The Rigor, Routine and the Results with Prady Tewarie

Audio Transcription

Ordered three shows recorded from what’s inside a hot tub. Elements of psychological nudity. Hey Andrew. How’s it going? It’s going fantastic. Andrew, if you have all of the money, if you have all of the money you could possibly ever want, what would you spend your time doing? Oh Man. What would you spend your time? Man, I would probably spend a lot of time with my wife. I do that. Okay. I I would probably I don’t know. Never really thought about that. I would probably buy some more real estate rental properties. You’re 20 years old. You had your first rental property. That’s true. I’m gonna animal detail. I have a sugar glider sugar corn chip. A sugar glider. Yup. You have a rental house. You’re married. You’re 20. True. [inaudible] excellent. Could you pass me [inaudible] what are you talking about? Hey, no ice cream in the hot tub.

We’ve talked about this. No. Let me tell you about today’s guest on today’s show. We have one of the most screwed up guests we’ve ever had on this show. Okay. This guy Prady Tewarie Yep. He started his first business on the campus of Boston University selling supplements. Then he exited that company and then got involved in another business and another business and they start buying some real estate and he’s doing well financially. And you know what this guy has decided to do with his with his free time. Tell me about it. Corporate it in October. No, he’s decided to throw his time away by investing it with me right here on the thrive time show. Ah, can we, this guy has jacked up, kind of a sick freak, would be physically fit, would be financially fit and would be able to do anything in the world that he wants to do, but would choose to take that time and to invest it to improve the lives of our listeners. This is the kind of sick, twisted freaks I want to have on our show each and every day. What is it, gentlemen? It’s my pleasure to introduce to you praying to worry. Have you gotten similar ice cream cooler notes? [inaudible]

Some shows don’t need a celebrity in a writer to introduce the show. But this show down to math, eight kids co-created by two different women, 13 moat tie, million dollar businesses. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome

To the thrive time show.

[Inaudible]

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Stride nation. On today’s show we have a special well gas. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in the history of this show, we are interviewing. Oh yes. We are interviewing for the first time in the history of this show. Somebody by the name of Prady Tewarie well come on to the show. How are you sir? Hey, I’m doing fantastic. Thanks so much for

Having me on. I’m super excited to be on.

I have to, I know the listeners out there want to know. How do you, how do you spell your name? What’s the history of your name? Just kind of introduce us to your name because you’re the first pretty we’ve ever had on the show.

Yeah. So M P, r, a, d y and Ashley, the, the full name is a bread demon, which is a Ashley, a Indian name. But I just go by by prejudice to you know, shorten it a little bit. But it’s actually a Indian name cause my great grandparents are actually from India.

Okay. Okay. Now can you tell the listeners out there what, what you do now for a living because you’re having a lot of success?

Yeah, so I’m involved in a couple of things. Number one, I am a real estate developer, so I develop apartment buildings here in the Boston area. But I also am the owner of, of ESADE, which is a nootropic company, which is a dietary supplement company. And we are on a mission to help people become more productive when we basically produce a dietary supplements just to accomplish that. So kind of a you know, two different things that I’m doing, but, you know as I’ll kind of get into, you can tie them all together and they just want to complements the other.

Well, let’s go back to the very beginning of your career. Where did it all start out for you?

Well, it all started out for me. You know, I think when I moved to the states right before college you know, I always wanted to, you know, I wasn’t really feeling my, you know, my drive really in school and, and you know, and in middle school and high school and you know, the kind of the structure wasn’t really for me. And you’ll hear this story kind of cliched for a lot of people who ended up starting their business. But you know, one thing that I like to do is I like to listen and to solve problems. And, you know, it was always kind of driven with an entrepreneurial mindset. And I remember it going, coming here to college and you know, I heard a couple people talk about some issues that they were having with their health and fitness needs.

And I was really into health and fitness at the time. I really enjoy working out. And a couple of friends were saying, you know what, I’m, you know, I, I need my, my protein and my supplements. I, I need it. But you know, it takes me so long to get it online. This was before Amazon and you know, people didn’t have a car to go to GNC and it, you know, a lot of people needed it right away. That’s how I kind of the supplements work. And I was like, you know what, this is a problem that I could potentially help solve. And yeah. Long Story Short, I ended up co, you know, calling a distributor and I told them that I wanted to buy supplements in bulk and they asked me, well, who are you? Are you like a reseller? Are you a store?

