just yawn. Yeah, right. Nothing exciting. Cornhall yawn. Yeah, I don't know that I'm like that so much. You're not in there, isn't it? Yeah, no. Uh so let's start this out the way we start out with everybody. Okay. What did growing up for Eric Lopez look like? Oh man.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

So I grew up in uh small town in Illinois. Okay, four or five thousand people. My dad left. Uh I have an older brother who's three years older than me. He's currently a D1 assistant coach at Youngstown State baseball. He's pretty much the one that I look up to as my dad.

SPEAKER_06 4:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

My dad left when I was one, he was four. Your dad was four? My brother was four. Oh, your brother was four. And uh my dad I was one, my brother was four, and he left. Uh my dad left us and moved to California uh grew up in Illinois. Okay. He left and went to California, and my mom raised us. And uh so I on on Father's Day, I always tell my mom, Happy Father's Day. Nice because she's the one that's the one that did it. She's the one she did it all. She she now I had a stepfather when I was about five years old. Okay. She ended up uh getting remarried, and uh it was pretty cool. My stepfather was the original Jim Abbott. He uh had he had uh a hook on his hand. Yeah. On his right hand, so uh on on his on his left hand, he had a hook, so he was uh worked at a tile cutting place, which is which is where my mom met him, was at a tile manufacturer, and he had stuck his hand in too far one day and his hand got chopped off. No kidding. So he had a hook on his left hand. So he would, when he when when he taught me how to play baseball, he would do the Jim Abbott. He would catch on the right hand, take his hand, take it up, oh, unplugged, take it off, and then and then throw back, you know, with the same hand. Yeah, and and he taught me how to play baseball. And uh, so for years, you know, he raised me. Things were going really well when we were younger. My brother went to West Point. Oh wow. He was accepted into West Point, you know, great, great childhood because of my mom doing what she did and my stepdad really stepping up and and teaching teaching me how to be a man because my my dad chose not to do that. Yeah. I did uh we did start, uh I met my dad for the first time when I was seven. Okay. He came back to visit from California. My grandmother lived in Illinois. My step my my dad came back to visit, and uh first time I met him, I knew he was married. I was only seven, so I didn't really know what that meant. But he had a girlfriend with him. And it was funny because I remember going home and still to this day going back and telling my mom that yeah, I met my dad for the first time, and but he had some lady with him that wasn't you wasn't he or my mom or his wife at that time. Oh, really? A whole nother person. Oh yeah. Oh my god. So it was just chaos from like you know, the beginning of of and that's how just just wow, you know, that's the way it's started out. Yeah, you know, thank God for my mom and my stepdad who you know chose to take us under his wing and and and grow us up to be the men that we became.

SPEAKER_05 6:37

Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

You just have the one brother, I have one brother. Okay, yep. And uh he went to West Point, he ended up dropping out after four or five months of being there because it was just too straight. Insane of what they oh when he got accepted, we had generals come to our house to interview us. It was nuts. Like we're sitting in our living room. I'm 15 years old, he's 18, so he's already graduated and he's uh gonna graduate, and he was top four in his class of you know of of the school. And uh I went to a different school, but uh, they came to they came to interview us and all this kind of crazy like it was it was pretty crazy. Yeah. And uh and uh but you know it's all because of the the way that my mom is just uh superstar. Uh uh we were the only thing that mattered to her.

SPEAKER_06 7:23

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 7:24

It was my brother and myself that mattered, and it was it was nothing beyond that. It was just she wanted to make sure that we were and you stayed in the same town, same town. Steger, Illinois. Okay. Uh you're talking about 30 miles south of Chicago. Okay, because I know Ted Bleifnik's from somewhere up there. Ted's from uh Decatur. Okay. So he's a little bit south of that. Okay. Right. So I went to the University of Illinois, which is probably where I grew up and where I went to college was Ted was kind of like between of where we were at, right? Okay. But yeah, so that was it. I mean, I was a great my brother went to West Point. I was a great student. I went I he went to a private uh to a to a public high school. I went to a Catholic high school my first few years. Um I did great. I was uh top 10 of my class, top 10%, played baseball, basketball, football, did everything. And then sophomore year, I decided to and by that time we had already been traveling back and forth to California. I used to go to my brother and I would Christmas Day, we'd open presents at the house. My mom would drive us to O'Hare, and we'd fly to California, we landed at Ontario Airport, and we'd go spend Christmas break with my dad. Oh wow. So we three times a year we'd go to California. We'd go spring break, Christmas, and the summer for like two weeks or whatever. And so he was literally Disneyland dad. It was incredible because we'd go out there and did you ever go to Disneyland? We went first seven years old, first time I went out there. My dad in California ran a construction company, owned it. Oh, okay. He ran it. He would and he made a lot of money. So it was like we would go out there and it was just like spoil, spoil, spoil for the week, two weeks you're out here. And you know what? It caught up with me because my freshman year of high school, I'm like, why am I living with my mom when I got nothing and I can go live with my dad in California? So there's a there, uh I don't know, for anybody who's ever flown into Midway Airport in Chicago, I call it it's just the road of gloom. So I would literally leave Ontario. Palm trees, beautiful Christmas. It's January. So my dad's birthday was January 1st. Oh wow. Still is. He's still alive. I haven't talked, I haven't talked to the guy in probably I've talked to him once in 15 years. Oh wow. And the only time I talked to him was because my cousin was in town and she's like, let's call your dad. And I was fucked up, and I was like, let's call him. And then called him, and I've just started bawling my eyes out and talked to him for like 10 minutes, and it was like, I never want to talk to you again, and then haven't. And uh, so we would fly. My brother and I would literally open presents on Christmas morning, fly to California, spend you know, two weeks out there or whatever, Christmas break, and then January 3rd, we're flying back from California. You land at midway, freezing ass cold, freezing cold, dark, 40, you know, 20 below. Yeah, it gets dark at four o'clock in the afternoon. So you land, you know, you land, it's already dark, and then you're driving down Cicero Avenue, south, heading back home, and you're just like, I just left paradise. And so that's the reason. Yeah. So that's the reason why I live here. Because my dad actually ended up later in life, uh, when I was 20, he ended up having a house out here. So he used to do uh stucco and window, like how home improvement stuff. Okay. So he had a home improvement company in California. That's what how he blew up and uh brought it out to Arizona. And in uh in 74, 94, I came out here and I spent a summer with him. He had a house at Thomas and Scottsdale. Okay, and I spent a month out here in August and was like, I love Arizona. That's where I'm living. That's where I want to live. Yeah. And that that's so the only good thing that came out of the whole the thing that the guy did for me was yeah, at least let me know that I wanted I would have never met, I would have never met the West Coast or knew about the West Coast. Yeah, you know what I mean? And I so for that I thank him, but other than that, you know, it was uh growing up, my mom ran a tight ship, cracked a whip, there was no wrong with her. She's still like that to this day. I was afraid of her always, you know. I was a straight A student, I did great, but then I meant moved to California and I live with moved in with my dad. Oh, you did? Okay, yeah. And uh that was my uh sophomore year of high school. I left Marion Catholic High School, which is a great high school in Chicago Heights, Illinois. A lot of history there of that school, and uh went out to California, ended up going to Damien, which is in Laverne, and that's a like Mark McGuire went there, like a bunch of like all boys school. So I ended up moving out to California and went there, and uh, but my my dad didn't really give a shit about you know what I was doing. So it quickly went downhill. I uh well, I missed a couple weeks of school at one point. Like he took he took his whole company on a trip to Lake Havasu one time, and uh I didn't go to school for the whole week. Oh wow. I was like, I had older friends. I started so I was a I was playing in in Chicago, I was playing baseball, basketball, football, all three sports in high school. But when I moved to California, uh I get introduced to drugs. And I started smoking weed a lot, you know, and started bowling, and I gave up all my other sports for bowling. Now I did bowl in college. Okay. So, you know, bowling is very You're the third person I've had on this podcast that bowled in college. Really? Yeah, that's unbelievable. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So um, you know, bowling is became very big in my life, but I gave up everything else. I gave up baseball, like I was a good baseball player, I was a good, you know, basketball player, I was good at all that. But when I went when I moved to California, my dad was a big bowler. And uh, and so I left my mom. I left, I went to go live with my dad, you know, and uh and uh started bowling, and then um my mom actually divorced my stepdad. Well, at that time she just left and went to California because she had heard about me not not going down the house. Right. So she left her husband, who raised me, the guy with the hook, came out to California, moved in with my dad's mom. No kidding, and lived there for probably four or five months until the end of my junior year of high school, when finally my dad and my brother and myself had kind of all gotten into almost a physical altercation. And I called my mom and said, Let's get out of here, and we m and moved ended up moving back to Chicago.

SPEAKER_06 14:22

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_04 14:22

So then I ended up graduating high school in Chicago. But in the meantime of that, I had become big into bowling. So I went back to Chicago, bowled, and a big part of my life, went to ended up high school, senior year, didn't know what I was gonna do. And the University of Illinois, where I was which I ultimately ended up graduating from, came to present the school to us and just say, like, go, and I didn't like the lady who presented it. So I'm like, I'm not, I don't want to go to school there. So now a couple weeks later, I'm watching the PBA bowling, and uh it was Mike, I think it was Mike McDowell, was the president of the PBA, and he was bowling, and they're like, he went to West Texas State University, and I'm like, Well, that's where I want to go. Yeah. So I ended up going to West, I went to college in West Texas State University, Canyon, Texas. No kidding. 20 miles south of Amarillo.

