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The other kids would have money for like snacks after school. This is back in the eighties. could just elementary finishes and kids could walk across the street to the liquor store, to the donut shop. They could do all these things and all the kids would go and I wouldn't go cause I didn't have any money. And so that made me realize I'm missing something. I need it. How do I get it? My parents aren't going to give it to me and thank God. Cause if they did, I wouldn't be where I am today. And they didn't give it to me now cause they didn't want to, but they just couldn't. So that made me become inventive and think like, what? Okay. Kids are.
They'll buy this, they'll buy these trading cards, they'll buy these candy bars. If I can get my hands on them for cheaper. So I started digging, was fourth grade and I started buying my own toys in fourth grade. And in high school, I was making net profit $30 a day with candy bars that I would buy at Costco. I had a friend and she had her family had a Costco membership. So she'd come with me. I'd buy a ton of Costco chocolate bars, fill up my room and then put them in big plastic bags and take them to school.
and I would net $30 every single day on top of my part-time job after school wasn't bad. So that's how I got my start in entrepreneurialism.
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In today's episode, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Joel Gandara. Joel is a Cuban refugee who came to the U.S. as a child. And through hard work, dedication, and even a little charm,
He's worked his way into building an incredible business empire in the apparel industry. He's recently sold his business to focus on things that give him more joy in life. And through a series of organic events, he's already on his way into building another successful business, this time as a coach and mentor. He's doing some incredible work through his 31 Daily Challenges program, which is based on his book, 31 Days to Becoming a Better Man.
The work in his program is giving men permission to redefine what it means to be a man in a changing world. I think that's a conversation that men don't often get to have. So I thought it was really important to have him on the show and to tell us about.
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All right, brother, I'm so excited to talk to you today. You know, there's always a challenge having a guest like you on the show because there's literally like seven different podcasts that we could do right now. And they will all be great. They will all be amazing. There's so much to talk to you about, like leadership, masculinity,preneurism, family, you know, just on and on and on. And ironically, when I first reached out to you, I was really intrigued by the work that you're doing in your man's group and
You know, I think masculinity and men are in this precarious place where there's a lot being asked of us in our evolution of what it means to be a man. But yet you have to still maintain the image of being a man and the lack of vulnerability in being a man. So I really want to dive into that topic with you. But in doing my research, I read your story.
of just like coming to this country and starting your business. And I literally could not put it down. It was just like, I picked up your book just to skim, just to kind of go, let me see what this is. And I got in it and I had to sit down and I had to like just see this through, because it was so captivating. So I think we would be remiss if we didn't start by really talking about your origin story, because it's fascinating. It's like the stuff of movies.
And I think really speaks to who you are as a man, as a father, as an entrepreneur, as a leader. So let's start there, right? Let's start in Cuba. You're a kid in Cuba. And the revolution happened when you were there, right, as a kid. Before me. yeah, it progressively got worse. Yeah.
So let's start there. Talk to me about you leaving Cuba and the dynamic of you coming to the US and starting a life here with your family. Yeah. So it happened when I was young. I was born in 1975. And in 1980, Cuba experienced the Mariel boat lift. 125,000-ish Cubans had an opportunity to leave. Castro opened the doors and said, all right, you don't like it here, leave.
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but he wasn't dumb. He was evil, but he wasn't dumb. He emptied the prisons. He emptied the mental asylums. He got rid of a lot of people he didn't want who were a burden on his society. Now, he did not let go of the political prisoners. The people were suffering just because they think differently. But some decent families got out of there. My mom and dad, my brother and I, I was just before my fifth birthday. But I have a pretty good memory. when people, the next question is usually, you remember any of it? I remember a lot. remember
where I live, the neighborhood, my little school, my grandparents' house, my cousins, the neighborhood kids are, know, so I do remember a good amount. And what I will never forget is the boat ride here. Your journey. Yeah, the journey was bad. They kept us for a couple of days waiting at this location without much food or water or anything, because we were leaving. They didn't care about us anymore. They weren't going to take care of us. And then we got on this rickety boat with way over capacity.
My dad estimates the capacity was probably 70 at most and it was 150 of us on that boat. And so, you know, there weren't enough life jackets. There were no safety measures. There wasn't food and water and the things you would need. We were on that boat for 12 hours and it was not comfortable. And four of those hours were really bad. It was a really bad storm. When the boat would go up, I'd see sky. And when the boat wouldn't drop, which was constantly, I saw four walls of water. This went on for about four of the 12 hours. Fortunately. Reading that part, Joel, with like,
I mean, I was like terrified. I mean, I knew you made it obviously, cause you're here, but reading that part, I was like, wow, it was frightening. So imagine the sound effects, what that sounds like, that boat making those noises, the people screaming, crying, praying out to God, it scary. And the ocean, the ocean has a sound to it. So that's my number one fear is the ocean. It's water. really scared of it. I respect it so much because
Cause it would have put me through. So I learned to swim late in life because I was a little scared as a kid, you know, they put me in a swimming pool and I just got nervous. I figured all this out as an adult that it all had to do with that. So that's how I got here. We got to South Florida, made it into the port in Key West at the air base at the Naval base there. And then we got shipped off to South Florida, Miami for a few days. And then we got picked up by family and taken to just outside of Oakland, California. And that's where I grew up.
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grew up with missing a lot of the things that a lot of the average kids had. You we didn't have money for anything extravagant, anything fancy, honestly, anything normal. We had hand me down clothes, hand me down shoes. My parents both worked a lot and saved and did everything they could, but it was, you know, it was below way below average. You grew up in poverty and that developed a lot of necessities that created me into who I am. So I don't regret it. I wouldn't have changed a thing. It all worked out pretty good. Yeah.
And it seemed like it sparked your entrepreneurial spirit, because I love the story of you in school just starting to buy candy and selling it. And tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, the other kids would have money for snacks after school. This is back in the 80s. could just, elementary finishes and kids could walk across the street to the liquor store, to the donut shop. They could do all these things. And all the kids would go. And I wouldn't go because I didn't have any money.
And so that made me realize I'm missing something. I need it. How do I get it? My parents aren't going to give it to me. And thank God, because if they did, I wouldn't be where I am today. And they didn't give it to me not because they didn't want to, but they just couldn't. So that made me become inventive and think like, what? OK, kids, they'll buy this. They'll buy these trading cards. They'll buy these candy bars. If I can get my hands on them for cheaper. So I started digging. It was fourth grade. And I started buying my own toys in fourth grade.