And I was like, yeah, yeah, I’m a reseller. I kind of made up this story and, but I told them, you know, I want to buy all this inventory, but I, I don’t, you know, I want to pay net 30, which means you pay, you get the product that you pay 30 days later. Got It. And they were like, okay, fine, we’ll do it. So a few days later, there’s a literally, like just a week after I heard people talk about this problem and yeah, so I got all this inventory, these products that I knew a lot of people who are using at my school. And yeah, I filled up my dorm room with all this inventory of products and kind of sleeping on the floor, the, the protein and everything was pretty much everyone in the dorm room. And I put up a really, what I think is a crappy website at the time, cause I didn’t really know much about coding. And I started offering to people on campus that, you know, instead of a two days, three day, four day delivery I wasn’t gonna offer 20 minute delivery. So people on campus wanted whatever they wanted, their protein, their pre-workout, whatever kind of supplement they wanted. I would deliver it in 20 minutes, basically had a bike on campus and I would deliver it to people across campus.

Now, wait, wait a minute now. So you, you, you did a net 30 on, should I get this? You did a net 30. Purchase term, which by the way, for the thrivers out there who aren’t familiar with this, this is very common to do that. How much product did you have to sell in order to pay that first a bill?

All of it. So it was, it was kind of a risky cause I, you know, when I started off, I came here, I didn’t really have much capitalist to college student and you know, but you know, I, I felt that there was a need and I felt, you know, when I was looking at people’s pain points, I knew that potentially, you know, it’s kind of a guest that they would pay a premium for quick delivery. And obviously this was before Amazon prime was really a thing and I felt, you know, this is such a problem. And I kept hearing over and over again, man, I’m out of protein, I’m out of pre-workout. And people would college would pull together a Carpool to go to GNC and it all in stock and like give it to people at school. And I was like, man, that must be a better way.

So that’s, that’s kind of what I did is I had a bike me and my friend and we would deliver it to people on campus at the dorm room. And, you know, basically the answer question, how, you know, why I’m telling this story is because this ended up being a big success. So as I started going through college, we had more people who were riding the bikes for us. And that was my first business success. I ended up sound’s a stake in that company after after a while. And that, you know, it’s all about the stories that you can tell. And you know, one, like with business, I always say, you don’t, you know, the cool thing about business and in life is you only have to be really be right once so you can have all these failures. But if you’re right, once that becomes the story. And that became my story on campus and that kind of started spreading where people started to ask me help for business. I started giving you know, panels at school at a really young age and their entrepreneurship center. And you know, that kind of is like how my story in entrepreneurship in business really started.

What was the, the name of the school that you attended and what was the name of the business that you started?

Yeah, so I’m at, so basically I went to Boston University and I’m, at the time the business was, was called campus elite and we basically spin it off and that the company took a different name and it was different investors that that ended up buying it out. But yeah, I went to Boston University and yeah, that was kind of where it all started. Of course, Boston University being a really big school, a really big international crowd. And you know, it’s kind of health. It was really big. The gym was audience size was huge and I kind of tapped into me being into health and fitness and knowing all the people that are involved, you know, going into the gym. But yeah, you know, the long story here really is that you’re just competency, you know, cause people ask, well what was the exit like?

Like what was, or the numbers like. And it wasn’t anything massive. It doesn’t have to be this massive number, but just showing competency that you’re able to start a business, scale it and have some success and deliver on your promises. Just a small thing like that can actually start kind of a, the whole story and it can start a wave of different things that come into your life that can, you know, bring success down the line. So, you know, I know a lot of people when they get into entrepreneurship in business, they’re saying, you know, what’s the breakthrough idea? What’s the next, you know, $10 million idea or $100 million idea. And I was like, man, you know, in the beginning when you start off, just do one thing, do it well, execute, delivering your promises and you know, and say what you’re going to do. And that alone, that competency, what will take you a long way

Now? What was your next venture that you did, you know, after you, after you, you had some success or with this first one what was the next venture?

Yeah, so there were all kinds of things that, that, that came into into play. So these were, and you know, the reason why I tell the story because it was a cascade of things. So I started getting involved with people, had ideas on campus. And being in Boston is really great because Boston is a very entrepreneurial town, of course with all the universities around here. And you know, people started coming to me with their ideas. So these were all types of types of things. These were, you know, someone had a parent that had a tanning salon, someone had a barbershop that I got involved with. Someone else wanted to get into health and fitness and started supplement line. Then I was a distribution company. And so now, you know, the, the portfolio was kind of wide, but, and a lot of them were hit or misses.

But I found out a couple of principals that ended up working for a lot of these businesses. And the cool thing was that after that first success, I didn’t have to come up with all the ideas. People would bring ideas to me to see, you know, to, to vet them out, see what I thought. And then I wasn’t able to come in into play and, and help them having to help them really scale it. And you’d notice that the problems that a lot of these businesses had weren’t like, you know, massive problems. There were a small thing that we’re doing. I remember going to a couple of small businesses and, and, and you know, asking, hey, you have an email list? And they were like, yes. And I was like, how many people are on the email list? And you’re like, you know, three, 4,000 we’ve had this business for, you know, almost a decade.