SPEAKER_05 15:21

To bowl. To bowl. Sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but no. Oh my god. It's crazy. Tabl.

SPEAKER_04 15:26

Yeah. Tabowl. Yeah. So I go, this is a this is a college of 4,000 people. Wow. Because it's a suitcase college, they called it, where you could drive down from Amarillo and you would go. So the only people that lived there were like the basketball players that moved from different areas and all that. So that's who I became friends with was the guys from like the Bronx and the guy, the guy, a guy from Chicago that was another, you know, lived in like the hood where I like right around the corner from where I lived. And, you know, and then I thought I was gonna be King Bowler. I go down there, but the man. I'm averaging, you know, 205 in men's leagues. So I'm going to King in Texas and I'm gonna be the man. I get down there and I'm the third team. I'm 15th. They're all so good. Ridiculous. You got guy, you got the women. There were 10 women that were better than I was. No way. Oh, yeah. You know, and uh so about six months into there, we're living in a dorm and we smoke a joint for some stupid reason. And the cops come and we end up getting arrested, and they take us in and they want to, you know, kick us off the bowling team. Really? You know, so I'd moved there to go to bowl, and uh, yeah. So after that, after that happened, I was like, well, I'm out of here, I'm gonna leave. And then uh ended up moving back to Chicago, did a year of uh community college and just bowled. I mean, I was bowling my uncle and we bowled in men's leagues. Just I bowled, I bowled five nights a week. Wow, you know, and so I did. I just bowled, I hung on bowling alleys, I bowled my ass off, making money bowling, you know. Look at that.

SPEAKER_06 17:00

I need this for my stories.

SPEAKER_04 17:01

And uh so then we I did a year at community college, and then I ended up uh going to University of Illinois. So in 1995, I went to the University of Illinois, and then which is crazy because if you go you I went to this school in Texas, there was literally 5,000 people, and their bowling team was way better than the University of Illinois, who had 50,000 people, right? So we go to the there's a tryout for bowling, and I go to the bowling tryout, and the first game of tryouts I shoot a 297.

SPEAKER_06 17:32

Oh no way.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

First 11 and then a seven. And they're like, Oh, you made the team, you know, and then and and then uh so that was it. So have you ever thrown a 300? I have one 300 sanctioned. I have a couple in practice, and then I have one ring. Uh I did shoot a 299. So when I bowled at 297 in practice, the bowling coach came up to me and said, Hey, we have a men's league on Monday night. I want you to be on my team. And I was like, All right, yeah, 100%, you know. So then uh I did bowl a 299 first. I went first 11, 10 pin, and then a few weeks later or or months later, I shot at 1300.

SPEAKER_05 18:13

That's impressive. I've I've never come close. I mean, not even not even remotely close. I think I've gotten two strikes in a row before.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

But but I mean I've I've bowled probably 10,000 games.

SPEAKER_05 18:24

But there was I I I was roped into playing in this men's league in uh Mesa. This is years ago, 20 years ago, I don't know what it was. Yeah, but there was a kid that was there bowling, and I swear to God, every time we were there for league, by the time the night was over, everybody's standing watching because he'd do the same thing. He'd roll the first, you know, eight, ten you know, balls, all strikes. Yeah, yeah. Everybody's like, and then he'd, you know.

SPEAKER_04 18:50

Well, there's a couple dudes from out here that are like legit the guys that are like on tour and like oh yeah, yeah. There's there's uh a few good bowlers that are they do the two-handed thing though. I don't never do that thing, but I don't know. But yeah, so I mean, growing up, I was uh perfect kid until I was fifteen. Moved in with your dad. And I moved to with my dad, and I met a bunch of older guys through the bowling alley, and it just turned into total chaos. Started drinking, you know, smoking weed, and uh there was a point where you know I was almost gonna not even make it through high school. You know?

SPEAKER_05 19:31

Was well I mean you you mentioned your mom, obviously, massive influence on your life. Unbelievable. Was there anybody else through that time, coach in high school, anybody that that you look back on now that had a profound influence on who you became? The only the only real the only person is my brother.

SPEAKER_04 19:48

My brother, because of the what we were handed, and he was older, became the manly influence. My mom was the manly influence as much as she could be. I had an uncle, my uncle Manny, who who was unbelievable to to do, you know, the things that he did, as and aside from being, you know, like to to help raise somebody when it's not your own child, but my brother, I could never think that dude enough. Yeah. Man, I'll cry right now. Yeah, thinking about how is he still around today? He's he's the one that he's the D1 coach at the assistant coach at Youngstown State. He's three years older than me. Uh, it's just me and him. And he didn't have to choose to to take that role. Yeah. You know, he could have just been like, Because me, as selfish as I am, I wouldn't have done that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would have been like, oh, he's cool, right? He's cool. But he has always made sure that it's almost like my life's more important to him than his own. That's cool. And it's it's unbelievable because and so yeah, so my brother Rodney, love you, you're the greatest guy, you know, and uh, and he's the one who taught me to be the man that I am. Okay. In all regards, you know, coaching, you know, I've I coached baseball, I coached my son from eight to eighteen. I coached really good teams. You know, it's on my list here to talk about. Yeah, you know, I had a top 100 team in the country for uh for perfect game. You know, when there were 17 U, you know, a bunch of my guys are playing college ball right now. That's awesome. Um and I I the way that I became the coach that I was was by emulating my brother.

SPEAKER_05 22:13

You know when when you look back on the decision to move to Southern California to live with your dad for a while, and that whole shift because you went from three sports to one you'd never three sports and top ten percent of my class to to to to bowling. Not and I'm not putting bowling down, but you went from those three to something you didn't do, we'll say. Do you look back on that now and and think what would my life be like had I not done that? Or do you feel like that experience shape helped shape you into who you are today?

SPEAKER_04 22:45

All right, so let's get into uh other stuff. So when I was so I graduated University of Illinois in nineteen ninety seven. Okay, right, ended up going to work for My with my mom and my brother, we did third-party Medicaid billing for schools in Illinois. Okay. Right. And we did it with my mom was an administrative assistant for a guy who owned the company, and that's what we did. But in 2000, we were entertaining buying him out. It didn't happen. I don't know. People might if people want to listen to this, they may either hate me after this or love me. I don't know which it'll be.

SPEAKER_05 23:25

You know, I like to believe the people the people that will look at you poorly after they learn whatever the story is aren't worth having around.

SPEAKER_04 23:33

No, I wouldn't, dude. I wouldn't so I I could care less about that. Like now well, because I can I it's I'm real. I can't make shit up. This is this is what it was. Right, right, right. So this so whatever. Bold, you know, bold, you you have eye, whatever.

SPEAKER_05 23:48

So let's let's go back, let's go back to the question. I mean, unless you want to continue down. That's the question. I just want to I want to rewind a little bit because you you have this this period of your life. I'm up for anything. That's what got me. That's the part of the part of the story you'll hear. It like, I don't know what it is. I think it's important to note had you not gone to California, do you ever step back? I think that's what it was. Do you ever step back and think it would have been like?

SPEAKER_04 24:17

Okay, that's exactly the short answer to that is I will never change anything that has ever happened to me, even though a lot of fucked up things have happened to me. Gotcha. Okay. So that's what I was getting to. Okay. Now, went to U of I, graduated in '97, went to work, right? Everything was normal. Decided I was gonna go back to grad school. Okay. I was gonna go back to the University of Illinois for grad school, which I did for almost a year. Okay. But within that year, one of my best friends who lived back home, we I lived an hour and a half away from University of Illinois. Okay. I ended up, I was, can I say this? I was selling pounds of weed.

SPEAKER_05 25:03

Okay. Well, I mean, I think that the statute of limitations is probably run no matter where we are. No, well that's I can that's that that that doesn't matter now.

SPEAKER_04 25:11

I'm not worried about that. I'm talking about the people. That's what I was saying. That's where I was getting to about the fact that like the people who want to hear who hear the story, or my that's that was the whole point of it.

SPEAKER_05 25:21

If if people get the But that was then. Now guys are millionaires and doing what I did then. Right, exactly. Well, and and obviously it's legal now in a lot of places, so whatever. But it's one of those things for me. We won't go down the philosophical road. I but but my the the point that I'm gonna make is I feel like if people try to dig up things in the past to make you look bad today, it's because they're weak.