And in high school, I was making net profit $30 a day with candy bars that I would buy at Costco. I had a friend and she had her family had a Costco membership. So she'd come with me. I'd buy a ton of Costco chocolate bars, fill up my room and then put them in big plastic bags and take them to school. And I would net $30 every single day on top of my part-time job after school wasn't bad. So that's how I got my start. That's not bad at all. In the 80s of the kid. No, that's good money. Okay. Okay.
So then you left high school. What did you do? Did you do college? Did you go right into entrepreneurism? What was next? Yeah. It was a very complicated time for me because my senior year in high school, I got in trouble. It was the month that I turned 18 years old. So I was now an adult. And see, I didn't really know how to really make it, how to really make money. I had no clue because you hear about people opening businesses, but not in my neighborhood. The guy we all looked up at as kids was a guy named Beto.
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who sold drugs on the corner. And he had a nice car and he had a good speed system. He had girls hanging out around him. So we looked up to someone like that. I didn't want to sell drugs. I didn't want to hurt anybody. But I go, maybe I can get ahead like some of the other guys in my neighborhood and I could steal stuff. So I had a job at a big department store, kind of like a Macy's. Later got bought out by Macy's. And this is in California. And I worked in the shoe department. And whenever I would get sent over to the men's department, I would call a friend and say, hey, come over and act like a customer.
He'd walk out with four pairs of shoes. One would be a gift for him. The next day at school, he'd handed me the other three and I'd sell them. And these are like, I don't know, 70, $80 shoes. It's all for 30 bucks. And I was making money and everything was going great till I got caught. And now I just turned 18 two weeks before got sent to jail and had to spend the night there and had to go to court. And my parents were no help. I called them and they go, you got yourself into this, get yourself out of it. That was scary.
I was a kid, I just turned There were these monsters in there with like face tattoos and telling me all the things they were gonna do to me and yelling at me behind bars. It was scary. And so I said, okay, I'm never getting that. Having that happen to me again. So I graduated high school, I turned 19. Now what I was doing to make money aside from delivering pizzas and loaning money on the side, I would loan money to people for a little bit of interest. Well, someone didn't pay me. I was now 19 years old and a friend of mine.
that I was friends with since fifth grade just stiffed me. He wouldn't pay me. He wouldn't answer my calls. And so I went with a buddy, same guy I got caught with on the shoes. I went with him. I didn't learn my lesson. And we broke his car window. And guess what? We got caught. So second time now getting in trouble with the law. And that was the last time. It hasn't happened again. I'm getting close to 50. I was 19 then. That was the last time. And I learned some lessons. I got to stay out of trouble. This is not worth it. So at that age, my brother got me a job.
$7 an hour at a radio station back in the boardroom. And I started working there for seven bucks an hour. And my brother helped me, my older brother helped me make a goal of buying a house. And see, I knew he bought one at 23 years old and I wanted to beat his record. So at 22, I will buy a house. I set the goal. And now what I had to do making seven bucks an hour to buy a house, I had to work overtime, double time, 24 hour shifts. And for three and a half years, I put my head down and I worked. And at 22 years old, I had, I still working a job.
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a little part-time entrepreneur on the side, still loaning a little bit of money, going to flea markets and selling stuff. I got $32,000 down payment all on my own while paying rent to my parents, paying all my own expenses. And I bought my first house, rented out the bedrooms and that paid my mortgage. So every year for four years straight, I bought a house. So now I was like 25, 26, and I had four homes and things were going pretty good. They were all rental properties. And, but the real thing that happened and we can jump into it, it happened at a garage sale one day.
That's what changed my life. My aunt called me at the radio station. She actually called my cousin who I had gotten a job there and I was just hanging out. My shift had ended, but his shift had started. He took over for me and she calls and says, Hey Michael, there's a garage sale dear the house. You gotta come check it out. The guy's selling jockey underwear, all brand new. And I say to him, ask your mom the address and he gives it to me. Michael gives me the address and I go over there and the guy has 13, $14 underwear for $3.
And I asked the guy, what is all this? He says, I'm a sales rep and these are my leftover samples. I do the big trade shows. I sell to Macy's, JC Penney's, and then I'm stuck with samples that I had to buy. So I saw them for three bucks. Well, I talked to him down to a dollar and I bought everything he has had. It was about $500 and something dollars. Took it to the flea market over a couple of weekends on any breaks that I had from work, wherever I could squeeze it in. And that grossed me over $3,000. And I said, there's something here to underwear. So I really built an underwear empire that made me
seven figures in net profit. And I ran that for 20 something years and recently just sold that company. I'm like my mouth is on the floor. Okay. So much to unpack there. So dude, what do you think is your, that drive that you have, you know, like, cause that's the part that is like jumping out at me in, in the telling of your story, that there was just a real drive that you had.
And I don't even know, was your goal to be rich? doesn't even seem like it was like you had this goal of building an empire. It seems like primarily you were driven by working hard and that was like just a real value of yours. Yeah, I enjoyed working hard. I still enjoy doing pushups on the hot cement. I mean, I still enjoy putting myself through a little bit of torture in a mild way. When I was...
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Five years old, remember this clearly and my mom tells a story all the time. We had just come to this country and we were rolling up pennies in those little paper things to take to the bank. And I told my mom, I'm going to save so many of these and I'm going to be so rich. I'm going to buy you a motor home. Cause I thought a motor home was pretty cool. How could you have a house with wheels? That's amazing. And she always laughs about that. But I had this drive because I knew we were poor. It probably helps that my dad who was sentenced the three years of labor camp in Cuba because he wasn't a communist.
he had this mindset and he would always, you know, kind of a negative mindset. You can't blame him. He got, he went through hell. And so he would remind me all the time that we were poor and that there's a way better ways of being. We're at the bottom where, and I hated that. I hated to think I'm losing. I'm a loser. I started as a loser in life. I don't want to be. So that's part of it. A lot of it might be DNA. Maybe I'm just wired that way. I have no clue. I always was competitive and wanted to win, but I'll tell you what one for sure is. One part of it is fear. I had some fear.
I did not want to live in a bad neighborhood. saw fights. I saw a kid in school, a friend of mine, lift his waistband and show me his gun that he was walking around and I couldn't believe it. I'd never looked at a gun that close before. This is in high school. And I said, do you have bullets in there? And he says, yeah, yeah, I got bullets. And just seeing things like that and gangs and all this stuff, I always thought, I don't want to be around this. I want to be like the TV show I used to watch, a few of them, like Ricky Schroeder, Silver Spoons. The kid was rich and he had a train in his house that he could ride around.
