The Grit Factor Podcast w/ Karl Jacobi

TGFP Audio 18

00:00:00 Speaker: Average is the enemy of greatness. Comfort is the enemy of growth. Welcome to the Grit Factor podcast, where we strip away the highlight reel and get into the darkness beneath it. The real stories, the real battles, and the battle plans used to conquer them. I'm your host, Carl Jacobi, combat vet, entrepreneur, resilience and performance coach, keynote speaker, husband and father. I've built, scaled, and exited multiple companies totaling over forty million in revenue. But here's what that highlight reel doesn't show you. Life has been smacking me in the face with a two by four since I was just five years old. Broken home, constant chaos. No playbook. No safety net. Just grit. And if you're anything like me. You know, you've got another level in you, in your business, your career, your faith, your leadership. You're just not sure how to get there. That's exactly why we're here. Be sure to follow me for more great content and check out my website. Success with Karl dot com. Now that's Karl with a K. Now let's get to work. All right. Welcome to the podcast. Here we are with another episode. And today I am joined by this lifestyle architect. And just imagine for a moment if you will close your eyes. Unless you're driving, don't close your eyes. But imagine for a moment this amazing human being that has this beautiful family, wife, kids and just travel the world. They go and travel, hit up Mickey Mouse, they go to universal. They do all these magnificent things, working twenty hours or so in their business. And they did this by design, right? So this person, this amazing human being that I've got to know for well over a couple of years now at this point, you know, I have actually watched this journey, I've watched this social media, and it has been truly an honor to get to know this person, to watch the growth he's that he's achieved, not just in his business, but also, in my opinion, more so importantly in his personal life and the growth he's had and, and the lifestyle that he has decided to implement into his life. Again, a lifestyle architect is what we're going to call this is what he's called himself built a two million dollar plus business. That was a milestone he just recently hit. And he's, you know, he's he's smashing even further past that. So Ryan, thank you for joining me. Welcome to the podcast, my man. Thank you, thank you. Glad to be here. So yeah, man. Absolutely. I'm really looking forward to finally digging into this story. Just before I hit record. You're like, yeah, man, it's been three weeks or so in the making. It's like, yeah, I know. Yeah. You know, you know, the funny thing is, so I was actually, I was messing around with AI, like back and forth and I kind of put in, you know what I do, you know, for, you know, a presentation I was about to do and that's exactly what came up. It actually says lifestyle architect. That's what they love presented it as. So I don't know, I guess you're just as smart as Claude is. No, it's smarter than me. That's funny. You mentioned Claude, because I know in our in our private mastermind or chat and that's, that's that was a hot topic for today as of the recording was Claude. Super, super impressive. Super impressive. Yeah. So well. Awesome. Well, let's dive into this because, you know, there's so much to unpack here, but because of time limitations. Sorry audience, but because of limitations. I really want to dive into the meat of this. You know, we call this lifestyle architect. You know, like I said before, you have a beautiful family, wife, kids. You've designed this lifestyle by choice. No, not choice. You decided to have this lifestyle, right? So tell me, lifestyle architect, what does this actually tell us what that means to you, right? Because a lot of people throw that word around, right? They throw around loosely. But what does it actually look like in your life right now? Um, so I'm a full time Amazon seller. I've been that way since twenty twenty two. Um, so we are, we run everything through a prep center. So I don't touch my ninety eight percent of my products. I don't, I don't see, I don't touch, um, we do complete online arbitrage, you know what I mean? So I mean, I can work from anywhere in the world pretty much as long as I have a laptop and an internet connection. Um, I've completely designed it like that. I want to be able to take trips when I want, whenever I want to. You know, if I see a good deal, it's time to go. Let's go. You know what I mean? I don't I love the the way I've designed it is I don't want to answer to customers and I don't want to have to answer to clients. So, you know, Amazon pretty much takes care of pretty much everything for me. I mean, that's why I don't do any consulting. I don't do any coaching almost specifically because of this. Right? I don't want to have to answer to anybody except for, you know, my wife and kids. And that's about it. So but, um, right now we are, we take about a vacation a month. I mean, that's almost our average, um, we've done long vacations like a month long. Um, and if you ever saw my sales, I mean, nothing, nothing takes a dip at all, you know, completely. I work. I work business around my life. I don't you know, life doesn't go around my business. I love what you just said right there. You worked your business around your life. You know, fortunately, I know too many entrepreneurs, myself included. I was in that crowd for a long period of time. And unfortunately, they they allowed the business to invade their personal life and invade their life and essentially rules their life, you know, and, uh, and I know a lot of people that's listening to this. In fact, I had another guest on a previous episode. I don't know if it's aired yet or not mentioning the same thing. Like he designed his business to build his life, right? He designed it around his life because to him, in this season of life, what was most important to him was having a freedom, right? Having the flexibility and mobility for whatever, whatever reason. Those three words just really seem to be, um, kind of the common theme lately, which is amazing because honestly, I really, honestly believe that entrepreneurs are just people in general need to, to build, you know, this around their lives because man, we're only given one life, right? And you being a father, you have two, two kids, right? Um, you know, and, uh, we were just talking about them in the green room before we hit the record. And man, especially as a parent that time can, you know, literally. Yeah. I mean, you and I have always talked about this and, you know, um, I know it's partly being an older parent or, you know, I've actually had businesses before where I talked to a lot of parents, but if not just that, like, um, if you don't realize that, like, I, I just went to lunch the other day, right? And it was actually just me and my two kids, my wife was getting her nails done and I sat down at lunch, but this lady literally came by with her and her adult kids and she sat down. She was probably like eighty, eighty five years old, right? And all she could do was literally just stare at my kids and smile. That's awesome. Because, you know, she could just like she and I didn't even have to. I didn't even have to ask her. But she she already, you know, you can already see it in her head how she's like, you know, she can already play that back in her head. You know, it was like probably sixty years ago for her, right where she had those kids. But, you know, it's such a small period of time. Yeah, it is, man. They grow up so quick. They do. And you never get that time back. Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly. Never get that time back. You never get that time back. And what I've learned, especially my personal experience. I'm sure you I'm sure you can agree as a parent. I don't know if it's just for parents, but I'll say this from a parent's perspective. Time has a way of fooling you that you have forever, right? It has a way of fooling you that I'll just push this off until tomorrow, until or next week. Tomorrow ends up becoming next week and next week becomes next month, and next month becomes next year. And you know. Before you know it, your kids are asking for the keys for the car and you're looking back like, Holy shit, what the hell just happened here? You know? And it's not just that. I mean, we'll kind of go into it later, but, you know. You know, you never know. Tomorrow may not come. Exactly. And tomorrow may not come. And, you know, these I mean these moments, don't you know? And like I said, you have very you know, I've read, you know, I've actually seen a couple of videos that kind of hit me lately where, you know, you know, your kids for literally eighty five percent is their adults, right? And literally only fifteen percent of their life, you actually know them as, as kids, right? So, I mean, yeah, and honestly, the only, they only want to hang out together. They're like twelve. Yeah, yeah. You're I let's be real. I mean, they want to hit, they want to hang out to you till like twelve, thirteen and they want to hang out with their friends. I think it's another it's a little earlier now, though. It might be in my. I probably have another like five more years in my daughter, four or five more years in my daughter. Right. So yeah, one hundred percent, man, one hundred