SPEAKER_04 25:47

Because they don't have so the thing about that is that I can't even say that those things you can't it made me the person that I am today. Well, absolutely. So it's like if you are, you know, if somebody frowns upon, you know, most people don't know the story. The guy with the felony, I have a felony. Okay, right. Most people, you know, now they know from watching. But all 24 people didn't. Right. But that's something that most people like so I was in grad school at University of Illinois. I mean, I I went to U of I, graduated from there, went back home, managed restaurants. You know, I we we we we had our own uh it was called golfaway.com. Like we invented Groupon before Groupon was invented. No kidding. We had we called it golfaway.com, and you would go to different golf courses. So well, we would go to different golf courses and say, Well, you guys want to be part of our book, our coupon book. Yeah, give three rounds for five bucks off or whatever. We'll put you in the book. This is before Groupon was ever invented. We myself, one of my best friends, Dan Goldstein, who graduated from he was my roommate in college, you know, he ended up going to grad school, and he's the one that got me to go back to grad school. So we did golfaway.com. It was we went to all golf courses in the Chicago area, as many as we could, and get them to be in our golf in the in the pack in the coupon book. You would pay$19.99 to be a member of the of the site, and you would get these discounts to all these different courses. I mean, Groupon was not even invented yet. Wow. Right? And we went, dude, we were so close. We went to Michigan and did a round table with these people that wanted to invest in the company. And this is 1999, maybe or something like that. So right when computers were just coming out. Dude, like we th and we had this meeting, we're like, these guys are gonna invest. Like we thought we nailed it. Like we ran a couple, we ran a golf show out now in Chicago, the second there was always the big show that was the Rosemont show, and there was a Southside show, and we ended up buying the rights off of a guy, and we ran the show, you know, and uh we thought it was really close. We thought we were gonna blow it up, and we had you know, we got to find a kid that invested in us, but like 30 grand in, you know, and we thought we were gonna blow up and you know, whatever. It didn't happen. So my buddy at the time that we were we were growing the company, he did the uh Jack Tiano or whatever, bartending school. He ended up then going to manage restaurants and doing all this. He's like, and then finally he was like, I gotta get a real job. Like, I gotta, and I was like, all right, I'll take over. So now I became the I went to bartending school. Okay, and then I did the Jack Tiano school, and I started managing restaurants. Like I managed restaurants for four or five years in Illinois after grad school. And then I was like, okay, and my buddy talked me into going back to go to grad school. So I ended up going back there and literally would drive back and forth from Champaign, Illinois to Chicago Heights, Illinois, every day, and pick up a pound of weed and drive back. And I was making$500 a trip. Yeah. And back then this is 1990, this is 2000, whatever, 2000 2003. Yeah. Right? That's good money. The la last trip that didn't make it. We were supposed to leave to Miami the next day for spring break. And I'm like, I'm making one more trip, guys. I already had the I remember I had$1,300 stacked cash sitting right there to take to Miami tomorrow. I'm gonna go do one more. Drove back home. Well, home, because it was where my buddies are. Yeah. I'm my way back down and get pulled over. Pound and a half of weed. No kidding. This is 2003. And guy pulls me over and he's like, You got anything in the car? And I'm like, I didn't even, you know, I'm like, yeah, I do. Like, I do, you know. And uh it was in my Illinois back, there was a not a backpack, but like more like an attache or whatever, you know. Okay. So I had my computer in there and it said University of Illinois on it. And the weed was in there. And the cops called the school and told them that I was transporting weed. Now I was not transporting weed to students, it was to guys that were just lived in champagne. But they called the school and told them I was transporting drugs. And you gotta remember, this is 2003 before weed was ever legal, right? And uh, and I got kicked out of grad school. I was a year into grad school, I was three quarters into grad school. Wow, it was March 30th, and right school would have ended. Yeah, May or whatever. So I remember going, like, I did I went to finish the finals, and I literally the finals I just go just like A B A A A, whatever, finish it, you know, leave because I knew I was kicked out anyways. They were like, the final is supposed to take two hours, you finish in 15 minutes. So, like, well, they didn't know no, none of their students knew that I was already kicked out of school. They were gonna let me finish that year, and that was it, right? Wow, so I think that was a question of what you asked. Yeah, so I would never change anything that ever happened in my life, even though one of those things was getting arrested, having a felony, going to jail for a few days, right? And for 20. So I could never get a job. I was at the University of Illinois business school, MBA, bro. If I come out of that motherfucker, I'm making$300,000,$400,000 a year doing a job.

SPEAKER_06 31:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:18

But I would never change anything that ever happened to me because it made me the person that I am today. My first job when I graduated out of U of I 97 before that shit happened. I worked at a downtown Chicago for a copy machine that was selling copiers. And I'm like, this is what I graduated college for to sell copiers. Right. You know, right? That's when I was like, so I always knew that I wasn't a cubicle guy. I sat in a cubicle for two weeks. I was like, there's no way I'm doing this. Yeah. Right. So that's why I say I wouldn't change it. Even though maybe I'll be more successful, maybe I would be have more money. Maybe.

SPEAKER_05 32:00

Well, but what is what is success? I mean, I mean is success money? I mean, is that what it is?

SPEAKER_04 32:06

Uh I mean to you right now in my position in life, the only thing that could make me more successful would be more money. Now, because I didn't because of everything I have. I have a great family. I I have a great, I have my wife's awesome, my kids are awesome, right? Maybe I wouldn't have had that, or maybe I wouldn't even, maybe I would think differently. You know what I mean? So at this point right now in my life, yes, the only thing that could be more successful was money. But had those, but rewind to years back, and maybe I had all the money in the world, maybe I wouldn't have the family that I have, maybe I wouldn't have the kids that I love. Like, you know, I just left golfing with my son today. It was a great, you know. So even though it wasn't a perfect path, I feel like I've persevered to get where I am, to rub shoulders, to be where the with the people that I'm around, with the people that are part of the the network, the just everything that I don't know that I deserved to be in this position. Or that I would be in this position if things worked out differently. So therefore, I would never change, I wouldn't change the so I finally got my gun rights back two years ago. I had to spend$3,500. I had to get a lawyer in Chicago. They wanted me to move. So there's so many rules, right? So when you get the felony, you lose your gun rights. So I couldn't carry a gun forever. Yeah. And I I didn't because I knew I'd if I got caught with a gun, I'd go to jail. Like, yeah. So I never had a gun. Didn't two years ago, finally contacted a lawyer out here. They said you got to contact a lawyer in Illinois because that's where the felony was at. Finally did, boom,$3,500, paid it, got my gun rights back. Now I get to, you know, so little things like that that have kind of always haunted me. You know, it's like voting. I could I I mean I didn't even, I was scared to vote. Because it was like, am I able to vote? Am I breaking a law by voting? Right. You know, and then I the last couple elections, I dig, I looked everything up. It was like, okay, you're good to vote because it didn't stop your voting rights, whatever. So I did that. You know, but I went from being I went from being like literally a top 10% Catholic school perfect kid to a few years later a felon.

SPEAKER_05 34:35

You know what I mean? Crash in the bus. Yeah. Do you do you feel like and you've mentioned that you've coached baseball for a while. You played baseball. Obviously, you you you stopped to to go into bowling. You have your podcast, which is surrounded up around baseball. So I'm catching this theme that you really, really like baseball. Do you wish you would have continued playing baseball? Or was that opportunity even there? Because I mean, obviously. Oh, the opportunity was there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:01

It was there. I I I was good at baseball. I played freshman year in Chicago, I played sophomore year in Chicago, moved to California. They let me. I went to I talked to the coach right after I'd moved there in California and said, Can I just be around the team? Can I be part of the team? Can I hang out? You know, I get it if I'm not playing or whatever. Yeah. You know, and he let me. And then I was just, you know, I was 16 years old at the time, had just moved with my dad in California. And I think probably for my whole life, I had probably been thirsting for my dad to care. Care. I mean even care. Yeah. I was gonna say, teach me stuff.

SPEAKER_06 35:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:47

But even care. Yeah. Bro, I remember. So I'm bowling for the bowling, University of Illinois in Las Vegas. So we would go to in college bowling, there's tournaments every month. So all the students, all the teams, all the schools from the country come to the tournaments. So like in August, uh school starts August, so like September, October, whatever, the first tournament's in Atlanta, right? So schools from all around the country come to Atlanta, right? And then Thanksgiving is always St. Louis. So you have a big tournament in St. Louis for Thanksgiving night. Like in the first three years of college, I didn't even go home for Thanksgiving because I was in St. Louis bowling, right? And then over Christmas break, it was Vegas. So you bowled a showboat and you bowled at Samstown. Two different tournaments. And I remember, I remember right now, bowling. We're at Showboat, or no, Samstown. And it's the tournament. And I'm front six, right? Means I got the first six, first six strikes. And and my dad had lived in California at this time, right? I had already been moved out there, he had gone back, right? And and and now I was back, you know, bowling, but was in the West Coast, and he was like, I'm gonna come watch you. He had come earlier, said what's up to me, or whatever, and then he's like, I'm gonna go gamble, do Vegas shit, right? Well, I'm front six, and after every strike, I'm looking back, like to see where is he there? Where is he? Where is he? Yeah, where is he? Like, he's not coming down. And I still remember literally crying at the bowling alley when he finally did walk down, and it was like the 12th, it was the 10th frame, and I had already and I shot 279 that game. Yeah, I remember to this day, 279, and was like, it never even came down to like you know. Meanwhile, my mom would be at every she would fly out to every tournament, every everything, and and be there. Yeah, you know, so it was so it was just like you know, as I got older, you you just looked, like you said, just looked for the guy to care.

SPEAKER_05 37:45

Yeah, you know what I mean? I wanted to see you. At least you're not gonna be alive. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm sorry you experienced that.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

I mean that that but but okay, so how I I wouldn't change it because that made me the father that I am today.