You know, shows like that that showed a better life. So I think it was a fear of staying stuck where I was. I did not want that. Yeah. And there's there's also there's a way that you seem really comfortable at talking to people, approaching, exploring ideas like, you know, do you do that? that resonate with you? That there's just so you strike me as someone who just.
can start a conversation with anyone and from there have it lead to this and have it lead to that. And so really good skill. Yeah. My wife calls me the King, the King of Yippee Yap. Cause I'll get somebody and I can talk about everything. And I'm very curious. So I ask a lot of questions. So yeah, there's that now that's ironic because I came to a country where I did not speak the language and it's not like I went from Cuba to Miami. Easy transition there. I from Cuba to Oakland, California, hard transition.
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I started school three months after I got here and I failed because I did not learn how to communicate at all. I didn't understand what anyone was saying. I was so confused. I hated school. I hated the kids that come home and tell my mom they're all dumb. Nobody speaks Spanish and I would just be frustrated. And, but that helped me because I have a very good ability of including people. And I, my, one of the proudest moments of my life, I still have the yearbook. I have all my yearbooks. It was from third grade. won friendliest in the elementary school.
And that meant the world to me because here I was just a few years after getting here and I was the guy who a new kid would come in and at the playground I'd go get them and say hey come on we're playing soccer or we're playing basketball or playing tag come play with us and what's your name and I'm Joel and then I'd make friends and that happened because I didn't have that I didn't feel like anybody helped me do that and I always wish like and I can't play with those kids I wish they would call me over and I don't even know what to say to them
So maybe some kids did that for me and that gave me the inspiration. But 100%, I don't wanna see anybody left out and I like being friendly and bringing people. And you never know what happens. You develop beautiful relationships and business can come out of it or great friendships. Yeah, I love that. And I feel like it's one of the things that I think ends up holding a lot of people back. I mean, I can relate to that, like being in rooms where I don't know anybody or where I am, or it's not my type of...
crowd, example, right? And so all the stuff in your head starts to take over and you get insecure. And so now you start to feel like you're not good enough and humanity takes over in that moment. And that, but that ability to that, that, that, mean, I guess does that happen to you as well or you just don't have that because you have it. I walk into a room and I always say, what am I doing here? don't know. They all seem like they're friends already. Who am I? Why am I here? I should have just stayed home.
All of that is normal. And then when I break through it, through force, through talking to myself, I always go, man, so glad I came. Look, I ended up making good friends with that person and being able to connect him with that one. And they connected me with some. It always works out and I'm always happy. I have this saying in my head and it's get off the couch. I've never had a lot of benefits come when I sit on my couch and watch TV. So years ago, we canceled cable because we realized, what are we doing? We're to sit here and watch and be the fan of someone else. Let's go live our own life.
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We don't want our kids used to this. So yeah, get out, meet people and do stuff. And don't believe the lies that your brain is telling you, because your brain wants to keep you alive and it wants to conserve energy. It wants you to sit on a couch and do nothing. That's not good for me. That's not good for us. So I have to talk through the negativity. And after you do it enough times in practice, you get really good at it. So now my default is, yeah, let me go and let me go talk to people. OK, I'm so glad we got into that because one of the myths is
You know, people see people like you and they'll think, it's so, he does that naturally. It's so easy for them. And it's like, no, he worked at that. there are times, I mean, people, people have a hard time like believing me when I tell them that I'm an introvert. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, I'm an introvert. Like, yeah, I can be out there. I can be in front of stages. I can be speaking. But for me, I have to talk myself into that. I have to actually give myself a little pep talk and go, okay, you got this. Let's go.
And very often people take that for granted. They just think that you just show up, turn it on, or that you don't even have to do that work. And it's like, no, it's, we're all humans dealing with human stuff, right? That means you're doing a good job of it. If you convince people that you're an extrovert when you practice extrovert activities and you're really not, that means you've done a great job of becoming that somehow. Yeah. Well, you know what's interesting for me? What actually allowed me to break through to that was, I don't know, being like,
a good at it. I think that was part of it, but it was being honest about where I was. Like I would just walk up in front of stage because you know what's happened to me? I would start sweating and I don't have any hair. So the sweat would just start like dripping and it's just like like I'm talking about sweat. Like people would get nervous like like concerned and bring me a towel and I'm just like, you know, so now I'm sitting now I'm on a stage pretending that I'm not sweating, but it's like, you know, coming this way. And I started to after a while, I started to just walk up in front of stage and say, hey guys,
I'm really nervous right now. I wanna make sure I do a good job for you. I'm probably gonna start sweating. Don't worry about it. You I got a towel right here. And the moment I started to do that, there was so much freedom that I experienced in that moment. And the other people started to connect with me because they're like, look, this dude is being honest. He's being real. He's being vulnerable. And I had the audience all of a sudden. They were with me. They were willing to go on the journey with me. So I believe in both. I believe in...
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I try to, I don't really like faking it till you make it, cause I believe that when you're honest like that, people connect with that more. But there's, what I do believe is in the practice, like you said, the more you practice, those skills do become second nature. And now I don't have to like give myself a pep talk like I used to, you know? Maybe if I'm in a different audience or something like that. Well, if I stood in front of my class in middle school with 20 kids in front of me, I would be nervous. And then I've given a, the,
One speech I remember, because I remember finishing and thinking, that was a lot of people's 1400 people as a commencement speech and it was the address. So I was up there like 15 minutes and when I got off, I wasn't nervous. And I thought that's just cause I've practiced a lot. But in the beginning, 20 people would have made me ultra nervous. now 1500, 1400 doesn't make me nervous again. It's not practice makes perfect. I believe nothing's perfect and I don't even strive for it. I just want to become a little bit better. So for me, yeah, it's like everything else. It's been practice. Yeah. And I think those skills.
that that lesson applies to all areas of your life, know, not just speaking or, you know, especially you as an entrepreneur and building the business that you build, which is, you know, really impressive. Let's talk about that a little bit. you know, I think what would be interesting is what were the biggest lessons that you've learned during that time of building your business? Yeah, a lot of lessons in every direction because it wasn't like,
I raised a few million dollars and kicked something off and I managed some part of it and had partners. I didn't have anything. I didn't have partners, coaches, mentors, money, anything. So it started with, I bought $500 worth of stuff, turned into $3,000 and then I explored what else can I do. That same guy that I met at a garage sale, I was 20 years old, called me every six months and said, I've got more products for you if you want to buy them. I've got a thousand pieces, 2,000. In the end, he told me, I'm buying as much as the company will let me buy because...
to be honest with you, I buy them for 25 cents and I sell them you for a dollar. So they're letting me buy up to 3,000 pieces, I'll buy 3,000, I'll sell them all to you, it's easy money. You know, he made his real money off his commissions off Macy's and JCPenney's and all that. So what I started to realize is this is great, I have a full-time job, I have little side business, I loan money, and I've got these underwear that I'm buying from them, but I discovered eBay, so no longer did I do flea markets, I was now selling, instead of $6 an item, I was getting like 10, $12 an item, but the problem was the products would run out.