And I was like, well, do you ever email the people? And they were like, no. And I was like, why not? They’re like, well, we just don’t know how to use that. And, you know, we don’t, we don’t email people. So just going in there, putting in email automation, stuff like that can make a massive difference. And of course it matters when, what time period, obviously, you know, this is 2009, 10, 11 when kind of Indian journalists are already booming, but, you know, kind of the automation, a lot of the tools were still being under utilized. But, but th that was really that, that was really it, you know, so there isn’t like a, a massive breakthrough. It’s just being competent and then ideas flowing towards you for from competence.

And when did you, or how did you transition from a, you know, supplements and then ultimately into real estate investment? When did that happen?

Yeah, so that also happened while I was in college. So basically what happened is I had, you know, after it sold, I was started. I might, my goal always was that it gets in a nutshell was to come into a business, automate it, systematize it, and then sell it. A lot of people have this concept where, you know, your business is your baby and they’re emotionally tied to it. You know, I get it. But at the same time, for me it was like this is an asset. And what I was tied to was the culture when I was tied to was the values, but I wasn’t really tied to the process. And I knew when time is like go, then you let go as an asset. So I had so sorry selling a few of these businesses and I had, I was sitting on a little bit of liquid and I was like, well, you know what, I wanted to use some of this, you know, there’s this liquid that I had and then willing to just keep it in the bank and I wanted to do something else.

So I remember my sister actually went to law school in upstate New York and I remember dropping her to to law school for a first like orientation week. And I remember, you know, going to upstate New York and she had a real hard time finding a place to stay, like to rent and you know, we’re going to all these places you know, with her and the rent was sky high. But the places that she was seeing, like with the rent being so high, we were, we’re really thumbs like there were just not there. We’re not you, we’re not neatly kept. I don’t think the landlord had been there. And I was like, wow, that’s crazy because the rent keeps rising but the landlords are not putting any effort in this. And I was like, well, real estate might be something that I, you know, th that might be something more passive.

And it felt in line with automation and systematizing. So it was like, well, maybe I’ll try something like this. Maybe I’ll try to put in some of my money in real estate. And that’s exactly what I did. I took some of the liquid I had and put it into buy and hold properties, which, you know, basically investing in, in, in, in in condos and in places were basically in college town, a college town. So I had bought a Condo in a college town there when my sister went to school. And you know, I was like, well, how do I keep increasing rents? Of course, because people were increasing rents, you know, the same way they were adding maybe a little bit of improvement and just waiting for market to go up. But I was like, well, this is kind of slow.

What have I learned from all these businesses that I’ve done in the past? I learned to listen to customers and tailor your, your, your product to what the customer really wants. And I felt that, you know, with college students, they don’t really care about granite top kitchen counters and you know, all this like fancy stuff that maybe some of the landlords were putting in, which costs a lot of capital. So basically what I started doing, I was like, you know what? A lot of college students care about, cause I was one at the time, I was like, we care about technology, you want automation. So I went to the apple store and I bought bulk iPads and some of the really like in initial stages what they had with home automation, which was like really bare minimum. And I started installing it in some of these rentals that I’d bought and people loved it.

So when college students looked at my units, it was the same quality as all the other units. But what was different is that they got an iPad that could open up the the, the curtains that could see how much food was in the fridge and all this cool stuff. And people want it to, we’re willing to pay more rent a monthly just because there was home automation in it. And that ended up being another, a success because I was able to increase rents cashout refi from my mortgage and then put a down payment on the next and the next and the next. And that way I started to own a lot of buy and holds. By the time I graduated college, but it was just that simple process. Started with one found out a way to succeed. And then just copy that model over and over again.

No, you, you are a successful guy. You said you’re, are you, did you say you’re 28 years old? Yes, I’m 20th. Okay. All right. Alright. Are you a, do you have, do you have super powers or what time do you wake up every day? My friend. How do you, how do you organize your day?

Yeah, so I do have a tendency to, I wake up pretty early. I think I usually wake up around four, four 30. I do, I don’t really live on a lot of sleep, which is definitely true, but it’s not the, and I, I don’t encourage that because people ask me what my sleep schedule is like and they think they have to copy it. It’s just because when I was younger, I just never, I just genetically didn’t really need a whole lot of [inaudible].

So you’re sleeping six hours a day. I mean, what time do you want to hit

Last? Yeah, I think I’m mostly, I average like four or five sometimes.

Walk us through a typical day. Well, what time are you, you wake up at four and then what do you do next?