SPEAKER_05 37:59

And that was the question I was gonna ask is how has that impacted the way that you are with your kids? You have two boys? I have a boy and a girl, boy and a girl, okay, twins. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_04 38:09

Yeah, they're 20, they just turned 20.

SPEAKER_05 38:11

How how are you how has that impacted the way you are with them and your relationship with their mother, your wife? My dad, my guessing.

SPEAKER_04 38:21

My yeah, you're right. My my dad went to Vietnam. He got shot in Vietnam. All right. My mom said when he left to go to Vietnam, he was the greatest guy ever. But once he got sh he got shot in Vietnam, stomach, he got a you can see he got a whole line in his stomach, like where he had the surgery and everything. Like he laid in a bed for three months staring at the ceiling in Vietnam. Here tell you a story, you know, and came back and didn't give up about anything. And I can't blame him for that. Right. I don't, you know, you don't know until you walked in a man's shoes, right? Right. So can I blame him for forgetting about everything that he had when he went there and came back and almost died, saw his best friend get blown up next to him in the fields. You know, like I've known this story, like I've, you know, and and but that was his story.

SPEAKER_05 39:43

Right. And I feel like, and I don't want to discount that. I don't want to discount what people deal with and what they go through, right? Right. But but but at some point, and and and it and it it this is gonna sound very trite because I've had people in my life who have said, you don't like that, change your mind. You know, you don't you don't like having that anxiety attack, decide not to have it. It's like it was it was almost like that in an indirect way, right? But you but you were born after Vietnam was over.

SPEAKER_04 40:16

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:17

Right? Yes, so he had come back from Vietnam, yeah, decided to have a relationship.

SPEAKER_04 40:22

He came back from there, and my mom and him were together when he left. When he came back, they were still together, but then he chose to go off and have now my mom married him and all, right? But he chose to have girlfriends and do all this other kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_05 40:37

But I and I and I know that I know that work can do up. And I and I'm not I'm not trying to take that away. Not trying to take that away from anything. 100%. I would never take that away from never experienced it, never done it, but I know Sure, 100%. That being said, I feel like at some point, and and the way that you said he he had to deal with that, is that that that you're providing a continued excuse for his lack of stepping up and taking care of a responsibility that he has. Now, again, sure, no, the mental aspect of it, I can't even complain. No, nobody can. Right? Right. But I just feel like it's it uh and and I hate the word unfair. I hate that. Nothing's fair. Fair, right, right? Right, right. Fair is what you make it. It's unfair, change it, go, go, right? You know, it's like life ain't fair. But as a as a kid, wanting your parents to or your dad to acknowledge you, see you, care, whatever, and I'm going all psycho babble, but you know, just I I I I'm sorry that you had to experience that because you're a you're a great guy.

SPEAKER_04 41:47

But but that's what I'm saying. Yeah, how can I be sorry? Yeah, when look where I'm at, bro.

SPEAKER_05 41:53

Yeah. Why would I ever well at some point, at some point, you had the opportunity. I mean, perfect example. You got pulled over with a pound and a half a pot, right? That could have been you get into the system, you could have used. I mean, I don't have to say the obvious, you're Hispanic male, right? You could have used for sure that now here's your crutch. Right. Right? And and you allow yourself so at some point mentally, right, you were able to go, okay, I'm better than this.

SPEAKER_04 42:25

You know what's almost crazy is I almost think that's the best thing that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_05 42:28

That that's incredible that's impressive.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

That made me be an entrepreneur. Yeah. Because nobody would hire me. So I couldn't get a job because I had a felony, bro. Yeah. I couldn't get a job.

SPEAKER_06 42:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 42:39

So then I went, so I get fucked, and that's why, bro, I get the felony, I get kicked out of school, I get two years of probation, I am went from thinking I'm gonna go make$300,000 a year to now I can't get a job. So I go back home, I'm back in home, Steger, Illinois, four or 5,000 people. I'm sitting with a buddy of mine who had a gutter company. And I said, Kenny, we're sitting at a bar just drinking. I go, bro, I got a felony, bro. I can't get a job. He goes, You want to come hang gutters for me and hang siding? I said, bro, I don't even know how to swing a hammer. He goes, I don't care. Come work for me. I have no other choice.

SPEAKER_06 43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:23

I went from gonna be a running a being a CEO to now I'm hanging gutters, bro. And my wife, at that time, was when I met her. And I had no money to my name, nothing. And we fell in love with each other, and I'll tell you a story. It's on the list right here. We go to so Kenny gives me the job, I go hang gutters, teaches me how to put, I'll go sign a house right now because Kenny Irwin taught me how to do it. And I will thank him. I thank him randomly all like Facebook, like, thank you, man, for making me the man. Because I wasn't a man then. I was a guy that just thought that I'm making life happen, I'm in grad school, I'm a good student, I'm doing this. Yeah, meanwhile, this kid after high school started a gutter company, and 12 years later, he's a millionaire. Yeah, and I'm still paying bills, right? But he gave me the opportunity, just like my wife, when we first met. I had we're married 20 years now. Congratulations, and had nothing when we met. Nothing. She bought me you remember those T-Mobile, those sidekicks that she bought me my first sidekick together. We she's like, I'll buy it for 350 bucks. She bought bought it, right? Had nothing. Wow. And I mean, unbelievable. Just just to experience.

SPEAKER_05 44:45

So talk talk to me about so talk to me about the entrepreneurial aspect of things. You you started a company, or was it the exciting company?

SPEAKER_04 44:52

Let me finish with one story I was gonna tell you. So the so my wife and I, we go to one of our friends had a birthday party or something. We weren't married yet, but we were together or whatever. We we may have been married. We go to Kohl's for the first time, and her both of our credit scores were probably negative 500. We go to Kohl's and we apply for a credit because we had to go to this party that night and we had no money, and I just needed a belt and a shirt. So we're just like, apply for credit. Like, okay. They gave us three hundred dollars in credit, and me and her just looked at each other and started literally. In the Coles line and just started dying laughing. It's like a holy they just gave us$500 in credit to buy whatever we want. Yeah. So that takes you back to how long my wife has been my dog. Yeah. My right-hand man. Yeah. Like if it wasn't for her, I'd be dead or in jail or both. And I will say that to this day. Right? So now I asked me that question. What did I ask you? Oh, starting a company. Talk to me about that. So we did the Golfway thing, right? You know, worked, you know, tried with tried with my mom, my brother, and I uh, you know, I was I I knew that I am not working for anybody, man. I don't want anybody to tell me what to do. I mean, fuck you, dude. Do what I want.

SPEAKER_05 46:19

You know? And uh, so do you find when somebody tells you to do something that you just go put the brakes on, walk the other way? Nobody tells me what to do.

SPEAKER_04 46:29

So you don't know. Nobody tells me anymore. I mean, yeah, and I probably if they do, yeah, you know. My wife's probably the only one, and I do whatever, you know. But so moved to California. So I I'll tell this story too. This is a good one. You want to clip this. So I wasn't done with my probation yet from the felony. 2005. Move out to California to go live with my dad and my uncle. So here's the entrepreneurial spirit comes from the time when I was a kid. I would always go visit my dad. Like I said, we went three times a year at Christmas, spring break, summer. Myself and my brother with my dad, spent time with my dad and my uncle out there. They own their own companies, they ran the companies. So they take us cedar Sinai Hospitals. They were, they were, they did, they went from moving from doing homes to commercial. So, like my dad, we'd he'd pick us up at the airport. Next thing you know, we're in LA, we're at, we're just everywhere because he's going, I'll be back, wait 20 minutes, going into a meeting, come back out, right? So I always saw these guys doing this sort of work. So I always kind of, I think it's just in my blood, right? Of what, you know. So when school, whatever, the the whole school thing ended up happening not happening, whatever, I got in trouble. Went out to California and was like, all right, I need to figure, you know, like let's do something. I don't know what anybody, I'm not gonna, you know, I I can't work for anybody. And I, you know, and it just it's always been in just ingrained in me. And it's just like, I I can't be here being told what to do, being, you know. So it became so then when we were living in California, my twins were born, they were a year and a half, maybe, so this is 2007. My wife's best friend's fiance died on the night, 24 years old, died on the night of their wedding shower. No, my wife says, We have to move back to Chicago. Everybody we love is there, and I said, Let's go back. So we moved back and we went back to Chicago, and my one old college roommate said, I have a job for you at my company, and I and I was like, All right, I'll come check it out. Go back to Chicago, he says, forget about my company. My buddy just started his own company, a logistics company, and I think you would be perfect for this. And I said, All right, I have two one and a half year olds. I need a job. Yeah, I don't know. I'll do whatever you tell me.