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He would sell me XML and they'd run out. So I kept digging and searching and I didn't give up. Thank God I didn't give up. I started looking on the internet every day. Where can I find more products? What sells? I'd go on eBay back then and because eBay was new and I'd see, there's this brand. found this little no name brand, but this is when you dig three hours a day for months. I found a little brand out of Mexico and I contacted them and I, know, long stories there, but I brought their products here to the U S I went from a $2,500 order.
that I made over the phone. didn't even know what I was doing. I wired the money. I'd never done a wire. I'd never even made an international phone call before. And I bought those products. It went really well. And a few years later, I was buying over a million dollars a year from that little factory. And I became their biggest customer. Even though they were a 20-something year old brand in Mexico, and they were all the major department stores, I became the biggest customer. I remember the day the owner told me that. I felt so proud because who was I? I was just this kid. I didn't know what I was doing. But I started wholesaling in stores. I started going to trade shows. And then
What really changed everything was when I started buying businesses. So I started buying brands, established 20 year old brands of athletic wear, swimwear, underwear. And then I was buying websites, multi-brand websites. maybe let's pause it for a second, Joe. What had you go from there to buying the businesses? Like what was the thinking? What was happening in your negative thing? that brand out of Mexico, the reason I don't say the name is because if anyone asks more details, the son of the owner,
got involved in the business after never being interested. He saw my success. The dad shared with him, hey, there's this guy's about your age. He's growing this thing. You should get involved. And the son finally got involved. And then he started contacting my clients in the US, my stores that I was selling to for all these years. And that was a bad day for me. Very bad day where I go, I'm in trouble. I don't own the brand. I don't own the final customer's email. I'm nobody. I'm this middle man who buys products, has a warehouse full of stuff. And when order stores buy from me, I ship it.
That's all I am. They can get rid of me tomorrow. So I said, I need to own the customer's data. So I need to be the store somehow. I don't know how to do that. And I need to own the brand that I'm selling. So that forced me to create my own underwear brand. And I did. We launched it first 13 months. It retailed over a million dollars. We did pretty well. And then I created a second brand, a third brand that we got rid of that brand that was giving us all that trouble. And then I said, now if I could start buying businesses and control my destiny. So once I owned my first trademark and it was in my hand and it was selling,
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I remember waking up in the morning going, nobody's taking this away from me. Now, how could I get knocked out of business? if stores stopped buying from me. So what do need to do? I need to become stores. I need to be the stores. So an opportunity came up, not by chance, but because I contacted my customers, I saw them at trade shows and I'd sit with them. I'd invite them to dinner and visit them all over the country. And I said to one of them, if you ever want to sell your website, I'd like to buy it from you. Because why? Now I own brands and I manufacture for $3 and 50 cents each. You know, this is
designer underwear, designer swimwear, and I could go sell that underwear for $15 each, right? $3.50 cost a $15. Those were not the numbers in my wholesale business. In the wholesale business, I was buying from someone else's product for let's call it five to sell it for eight or nine to a wholesale store. The numbers weren't so good. But now I bought my first e-commerce website and that business was little. It was a little website. It was doing like 350,000 a year. I bought it for 90,000, which was two times EBITDA, two times profit.
It was only making 45,000 a year. So I paid them $90,000. In our first year, we did 750,000 in sales. Our second year, we did 1,050,000 and just kept going from there. And that gave us cash. We really started profit. mean, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year just from this little website. And then we started buying more. So we bought multiple websites that were all competitors of each other. And we bought multiple brands. So we even bought a blog site. We bought 14 companies in that industry.
And then it really started making us money. You know, again, no partners, no debt, just step by step, little by little. I financed all those acquisitions myself with my own cash. And it got to making me over a million dollars a year net profit in this little thing that started at a flea market. So not too bad. And you know, some of the lessons that you asked about, what were some of the lessons that I learned along the way? One is gut feeling, like trust that gut feeling. Numbers are good. They're fantastic. I love data.
not to like nerd out, but just like, okay, I see a pattern there. Let's go that way. But when you see things about people like, I don't know, that's looking kind of fishy to me. Trust your instinct. I messed up a lot by just trusting people and going, yeah, I wouldn't cheat people. So they probably wouldn't either. And then letting myself get exposed. So yeah, definitely that's one of them. There's a lot of lessons, but that's one that occurred to me when you asked. So I want to share that. Yeah. Something that really stood out for me in what you were sharing is, it's just this willingness to
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follow the path, you know, and what I mean by that is I feel like maybe it's a result of social media, but I feel like people now try to get to the million dollar business, you know, right away. And it's like, you really went through one step that led you to the next, that led you to the next, that led you to the next, that led you to the next, and you were just on this journey and...
I think there's a lot to be said for that because sometimes we try to figure this out, especially when we're entrepreneurs. It's like, can't see, you wouldn't have been able to see the website business from the flea market. You know what I mean? But the flea market to eBay, to this.
issue that happens starts to expand your thinking and prepare you for the next step in the journey. And I think it's such a valuable lesson that, that for people to understand, because sometimes we try to rush the process. We, we resist where we are. We're just like this sucks. And it's like, I want to be over there. And it's like, yeah, but you're learning lessons here that are preparing you for the next few steps. And until you learn these lessons, you're not really ready for that step over there.
Yeah, so you're absolutely right. There were a lot of lessons learned in those younger days. Also, I didn't have a rich uncle. I didn't have parents with any money. I couldn't go to anybody and go, hey, I've got these wild ideas. Give me a half a million dollars and we'll see what happens. I couldn't take those risks. You know, was financially on my own at 16, paying rent at 18 or 19 and responsible for all my expenses. I couldn't dream that big. I still till this day, you know, I respect anybody that dreams big. be honest, I've always dreamt small.