Yeah, so the first thing I do when I wake up I do not check any emails or text message, nothing. I don’t respond to anything. I usually wake up before, like I try to wake up super early. Usually it’s four, four 30 and then the first thing I do is I go to the gym and I spend time on myself and that’s about an hour, an hour and a half. Then I get ready for the day and then I start going. First thing I do is I open up all my project sites. I’m the first one. So right now I’m in real estate development, which means we build these apartment complexes. I’m always the first one there. So before any worker gets in, I’m the one that’s always there and make sure everything’s open. So I go through all my product sites, open them all up, it takes me until nine or 10, and then I start my work day with my supplement company.

You know, talking to whether it’s money factors or distributors and going through the whole process, but that, you know, after a while, I think after 11 or 12 of the day just rolls, rolls through ’em but I spend a bulk of my time right now afterwards doing some of the admirably tasks. It’s just networking and meeting New People. That’s the one thing I’ve been starting doing. Of course it’s a, it’s something that’s a popular model. But I’ve, I’ve really copied that is for six or seven days a week. I don’t like to eat alone except for breakfast cause it’s the first meal of the day. But I, all my other meals I eat with someone else. And the reason why I do that is because I’ve felt found out that in business, you know, being good and talented is great, but having a greater net you can always outwork. And you know, out network sometimes a little bit of talent and sometimes some skills and when people see you and know you that has been a catalyst for massive growth for me. So I tend to spend a lot of time meeting other people. That’s probably where buck my time goes now

I feel like the, your rigor, your routine and your results are all kind of tied together. You, you, you appear to be a very disciplined guy. Am I, am I wrong? Are you a guy that I mean, you, you, you, I’ve looked at you, you, you appear to be in shape or you mean, what’s your secret to sticks? Just cause there’s gotta be a, some listener out there that struggling with, you know, the routine, the rigor, being disciplined. What would be your advice for a listener out there that’s struggling to stay focused?

Yeah, I think the best advice is and this is something I’ve mentioned quite a bit throughout this interview too, is to just have a small wins. So, you know, I’m, I’m a lot into health and fitness and one of the things I study you know, the way the brain works, and if you think about habits, the way they’re formed, it takes a while, takes 60 to 90, sometimes even a longer days. But the weight, what actually shapes your habits is dopamine and Serotonin people know about dopamine and they think about, it’s like the chemical that when, when you’re happy and excited and pleasure, but actually, or dopamine, it really plays a role is also the habits and the actions that we take. So when you’re procrastinating, when you’re not doing something is because dopamine isn’t released by that action. And one thing we’ve, we’ve noted is that dopamine works on a cascade effect.

So this is how it works. If you have a task and you accomplish it, then you release a little bit of dopamine and then that dopamine carries onto what you do with the next in the day. So where am I going with this is like starting something small. So set a goal like start, if you’re someone who’s really struggled, struggles with, hey, I want to go to the gym and really lose weight and just start with something small. Say I want to for the next week, I’m going to make my bed every day. So you make your bed. And then what I w what I am a big proponent of is having like a on a whiteboard or on a paper put in, like make my bed and put a box next to it. Make your bet and put a check mark next to it. So at four o’clock or six o’clock whenever you wake up, seven o’clock you’ll wake up having accomplished a task.

So you have a small win and you start your day with a win. Even if it’s something small, just making your bed and then do that for a week. And the next day you add, next week you add another small thing. Like, Hey, I cleaned up, I cleaned up my dishes. So basically by the time I get to work or I start really my day, I’ve already had so many wins that it just, it just flows through to everything else. So I don’t recommend starting with like massive action and changing your whole life overnight. It, it really is a small thing and you know, nothing is too small. It can be something like cleaning your dishes, making your bed. Like I just said, it’s really start with that. And I really think if you follow through with that that has a cascade effect.

If, if, if it listeners out there who are going, okay, I want to know what you’re up to now. I mean, pretty what kind of projects are you working on now? Like what do you see yourself doing over the next 12, 12 months?

Yeah, so there’s a couple of things that I’m really involved with. One of them is my supplement company. I talk about that A’s off. And so I started a supplement company back in law school about a year and a half ago, two years ago really about a year ago. I really went all in. And the goal really is to get people more productive. And the way what we’re doing right now is I’m trying to impact more people to change their lives by doing small things like that. And so right now we have a certain amount of people that are, you know, part of what we call our tribe, which is the people that are engaged and using our products, but also doing more. You know, we’re trying to find a ways to stimulate and to get them more productive. But the goal is for me is to get a thousand people.

It’s a small, not a crazy number, just a thousand people that are part of the program but else and are able to find a little bit more productivity in their day. And again, this could be 10 minutes, this could be six minutes, seven minutes of, of, of time that they didn’t have before. So even by coming on this podcast, that’s, that’s that, that’s a goal of mine because I can share this message with someone that they don’t have to because you don’t have to be inundated. And they don’t have to get, you know, because when you start off, like when I started off with a business, my goal wasn’t like, Oh man, I want to make you know, $10 million business right away. The goal was like, hey man, how can I deliver a product instead of like 25 minutes, I want to deliver in 23. That’s my only goal I have for the whole whole month.