SPEAKER_06 49:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:42

So we moved back to Illinois, lived in Beecher, Illinois, which is 40 something miles south of Chicago cornfields. My mother-in-law still lives. I go back there every year for Thanksgiving. That's where we moved here from. Town of 4,000 people, a little bit south of where I grew up. Okay, 10 minutes south of where I grew up. So I had to drive 60 miles every day to go work in Schomburg, Illinois, where my buddy's buddy had just started his brokering company, a logistics, third-party logistics company. Okay. Knew nothing about it. I just knew that I had two kids to raise. Yeah. And I couldn't get a job anywhere else. You know, even though this was seven years later, they're still not hiring anybody who has a felony. Right. It wasn't happening, you know. So ended up meeting Kyle first day I drove there from leaving Beecher, Illinois, to drive to Schaumburg, Illinois. It's probably, it's six, I it's not probably, it's 66 miles. I know because I've looked it up many times. It's 66 miles. I'm on 294. I hit a bank, I get a flat tire. My first day going to the guy's house. He worked out of his basement. Ended up, whatever. Get there late, whatever. But it turns in to work for the guy for three, four years, and then uh he ran the company kind of shitty. It was just bad, he ran it bad credit, whatever. And I had a good book of business. And I said, uh, and I ended up finding a company that would let me take my book of business to go work for them from home. So I've been work, I've been working from home since probably 2011, maybe. Okay. Way before working from home was popular. And I left him, and he was a good friend of my friends, but he just it it got to be bad where like we couldn't move loads because our credit was so bad because he just ran it poorly and wasn't paying truckers on time, whatever. So I ended up working from home, grew my own book of business, and then uh and and and then that's when fast forward to you know a couple years ago where I ended up selling that same book of business for uh$1.4 million. Wow. You know, that's what I say. I how can I change anything? Yeah, you know, maybe I would have been in a position where I sold the business for five million, right?

SPEAKER_05 52:12

But I don't know. Right. I don't know. I don't know. You know, so what made you decide at that point to sell the book?

SPEAKER_04 52:20

So I I so in trucking, there's a lot of fraudulent activity that goes on. And for the first 10 years of my logistics career, that wasn't a thing. You could book a load, you could you get a load from your customer who wants a load covered, you put it on, you got we got a couple different sites, they're called boards, right? You put it on a board, where you uh full truckload board. So a 53-foot dry van, which is a semi, is gonna see that. They're gonna call you or email you, bid on it, whatever. Or there's a sprinter van, you know, it's smaller loads, one pallet, two pallets that you know you're gonna move and they're gonna see that, right?

SPEAKER_05 52:59

So it just became uh the the the um why why did you decide to sell at that point?

SPEAKER_04 53:08

All right, all right, yeah. So the fraudulent, fraudulent was a thing. So we used to have these boards where you put it on for the 53-footers, and those boards became fraudulent, kind of. So then luckily I steered away from that and had a lot of customers that moved sprinter vans, straight trucks, which are just smaller loads, right? One or two pallets or 12 pallets could move on a 24-footer or whatever, right? And those weren't as susceptible to fraud as the other loads were. But as time went on, all of it, it just be it when you say fraud, what's happening? Fraud for bro, like I've had the FBI at my house because there's these somebody bids on a dude, they do everything. So there's like steal the cargo, steal the cargo, or so like whatever. Like, so like big thing was like the Russian mob, right? Or the Armenians. The Armenian mob was like big out of Glendale, California. Like, if you saw so when you post our loads, if you would see an 818 area code calling you, you it got to the point where you couldn't even answer the call because you were worried that they were frauds. So they would say, Oh, whatever, we're gonna get the load, and then they pick up the load, and then next thing you know, your load is so the biggest thing one time that happened is I had a huge customer, Pacific Logistics, and I was doing a shit ton of loads for them, making a bunch of money. This guy, Coleman Logistics. I'll never fuck, still remember to this day. They called, they were$200 cheaper than the other truckers. Coleman Logistics, oh, I'll give you the load. They stole now now, nowadays you email or you everything's automated, you're right, where you send over your paperwork, your insurance, your everything, your VIN numbers that are part of the but back then it used to be faxing. Used to fax everything over. Fax me your packet, right? So they'd fax their packet, right? Look, and it was very minimal at that time, just showed they had insurance or whatever. So there's a company, Coldman Logistics. They're like, We're there were$200 cheaper for a load from California to like Tennessee or something. Give them the load. Monday morning, they called, they say, We're not gonna deliver your load unless you pay us up front. Now you're like, and this has gone on in trucking for this is 15 years ago, probably. Yeah, and it's now just starting to come to the light of like this happens in trucking. Like, so that's what led me to now. That was way back then. Fast forward to now I had built my book of business, had a good book of business, and had just gotten sick of it. And one night I'm laying, um, Friday. I've again I remember like Friday, I'm 3 p.m. I'm laying down and taking a nap. One of my customers CCs 18 other brokers when he's asking for a quote. So you can see that he's emailing all these people, not just you for a quote. But I was still his preferred guy, but he's still sent out to other guys if I couldn't cover it. So one of the guys that's part of that CC on the side CCs me and says, Would you like to come work for me? And I said, No, but I will sell you my book of business. And he calls me five minutes later. Really? And we talked for two hours that Friday. Never knew him from nothing. And that was the start of me telling him, like, yeah, I I don't want to be in, I don't want to do this anymore. I've been doing this 20 years of dealing with bullshit. The first 10 years were great because you could do you can make a ton of money. Yeah, but trucking is the most unregulated market. You know, housing, you gotta have if you're a realtor, you gotta have a license. If you're a bartender serving drinks, you gotta have a license, right? But if you're moving truckloads, you don't gotta have shit. You can do, you know, you can do you don't you don't have to anything.

SPEAKER_05 57:03

I've run into I had a I had a logistics company, and and some of the stuff that I've found over time is yeah, and I've run into some of those things you're talking about, but what I've seen is the DOT only requires$100,000 in cargo coverage, right? Yeah, but you got a$500,000 load.

SPEAKER_04 57:23

Yeah, yeah. Well, that's all that's all it's like just these things. Everybody's basically everybody's five a hundred thousand minimum. Right. If a load's worth more, then you gotta take out insurance and those kind of things. But that's what that's just what it came down to. It was like at that point, I'm like, dude, I'm so I'm 52 now. This is probably five years ago, right? I'm 47. I'm like, I told my wife, I was like, I've been doing this 20 years, I don't want to do this anymore, I don't want to deal with because it used to be I could spend my whole day making money. It became where I had to spend half of my day making sure the guys that I were giving my loads to weren't fraudsters. And it was like, I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah. And just out of the blue, this guy happened to call me Maverick. I love him. He's one of my great friends now, and he asked me, Do I want to come work for him? I said, No, but I'll sell you my book. And we negotiated for a few months, and he offered me 1.4, and I was like, Yeah, dude, let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 58:18

So, okay, so from there, uh checking the time. Are we good? Or what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're good. So from there, you sell the business. What'd you do? I mean, your kids, your kids now are 20. So you sell the business what, five years ago? Yeah, I would say, yeah, five years ago. So they're like in their 15s.

SPEAKER_04 58:36

So I had to do a year, I had to do a year of training his ops people to learn how to do my business, you know, to how to handle the business and all that, which I did. And then um, then after that, you know, I didn't I didn't take the 1.4 up front. He still owes me, you know, I mean, I don't want to say it, but he still owes me about 700,000. Okay. You know, I took I took part of it up front enough to, you know, at least be clear and whatever. And um then I just thought I was gonna go do a bunch of shit, you know. I I try we tried the scat. Uh uh I tried that scat documentary. Everything was looking good for a while, it didn't happen. You know, but I was just like, yeah, I'm just gonna not do I'm gonna try to just do nothing. Do nothing and see what happens, you know?

SPEAKER_06 59:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:22

And then that's when probably a year into it, right? So 2003 is when my buddy called me out of the blue, who was my buddy who I've not hadn't talked to in two years, calls me out of the blue and says, E, I need you to meet me. Listen what he tells me, haven't talked to him in two years. Calls me and says, I need you to meet me in Vegas next week. We just started this AI company, and I think you would love it. This is 2023. 2023, July of 2023. Okay. And I said, I'll be there. Uh-huh. And I drove up to Vegas and I and I was in already had been negotiating, like the deal was done already for the logistics. It was he was buying me out, and I already knew that. And I go up there and I see what the guy, so my buddy is Dave, who from Chicago had me come out there to meet his buddy Adam, who Adam used to be a caddy at Cascada in Vegas. Like a big, right? A nice, yeah, nice uh course in Vegas. And uh, but he had a lot of connections for that. But Adam's a whiz, and Adam's the one who's the CEO, the mastermind behind the AI agency. So he created this thing, and Dave's like, come see it. I drove up there, I saw it, and I was like, Oh, dude, I'm in. I said, I I know I'm out of logistics in at least six months. I need a new, I need something new to be involved in, and uh obviously AI is the next thing. Yeah, and that's and then and then that's took me five, literally ten seconds of seeing the what he took my, so he goes, What's your company? I said, It's Mav Inc. looks it up. Well, it wasn't Mav Inc. yet, it was uh at that time I was still uh WFX Logistics. So he looks it up, pops it on the thing, spits it out, and goes, This is everything you do, right? I go, Yeah, he goes, I could automate all this. I'm like, what? And I said, I'm in, dude. Not for logistics, but I'm in for whatever else that we can do the rest of the way. Oh shit. You know, and that's how I got, you know, that's how the AI shit, you know.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:17

Okay, so let's let's shelf that for a second, spin it back. Talk to me about how your vision of leadership has changed from when you had your kids year and a half years old, trying to find any job you can get, go to work for somebody, take on the logistics, roll them through. I assume you've you've been a you've been coaching their sports for quite a while.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:41

Yeah, I mean, like that has never changed, man. I know I've always been a killer, bro. I've I knew from day one that I'm meant for something more than just a regular like nine to five type. Yeah, you know what I mean? So it's like I I can't say it really changed like my mentality, it's just the surroundings changed, the opportunities changed, the you know, because probably maybe from seeing my dad from the time that I was young of doing what he did. Like I said, you know, seven years old, he'd pick me up at an airport and we'd go to a meeting, and I'd be waiting in the car for him, and that was it. Like we had two meetings, done, done, done, and I just saw him spending a bunch of money, and I just knew like, and then I would see my mom, who was a secretary, who went to go work, and I'm like, do I want to be like my mom? Or do I be like my dad? So I was just you know, nothing changed inside of me per se. It just changed into my what was available to me. How how did how do you how do you deal with the peaks and valleys? Man, bro, I fight battles every day, man. Yeah, I don't know if you do or if everybody does or anybody's listening.