I've dreamt like this. say, I'm here today and man, it would be really cool to just get up a little bit to this level and then just a little bit to the next level. That, that, I don't know if it's natural for me or those were the circumstances. I'll tell you this. When I first, a friend told me about shark tank when it was brand new, it was, gotta watch this show on Friday nights. And so I sat down and I watched it and it seemed bizarre to me. Just absolutely bizarre that people had go from a small product, a good idea.
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to someone giving them all this money and now they explode it. That's cool. I mean, it's amazing. I never did that. For me, it was like, how do I make 10 bucks? All right, well, I make 10 bucks, I gotta go to job delivering pizzas. And I did, and I made $10 an hour with my tip and gas money and all that. And that let me get a little bit of money to, okay, I'll loan $1,000 to that person at 10 % interest. And I did little things like this. And then I have a little extra cash to buy some products. And that never ended.
Even though the numbers had a lot more zeros later, it was like, how do we just, you know, if I could start that brand and it makes us a hundred thousand dollar profit a year. Awesome. I wasn't thinking, how do I make the next Tommy Hilfiger? How do I make the next Calvin Klein? I didn't think that way. I just thought I want to develop another brand or buy a brand that's doing X. And if I can improve them by 10 or 20 % and keep it going that way, that's it. That's how I shot for it. I can tell you there were mistakes. I lost money. I've lost millions of dollars along the way. I've made a lot of bad mistakes, learned great lessons.
But it was pretty stable footing. I never bet the whole farm. I bet little bits at a time. But I think there's something really valuable in that because it seems to me like you were driven a lot by just, like the goal was really how do I become a better version of myself tomorrow? How does my business become a better version of itself tomorrow? And I think when you're driven by that,
than when you're driven by values in that way and not by some shiny thing over there. And not to poo poo the shiny stuff, you know, to your point, people who do that is beautiful. But I think there's something really admirable and respectable and sustainable about this part. And I think it's taken for granted a lot that we're not, we're just not working enough to be a better version of ourselves. And very often we have these shiny visions.
And it's not to be a better version of myself, it's to be a shiny version of myself for someone else. You know what I mean? So it's like, then that becomes a measure of my success. And for you, the measure of success was always, can I be better? Can I do one more push-up? Can I do one more? And I think that there's something really...
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great, beautiful about that and respectable and like can withstand, it seems like it can withstand the test of time, longevity, know? Cause when the shiny thing goes away, then what do you do, right? Yeah. And for me, one of the big goals was financial freedom all along. I wanted to see how soon can I not worry about money. An employee of mine, he became my vice president for the last several years that we worked together before I sold the company.
He told me his goal was to not know when it was payday, right? He wanted to be so financially secure that he never worried about payday. And I remember when he said that to me, I thought, I haven't worried about what day, even though I'm an employee in my own company, I'd have a paycheck. And I always remember thinking, or I remember when he said that, I go, I haven't thought about payday in probably 15, 20 years. I guess I'm pretty financially free. I'm not worried about money. It's there, it's gonna be there. I know how to make it, I know how to grow different businesses.
But yeah, for me it was financial freedom. It wasn't about impressing anyone. If you knew my life, you'd be surprised by the car I drive. I buy two year old cars. They're not fancy. They're normal. And I buy them cash. I don't finance anything. I don't even have a mortgage. That to me is more important than what someone else thinks about me. Because what someone else thinks about me, first of all, I don't really know what someone thinks about me because I can't read their brain. I can only think what I think they think about me. And that's
It's like playing telephone, gets lost by the time it gets to you. And in the end, who cares? I really don't care if my, now, if I'm a jerk and my neighbor thinks I'm a jerk, that would bother me, because I should have improved, I shouldn't be a jerk. But if my neighbor doesn't think I'm successful because of the car I drive, that means zero to me, that does nothing to me. They don't need to know how many zeros are in my bank account or that my life is set for the rest of my life and I have to.
I only care about that. Nobody else needs to worry about that. So yeah, let there's financial freedom. And then there's that mental freedom of letting go what others think about you. Fortunately for me, I didn't have that. I put my head down when I bought that house at 22 years old and had 32,000 in cash that I put down as a down payment and still had more in the bank as a cushion. I drove a 1980 Plymouth Sapporo that my friends laughed at me about is this ugly little blue car stick shift, just chunky, but it worked and it got me to work and it let me save so much money.
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In fact, no car payment, lowest insurance possible because I didn't have to legally pay, know, no bank was requiring me for insurance. So I had like a 30 or $40 total insurance bill. What did that do? That allowed me to save a ton of money to buy real estate, to invest, to start companies. And that money multiplied itself. Or I could have had a nice car 25, 30 years ago. Which one is more important to me today? Yeah, love that. So I want to get into
the work you're doing in your group, but can we just, complete the arc, what had you sell the business in transition and like what was going on there? Yeah, so 20 something years of being the underwear guy, the swimsuit guy, the apparel guy. Honestly, I don't fall in love. I've never fallen in love with a business. When I was selling chocolates, I didn't love chocolates. When I sold trading cards as a kid, I didn't love that.
Apparel, I personally am not much of a fashionista and I don't care about physical products. I'm more of a minimalist. I keep my life very simple. So I wasn't in love with it and it was in the process of trying to find a partner so I could really step away completely that that partner potential partner in the conversation made me realize he wasn't passionate about it and so he wasn't a good fit. And then he made me realize I'm not passionate about it either. You know what? I'm not looking for a partner. I'm looking for somebody to just buy this because by then I had started
I'd gotten myself out of the way a lot. I got key people to run the business, but it was always on my mind. I was always worried about having seven figures worth of value in my inventory. That's stressful. What if there's a fire? What if there's this? What if the business goes down a recession? My programmers, you know, having prob, it's just all the problems. And I remember I go, you know what? I've made all, I've made millions from this thing. I never thought this would be possible. I've got money. I've invested. I invested in other companies, retirement accounts, all these things. I'm okay. Maybe I could.
take an exit and take some money off the table. Plus I've made good amounts already. Well, because I got myself out of the day to day years before I started volunteering as a mentor in multiple startup accelerators, all these groups and universities for entrepreneurs that led to accidentally, not on purpose, becoming a coach to some people who asked me if they could pay me. I go, sure, let's give it a shot. And that's, said, it is all organic. Nothing was planned. I started a group of guys, friends, and we would read this book and do challenges together.