Or it could be the only goal you have for the whole year. But that’s it. But those small little goals, the end of with compound interest becoming a larger, so what’s my goal right now to get a thousand people more productive and just adding five or six more minutes to their day. And that, that’s the really the, the goal and of course with real estate is to really you know, scale and do the different types of projects, but also have a more of a brand in the projects that I build. And so people, when they come into the, how the homes that I build, they know that I’ve built it and adds more value to their life through, you know, home automations, the technology that I’m installing in there.

Well, Prady Tewarie for the listeners out there, I, they know, I love to ask our guests, but what is a what or a couple of books that you would recommend to all of our listeners out there. You come across as a very well read guy. You’ve obviously had a lot of success. What is maybe one book or a couple of books that you would recommend to all of our listeners?

Yeah. So, yes, I, I do I’m a pretty a voracious reader. But there’s a couple of books that I think have made a, a big big change. One of them that I’ve really enjoyed is, is a book a lot of people have heard of is by Ray Dali, of course, a very prominent investor. And he wrote a book called principles. A lot of people have read it and it’s, it’s a bestseller. But that book applies in so many different ways in life. And it talks about how to extract principles from daily things that we’re doing and that we’re seeing. And if you can extract those principles, you can copy it, you know, the goal being that is successfully a formula or is it a series of random things that we do? And I think that if you look at it, you can look at it from a mathematical standpoint or a scientific standpoint, but once you’ve hit your stride a little bit, you can, you can take those principles and apply it somewhere else.

So I’m talking about health and fitness and being competitive bodybuilder. It has nothing to do with real estate, but are there principles that learned in bodybuilding that I can apply to real estate development that I can apply to starting a supplement company that I apply to becoming, you know, a better you know employer or employee. And if you can do that, then all of a sudden you’re a productivity animal, I call it because you’re always working on different projects at the same time. Because while you’re working on project x, the principles you use from project x, you can apply to project y. So you’re always working, you’re always working on different projects. I’m simultaneous with that book has been has been a big a big big force in my life that’s changed the way to think. And then the other book which is a business book, but again, I named the second which is a book called not, not super popular, but it’s a book called built to sell, which is creating a business that you can thrive, that can thrive without you.

And the, the, the concept of the book is how do you systematize and you automate things in, in your business so that your business can basically survive without you. And now, why is this book important and why am I mentioning this podcast? Because again, this goes to the first thing I just said. If you can find a way to systematize tasks, you can focus on strategy. This is one of the big things I’ve noticed when I speak to a lot of people that man, like I’m working a hundred plus hours, I’m not going on vacation. I’m doing all this stuff, right, man. I’m stuck. You know, like why am I stuck? And I, and I look at the stuff that they’re doing in their day and I’m like, man, all you’ve been doing is just tasks. You’ve been a great task master, but the real actions that are going to get you to the next level, those are strategy based things. And you need a math time to think about that strategy. But if all you’re doing in a day is just a series of tasks, you don’t have time to do that. So how can we outsource those tasks and automate those and systematize those so that we can focus our time to focus on strategy. And, and that’s, and that’s a big thing

Pretty for anybody out there that, that wants to learn more about you and wants to, you know, do a deep dive into what you’re building there at the AES author. How do they get in touch with you? What’s the best way for people to find out more about you?

Yeah, so the, the best way to get in touch with me. I’m pretty, I’m, I’m usually pretty active on Instagram so people can look me up on Instagram pretty to worry. PR A. D Y, t, e w. A r. I. E. That’s not my handle. But if you look that up, you can find me. I’m just putting up my domain, predatory.com will be ready by the time this comes out. And I’ll have all my podcasts and, and my blogs. But if people want to read my blog, they can go on, get a xos.com g e t a z o t h.com. And I have a blog that I write and I write about all this stuff about productivity, about business, about life. And totally free newsletter. I write twice a week put out a lot of content and it’s, there’s no, there’s no sales pitch or anything like that. It’s just purely content that I write out. I write about two, 3000 word newsletters really long and dense. It’s almost like a check from a book and I spent a lot of time thinking about, about this and also I think I synthesize the conversations I have in all those meetings when I meet with people every day. What did I learn? And I put that in a newsletter for people to to apply in their own life

Pretty. I appreciate you man for hopping on the show and I want to ask you one final 62nd question here. If you could tell all the listeners, if you could give all the listeners just one piece of advice that has allowed you to start your first college based business, your supplement company then allowed you to move into the next business and the next business and then get involved in real estate. What’s that one piece of advice you would give all of the listeners out there that are struggling to that life momentum that you seem to have created.