SPEAKER_05 1:02:51

I I fight battles every yesterday. I will tell you, yesterday was Wednesday, right? Yeah, yesterday. Which who knows when this podcast will be, whatever. I was in the mud, man. I was in the mud. I couldn't get my brain out of the funk.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:06

I was at the funk, man, 8 a.m. this morning because I made a I so now I'm doing a trading. I'm trying to do training. Took a class, I'm doing trading, and I so I went to the gym this morning at 5 a.m. I'm home at 6:30. I made an uh options trade where I made a little bit of money on not a like a hundred bucks, like nothing, like small money, right? And then I go to do another trade because I'm doing other trades on like this other funded training thing I'm trying to do or whatever. I got a million things going right for me, and I made one bad trade. It just kills me all morning. That's all I'm thinking about, bro. Isn't that crazy? It's crazy, and I'm like, why the f am I focused on this one bad thing? Yeah, you know, and then I'm like, I have so many great things. So I just saw like Warren Buffett just talking about a thing where he does a is he still alive? I don't know. But he does I think he is. He just he does this thing where he's if something goes bad, he does like a thing where he says, name three good things about what just went bad. So like it's like, all right, well, I ran out of gas, but I have a car. Yeah. Right? Yeah, you know, like whatever. Like he names the good things that happen. So I literally just read that yesterday and was like, I need to think more that way. Yeah. Instead of me beating myself up about all the bad things that are happening, or the one bad thing that's happening, because I made one trade that I lost an account on that was only$20 to buy the account, instead of focusing on a million of great things.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:42

Well, and do you ever stop? Because I've done this and and and I don't know if you know my story, but just going back, but have do you ever stop and do you ever stop and go, I can't believe that this is my life? In a good way. Do you ever stop and go, I could have I could have shit the bed really big, but I didn't. I mean, you think about the you think about the fact, and and let's say 20 bucks. If it was 20 bucks, whatever, I mean, it's like money these days, and I and I am not by any stretch of the imagination into money, like rich, no, right? Right, no, money, money is still very, very important and every dollar, every dollar counts. Right. However, when you start looking at things and putting things into perspective, like somebody's like, hey, it's gonna cost you a hundred and fifty bucks a year to be involved in this program. Okay, well, that's dinner, right? That's dinner at a shitty restaurant, you know. Do you ever do you ever step back and and and look at your life today and go, yeah, I I'm successful. Do you feel like you're successful?

SPEAKER_04 1:05:47

Yes, I feel like I'd be more successful. I'm sure everybody feels that way, you know. But like I said, to to look at, I mean, I was raised by basically by my mom only. Yeah, my brother too, but he left, you know, he was older, so he had his own thing. It could be a lot worse. Absolutely. You know what I mean? So it's like I I look at it like, yeah, dude. That's why I say I I couldn't, I I I can't, I I I could never say I would change anything, man, no matter how bad things ever got in my life to be sitting that where I'm sitting at today. Yeah. I you know, I I'm ecstatic about that. I live in Gilbert, Arizona, one of the best places in the world. World, is that not wrong? Yeah, in the idea of the world to live. I have some of the best the people that surround myself with are some of the most successful people out there, you know. And I so I feel like I I kind of judge it about like, you know, what are my outreaches? What are my extensions of myself? I can make a call, you know, like just anything. I'm going to New York next next month with Clay Bellinger to go watch Cody Bellinger play at the Yankee Stadium.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:08

You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm here. One of my best friends is Junior Spivey, who play for the D-Bax. Like, I couldn't like, could I sit here and think about like what more could be? Of course. You would always do that, right? But I don't ever from where I was at one point to where I am now. I could be I could be in jail. I could easily be in jail for the rest of my life.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:33

Oh, absolutely. Where I was. That that we'll say 14-year-old kid, because you said I think you said you moved to California when you were 15 or so. Right. So 14-year-old kid lived in a town of 4,000 people. Yeah. Yeah, you were doing well, top of your class or close to the top of your class, you're in sports, athletes, you know, all those things, right? You look back on some of those kids that you went to school with in that 4,000 person town that are probably still there. They're all a lot of them are still there. And I'm not looking down on them because I grew up in the same place. I mean, I grew up in a I think my dad used to say, Oh, there's six thousand. People. It's like you take the whole county, there might be 6,000 people. Right. Right. Where'd you grow up? Northeastern Washington.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:13

And uh and it was a very small town. It's a county seat, so all the services are there, but it was still, I think, maybe, maybe 5,000 people in your hometown. Right. Maybe. Right. And I'm not disparaging any of those people that are still in town because I I actually look at some of those people and I look at the way that at what I will say their life is. And I feel like the rat race that we run here versus what they're doing there. Right. I almost sometimes vicariously. I mean I'm Yeah. Like, God, it would be nice. Right. Because when I go back home to my my hometown, it's it is a slow pace that I literally feel like I'm coming off a crack on the first two days. Remember so going, ah, you know, and you go into the store and Mabel's talking to Betty, and they're like, it's like, okay, can we get through this already? Because I want to get off. It's like But that's not us. No, I mean I've I'm I am I am the whether whether you're there from there or not, yeah, you're different inside, you know. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I I I I left that town when I was 18. I mean, I still worked there and came back there a few times and stuff, but but mentally I had left that town even before I graduated high school. I had left that town. But it it's interesting because I think about some of the things that you'd shared with us today, where it's like you could have easily whether it was made decisions or become a victim of your circumstance, right? You could have easily coasted into a position that is very different than where you are today. And you've brought up a couple times, and I'm sorry, I cut you off. You brought up a couple times that you didn't finish your master's degree.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:53

I would almost argue in some situations, education is really about forcing us to follow rules, right? And not that I have a thing against education. My dad was a teacher for 45 years. I went to college, whatever. But I feel like there is a there is this conformity forced upon you in education that says, you're gonna learn this, you're gonna spit these things out, you're gonna sit up and shut down, sit down and shut up, and you know, all these things when I tell you to do it, right? I want you to learn how to follow rules. Right. And and and you, yes, you went through that, but you haven't needed it to be successful.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:34

Yeah. I mean, who knows? Maybe it was a hindrance. I don't know. I just I just thought I was just going through my mom, like my mom's parents were from Mexico. Yeah. So my mom was a single mom, and I think she was just teaching me what she thought was what American kids were supposed to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:56

She taught you hard work. Yeah, she taught you to show up. She did it. Yeah, she taught you to be responsible for your actions. Right. Which which we should be teaching all of our kids those things. Sure. And unfortunately, in our amazing town of Gilbert, yeah, a lot of those kids aren't taught responsibility for their actions. They're not.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:13

And I almost fall guilty to that. I almost felt fall guilty to that, that because I didn't do shit until I was 25, maybe. Because my mom took care of me. She didn't make, she didn't, I didn't have to. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I yeah, I went to college. I graduated from school and I went and did a little bit of work, whatever, but not busting my ass like I should have been. You know what I mean? But I think my mom was happy with the fact that I graduated college and I was making a little bit of money or whatever. So it was cool. You know, so it was like almost like I kind of am like that now with my wife. You know, she had a I have a stepson, Daniel, one of my best friends in the world. He's 25 years old. My s my wife had him when she was 17 years old. You know? And so she approached it differently because she started working right after she had him. Yeah. Even though her parents helped her and everything like that, she went to work right away. She went to college, she was doing part-time college, but part-time working and all that, right? Me, I didn't. My mom let me coast till I was 25, 26 years old, whatever. Finally, when I was 30, I kind of got down to business. And then when I had them at 33, I got real serious. But I'm so I'm kind of at a fault like that with them. I'm like, like I told my son, you he plays baseball, Mason Community. Well, he's gonna transfer now, but you go, I told him, you play sports, bro. I got you. Like you don't have to work. I'm gonna take care of you. Yeah, whatever, you know. And so kind of to like a fault, I'm more like, but it's not like you're allowing him to just sit at home.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:56