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And then we'd read our own books and come and share with each other. And then one guy said, this could become a business. Let's do it. And so they gave me the idea. I started it. And then after we finished a couple of classes, one guy said to me, you know, you've really got to create a maintenance program. You can't let this just, you have this great 31 day program. And then everybody just walks away and I go to, well, give me, we brainstorm for like 10 minutes. And he's like, yeah, have a maintenance program, have a weekly call, bring in speakers, authors, and that's it. Do that.
and gave me a great idea. Kevin Thatcher. I'm always grateful to him for that idea. And then I did it. By the end of the day, he had helped me. He developed the logo for me. So by the end of the day, we had a name for it. It was called the Brotherhood. We had a logo, put it up on the website, and something like 14 guys signed up the first day. They were the guys who had finished the first two classes. Some of them decided to join. From there on, we've grown it. We're at currently over 90 guys in the Brotherhood. They are all guys who finished my 31-day course. Now it's hard to get in, though. Now it's you have to finish the 31-day course.
I hand select the guys in the class because I get to know them really well for 31 days and I invite them. Then they got to apply and the guys in the brotherhood have to vote for them. hardly anybody leaves. And guys a little bit get let down when they don't get invited. And I say, it's not personal. Let's have a conversation. Maybe I missed something. And then I invite them in maybe. So yeah, we've really built this and we've had an Air Force general talk to them, UFC fighters, a bunch of great authors with big names. We have our own topical discussions. Almost weekly we have calls. And then
If someone's going through something business or personal, we'll all jump on an emergency call. We've gotten as many recently as like 36 or 37 guys on one call because somebody's going through something. Imagine that power of all these guys. It was really an all star team of the guys go through my program. My program is called 31 days to become a better man. The website is 31 daily challenges.com. The number three, the number one 31 daily challenges.com and people go through it for 31 days. They go through my book. We all go together. We have a WhatsApp where we communicate every day.
And once a week for the 31 days, five visits, five times we visit on zoom live call. It's not me teaching. It's me leading a conversation where we go around and share, Hey, how were the struggles this week when you did the challenges in the book? Cause you got to do some mental challenges and you got to do some physical challenges. And if you fail some, you share it. Hey, I didn't make it today. I couldn't make the challenge. I, I, sucked today. I was tired. Something came up, you know, and we all support each other and it really builds some beautiful bonds. I.
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You know, it's so funny how I heard about this first. was sitting, I had the pleasure of sitting next to your wife at a networking event and she started sharing about the work that you guys are doing. And I was just like, this is so cool. First of all, I love that this transition has happened as organically for you as your multi-million dollar business got created that like was
Pretty cool, right? And a coach's dream, most, know, someone who's been in the industry for a long time, be like, I want to launch a program and have 14 people just sign up. And so really just speaks, you know, to your success and who you are as a mentor and as a leader. And I love how the organic way that this just came about.
And what really intrigued me is that in my experience, men don't really have a lot of spaces to do their work. And we have all these expectations. We want men to be men, whatever that means. And then we also want men to be more vulnerable and more, now we're asking men to be more emotional and more, let go of misogyny and to do all this work that it's a lot of.
Deep programming all that stuff from yourself is not easy, but there isn't a lot of places to actually do that safely, right? Because if you make a mistake and you do it in front of other people, then you're judged. I think it worked against you. Could be used against you for sure. And so I think that I'm just so intrigued by this idea and I love the fact that men have a space to...
to do this work and to be able to explore, I guess, what it means to be a man. now, yeah, I'll tell you this. We've had over 500 spots filled in the last year and a half since I started this program. And then the brotherhood is a smaller group because it's the all-star team that I formed with the guys after the first class. I went around, maybe the first or second, I went around on the last zoom on a Friday when we finished, because every class starts on Wednesday, ends on a Friday, 31 days and
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I asked them, so what worked for you? What'd you get out of this? And we went guy by guy, you know, on the zoom. I remember where I was sitting when I was, and it was over and over and it gives me goosebumps right now thinking about it. The guys would say, I've never, it's almost like they all repeated it in other, in their own words. I've never had this level of accountability with anyone else. And I've never felt this brotherhood. Some of the guys who were in the military said I had this in this brotherhood.
when we were in the Iraq war, you know, and I've missed it. Or some of them said I played professional sports or college sports and that's the last time I had this brotherhood. So I've been missing it. I didn't realize this was empty in my life. I don't even have that many friends and I've been able to form bonds here in such a short time. It's kind of like being in a foxhole in in a, in a war and you got these guys next to you going through it with you. Well, imagine 31 days of really challenging yourself, but you got all these guys.
that we get to share and you have accountability partners within the group of 20 something guys per class. There's also smaller accountability groups. So the bonds that are formed there, because guys open up because it's part of the assignment. Hey, open up and share what your feelings are on this. And I usually don't share what the challenges are. In fact, one of the rules in the book is there are rules. No alcohol during the 31 days, no pornography, no masturbation. You got to do the exercises and no reading ahead. I want every day to shock them. Like it's only three to five minutes of reading each day.
But when you read it, I want you to be like, crap, I gotta do this many pushups today and I gotta write a letter or I gotta make a phone call. I gotta do this thing I've been putting off. And so, you do that together with a bunch of people and you grow together. Yeah, and you're asking them to do some heavy lifting. The stuff that you're really having them look at is confronting in many cases and there is no way that
You would not go through 31 days of that and not be a completely different person at the other end. Like there's just no way if you. Yeah, I say it on the website. If this you do the work and it doesn't change your life, I'll give you the money back. The money is only 200 bucks. That's what the course costs. I'll give you one example of one of the things that is in the book. And it's my you know, I'll bring a full circle here. My biggest fear is the water, the ocean. Forget about it. I'll go on a boat. I don't care because boats usually don't sink and there's life preservers and you have a radio.
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and you can call in for help, but to jump off a boat and go underwater, forget about it. But on day 18, you gotta address one of your fears. You don't have to, if you're scared of heights, you don't gotta jump out of a plane, but go see a therapist, schedule a call. That's enough that you started the process. So I can't be a hypocrite. So I got scuba certified last year because of my book, because of day 18. And I've been, you know, not that deep, 30 feet underwater, but to me,
That's like going to outer space for somebody who is that scared of the ocean. So it's things like that. But again, I don't make them go underwater if their fears the ocean. did the first step and it was to consult with a counselor. And that woman helped me go through the steps to get into the swimming pool and start thinking differently and then go into the ocean and do it. So it's things like that, we're little by little, it'll change your life when you take these steps. Yeah. What are some of the common
threats that you are seeing men deal with. And I think it's important to say that your wife runs a women's group as well. know you guys, I know I'm speaking to you, we're, and I wanted to explore this idea of masculinity, but women, if you're listening and you're like, hey, this is actually really interesting, Joelle's wife, Michelle, does run the women's group program of this as well. Yeah, the only thing is, just one thing, her name's Jessica. Sorry.