percent. Well, let's dive into that because you did just slightly allude to this. But you know, again, you here you are, you're enjoying a beautiful life by design, right? Mobility, flexibility, freedom, all this in mind. But your life hasn't always been that way, right? So let's go beneath the scenes a little bit. Talk to us. You know, even paint me this picture, you know, twenty nineteen before anything broke. What did a typical week look like for you? Walk me through a day in the restaurant because you know, that was your past life, right? Was building a restaurant. So talk to me. Talk us through that. Um, well, twenty yeah, twenty nineteen is actually where my Amazon journey began, right? So, um, but twenty nineteen was, easily the toughest year of my life, right? It was. My wife and I opened the restaurant in twenty sixteen. Um, you know, it was a branch off of her of her own family's restaurant. So we were actually lucky enough to, you know, be able to use their name and actually, you know, be making money. It wasn't, you know, a ton of money, but, you know, we're making it by. Right. Um, yeah, she and I worked the restaurant. We literally were on our hands and knees, you know, renovating the whole place. Right. In twenty eighteen, we have our daughter, right? Our first daughter. So, you know, she's staying home. And basically my workload kind of, you know, goes up a little bit and she's gone. Yep. You know, but I wanted her to stay home. Right? So I told her, you know, in twenty nineteen, she starts Amazon as a side hobby in twenty nineteen. Also, um, well kind of you paint a picture the first year my daughter was born in April. So the whole first year I only worked maybe like thirty, you know, like a normal job, thirty to forty hours a week. Right. So I get to see her. I get to see her every day, you know? And you know, those times, like they grow very quickly in the first year. Yeah, right. I get to see her, but I'm there for, you know, everything, right? Yeah. I'm there for almost everything. Well, kind of fast forward to January of twenty nineteen and my head chef quits. And it was a Thai restaurant. So it's not like you can just pick up a tie, a tie chef off the street, right? So I became the head chef, right? And we don't run like a, you know, part of the reason we were able to be profitable is also because, you know, we run very lean. I mean, we're talking about like one or two people in the back, one person up front. So, you know, it's not just, you know, you're cooking, like you have to prep, you have to clean, you have to make sure you know every inventory plus managing the actual restaurant. So I'm still, you know, running in the front, taking care of customers, right? And everything else on top of that, washing dishes, like I cannot stand washing dishes to this day because of it. So, you know, um, so it goes from my head chef quits and I'm working seventy hours a week and it's not just seventy hours, you know, it's thirteen hours. It's twelve, thirteen hours a day of just, you know, physically grinding work, right? I mean, lifting forty, fifty pound tubs of meat. You're, you know, bringing everything in, you're taking trash out, you're lifting dishes all over the place, you're wet, you're dirty. I mean, you know, it's, it's grueling mentally. It's grueling physically. And then of course, emotionally, you know, I didn't get to see my daughter. I would literally leave before she woke up and I got back home. I'm like, dead tired, right? And she's an eight month old. And I mean, I could see her for maybe an hour right at the most. And even and even if the days I could get off, I wasn't really off because if something happened, I was right back down there. Right? So I'm always on call. So it was like, it was like I never could stop working. It's like the complete opposite of where I am now. Man, that's that's that's brutal. Yeah. And I know a lot of people I know I could resonate with that and, you know, spending a period or a season rather grinding seventy, eighty plus hour weeks, you know, and missing, if not all of it, the bulk of people's lives, you know, because you're, you're, you don't have a business at that point. You essentially you have a job, right? Oh, yeah. You know, and it's not even paying you overtime, right? Oh, God. No. Yeah. I, I did the math one time. It was, it was painful. Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah. I can imagine you. It was basically I was paying myself minimum wage. That's, that's basically what it turned out to be. That's crazy, isn't it? Now, you know, I think you mentioned this, but now you throw in the mental, you know, drain of this, the psychological drain of this. Like there's just so much more that factors in this into that wage, right? That makes that minimum wage just degrade much more because, you know, not only are you just spending your time there, but when you're not there, you are there mentally because you're thinking about things that probably are going wrong. You're probably getting texted or you're getting calls, hey, this broke or this went down or this customer's, you know, upset, right? So you really never truly believe. Yeah, you're on twenty four seven, right? Yeah, one hundred percent. So let me ask you, man, how, you know, seventy, eighty, ninety hour weeks, how long can a person survive like that before something breaks? Uh, I mean, I've always been able to work hard, right? I mean, I've always been mentally able to push through, you know, a lot of things, right? I've always, I've, I've been my I've had my own businesses since twenty twenty, two thousand and two. So I mean, it's been, you know, twenty, twenty five years plus. So I've always been able to grind through, but I mean, it is, it's a little bit different when, you know, you have a kid at home, right? When you have a kid, it's like when before it was like, I'm not missing anything, right? I've got nothing. You know, my wife might be working or something like this, but, I mean, I don't have anything else at home, right? When, you know, you have a baby at home and you know, she's, you know, within the first year or two of her life, right? I mean, I mean, you're missing a lot. Yeah. Like I knew I'm very well aware of how much I was missing. I was literally missing first. Right? I was missing first things that she's doing. I'm missing her, you know? You know, she was about seven months old, so I'm missing her, you know, standing up for the first time, right? Things like that. And just don't see it. I mean, you don't you don't get to see it. Never. And you don't get that time back either. So yeah, I agree man. I agree. Thanks for sharing that. And I know I can personally resonate with a lot of what you said. You know, when our kids were, you know, your kids age, I was still a W-2 employee at the time, working seventy plus hour weeks plus building other businesses, which I eventually took full time. Like what you're doing now, right? And man, there are so many moments that were missed so many first times and so many last times, right? You talk about the first times, but there's also last times you don't really realize they're last times until it's gone, right? And, uh, it's painful, man. It really is. So let's, let's dive deep into this because you revealed in your biography or into your, into your, uh, intake. And we talked a little bit about this before we hit the record. There is, there is a tragedy that occurred in your life that, um, you know, it would it it breaks a lot of people, you know, having a tragedy in your life right in the middle of everything you just talked about in that season of life, you suddenly lost your father, right, due to a heart attack. Um, and this was if I, if I understand correctly, this was even weeks before your brother's wedding, right? Right. Take us there, man. Take us there to that moment. Take us to that to that period of life. What happened man? Um, so I mean, like I said in January was when everything kind of started for me as far as, you know, having to work a ton, right? I mean, I'm working day in, day out. Um, and this happened in May. I remember, you know, pretty clearly it's one of those, you know, defining points in your life where, you know, you can, you kind of, you know, before and after. Yeah. Right. So the tough part about it was, is that it was about a, it was actually five days before my birthday, and he actually had warning signs ahead of that, right where my brother's fiance was calling. She's a nurse, right? And she's calling and saying, hey, you know, your dad's having some chest pains, but he won't go to the doctor. Mhm. Right. So I remember specifically talking to him on my birthday about this, and he's like, hey, dad, you know, you should really go to the doctor. You know, you're not, you know, you're not the youngest. You know, we're not the youngest anymore. You know, you might want to get stuff checked out, right? So, um, and then you go five days later, I get a phone call that. Hey, your dad's having a heart. Dad's having a heart attack, right? And and this is in Hawaii, so, of course, you know, there's five, six hours behind us. Yeah. And this was, you know, probably six o'clock at night. I remember coming home from the beach. Right. So I'm just thinking about it the whole time. This is actually one of the few days I actually took off. Right? I was actually able to be off. Um, and then of course, I, you