No, not not do nothing. My dad did the same thing with me. I mean, I can remember in high school my dad saying, You're gonna play a sport, whatever season it is, right, or you're gonna get a job. Right. 100%. It with I mean, there's that was the choice. That's it. And so I'm like, well, then I'm gonna play sports. Right. Because I'm not going to work. Right. You know, it's like, and so I played sports every season. 100%. Even in the summer, I was playing sports. Right. Now, in the summer, there were times where I was working on, you know, working farm and Balin Hay and stuff like that. But I I mean, that was that was the choice. So I actually agree with you when you say for your son, hey, if you're playing baseball, focus, focus on the baseball. I got you. I got you. Be as good as you can be. I made that. Because there's gonna be a day he might be playing men's league or doing something like that somewhere, but he's not gonna have the opportunity to possibly take it to the next level. It's over. Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:50

But I gave the same opportunity to my daughter and to my son. So as long as you are playing sports, I got you. Yeah. Because that's kind of how it was presented to me. And beyond that, my mom wants to get away with a lot more than I will allow my them to get away with, you know. Yeah. But it's set that kind of tone for my so my wife is always like, You guys gotta do like so my daughter, she does work in a hospital, she works in the hospital in Scottsdale. She's doing phlebotomy, she's doing great. And but if it was up to me, I wouldn't push her as much. So my wife tells her, like, you gotta get a job, you gotta get, you know, we want you to get out of the house and all this kind of stuff. I don't go, I my kids who live with me until I'm 100. I don't give a shit, dude. You know, but yeah, you know, it's just it's I don't know, families it for me.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:36

So talk talk to me about the AI agency.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:39

So the AI agency, like I said, my buddy Dave called me up and said, You gotta get you gotta come here and see what uh Adam has cooked up. And I was like, I'll be there. Drove there next day. And at the time that it wasn't uh presented to me 2023, we thought it was gonna be a one-stop shop fix-all for businesses. You bring your business to me, we're gonna put it in the AI, then we're gonna spin the wheel, and then we're gonna tell you how AI is gonna solve your business. You're gonna pay us$20,000, and we're gonna make you a lot of money. That didn't that didn't work. Because A, it was like, how do you monetize what you're really developing for a customer? Maybe you spent a lot of work, you developed something, it's not what they thought, and then you know, they paid you, and you didn't make, you know, whatever. So it slowly over time had become where the easiest thing that we could focus on to monetize was the voice systems. Okay, you know, because we can you can monetize your minute usage, you know. Yeah, you you create your first the first product, the first answering system or whatever. Because our main thing is answering phones, right? Does it do outbound work as well? You do outbound as well, yes. The main thing is inbound. Outbound, you can't spam call in the United States with AI unless you're doing politics, because they have a loophole. But you can't so it's mostly inbound, right? Okay, so that's your main thing. So it was it was um, you know, presenting it to the customers of you know, it's gonna it's gonna alleviate, you know, the the stress of answering phones and that kind of stuff. So it became where Adam, who was our CEO, be that that became like his niche of being able to present that to people and and get, you know, as opposed to saying, you know, hey, we can do everything for you with AI. Let us just answer your calls, let us get do your scheduling, let us do that kind of stuff. So it it kind of slowly transformed into that, and that's became as like what we're what we're good at doing, what Adam's good at doing. And like for me, you know, I of course I do chat GPT and I mess with stuff all the time. Um, but like I say, I don't know how to build a watch, I can tell you what time it is, but Adam can build a watch, you know, and he's our CEO and he could he he he can you know use AI to do pretty much anything, but it's still so new, and there's still people who think they can do it on their own, and then for the people who can't, I don't think they realize how much we can do for them. You know, and like for me at this point, like with the APN, like I did a presentation of the of the of the you know AI agency and all that kind of stuff, you know, dude. I busted my ass for 20 years doing logistics, yeah. And I'm at the point of like, bro, if you don't want AI, bro, then don't get it. I don't give a dude. Yeah, I really don't. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't. I'm like, I would love for you to have take our services and have us answer your calls and do all kind of shit, but I'm not gonna try to sell you on this shit. Yeah, and that's just where I'm at in my life of not monetarily, because I am by no means, even though I sold the business for$1.4 million, yeah, I'm living paycheck to paycheck right now because I make money on the dividends of my book of business, what they make weekly, right? So I'm not making you know, and that's gonna run out in probably two and a half years, because like I said, I took I had him pay me$500,000 up front and owe me$700,000, and he's paying me off little chunks weekly, weekly, and that's great because if I would have had$1.4 million up front, you'd have blown it off, I'd probably have$1.0, right now 0.0, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So I'm all good with that. Yeah. So like with the whole AI thing, like I present it to people, and if you can't find the value in it yourself, then quite honestly, bro, I'm 52 years old. I don't feel like I'm gonna beat at that horse anymore. Yeah, you know, I mean, I gotcha. That's just how I feel about it. And that's you know, early on with APN and everything, I I you know, I it's like, oh, this is great. Like there's a lot of entrepreneurs in here, and but I don't know. I don't know if it's maybe I I need we need to look for bigger fish. Because I get it, because like you know, you got smaller companies and like oh I'm nervous about the AI answering my calls, and there was and I get all that, you know, but I'm not in the position now where I feel like I want to try to convince somebody otherwise. Yeah, you know, yeah. So it's kind of like to me, it was like a fun thing. It's it's going great. Like we're making, I won't say we're making money, but we're alive and we're working, you know, and Adam's doing his thing, and we got uh, you know, a couple developers working with us and stuff that are doing their thing, you know. And uh, and I just invested a little bit of money in it. I didn't, you know, and became it's like I'll do sales in it and stuff. So ultimately, if it doesn't work out, it's not the worst thing in the world, but if it does work out, you know, and we sell it one day for you know a few million, then it's gonna be great. Right, right, right. That's the goal. Yeah. But you know, ultimately, you know, like bro, I have way more fun doing the podcast that I do on Sunday nights. Yeah. Then and and that's where I'm at in my life now, is like, how much time do we have left? You know, 30 years. I mean if I die when I'm 82, right? I have 30 years, I'm 52 now, so I've already, you know, I can live the last 30 years of my life having fun and doing what I want and maybe make some money. Yeah. That's my goal. Yeah. You know, yeah. And and that's that's it, really. You know, tell tell me about your podcast. So the podcast is the pen. Uh B-E-N. The pen. Like the bullpen. The like the bullpen, not the big pen. 100% like the pen. So it's myself and my buddy Brian McNichol, who is the first person that I met when I moved here from Chicago in 2015. Okay. I met him at Meet the Teacher Night by twins, and his son had the same teacher. His son has since passed away in a car accident. He was Brian was driving. Uh, this is they were probably 13 at this time. So we moved here in 15. They were nine, and they were six, yeah, it's on six, so they were nine. 20 uh 13. Uh Brian was driving, they had a car accident. His son passed away in the car accident, 13 years old. Wow. Yeah. And uh for a long time, Brian went south and thing and and can't blame him for any of that. And uh, and finally he has become sober and came clean. And uh, we've always had this dream of doing a podcast and talked about it, whatever. And uh a few weeks ago, I mean literally two months ago, he calls me up one day and he's like, Did you did you see this YouTube video of Chris Bryant at uh uh this guy broke down like his whole like his laugh at last half of his career or something? So I'm like, no, let me go look at it. So I watched a YouTube video and I'm like, B, we can make a way better video and shit than this. And I'm like, how many guys do you know that you played with? He's like, so Brian played for the Cubs, two starts, six bullpen appearances back in 1999. I actually went through my I I've always kept a bag of my stubs from all the games that I went to. No kidding. Brian's debut was September 7th, 1999, and I found a stub that I was at the Cubs game September 5th, two days before his debut. So um, yeah, so we we started it, and uh he started contacting a lot of all these guys that he played with back, you know, back in the nine, you know, late 90s, like and so we do Sunday nights live while the uh Sunday night baseball, there's only one Sunday night baseball game, right? It's kind of like the Mannings do it with the Sunday night football. Yeah. So it's uh one Sunday night baseball game on Peacock, 420 every Sunday, and we just go live on YouTube and we first three innings we talk about the game, and then we bring the guests on in the last in the next four to six. We've been uh breaking our rules and keeping them to the end because we just have a great time talking, and we've had great guests like he, Kyle Farnsworth, who was a 14-year MLB player pitching an all-star game. We had uh last week Jason Grilly, who was a 15-year Major League All-Star pitching an all-star game. Two weeks ago, we had Brendan Donnelly came to my house and we did it in in I say in studio, but it's in my living room. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's in studio. And shout out to my wife for letting like all this happen. Like a Sunday night, like we're gonna do a uh episode, we're gonna do a uh video Sunday night, Mother's Day. Yeah, you know, yeah, and and Bruce Chen, former major, you know, left-hander, pitched for the Brewers and for the Braves. He's come, he's gonna be our guest. So it's just all these guys, a bunch of guys that Brian played with back in the day that a lot of these guys had were way more successful than Brian because he only had you know 30 days in the major leagues. But these are all these guys that he played triple A with or whatever, and and these guys have been more than gracious to come on the show. And so we'll do a three innings, we talk, then we bring them on, and then we just shoot the shit with major leaguer, you know, former major leaguer, and ask them about, like I said, like one of the biggest, the greatest, the one of the really good things that I love in the show is to ask the guys about when they were called up. What was the what was it when you got called up? And all these guys, like they'll be like, they'll tell a story and they're like, I'm getting goosebumps, just talking about this story about when and it's all different, you know. Some guys were sleeping in their bed at 1 a.m. and they got a knock on the door and said, You're going to the bigs tomorrow, you know. And there's another guy, you know, like Brian, his he gave up six runs. The he he got called up to the the bigs, and they're like, But you still have to start this game with AAA, and they give up six runs in the first inning, and the guy comes out to get the ball for him and says, Well, congratulations, you're still going to the bigs, you know. So it's just like they hear these stories from all these guys, yeah. And it's so cool because for me, being from Chicago and sports is a huge thing, you know, and then to be to first of all to move here and to be lucky enough to be introduced to and meet so many former athletes. Like, bro, if Brian Erlocher walked in here right now and saw me, he'd be like, oh my God, what's up? Like, that's crazy to me a thing. Like, I cheer for this dude for years, yeah, but because my son and daughter are friends with his son, you know, I've seen him at Seville here. Like, yeah, it's so cool to like be in the position that I am with around these former athletes and that kind of stuff. So, like, yeah, to me, it's a dream come true to be doing this every Sunday to talking to former major leaguers about like the they're living the dream. And I tell them this, we're in the podcast, I tell them this, like to you, tell me like these, tell me a story, and I'll tell them like this is just your life. Yeah, you don't realize that how much fans or a fanboy like me hears that story is like, this is so cool to hear this story. Yeah, but to him, it's just like, oh, it was a Wednesday night, and I was, you know, I went out to the bar and came home and you know, and I didn't know I was pitching. Next thing you know, I'm pitching, and I struck out three guys and then ninth and all that. It's like to you, that was nothing, but to us, it's like, you know, so that's why so the podcast is like it's a dream come true. Yeah, that's awesome. And if if anything happens out of it, maybe. Yeah. Nothing happens out of it, I don't give a shit. You had fun while you did it. And that's kind of like almost like what you say, like this. It's almost grand life. Yeah. You know, it's like, bro, it's like money's not gonna do everything. Yeah, you know, it's it helps, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:27:01