Two common names. And yeah, it's the same website, 31DailyChallenges.com. Right near the top somewhere, there's like a men's challenge button and a women's challenge. And Jessica's got an exciting story from having a parent abandon her as a child to a year later or so getting cancer as a kid and going through all of that. She's really tough and she's the most thoughtful person at bringing people together and doing tough things. Mother of four, we've been married 22 years. We've got a 19 year old in the army.
all the way down to 10 years old and she's phenomenal mother, phenomenal right-hand person that helped me build my businesses and tremendous discipline. And she, I I crowned her the accountability queen. People tell me I've had all this success and I can tell you a lot of it is because she was my accountability partner and I would tell her what I want to accomplish and she'd be there to say, you're gonna eat that? Or you're not gonna make that extra phone call? know, so I mean, we really push each other that way and we're both grateful for having each other. So yeah, we both do that.
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with each other, but a thread for men, let's see, there's, there's probably, I've never sat down to think about these, but there's probably like 20 things that you go, there's one of these types. He's going through this lack of intimacy with their wife is a huge one that comes up in our chat at least once a month. And it fires up the thread for a little while, right? When that's going on and guys will get upset about it. If you know, they're married and their wife is, that's the case.
It's, you men are from Mars, women are from Venus. They're just on two different worlds. But, you know, one of my best contacts I've ever had in life is someone that I can count on as a coach. I don't abuse this honor that I have, but he's a former Navy SEAL named Jaco Willink, who I've gotten on a few phone calls with and gotten together with in person to work on things. He has a book called Extreme, Extreme Ownership. And we can't just go blaming people for all of our problems, whether it's your spouse or whoever, you have to take some ownership. So a lot of the times.
in conversations with these guys, they get to the point where they realize, you know what? Yes, there's a lot of lack of intimacy, but what am I doing wrong? Or am I not showing up really strong? Am I sitting around on the couch drinking beer, watching football, farting and burping all Sunday? And when there's things to do, when my wife would like to go out on a date, you don't know how many guys I've seen who are married and they haven't taken their wife out on a date. And they say years, say, come on, what'd you do to woo her and get her excited to marry you in the beginning?
Why can't you keep doing that? So my wife and I go on dates, multiple dates every week. This morning we went to breakfast together. I don't know if we have any more dates today. I'd have to look at the schedule, but everything is scheduled. It's all in there. So that's one of the big ones. And we have more control than we give ourselves credit for. Yeah, that I could totally see that. do the guys struggle with the emotional aspect of it? Or is it like when they get in there, it's just like...
their home or, would imagine for some people it's like their journey of finding a language, know, finding, using all of a sudden an appendage that you didn't have there before. I'll tell you what comes to mind when you ask that. There's a Marine who took my course and he's in law enforcement. He's a tough guy, really tough guy. And I met him before. So I knew what he was like and he's just straight laced, tough, tough guy.
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Well, the first day we're just going around. We'd already introduced each other in the WhatsApp channel before the day one. So we had already done these little quick videos. Hey, I'm so and so married or not married. I own this business. I, know, whatever. And so we all got to know each other on the videos. And then we had that first call and we went around and I think I asked something about what are you struggling with right now in your life? And something came up about him being too tough on his son. He brought this up and he started to cry. I could not believe that we're not like this cry session.
but it happens. But he's the last guy I would have expected. And later he texted me on his own, know, and he said, dude, I'm sorry. I don't know what got over me. I haven't cried since I was a kid. He'd never been in this room where everything we say is between us. You know, I'll never say who that is or anything. I've had over 500 guys who never figure out who it is. And so he just felt emotional and something happened. And I think he had a moment where he kind of opened up.
We shared some advice, not advice, but hey, here's what works with me when I get that way with my son. And it opened him up. yeah, so proud to have moments like that where guys, and I'm not out here trying to make guys cry. It's just sometimes there are a moment here and there where guys really get emotional and it's the beginning of some change for them. Yeah. There's a line on your website that I really wanted to ask you about because it really stood out.
You said the definition of masculinity has been changing in recent years and you need this book to be reminded of what it means to be a man. Tell me about that. How do you think it has been changing and what does it mean to be a man to you? Yeah. So the problem I see is that some of these guys are confused. They say, well, my wife wants me to be sensitive and be emotional and be open and be all these things. But then they feel cheated because when they open up that way, they feel like, well, then now she doesn't respect me.
I heard a comedian saying, this is funny, a comedian said that, you know, he could never be tough to his wife because he could in the moment of intimacy, tell her things like, you know, who say my name, who's your daddy, all these tough things. And then she looks back and she says, God, do have a peanut allergy? Please quit acting like you're that tough. You know, the people who know everything about us, it's hard to be that superhero for them because they now know all of our weaknesses, right?
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So it seems to me like that's where guys kind of feel they're like, well, I don't get it. Do you want me to be soft and emotional? But then you're looking at that tough guy with all the tattoos on a Harley because he's the tough guy. Right. So I have a friend who he had that situation, the nicest guy, great looking guy, very educated engineer and an MBA makes great money. Everything was great. And he did everything his wife wanted him to do.
Right. He would always babysit. He would take care of his own children, bathe them, everything so she could go out because she was burned out. Okay, great. Well, he did this for so long and just kept giving everything that it got to a point where she actually lost respect for him and she left them for another guy. And he found out she was, she had been with that other guy for a long time while he's here taking care of the kids and cooking, cleaning, bathing, working, providing everything. She was going out with his other guy and the other guy was the opposite. He was kind of a jerk. He drove a Harley.
and he was just this tough guy. that's, by the way, my friend's way better looking, way more successful, way nicer. so it's this mixed signal. So are we supposed to be a bad boy or are we supposed to be this sweet, loving guy? So there is that confusion. There's probably somewhere in there that a guy should be. I built a little bit of a relationship recently with the author, Dr. Robert Glover. He's coming to talk to my men's group in January and we're gonna be reading his book, which I've recommended so many times.
It's called No More Mr. Nice Guy. And it talks about the example of, here's one example. So guys who are brought up with a single mother and were brought, so their school teacher was usually a woman, right? So they created this sense of I've got to appease and make women happy because that's how I get my sticker. That's how I get my A, that's how I get my prize box at the end of the week at the school. But that's how keep my wife happy. And maybe they didn't have a brother who beat them up a little bit and showed them what it was like to be a little tough.