The one piece of advice that I would give is do not get intimidated by the fact that you’re small. And that’s about re important because you will start somewhere and you’ll look at competitors and the giants and you’re like, man, I can’t do what those competitors doing. Third Way too big. And so you’ll start playing their game. This is incorrect and this is also correct and I’ll explain the truth is that you cannot do what the big guys are doing. They’re just too big for you. But what’s also true is they can do what you can do. So revel in the fact that you are small. Because when you’re small, you can do a lot of innovative stuff that Ashley can cut through the clutter. You can innovate faster. In my, in my experience, what I would do when I started my supplement company, I would write handwritten notes to people.

Big companies can do that. I was thinking about ways to, you know, put in whole home automation and I open up all my project sites in the beginning I talked to all my tenants. So these are things that big companies can do because they’re, it’s so large, but that you can do and that matters to your customer. So, and that is your game. So find out what your game is and dominate that. Don’t play other people’s games because you’re bound to lose. But where you’re going to win is you find out what your strength is and really tap into that. And that’s a huge thing. Like don’t revel in the fact that you’re small and take advantage of that

Prady Tewarie I appreciate your, your time. So much my friend. I appreciate you for being on the show and, and hope you have an awesome rest of your day. Thank you for being on the show.

Hey, thank you so much. And, and, you know, it was really a pleasure to be on and thank you so much for providing the platform, not only for myself but for other people or who are there to speak and also to, to listen to this. I’m all this actionable advice, man. I really appreciate that.

Thank you Andrew. We like to end each and every show with a boom. But before we do that, I want to insert an audio, a testimonial from a, from a great thriver out there who recently attended one of our in person workshops. Okay. And he has been to Tony Robbins, he’s been to other huge conferences and he was willing to hop on the show and share with us what he learned and how the conference impacted him. And he’s built a multimillion dollar company. His name is Darren and he’s from Missouri I believe. And he’s already built a multimillion dollar company. He sold it a couple of years ago and he said he’s spent over a hundred thousand dollars, if I’m correct on attending other workshops in the past. And he was willing to hop on the show with us, to us, share with us what have you learned. And that way, if you’re out there today thinking about attending one of the thrive time show.com workshops, you can hear from somebody who’s actually attended and you can get their objective feedback about what they learned. So again, if you’ve ever thought about attending the thrive time show in person workshops, I would encourage you to check them out today at thrive time, show.com. Or I’d encourage you to go on youtube and look for thrive time show a conference reviews. Or you can find the reviews on iTunes. Or you can find the reviews from people who’ve left us reviews on our, on our Google map by typing in thrive time show. And the word Jinx, j e N K s.

[Inaudible]

Darren, is this the amazing Darren? This is the one and only one and all the dare. And Hey man, this is Eric shot from over at the thrive time show. Hey, you’re, you’re bothering me. I’m reading jackass ass while I’m getting a pair of jeans. Honest to God. I’ve got a highlighter. Got a highlighter, highlighter for agreeing highlighter for quotes or the pink highlighter for content. I’m literally reading jackass three as I’m waiting for my tire to get here.

[Inaudible]

Okay, here we go. Question one here. So what is your name and where are you from? My name is Darren Ross. I’m from Carney, Missouri. Homo, Jesse, James, Houma, Jesse James. I did not know that as you educated me already. How did you originally hear about the thrive time show workshop? I’ve been a, I’ve been listening to all his podcasts like crazy and glossy. I thought it was pretty funny. It’s very funny. It’s very funny. Well, if you’ve heard some goober on there, they call Chubb. That’s me. That’s my last name. And so you’ll probably hear me chime in with some stuff pretty soon, but yes, c h u p. P, that’s me. So you know, I listen to my IQ. I listened to my podcast on my iPhone. Yeah. And for some reason on, I guess an iTunes, I don’t know, it’s, it stops with season five but I, I guess you can get them all online.

Is that correct? That’s the way, yeah. They take them off after a certain number and he records so much content that it only goes back that far. But they’re all posted on the website that you can get to from saying, oh, I did not know that I can cook them off. Yeah. It only loads up so many of them. And then, so that’s why we make sure and host them on the website as well. So that you got all of them. Yeah. I told him the other day, I spent some time with clay fried Saturday morning, I guess before I got there about six 30. And I was just telling him, I said, you know, I, we sold our company, I started the company in my dorm room selling apparel, custom apparel and promotional products to the fraternity and sorority market. And we just, we, we ran that business for like 30, almost 31 years and I stole the [inaudible] 17.