know, I was like, you know, you're thinking about it. I went to sleep, you know, woke up in the morning and my brother's calling me and saying, hey, your dad didn't make it. Oh, man. Right. And literally, this is the beginning of May. He was supposed to. And then my brother's wedding was in the Bahamas. And granted, like I said, you know, this is Hawaii. I live in Florida. I only get to see him, you know, once, maybe twice every, you know, once every maybe two years or something like that. It's a big trip, right? This is a very big trip. Yeah. So, you know, we're all, you know, about to have a celebration. Literally about to see him in less than two months and all that happened. Right. So, you know, and my dad was my mentor. Mhm. Right. And not just a mentor. You know, he's the patriarch, the patriarch of our family. Yeah. I mean, he's the guy, right? The guy that's responsible for that took care of my grandparents and took care of my uncles. Right. And took care of everybody, right. The entire time, right? Besides having everything, you know, not just mentally, financially, you know, he was the person, right? So, you know, having to do that and then, you know, it's a little bit different when someone's sick, right? Because you kind of have time to prepare. Yeah. When it happens instantly, like, you know, it's a complete shock. And then, you know, no matter how prepared you think you are and you have everything set, like it's just chaos, right? It's just chaos. And, you know, you just emotionally, you never, you know, you it's such a shock. Like it's, it's, you know, it took months to recover. Hey, real quick, before we keep going, if you've been listening to this conversation and something hit a nerve, if something we talked about made you pause, or you felt that little tug in your chest, like, man, that one was for me. I want you to lean into that for a second. Don't just brush it off. Because here's the thing. Conversations like this. Yes, they're great and I love doing this show. I really do. But if I'm being real with you, a conversation can only take you so far. At some point, you got to stop nodding along and actually do something with that feeling. So here's what I want you to do. I want to personally invite you to something we built called the Reforged Challenge. It's a live five day experience I created specifically for people like you, high performers who know they're capable of more. But something got knocked sideways in the old playbook. Just stopped working. Or maybe life smacked you in the face with a two by four that you just didn't see coming. Maybe the fire just dimmed and you can't figure out how to reignite it. Five days, five real identity shifts. Live coaching, real community in the kind of honest conversations that actually move the needle. Not just another thing you consume and forget by Friday. Listen, you're not broken. You're just in between versions. And I love for you to come see what we've built. Head on over to the reforge challenge. Com again. Reforge challenge dot com. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you inside. All right, let's get back to it. I can imagine man. Thank you for sharing this and you sharing this. Now I understand. The emphasis why or why you place behind. You know, having your heart checked right before you hit the record. You know, you and I are sharing, you know, about, uh, my heart problems that I've been having even just as recently. You know, last week I was in hospital again for a heart episode. Your you're sharing, you know, the journey with your wife and your, your daughter, you know, that they had, you know, some So it wasn't your daughter who was having complications with her heart. It was your your wife. And, you know. Yeah. So I could see this being ultra sensitive to you now that you know, and those that are listening and or watching, please, you know, listen to what Ryan is saying because, um, you only have one heart and, uh, it's, I mean, yeah, I mean, that was, and that was really hard to, I mean, it's part of, it's part of the grieving process, right? You're trying to recollect things, but, you know, literally talking about somebody. Exactly. Talking about them five days before it actually happens. Right. And you're literally telling them to go and get it checked out. And then that happens, right? You have this like, guilty feeling, of course, of why didn't I push harder, right? Why didn't I, didn't I make him make him go do it? Right? And, and that was just multiple people in my family, right? Everybody kind of thinks of something like that because it wasn't like it didn't have a warning. There wasn't warning, and we just didn't push hard. I mean, it felt like we didn't push hard enough to, you know, making. Yeah, yeah, I, I can understand that, man. I can see your perspective in how we can hold ourselves in that guilt trap, if you will. Holding ourselves captive because, you know, man, if I just pushed hard enough, if I just, you know, fill in the blank, right? And I think that's with every tragedy, you know, we can only see in hindsight, man, I wish I had done X, Y, and Z, you know, at the end of the day, and I know you know this, you know, but it is too easy to hold ourselves captive by guilt because at that point, hindsight is always twenty twenty. Yes, there's always things you could have done differently, but you did at your at that time, you did the best you could, right? In that time, in that season, as well as everybody else. At the end of the day, he decided it was. Yeah, it was his choice. Yeah, it was his choice. Right. And I've, you know, I've come to accept that. Right? Yeah. So one hundred percent. Yeah. You know, when somebody shares something like this, right. I always want to ask this one question. I would love for you to share your favorite memory of your father, man. Mhm. So what is your favorite memory that you have of your father? Because I want to honor him in that favorite memory. Um, I could probably say I was really close to my dad. Right? So I can feel that. I just remember being. Probably my son's age right now, which is about four. Right? And we always do like cool stuff. Like I grew up kind of in the country, right? So we always able to do Like, you know, we scout in the woods, ride ATVs, you know, go out camping right by the ocean, right. Things like that. But I remember being small enough where I was in the cab of his truck, which was like a bench seat, right? He's like one of those old school Toyota trucks. Right? And I went to sleep. Right. So, of course, you know, I used to play hard. I always wanted to, you know, you're tired, you're four years old. I'm, you know, very active. Right? And my dad's, you know, always. And I've got two older brothers, right. But I remember just, you know, laying on his lap while he's driving, you know, and, you know, just being feeling extremely comfortable and safe. Right? Yeah. Wow. Thanks for sharing that, man. You know, I hope that everybody is listening or watching really understands the magnitude of time and the time that we have left with our loved ones and. And don't, don't waste it. Don't take it for granted. We we don't ever know when that last phone call is going to be, that when that last visit is going to be that last hug, that last anything is. And, uh, so you know, this, this b b your feet are, you know, when you're in a conversation with somebody, be reaching out. And that's something I've been absolutely. I'd be be present. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. It's something that I'm also, you know, really working on. You know, you always have your phone everywhere, but I'm trying to actually like, put my phone away. So, you know, when I'm playing with my kids or, you know, I'm with them or something, I'm with them. Yeah. Right. So yeah, you just, you just never know. So yeah, one hundred percent. And do you think that's even well, talk to us about that. You know, I love what you just shared right there. Do you feel in today's age it is incredibly hard to be present? Oh yeah, very much so. Right. Because we're always we're always connected, right? We're always connected. And, you know, the nature of our business especially is that, you know, there's always another email or a sales popping up or, you know, something's going wrong. You know, it might be, you know, or you just want to check your emails, right? You want to check your sales, you're looking at your Amazon app, you want to check your sales or, you know, see how much money you made for today or, you know, you gotta be moving money around between, you know, different places because that's, you know, the nature of our business. But yeah, I mean, it is extremely hard, right? So, you know, it was one of those things that, you know, even with my dad right back back then, I mean, we didn't have phones, we didn't have pagers, we didn't have anything of that sort. Right. So, you know, when we were together, like, of course his, he was always fully, you know, fully focused on us. Yeah. Because he didn't have to, you know, be distracted by anything else. Yeah. That's a great observation, man. I think in today's times it's even worse. And I hate to see what ten years from now or even five years is from now is going to be like, you know, I mean, in the rapid evolvement of social media and everything that's constantly pulling for attention. Now we've got AI, so many things