Maybe they just had sisters. I've seen this case because I've dealt with hundreds of guys and those guys go on this path of kind of passive aggressive victimhood. Like I gave them everything they needed. I don't know why they don't respect me. Why do they not intimate with me? All of these sort of things. So for anybody going through anything like that, I'd say, look at that book. No more Mr. Nice guy. It's phenomenal. Even if you're not going through something like that, it's such an eye opener for some guys. But to me, I'm a pretty traditional guy for me being a man.
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It isn't the extreme case of my dad who was really old school. You know, I want to be a supportive partner and all of that in my marriage. But for me, I have a role. Two times in my life with my wife and my kids, our alarm has sounded in the middle of the night. I'm proud to say, maybe because I put it through my head so many times, it took me about a half a second to be armed and ready and checking rooms and getting my wife and kids to safety. I'm here to protect not only in danger and when bad things happen, but I'm also here to provide security.
and a financial freedom and the ability for my wife to do whatever she wants, which fortunately was being a registered nurse for 10 years, but then not doing that anymore at 30 years old and dedicating herself to our marriage, our four kids, our house. So for me, that's what being a man is, providing that environment to do all those things so all of my family can thrive. It doesn't have to be that for everybody else. I think there's a different definition. I think the problem is when a guy wants to conform to what society is telling him to be, and that's not in him.
I think you have to stick to what you know works, not ignoring that gut feeling and working that out with those most important in your life and figuring out what the roles are for each of you to play. But to do all of that in the best way possible, you have to show up as the absolute best version of yourself. I don't tell anybody what it means for them to be a man. I show them through my book and my program, how they can be a better communicator. That's so big. How they can be in better health, massive, how they could be better with their money. So to me, it's health, wealth and relationships. You work on those three things.
And a lot of things, first of all, that covers a lot of topics, but a lot of things start to fall in place. Yeah, I think, I mean, you haven't really spoken about this, but it's, it to me is coming through what you're speaking about. And obviously you've been married for 20 years. So I'm going to assume that there is a level of you being emotionally available for your wife. And, you know, I kind of get it. Like my father never didn't grow up. Like his father never told him, love you.
I had to teach my dad to say I love you, you know? And I remember for a while I was like, dad, I love you. And he'd go, God bless you, my son. And I was like, and that went on for months. And finally I was like, hey, I said I love you. And he was like, I love you too. And he got it. So there's a way in which, you know, men aren't really taught to...
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be emotional to experience and express the emotion. then so I think when you get, and I think a lot of what the women have been asking for is that type of emotional dialogue and availability. And it does, but I feel like you seem to have that balance. I don't know if you would say that about yourself, but.
from what I'm experiencing you, I think you have that balance. Would you describe yourself that way? 100%. I'm so proud of the relationship my wife and I have built over 22 years because communication is at the forefront. We work out together, we eat together, we go for walks together, and we're talking, we're holding hands and talking the whole time when we go on a walk. So communicating is massive. Listening is very important. To me, that one took some time because I'm type A, I want to be involved, I want to hurry up the conversation.
Over the years, I think my wife would say that I've gotten a little better at that. I've become a good listener. Also, I'm not trying to solve every problem every minute because a lot of women don't want you to just jump in. that just happened. So I listen to me. Yeah, just listen. So I do listen now much better. I'll tell you this, similar to you. My parents have never said I love you to me. That's just not part of their culture. They were both born in the 40s. Their parents never said it to them. But where I broke the mold, I don't think I had the guts to do what you did with your dad. But where I broke the mold is with my kids and my wife.
Man, hugging and kissing is so normal in our house. You walk by me, you're going to get a hug. You're going to get a kiss. You're going to get a compliment. I'm going to tell you I love you. And yeah, we're so expressive, my wife and I, with our kids in that way 100%. And I think it's beautiful. Maybe they're going to be sitting on a counselor's desk or couch 20 years from now saying, my dad told me you love me too much. I don't know, but I'll take that risk. I have so much love in my house.
my God, well, it has been a pleasure, Joel. We can keep going on and on and on, but I wanna respect your time. So we'll wrap it up here. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story and your insight. I think our listeners have so much to learn from you and particularly men in finding that balance. I really feel that that's like a zone of genius for you that you've really been able to.
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to maintain those principles of what traditionally we know what it means to be a man while bringing in the loving and the tenderness and the expression of that, communication. So thank you for that. And I'm so excited to continue to see the work that you're doing with your brotherhood. It's just fantastic. Thanks, Gary. You're awesome. It was a great time spent with you. Thank you, brother. Talk to you soon.
I think what Joel has created in his life is the stuff that dreams are made of. I mean, the guy kind of has it all. Financial wealth, a gorgeous family, he's in great shape and has the freedom to have dates with his wife in the middle of the day. In many ways, he's a poster child for the American dream. And though what he has created in life is incredibly layered, what stands out to me is the simplicity in which he did it.
He needed money as a kid and started selling trading cards, which led him to selling candy bars, which led him to buying underwear than a garage sale, which led him to selling them in a flea market. So on and so on. Each step would inform the next problem to solve. He wasn't necessarily focused on a 10 year master plan. He had this idea of becoming a multi-million dollar, multi-brand apparel empire when he was a young man.
probably would have had to go a very different route. Maybe he would have gone to college or developed a business plan or designed a product and then get funding and so on. But by focusing on doing the step that he had in front of him, trading cards, candy, he was really able to use his work ethic and values to guide the way. He created something that he was very likely wouldn't have been able to accomplish had he gone a more traditional route.
He avoided some of the friction and risk that would have been there had he gone that way. In today's world, we're very eager to get the end. We want to achieve instant success. And as a result, I think we've lost some of the work ethic, the tenacity. We've lost some of the patience to hang in there. And as a result of that, we've lost some of the confidence that comes with knowing you can trust your choices because they're
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deeply rooted not in accolades or approval, but in the experience and purpose that can only come from a road well traveled. To learn more about Joelle's and Jessica's 31 Daily Challenge program, please visit them at 31DailyChallenges.com. I'll also include the link in the show notes. Thank you for joining me this week. If you have enjoyed this episode, please, please, please, as always, share it, like it, click it.
Follow it, subscribe, leave a comment, do all the things. I know it might seem insignificant, but it really does make a huge impact for me in terms of growing the show and spreading the message. Till next time, thank you.