And I’ve been literally to, I can tell you how many seminars, conferences, coaching programs, courses, masterminds. I’ve spent probably a hundred. I probably spent 180 to 220 grand over the years. Oh, I said, I told him, I told my wife and even my mom, I said, this is the best two day one. This is the best conference I’ve ever been to. Even though it was only two days and driving distance and 37 bucks. I’m like, well, I bought everything. I bought every book he had except the one, I think there was a one I didn’t buy. But that’s great. Yeah. I, it just seems it’s just, it’s so practical, you know, it’s just all of them want us to tell you the next, the Next Seminar and the next coaching program and well, I tell you, you didn’t feel like you built this program, B for business owners by business owners, kind of like Fubu, right.

For us, by us as he was the exact same place you were, right. He went to all these seminars and experienced all the upsells, all this crap. And he’s like, why couldn’t somebody just not tell me what to do? I just want somebody dies. So I’m glad to hear that. I know, man. You know it’s funny because I have literally spent, you know, I’ve known for the last several years, I want to get into some sort of mentoring and training or coaching entrepreneurs because I just knew that they’re missing something. And I was having a gal build me a website, it works word wordpress website back in February. And she had sent me two or three different sites to look at just for ideas and content because I wanted to kind of have the, the core of it on category grow your business while keeping faith and family first.

That was kind of my niche and she sent me three or four websites and you’re always with one of them. And I’m like, who is this? I’ve never even heard of Clay Clark. I’ve never even heard of thrive. Wow. I looked at it and I’m like, this is the coolest freaking thing I’ve ever seen. So I signed up for the conference within just a matter of a few days. And then of course I started listening to his websites and started listening to all his podcasts March, but I’m like, this is, this is spot on and it’s no, it’s no fluff and no, no crap. It’s just straight to the straight to the point. That is awesome. Well, and Andy, I’ve been, I jumped on the podcast probably back in March of 2019 and I probably listened to 75 of them since then and listen to about two a day.

That’s awesome. That’s where all the media is, right on the bone right there, right. The podcast has so much information. Truth. Well, what kind of business do you have, do you guys have and what, what were you looking to learn at the, at the workshop, actually, I sold our company, I started the company in my dorm room in 1987 we grew it and built it over almost 31 years. We did a custom apparel and promotional items. We manufacture those items for different organizations and associations, college fraternities and sororities. So I sold that business at the end of 17. So actually I’m kind of in limbo right now trying to figure out my next move. But you are probably a kindred spirit with clay on the college entrepreneurship. Very much so. I started my dorm room. My kind of had a phone booth literally right next to my right next to my dorm.

That’s where I conducted all my business on the face on for the first several months. That’s amazing. How would you describe the atmosphere of Clay’s office and team? You know what? My wife, I’m going to tell you this, my wife’s not a con conference guy. He came with me and I literally had to beg, it was our anniversary. June 7th was her anniversary. I literally had a conference on your anniversary. Oh, my 22nd wedding anniversary. We were at the Holiday Inn express like five minutes away. You got to come. She’s like, I’m not coming. I’m like, you gotta come. I was texting her, so I finally got her to come. I said, just come over lunch. I said, you can even sit here. And so she came and literally she had tears in her eyes because she was crying so hard at some of the stuff clay was doing.

But I’ve always been a person that I love. Cool company, Christian culture. That’s my deal. I love that. Cool company Christian. So I have a phone full of pictures and videos of just the office atmosphere alone cause I, that was one of the coolest things about the whole deal is just the office atmosphere. It’s very intentional, right? Like you can tell some thought went in everything and there’s, there’s stuff everywhere, right? Stuff everywhere. Quotes all over the place. Frames all over the place in the bathrooms. I mean it’s, I’ve never seen anything. Well and I’ve been to a lot of cool companies. I’ve been, I got the inside private tour of Dave Ramsey’s organization several years ago and I’ve been to a lot of places over my lifetime and businesses and it’s probably the coolest one I’ve been to. Well that is great to hear it. It wasn’t on accident until we really tried to build that inviting and Kinda high energy, high pace, a really cool eclectic environment.

Cause we know like we’ve got to keep everybody on their toes to learn and we want to laugh and learn. So I love hearing that from you. How I was laughing. That’s good. How would you describe Clay’s delivery and presentation style off the charts? I mean just kinda basically leaving you wanting more and more all the time. I mean I had pages and pages and notes and you know, there was never a dull or boring moment and just, it was all just nuts and bolts. Man. There was no fluff. There was no, it was just all straight to the point that any business owner can, can listen, learn and apply. What is one of the most valuable things that you did learn while you were at this workshop is nice weekend. Just the importance of search engine and website optimization. Yes.