that's pulling our attention. It is so much more detrimental to, to take heed to your advice, to what you said, just be where your feet are, put your phone away, put it in another room. Because in my experience, I'm sure you know, you could agree that, man, if it's in close proximity to you, you're by nature, you're going to want to grab it. Exactly. You're going to want to go there, right? It's the dopamine hit of just, you know, constant. And most of the time it's not even stuff that's even even relevant. Like what's more relevant, like checking on Facebook or is it is your, your kid in front of you that wants to, you know, wrestle with you or something? Yeah, right. It's not even if you put it in that context, it's not even close. You should, I mean, put it in another room, put it in a drawer or something else like that. I mean, it's not worth it. I agree, you know, I agree. One thing I found. I'd love to hear your take on this, especially as a as an entrepreneur, when you have. And I think this is also the consequence of being an entrepreneur. And this is something you have to be super cognizant of when you're an entrepreneur or business owner, especially for you. You're a serial entrepreneur. I think it becomes easier to fill the time with, to your point, unnecessary things that aren't critical, but you just pick up your phone just to fill the void of that time, right? Whether it's checking your sales or it's looking on Facebook or YouTube, unless it's listening to my content or consume my content. Totally kidding. Kind of. But on a serious note, I, I personally found myself falling victim of finding things to do to fill the void of time where I should have been taking that time to do other things that I should be doing, either as a husband, as a father, or to do other things that's fulfilling to fill that void. What are your thoughts on that? Oh, no. Absolutely. I mean, it's one of the things that I've, I talk to people a lot about, um, because, you know, people want to know how do I do the amount I do in literally, you know, mostly like, you know, half to a third of the time of, you know, what other people are doing. Right? And it's because I, you know, I think the top two things is being consistent. Number one. And number two is focus, right? Mhm. Um, so being focused is, you know, a huge thing like you got to be able to, you know, put all the distractions away. I put my noise canceling headphones on and when I'm working, I'm working like I want to be productive. I'm, I'm where my feets at, right? So if I'm working, I'm fully focused on what I'm doing. Like I want to get done and I put hard stops to things, right? So instead of I don't if I say I'm not going to give myself eight hours, I give myself four hours, right? I don't want to. I'm not going to take eight hours to do something. If you give yourself eight hours, you're going to use eight hours, right? I mean, yeah, if you give yourself four hours, it's four hours. And honestly, the funniest thing is the way I realized this was, like I said, we go on vacation quite a bit, right? I mean, I mean a lot. So, you know, I'll take a cruise or something like that and you know, it's I'll go on a cruise ship. But of course, cruise ship internet sucks. So, you know, and I don't want to be working when everybody else like I want to take a vacation. So what I started doing was I, you know, if I had a cruise coming up, I had, you know, a certain amount to spend that week. I would just push it up a week. Right? So let's say like I had twenty five thousand dollars I was supposed to spend while I'm on vacation, right? I don't want to do that on vacation. I want to actually be on vacation. So, you know, I push it up the week before. So instead of doing twenty five thousand, I'm doing fifty, right? And I realized, hey, I can do fifty and forty in forty hours. Why can't I do a normal week in twenty hours? Yeah. Right. So, I mean, it's just, you know, that's a great way. Yeah, that's a great observation you just pointed out. And as you're saying, this reminds me of what Mike Michalowicz. I'm surprised I was able to pronounce that too many syllables. Uh, he founded the system profit first and he's created multiple books, clockwork profit first and various others. Right. But he demonstrates this law. He articulates this law. I forget the law or the name of this law, uh, you know, by name. But the concept of this, to your point is you're going to consume whatever it is that you're given. Case in point, we're all in school at some point in our lives, right? So if we're given two weeks to do a book report, guess how long it's going to take us to do that book report? Two weeks. However, if the teachers, you know, on that same book report gave us two hours to do a book report, how long do you think it's going to take us to do that book report? Two hours. Right. I love the I love how you use that that law. I don't remember what it was off the top of my head, but I love how you intuitively. Parkinson's law. Right? Yes, I think you're. Yes. Yep. That's right. It is. Um thank you. So I love how you adopted that to your life. It's like, okay, I'm going to cram all of this and only, you know, allow myself four hours to get this task done or this day done. Because to your point, and I think this helps to focus, you know, what you were talking about earlier, because otherwise, if you just give yourself eight hours, you're going to find things to distract yourself with, whether it's getting on social media or it's checking your sales or whatever else that doesn't directly contribute to the task at hand to achieve those milestones. Right? Um, that, that's, that's gold right there. And this allowed you to build the lifestyle. You have the lifestyle architect, right? Um, I love that man. Before we get much further, because I want to just go back a little bit because I think we got a little bit ahead of ourselves because there's something you brought up in your, in your guest intake that I, I want everybody to, to really listen to because talk us through, you know, going back to your father, he passed away. Um, you know, suddenly, you know, if I remember correctly, I don't know if I heard this, but you weren't even able to tell him, you know, you weren't able to tell him goodbye. You're able to have that last conversation with them. I, I personally know how that feels and not once or twice, but I've had that multiple, multiple times in my life, but walks in that season of, of weeks or even months, if you want. Of what, what did life look like for you in that season? I mean, did you take time off or did you just I mean, that was that was one of the wake up calls too, right? So I was able to, I took that day off right when I found out, of course. I mean, I got that day off, somebody was able to cover for me, but literally I was right back in the grind the day right after that. I mean, I was literally in the kitchen with tears in my eyes, you know, trying to, you know, just get through the day. Right. And it was, it was, I mean, I, I couldn't tell you exactly how long, but I mean, it was a long time, right? I mean, like I said, when you have somebody who dies that suddenly and is that important to you, I mean, it takes a while to process that, right? Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it was months. I mean, it was easily months before. You know, I was okay. I can imagine. Yeah, I can imagine. So did let me ask you this. I mean, especially in that season, it sounded like, if I understand correctly, you used your outlet, if you will, was your your job, your business to distract you from grieving, right? Um, so talk to this to the Ryans out there that might be in your shoes, you know, that's, that's suffered a tragedy. And there's, there's actually a phrase I associate with this, this disorientation, right? This disorientation is where you initially get slapped in the face with this two by four by life, either by a tragedy such as what you suffered or anything in nature. And we we don't initially want to recognize what's happened. So we choose to things to distract us. Otherwise we have to face the emotions, right? We have to grieve that. We have to process those emotions. So talk to the Ryans that are out there that maybe has suffered a similar tragedy. How would you coach them or how would you navigate them through this season that you experience in their life? Mhm. Right. Um. I mean, I tell, I tell people this all the time, I don't think you ever miss anybody less. Right? I think you just learn how to deal with it better. Right? So it's like, it's not like a it's not like I miss him any less is that I just I've just learned how to deal with it better. Right? And, you know, it just, it just takes time. Like, honestly, it just it was it was rough. I mean, having, you know, on top of that, it was already, you know, like I said, mentally drained. Physically drained. Right. And then you turn on something like that. I mean, it was brutal. I mean, absolutely brutal. I can't I can't think of a harder time in my life. But, you know, I've had, you know, thank God I had good friends, family, you know, that reached out, you know? You know, call me every day. Hey, are you okay? Yeah. You know. So, you know, kind of talking through it. And honestly, I don't think anything really. I don't think anything really helped it until just, you know, time. Like it just have to have time to just work