For sure. Absolutely. But it doesn't create happiness, but it allows you to do a lot of stuff. Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:08

So you're right. It does not create it, but it but it opens the avenues to, you know, and that's what I say, like, you know, to to rewind back to what we said, you know, could I ever could I want more? Everybody does. You know, I want more. But if I if I didn't go through what I went through, I wouldn't have my twins, I wouldn't have my wife, I wouldn't have I wouldn't be sitting here with you. Yeah, I wouldn't have all the do I want to roll the dice? You know, right? Here's what you got. You want to try for more?

SPEAKER_05 1:27:37

Right. Nah, man, I'm good, man. Yeah. For what I went through and to where I'm at. That's beautiful. Beautiful. One more question. Talk to me about legacy. What do you hope your legacy is? Let me have a drink of this first. Think hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:53

Look at this thing. Legacy, man, I don't want that. My legacy, I want I just want my son and my daughter get to look at me in my casket and say, the guy was a shit. That's what I want. I don't give a anybody else. No disrespect to anybody. Yeah. Not no dis my wife, my that should be called. But I want my kids because I my dad's gonna die and I won't be at his funeral. Yeah. But I want them to look at me laying in my thing like this and say that dude was the shit. Yeah. That's it. That's what I want.

SPEAKER_06 1:28:32

That's that's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:35

Thank you. Thank you. Any any anything anything we need to know about Eric Lopez that I haven't that I haven't asked you. I mean, we've been through a lot of stuff. Yeah. And I appreciate it and we can we could keep going.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:28:50

But I don't think people want to listen to a four-hour podcast. No, I mean. I don't know. I got I do have some notes here that I just like things you things you should cover in the podcast. Anything I didn't ask that we didn't cover.

SPEAKER_04 1:29:04

Nah, I mean, I caught a robber one time. That was not not a big deal. Let's see what else. Or after you had your gun back. No, that was before I even lost it. This was in University of Illinois. I winter. This is a good story, actually, though, so let's tell it. So my girlfriend and I had gotten at that girlfriend at that time had gotten into an argument. And I had somehow, Friday night, went to go to like do a study session, came back, and the screen was cut off of my window. And I literally thought it was just my crazy ass girlfriend that did it and tried to get her shit out of the house. So I go into the apartment. This is at 309 East Healy. I still remember right now. And I walk in and I go in, and I first thing I did was go check the caller ID in my roommate's room. And I look to see if she called me because I was worried that I was hoping she called me. So I look down and all of a sudden I see a guy prancing out of my room. Because I was in my roommate's room, he comes prancing out of this room, heading for the door. And I go, what? And I grab him and I wrap him up. And I'm like, I have this guy wrapped up. And I start knocking. We get he works his way to the outside. So this is like the apartments are the doors are to the outside. Okay. So now I start we got a door here and a door here. And I'm just banging on the doors. And I'm holding this guy and I'm like, help! I got a burglar. Help! Help. Finally, so we it was like a courtyard, right? The two, the two, uh, we're on this side, and there's another hotel, uh, another uh apartment building on this side that just mirrored ours, right? So I'm one, we're three, I'm banging out one and two, nobody comes out. I'm holding this guy. This is 1996, probably. And uh I'm holding him, get to the middle of the courtyard, December. Snow on the ground, everything. This little Mexican dude comes out with a wife beater on, in his sh socks, wife beater and jean and uh and uh sweatpants, and comes and wraps the guy up and goes, hit him, hit him. And I said, I don't want to hit him, I just want this guy out of here. And he held on to this guy until the cops came and arrested the guy. So that was a really good story of when uh of some, you know, and so I was supposed to go to California for spring break, and I was gonna take the girlfriend who cut the screen off, I thought, and then uh I got summons to court for the week of spring break. Really? And couldn't even do the trip. And then we drive down, me and my roommate had to drive down to Champaign, Illinois, hour and a half drive, whatever, get down there. We're waiting in the outside, and they're like, the guy's name was Jerome Williams, I think it was his name. And uh, about to go in to testify, and they're like, he pleaded guilty six years in jail because he had a prior, and you guys don't have to show it. So you wasted your spring break or whatever. Whatever. That was another story that I had on here. I don't know. Yeah. Other than that, I mean, I don't know, man. I was a 60th member of APN. Do you ever know you know that? No. So you've been around for six years. Yeah, so this is a good story. So, Frank, shout out Frank.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:15

He told me to shout him out. So, Todd Shipma. So, hey, Frank, when you hear this, you need to send both of us a text. Yeah, if you hear this, Frank. And let us know that you listened this far into the podcast. Yeah, you motherfucker.

SPEAKER_04 1:32:29

So, Todd Shipma, you know Todd, right? I've known Todd since I've known, what am I, 52? I've known Todd 30 years. Oh wow. Yeah, I known him back in uh Chicago. No kidding. So he was good the so the guy, Kenny Irwin, who was the one who saved me gave me the gutter job, and one of his brothers was Sonny and Mikey, and Todd was friends with those guys a little younger. So we used to play, we used to hoop against each other like back in the day. We used to call Todd Kramer. He looked like Kramer, dude. So that was his nickname. So Todd, if you see this, and you text me and say Kramer. Yeah. So uh we would we would all call him that. So I knew Todd for years. So then Todd was living out here, and then told him I was moving out here, whatever, moved out here, and then uh he was doing the he's waste management, so he was doing the the garbage for Frank's schools when Frank was just a principal at Imagine Prep. Yeah. So he had a uh it was at Las Calinas one day, and Todd has a four sub. And he hits me up. He's like, I can't make it. You want to take the four sub and just bring some friends or whatever. I was like, Yeah, I'll go. So that's when I ended up meeting Frank the first time. I mean Las Calinas. We go to uh we're at the tournament, we come around to him after the dine, you got he's doing a putting contest, you know, Frank taking it with his money. It was a putting contest for if you make the putt, you win a ticket to win the TV, right? I must have spent$350 trying to make the putt. I'm I kept missing the putt. And like you take credit card, he's like, yeah. And then he goes, You might as well just have bought the TV by now. So I didn't know he texts Todd, like, who's this guy? I love him. And then he told me about the network that day, and I was literally the 16th person to join Above Par. No doubt. Yeah. That's awesome. It is crazy. That's awesome. Yeah, Frank and I have been, dude, we've been around the country together, many trips, many. So cool. Yeah. So I don't know. Other than that, that's about it for me. I don't I don't know. Well, I appreciate it. Like I said, I could sit here for we can sit here forever.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:34

Yeah, I've sit here forever. We'll have to do a follow-up sometime. Actually, I would love to come on your uh podcast just to sit and watch. I mean, I don't have anything probably to add to baseball. I love baseball, but I just don't it's fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:47

I love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:47

I mean But hey, everybody who comes on gets a gift. You are no different. So I've got you a gift. Thank you very much. You get a challenge coin for coming on, and then uh you go ahead and open that. All right. Take a look at it, let me see what it is. Hopefully I gave you the right one. Thanks for having me. Yeah, well, I appreciate it. Appreciate you you uh taking the time. Nice.

SPEAKER_04 1:35:10

It's Derek Lopez, and I went above and beyond.