Yeah. I didn’t really, I mean we’ve fiddled around with websites over the past, but you know, never, never really got much if any business from them. It was just all those deals really felt like it was a necessary evil and we always looked at it as a necessary evil. But now that I have dug into your old site and look how well it’s put together, and I’ve even checked out some of the sites of people that you had at the conference or that I met at the conference. And it is true, they, they all are on the definitely first page at Google and usually within the first one or two people after the paid ads. Oh yes, that’s what I’m talking about. Yeah. I never, I never heard about, you know, I’d heard of, obviously I heard of Google reviews and video reviews, but I’ve never, I never knew the importance of them and I never had heard the term canonical compliance and all that.

So canonical compliance that’s getting into the technicalities right there is it just, and I spent some time with your SEO guy, Ben and a couple other folks and they just kind of broke a few things down. I’m like, this is, it’s really, it really is important. And the cool thing is it’s every other SEO company I’ve ever talked to or I’ve heard from or of if they all like put this cloud around it and it’s this mistake type of thing and like making it down to it. No, no, no, you do this, this and this and you can control these things and you’ll be top in Google before you know it. Well, I’m going to just tell you this. When I was in business several years ago, we had hired a company back in the early two thousands right when the Internet was coming on strong and we’d hired a company to do it, really killer website for us.

And of course I had a consultant on staff and the consultant I was paying them and they said, you need to have this cool website built. So we spent like $85,000 and it never worked. And at the same time the consultant company said, oh by the way, you have this really cool ERP system, which takes care of everything. Accounting order entry. So we had an ERP system being built, a website being built. Neither one of them worked worth a darn. So we walked away with about $170,000 less than our pocket. And to be honest with you, straight up front, I’ve always had a really bad taste in my mouth about technical and and yeah. So we built our business of the first 10 or 15 years on catalog direct mail. So I was like, I don’t need web, I don’t need to get an that.

I’m going to call it internet or keep going direct mail. But I just got to put that behind me and listen, you know, learn from the lessons and move on. There you go. You checked the fruit on the tree first. Right? That’s the right way. I wanted to ask you too, how many conferences have you been to and how much did those cost you? And like, you know what in the past got a spreadsheet? I’ve got, I’m not, I’m not at my office right now. I’ve got it on the front page of my map on the desktop. My Mac, I have courses I’ve purchased and the courses and or conferences. And do you want just court conferences only or oh, everything. Oh my gosh. Probably if you were to add up courses, conferences, coaching and masterminds, I would say excluding travel probably 200,000 and that’s probably 75 of them. That’s probably, that’s a pretty penny right there, Huh? That’s a lot. Yeah. And I wish I had that back and I just heard about clay about 25 years ago was he would only been like 13, you know, or maybe don’t even know. Yeah.

Well that’s awesome and I appreciate you saying that. My last question for you here is why in your mind, does everybody need to attend at least one thrive time show workshop? Because what they’re currently exposed to or what they’ve been learning is probably not the right information and the right content or the right way to go about it. And if they were to attend a thrive time workshop, I think they would just be blown away at the, the simplicity and the how easy it is to, to, to break it all down and implement it. And then the big thing is to have someone like you’re all-seeing, you know, for what you all charge per month is a, is a bargain. And I even asked you, I said, does it really include this, this, this, this and this? And like, Oh yeah, they do everything for us.

Yeah. So I like that. Videography, photography, you name it. Yeah. I mean, what’s, y’all are charging a month for some of this stuff. I mean that, you know, you could spend that on a five or six-minute video easily, easily if you hired a videographer. So I don’t know, I told my wife that death or my mom too. I said I’m going back. I’m trying to figure out when I’m going to come back down there. I, I told my wife also, I said, I just, I just want to start a business. I can have these guys helped me implement everything. But I ever had any box. I was going to say that’s the best endorsement we could get right there. I think that’s a, yeah, it was cool. It was so cool. The wow factor was there that I was like, I just want to, I want to get a new business started.

And you know, clay talked to me when we talked before that conference on Saturday. He said, hey, have you ever thought about the franchise? And he said it might be a good option. And I’m like, I never really gave it a thought because I always ran my own show and right. But you know the systems are all built right there in place for you. So I dunno, I’m kind of kicking that around too. But well that might be a good move for you, my friends. So it could be alright. I’m going to, I’m going to cut the jackass. Hurry out now we’ll let you get back to doing your, a diligent reading that you’re doing there. But Dan, I just wanted to say thank you first and foremost for coming to the conference and being a doer and really, really appreciate the time that you took to talk to me about this and kind of give us an overview of what you thought about the workshop. Well, I’ll plan on being back to another one. It’ll probably be August or October. Oh, that’s great, man. Well, hey, since Clay’s going to turn this into a show, I’m going to count backwards from three. We’re gonna do a three, two, one,

Boom. Okay, perfect. Thanks. Here we go. Three, two, one. Oh Wow.