through it, right? There's nothing, there's no magic elixir for something like that. Like I said, you have no preparation for it. So you just kind of have to, you know, you grind, you bear down. You know, hopefully you have, you know, a good enough support system where you can at least talk it out, right? Yes. And you know, you have people checking on you. Yeah. If you have that and then, you know, it makes things a lot easier. Yeah. Just to be able to hear somebody on the voice saying, how are you? Hey, how are you doing? I agree man. I agree. I so appreciate that you pointed this out. Having a good support network and not allowing yourself to be inside your head. That is the last place you need to be is isolated. Being stuck inside your head. You need people around you. In fact, you know, I was in a hospital last week, man. I was I try to keep keep it on the down low because despite popular belief, I don't like being in the spotlight. I don't like the attention. Right. Despite what I do and so forth. I know it's kind of counterintuitive, but you know, you're one of the key, you know, key people that send me a text. Hey man, you know, hope you're doing well and so forth. So it's having people like you in, in your life to champion you. Check in and make sure you're doing okay. By the way, I want to tell you this in person. Thank you so much for for your message. I really do appreciate that. Um, and, uh, it really makes you appreciative of the people you have in your life to champion you through different seasons, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, to everybody else listening out there, you know, it does. You know, you don't think that it means a lot to people. It does. Agreed. Even if it's just a text. Right? Even if it's just a text or, you know, or something else like that, it could mean a lot. It means a lot to somebody, right? So, you know, it's, I tell, I tell this to people all the time. You know, it's not, you know, you should judge people by what happens when the worst comes around, not when you know it's the best. Right? Yeah. Who shows? Who shows up at the funeral? Now everyone wants to show up at the wedding. But you know who wants who shows up at the funeral? Oh, man. That's deep. Dude, I love that, I love that. Speaking of which, you said something. A lot of people, in addition to everything else that you just like dropped on us, like, oh, yes, you dropped some really good bombs here. I really, really hope that people are paying attention and listening. I know I've needed some reminders and I'm it's been amazing hanging out with you, but you said something. I think a lot of people myself that needs to be reminded us that a lot of people need to hear success without time. Is failure, right? When did that truth hit you? Was it instant after your diet, after your your dad passed away, or did it take a while for that to sink in? Um, I honestly, I just, I think it was that whole year, right? Like having that entire year and literally like, it wasn't just I was working a lot. It was, it was also the fact that like, it wasn't like I could just leave. I owned a restaurant. It wasn't like, you know, my name was on the lease. I mean, we couldn't just, like, pick up and leave. It wasn't like a job. I could just be like, oh, I quit. Like I, you know, let me go home and get a new job. Right? Like it's I'm stuck here. Yeah. So it almost felt like it felt like a prison almost. Right. Like there's. I could not get out of it. I mean, granted, I. We were making enough to get by and, you know, but I mean, working that much. Right? What's the point? You get to the point. Like, what's the point? Like, why, even if I was making five times as much. Like if I have zero time to spend it with anybody that I love, then what's the point? Yes. Right. Yes. I mean, money is completely replaceable, but you know, your time, your time, you never get by one hundred percent. Real quick, before we keep going, if you've been listening to this conversation and something hit a nerve. If something we talked about made you pause, or you felt that little tug in your chest like, man, that one was for me. I want you to lean into that for a second. Don't just brush it off. Because here's the thing. Conversations like this. Yes, they're great and I love doing this show, I really do. But if I'm being real with you, a conversation can only take you so far. At some point, you got to stop nodding along and actually do something with that feeling. So here's what I want you to do. I want to personally invite you to something we built called the Reforged Challenge. It's a live five day experience I created specifically for people like you, high performers who know they're capable of more. But something got knocked sideways and the old playbook just stopped working. Or maybe life smacked you in the face with a two by four that you just didn't see coming. Maybe the fire just dimmed and you can't figure out how to reignite it. Five days, five real identity shifts, live coaching, real community in the kind of honest conversations that actually move the needle, not just another thing you consume and forget by Friday. Listen, you're not broken. You're just in between versions. And I love for you to come see what we've built. Head on over to the reforge challenge dot com again. Reforge challenge comm. Check it out. See if it speaks to you. And if it does, I'll see you inside. All right, let's get back to it one hundred percent. There's something I heard from some a client I used to work with a long time ago. Time and energy is something we need to be ultra conservative, because those are things you can never replace as time and energy. Uh, money, man. Dude, we can make more money. I mean, look at the government, right? It's print money left or right. You know, we all have our opinions about this, but not to get political or anything, but to your point, man, time and energy is precious. We have got to protect that as though our lives depend on it. Because it does, right? It does. It does right. Absolutely it does. Right. So let's get up on this upswing because you you alluded to something that something had to change, right? You couldn't keep going like this. You couldn't keep grinding like this. You had this realization that, you know, this life was destroying you. Uh, not just you. It was destroying your psyche. It was destroying your family. So, you know, what was the real move that you made? Because I don't think it was the Amazon business yet. Maybe it was, but what was the real first move that you made? What was the first thing actually you changed to pivot? Um, I honestly it was actually Amazon. So like I said, we did start, um, Amazon in twenty nineteen, but it was a side hustle, right? This is something my wife was actually doing. So, you know, we're kind of pushing this along. Even with all this stuff going on, we're still kind of like, you know, kind of pushing this along in twenty nineteen, but then twenty twenty hits, right? And everything shuts down, right? Except for Amazon, right? Except for Amazon. Exactly. So my restaurant, like our restaurant actually shuts down in what was it, February, right? Yeah. Not shut down, shut down. But basically we go to a takeout only. Yeah. So it goes to like, I don't have to be there seventy hours a week. I don't have to be there maybe forty to fifty hours, like forty hours a week. Right? So for me, that's, you know, now I got an extra thirty hours on my hands. Like, what can I do? Right? Yeah. But I'm looking. And then I'm, you know, we're kind of moseying along and then, you know, we're, but I remember, I actually remember this specifically. I remember seeing a post from Jimmy and Jimmy was blowing up at that time and he's saying, hey, I'm doing one hundred thousand dollars in revenue a month. And that was just like mind blowing, right? For me. Like I hit my first ten thousand a month in like December of twenty nineteen. Nice. Like doing one hundred thousand dollars a month was just like mind blowing. Like, how is this even possible? Yeah, right. But then you have to have to see it when you actually see it, when somebody actually sees it. And you can actually see it as possible, then, you know, your mind starts opening up. Yeah. So literally, I take, I'm taking this course in July of that year, and instantly we find a couple of things that take us from ten thousand a month to up to fifty thousand a month. Wow. Instantly, two products, literally two products takes us from ten to fifty. And then I'm this like, I'm pushing this. I'm pushing, I'm sold. Let's go. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I'm just like, I'm going to push as hard as I can, right? So I'm pushing it. And you know, I, I rushed on stage, you know, halfway closed for months at a time. Yeah. So, you know, I'm, I'm then I'm of course making way more money on Amazon than I am at the restaurant and I have I know what it could be because I have this complete freedom of, you know, I can go out shopping when I want to go out shopping. I don't have to. I'm not beholden to, you know, being at a location. Yeah, yeah, that's true man. Uh, and those are listening. Jimmy. He's referring to Jimmy Smith. He's a good buddy of mine. We've known each other for, gosh, almost ten years now. Uh, talking about time flying. It's. I can't believe it's been almost ten years. Um, and so he's got amazing content. So for those that are interested in what Ryan's doing, either hit Ryan up in or hit up, you know, Jimmy Smith and, uh, he's got a lot of content and uh, yeah, so at this point for you, it really became a proof of concept. You're like, holy smokes, I this is possible. And so you went all in, right? Uh, you decided to go all in and, uh, and yeah, it is attack it full in. So that being said, you know, when, when, when was this point you decided to, you know, essentially shut down your restaurant, shut down that part of your life that season and fully focus on Amazon. Um. I want to say like, I, we, we got a little bit more help around in twenty twenty one. Um, my wife's brother started working at the restaurant. He started just running it, you know, I mean, he's, he's run, he's run, um, her parents restaurants and stuff before. So he kind of was running almost, you know, able to, I was barely working anymore at the restaurant. So, you know, and then I'm fully focused on. Yeah, I mean, I'm fully focused on Amazon. I'm fully focused on not going back to the restaurant. So I knew that, hey, if I can, if I can get right, if I can get, you know, this as a full time income, which I knew I could, right? And then I knew I could focus on that. Then let's go all in. Right. And so by twenty twenty one, I mean, we were making full time income ready. And by the beginning of twenty twenty two. We were just like, you know, our lease was actually up. But I was just like, you know, we. So we were like, we asked our brother. I was like, hey, do you want, do you want to buy the restaurant from us? Right? I mean, you already we're like, you're already running it. I mean, do you want to buy the restaurant for us? Right? And it wasn't even we didn't even ask him for much. Like we actually sold it to him for less than what we put in it. Yeah. And we were just like, we're done. Right. And then yeah, the rest is pretty much history. I mean, I mean, we go from, you know, ra over to. Oh, of course. And then, you know, we can, I can because I already saw you could even have more flexibility that way. Yeah. Right. And then of course, I'm done prepping. So I send everything to a prep center. Yeah. So yeah. Nice. So if I understood correctly for you, it wasn't really about just getting as much as you want out of the business. It was merely like, hey, listen, I, you know, I'm willing to sacrifice, you know, whatever type of monies that we would we'd have received on the on the business so we can move full forward in this new season, you know, revitalized peace. Uh, have a sense of fulfillment, happiness, joy, right? You're willing to sacrifice whatever it took to kind of release that chain because you're a miserable man. If I understood it correctly. And I, I feel I know that life, I, I know that season all too well. Unfortunately, at that point, you're willing to do whatever it takes just to get a bolt, you know, a bolt cutter and just cut that chain, you know it, rip that band aid off. Right? You mentioned just briefly something and I want to highlight this real quick because you said this in your bio, but you also just briefly mentioned, uh, you can use leverage to make money, but you don't have to choose between financial success and being a great father and husband, which that hits a personal spot for me. So that being said, what does leverage look like in practice for you? Um, because a lot of not just dads, but moms out there too, right, are hearing that and it's like, okay, yeah, that sounds all well and good. It basically sounds like a fantasy for them, right? So what does that actually look like in practice for you? Um, you know, I've always had that limiting belief thinking that, hey, you know, you have to choose one or the other, right? Like you can have this like successful business or you can have, you know, you can have, you know, be a great dad, be a great husband. Right? Yeah. And that's just not true. Like, it's really not true. Like, you know, you when you actually, the more I got into it, I saw, you know, people just doing these really crazy numbers and not just doing these crazy numbers. Like some of them are like single moms, right? They were, you know, people running other businesses on top of that and literally doing like three to four times of what I was doing. So, you know, I, you know, I, of course, got in touch with them. You know, I networked out with them. I, you know, I pick their brains and see, okay, what, what are they doing that I'm not doing? Yeah. Right, right. And then one of the first things is like, why am I, why am I sitting here doing prep when I could literally just be sending it over to a prep center and paying, you know, a dollar a unit. And of course, here in Florida, I can't even get that dollar back on sales tax. So why am I not just sending it to a tax reason, right? I don't have to touch it. Right. So instead of prepping all these units, then I could be sourcing and making more money, right. And of course, you know, we can leverage other ways with Vas and you know, better softwares, right? Those are all leverage points that, you know, you've got to always be looking out for and be able to push harder. I mean, I'm now I'm getting to the point where, you know, I don't want to be an operator anymore. You know, I want to be an owner. So I'm leveraging more right now. You're talking my language now. I don't know if I've talked about you, but yeah, now I'm getting the leveraging of the buy, right? I'm getting the buying the right on top of my sourcing VA and everything else. So you know, I can and I'm doing a one hundred percent more than I was doing last year. I'm literally up to X this year. That's crazy man. That that's crazy. But and I know to the person that's listening now they're, they're probably like, you know, I'm sure there's some that are still battling those limiting beliefs even after hearing you. Right. And, uh, but I, I know firsthand how hard that is. You know, I, I used to have that limiting belief and sometimes it's still, you know, rears its head, right? But this is how businesses scale. This is how you see all the successful individuals that do really, really well for them because they bring in people that are smarter than them in very specific set of tasks, right? I'm not a marketing genius, but guess what? I have people in my corner who are marketing geniuses and they, they work in a zone of genius, right? I have copywriters, I have, you know, social media experts because I'm, I love speaking life into people. I love helping people win. I love, you know, just speaking, you know, and just helping people win. And so you recognize that, right? You recognized like, why am I sitting here prepping and Cineplex, you know, to Amazon because you recognize it as not only as a time suck, but also as an energy suck, which I can fully relate to that. So you saw an opportunity to leverage that right to, to leverage this. How hard was that? Or how easy was that for you to let that go, for somebody to flourish in their zone of genius so that you can focus your zone of genius on something else. I mean, for something like prep, I mean, that was not hard to let go, right? I mean, I hate, I hated, I hated prep from the beginning. Like I was like, I think ninety percent of the people can resonate. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure a lot of people and that's one of the main things most people are like, man, you don't get to touch most. I'm like, yeah, most of the parts I don't touch like I don't like. And it was also the, the stress of having like your, you know, you have a house, you don't have a warehouse, right? You have these constant boxes coming in and out. I mean, it's just you're always stressed. Like it's literally right in front of your face all the time, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's stressful, like, and you have to deal with all the, you know, where do I do with all this cardboard? Like, you know, where do I have to check all that stuff in? So it's, you know, it's organized. Like I don't want to, I don't want to deal with all that stuff. Right. So, I mean, it wasn't hard. And that part, that part was not hard. And once I once that, I mean, honestly, once I could get, once I got rid of prep, I mean, it was like the shackles were off, right? I wasn't even thinking about that. Like I think about that kind of stuff when you're when you're sourcing. It's like, oh man, I got all these things right. But then, you know, once that's out of your hands and, you know, letting somebody else do it, then it's no longer you're just like, let's go, right? Then I can almost, you know, like I tell people all the time, it's like the shackles came off. That's right. That's run. Yeah. That's a great point, man. You you're you. You nailed it. You. The shackles are off, right? I in the lean world, we call those bottlenecks. You know, we're we're where are the bottlenecks in your business, in your life that is preventing you from moving forward, right? And so, yeah, for you, it was removing prep. And, you know, there's other things you've done too. Um, you mentioned something in your bio that you attribute success to, right? Um, your one system routine that you attribute success to is to be generous and provide value, right? Always give more than you receive. And I love that, that phrase, that mantra, whatever you want to call that. But how does that work in business? Because I know there are a lot of people that's listening to this right now. And I too, at one point in my life, because most people would think generosity and profit are like polar opposites. So how does that work in business? Right, right. Um, you know, it honestly just comes down to having an abundance mindset, right? Oh, like, yeah, I mean, honestly, you got, you gotta understand, like it is, it's a blue ocean out there. You know what I mean? I mean, I've, I've given, you know, people have given me every, honestly, every big thing that's happened to us, especially in Amazon has always been because of our network, right? It's always because, you know, I was able to network and sometimes it's just little things that you just, you know, don't even realize sometimes, right? But you should always like whenever I, whenever I stumble upon something. You know, really good, like some maybe some kind of loophole or, you know, some kind of software or something like that. Right. I always want to share it with, you know, my network, right? So they can benefit from it. Why am I going to gatekeep? Right. I'm going to sit here and gatekeep it for what? Right, I hope. And you know, I network with other people that have the same mindset. You know, when they, when they come upon stuff and they want to share it with me, right? And we can all grow together. Yeah. You know, it's, I mean, honestly, it's a mindset. You know, if you're going to sit here, especially in e-commerce and have this mentality of, oh, you know, you want to keep everything to yourself and you know, you can think you can do this by yourself. Like it's, you're, you're going to fail. You're not going to make it. I can almost tell you that often. I, I agree wholeheartedly, ma'am. And I think the first half of my life, if not longer, my mind was programmed on lack. That was just the way I was programmed, you know? And not by malintent. It was a protection mechanism. And this is what I see in a lot of entrepreneurs now. You know, the many that I've worked with and still continue to work with is reprogramming their minds to see abundance because our brains are programmed to is programmed to see whatever is important to us, right? So for if it is now important for us to see abundance, well guess what? We're going to see more of abundance, right? And that's what you essentially have done is like, hey, I want to focus on abundance because yeah, there is a, a huge amount of abundance. You know, just because you win more doesn't mean I'm going to win less, right? We both can win continuously in life. Yeah. I mean, it's not right. It's not a it's not a zero sum game. Yeah. I mean, it's an expanding pie. Yeah. So I mean I love pie too. Yeah. There's no right. I hope my tummy is not as we're talking about pie. My tummy's rumbling right now. I'm sure my microphone probably picked it up, but um, you're right man, it is an expanding pie, you know. And everybody is probably listening or watching. I want to challenge your belief in this. Right. Walk through this exercise just for thirty days and always, you know, look at what you have and be grateful for that because the more you're grateful for what you have, guess what? The law of attraction, the Creator God, whatever it is that you believe in your faith or the law of gratitude is always going to reward you. What you focus on your brain is going to, you know, just constantly find those things, you know? Yeah. I mean, that was Tony Robbins always says that, right? What's wrong is always there, but so is so is what's right. Yeah, one hundred percent. I mean, that's that's one of the main things I always try to actually stay away from too is you know, all the Amazon haters like Amazon's trying to get us and this and that. I'm like, come on guys. Like I mean you want to sit here and waste your energy on that then go ahead. But you have honestly no. And you have no control over it. Yeah. These fees and things you have no control over, you have no control over what they're going to do. Yeah. So just roll with it and pivot and move on. I agree man, I agree. As we start to wrap up, man, I want this message to be all the fathers out there, all the dads and moms out there don't think that you can't adopt this. But you know, because Ryan and I have this, this father relatability, my dude, I want you to look into the camera and I want you to talk all the dads out there because you have a message for the dads out there who think they have to choose between financial success and spending time with their family. And for the longest part of my life, someone's peeling some onions around me. I thought that had to be for me, right? I thought I had to choose, sorry. So, what's going through your head? What is this message? I want you to look at the camera and talk to all the dads and fathers out there that think they have to choose. What is it? What do you want to tell them right now, man? Um, I mean, I want to I want to tell them like, I mean, you're you're capable of a lot more, right? So just, you know, focus, you know, keep pushing hard. I mean, but, you know, be present. I mean, we talked about this earlier, right, Karl? Like, I mean, be present of where you are. So, you know, if you're going to be at work, then, you know, be at work, then that I can almost guarantee you, you can, you can do a lot more in a lot less time. And if you can do that, then that means you have more time for your family. You have more time to be a dad. You have more time to be a great husband, right? So, you know, be be very conscious of what you're doing with your time and be completely focused on wherever you're going to be. So if you're playing with your kids, then play with your kids and be completely focused on that. If you're working, be completely focused on working, right. That's either that you're your nine to five or your business or whatever it is. You can be completely focused and give yourself, you know, a deadline, a hard stop of when you need to get done. Then, you know, you can get a lot more done in a lot less time. And if you can do that, you can literally have both. You can make your money and you'll have enough time to, you know, spend time with your family. Man, thank you so much for sharing that, dude. You know, I know it hit me right in the feels, you know, as you're talking through that and as I was reading, you know, my notes for this, you know, I couldn't help but, you know, reflect back on, you know, the twenty nineteen version of you. Well, you know, the same version exists for me. Ironically, in that same time, because I think any, almost every entrepreneur in that time, especially in e-commerce space. That's, you know, all they knew was just grinding it in their in their businesses. And for me, I had too many businesses that was taking my focus. So thank you for sharing, sharing that on your heart and just how you show up for your wife and your kids. I, I can personally see that is really important for you and I honor you for that, my man. Um. And as we start to wrap up, my dude, um, I got some rapid fire questions for you, some of which I've kind of prepared you in the green room. But in this season of life, what does grit mean to you, man? Um, I mean, just the perseverance, right? And being able to dig deep, right? Yeah. I mean, you just gotta I mean, it's gonna, it's gonna come, it's gonna hit you. I mean, there's gonna be stuff in the future. I know it's going to come up, but, you know, knowing that, you know, you've already been through the fire already already. You already done it. But even if you are going through one of the, you know, the hardest times, you know there's a light at the end of the tunnel, right? But you just gotta, you know, keep pushing forward. Yeah, I agree man. Reminds me of a phrase that one of our previous guests, you know, her mantra that got her through some tough seasons and she uses it to this day. This too shall pass, right? This, you know, whatever it is that you're dealing with, this too shall pass. And that that's every day, every minute. This too shall pass, right? I know in that moment it's hard. I know it is. So as a high achiever, as a leader, you know, there's always talks about adding new processes, new systems, new beliefs, new things, new, you know, adding, adding, adding, adding. But especially now in my, you know, in this season, I've been more focused on subtraction. Addition by subtraction, if you will. Because growth also requires that. So what in your life, whether it's a belief, maybe something you had to unlearn or unbelieve. Yes, I know that wasn't grammatically correct, but what is something you. You're actively or had to remove in your life to, to remove that friction so you can move forward or level up? Um, good question. I mean, think about that one. I mean, the limiting beliefs is one of them, right? You just gotta really got to get rid of that. I mean, you've really got to get out there. And part of that is just getting out there and networking and honestly, like seeing what's possible and see what other people are doing. Right. And then you can kind of then you have like, then you have social proof, right, of what can actually be done. Right. And yeah, and it doesn't have to be specifically even in your, In your framework, right? It could be other people. I mean, you can you can look at other people and see their success stories and see where they came from, right? And then you can kind of apply it to yourself or you can say, hey, you know, they came from a lot harder circumstances and, you know, look how hard they've pushed through, right? Oh, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. Look around. You know, you think you have it hard, stop what you're doing and just look around. Um, you know, I think this is one of the privileges I have in doing what I do in this podcast because I, you know, I'm reminded of this. You know, I had another guest talk about, you know, where he was in a part of the world. He couldn't disclose, you know, uh, on the show, but he wasn't a part of the world that they didn't have shoes, they didn't have anything. Right. If you want those shoes, they would have to take them off of corpses. You know, they would find on the side of the street. So he's instantly reminded that yeah, life may suck for you right now, but just guess what? There's people that got way worse than you, right? And ironically, they're probably happy because, you know, they understand, you know, as long as they're able to think, breathe and, and so forth that life is good. You know, there's always an opportunity, there's always a chance to improve your life. You just have to put intentional focus into that. So I prepared you for these last two questions in the green room. So I hopefully you had some time to, to, to think about these. So what is one quote or directive that you find yourself repeating to yourself to get through a dark moment or dark season or something just to say, man, I'm going through some thickness right now. And you, you tell yourself this mantra What comes to mind? I mean, I don't know if it's even specifically for this, but, you know, I've shown it to you before because it's actually on my, um, vision board. Right? And it's something, right, that Tony Robbins always says too, right? Focus is power. Yes. Right. Yeah. I mean, if you can, if you can focus and be able to just, you know, and, you know, even with all the chaos coming around you or all the distractions we have in this world, if you can focus like it's such, it's extremely powerful. Like I tell this to my daughter all the time, right? I'm always telling her, you know, focus is power. Like focus is power. Like it's not knowledge. It's not, you know, money. It's not any of those things. It's literally, it's literally being able to block everything else out and be able to focus on your task at hand and be able to execute and get it. Yeah. Love it man. I, I agree wholeheartedly. Whatever you focus on will, you know, flourish and whatever you don't will die. That's in every part of our lives, ma'am. Awesome. Last, last question is a two part question. I'll ask the last part first, because typically I will forget. I've actually been reminded by the guest, hey, you want to know my question? So I'm going to ask this for you first. I always love to give an opportunity to my guest to ask my future guest. One question could be associated, maybe a season of life that you've dealt with that you were like, man, I wonder how somebody else would have handled this or what you know, something else means to them or whatever. So what is one question that you would love to ask my next guest? And by the way, those are listening, watching. They have no idea who's next, right? So it's completely anonymous. And so far this question has landed perfectly. So what is what would you like to ask my guest? Um, so you get to see the future and you get to see your death. You know? Exactly. It's two days from now. Last day on earth tomorrow. Where do you go and who do you see? Oh, wow. Wow. That's deep. Yeah, that should be enlightening. And yeah. Really matters, right? Yeah. Yes. I don't think that would be that many people either. Agree. And I'm looking at the guest lineup. And to my point it so far it's been perfect. Love it man. That's that's deep. I'm actually looking. I mean, I always look forward to these episodes, but I'm especially looking forward to this next one because I can't wait for this one. All right, all right. The question that was asked of you, you know, by my previous guest, again, he has no idea who my lineup was. Right. But for him, he suffers some tragedies and he had to go through dark seasons, and it really helped him get perspective of why he wakes up every morning. Right. And his question for you is, why is it or what is it that you wake up for? Currently in this season of life, you know, what is it that you're working for? What? Why do you wake up? Yeah. I mean, that was a pretty easy one, right? I mean, I mean, kids and kids, wife, you know, I mean, the people, right? The people are closest to us. I mean, it's easy, you know? I mean, you wake up for them, you know, and just I and the other part is, you know, I really enjoy like, I enjoy our business, my business. Like I still enjoy the sourcing part. I still, you know, I think it's a treasure hunt. Like I enjoy that part. You know, it's a game to me. Yeah. So I, I, I can't wait sometimes, I usually can't wait till Monday to, you know, wake up and, you know, get on the computer and, you know, see what? See what I can do, see what I can find. Right. But I mean, at the end of the day, I mean. It's for, you know, it's, you know, all this, even the financial success is not even for things, right? It's for experiences and for, you know, to be able to provide for, you know, we talk about orientation, right? I mean, we're, we're, we're going to go. Right? Yeah. I mean, that's, you know, it's for them, right? It's for them to and like I said, not to buy things like I said, for it's for experiences and to buy time. Right. You can. That's one of the best things I think of, you know, financial success is you're able to buy time and buy convenience, right? Yeah. Agree ma'am, I agree. Thanks for sharing it dude. All right. So Ryan, my dude, thank you so much for not just giving us this highlight reel of this lifestyle architect, right? This lifestyle architect that you know, that has a business that's doing, you know, now over, you know, they're smashing two million a year. Um, and you're working twenty hours or less, taking monthly vacations, doing all these things and deciding, not choosing, but deciding to design your life around your business. I think you so much for not just sharing that, but also allowing us in this journey of sharing the, the tragedy, the heartache, the journey that it took the of you breaking in, sharing it, man. Because too many times people look at the highlight reels like, well, that must be nice. Well, okay, right. It's these, this is why I do this show is because I want to give people hope and perspective. Like, look, we, we all have our stories. We all have our thing. And not that yours is any worse than mine, or mine's any worse, or yours or anybody. Right. But we all have our own story. So, you know, if we too can overcome, if we too can achieve things out of nothing, then please let these stories inspire you, give you hope for a better life. So again, my dude, I honor you for allowing us to be part of this journey for the last well now over an hour. So thank you. I really appreciate it. Um, so for for the Ryans or many other types of Ryans that are out there listening, who wants to connect with you? Like, man, I so resonate with your story. Thank you for sharing this. They want to be a part of your journey. They want to follow your vacations. Where can I connect with you, man? Um, so on, on X, uh, at arbitrage life. Nice. And then, actually at the same, same handle actually on Facebook, I actually have a Facebook page with the same thing. So, you know, you can message me on there. You can, you know, that's probably the easiest way to get in touch with me. So, and you know, I appreciate you having me on because like I said, you know, it's easy to see, you know, everybody wants to view, but you know, like they don't want to see what the climb was. So, you know, climb wasn't easy. And, you know, this is all, but this is the fire that, you know, pushed me to get to here. So yeah, one hundred percent man. No, I, I appreciate you sharing that. And we'll drop all your socials and contact information in the show notes. So awesome. So as you well know, I'd love to share this if you've heard this show or if you've listened to this, this is going to be the first time. But I love saying this because I, I'm all about repetition. The more I engrain this into people, the more I want this message to be shared. So to those listening and or watching, as you know, the gap between average and excellence is just action, especially in perfect action, right? So don't just listen to Ryan for this last hour. I want you just to take one thing that, you know, Ryan has shared today, whether it was Parkinson's law or, you know, anything that he has shared, uh, throughout this last hour. And there have been many bombs that he shared with you. Use it in the next twenty four hours. That is my challenge to you, right? So be it. Be the reason somebody doesn't quit today, because there is a lot of people out there that needs you to share this episode with them. So be that reason. Don't keep this to yourself. You know, someone in your circle definitely needs to hear this message to hear Ryan's story. So please be that someone in their life. So again, Ryan, thank you, my dude for stepping into the arena today, my man. All right. Thank you Carl. My pleasure. My pleasure man.