BANKRUPT TO MILLIONAIRE: THE STEPS YOU NEED TO TAKE

Welcome And A Perfect Pitch

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. Because I do a radio show, I get a lot of emails, press releases, and stuff. And I usually just delete, delete, delete. And your the press release for your book was the first one that I got this year. Wow. And I was like, okay, I'm gonna say yes. Love it. Right. And so I said yes. Uh, so um it, I think it's taken three or four months to get you here from then. So thanks for coming. Well, thanks for saying yes. Yeah, yes. But then it was like the the press release was so well done because it was like bankruptcy, NBA business or something. And then it was like uh, you know, health and exercise. So I was like, I gotta, I I'm definitely all this fits into the whatever this podcast is. So how do you go bankrupt at 21, 22? You're bankrupt, 25?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

So I was uh 24, and uh at this point in my life, I had started a healthy fast food restaurant chain. And I was really passionate about health and fitness. I still am. And I was a junior uh my going into my senior year in college. And I sat down, I said, I'm not going any further here until I figure out what I want to do after I graduate college. And I sat down and I read books and I really kind of studied myself. And I had this what I call a life switch moment, just a spark of clarity, urgency, and energy to say, hey, you need to open up a healthy fast food restaurant. And I was like, that's it. Boom. Did a little research, realized there was nothing really quite like that. And so I ended up pursuing that and opening up three stores. I had a small chain in Philadelphia. Fast forward to when I'm 24, everything went up in flames. I mean, it was a complete disaster, worse than I could even describe. I mean, I was in today's dollars close to$800,000 in debt, uh, mentally a complete wreck because everything for the past several years up to that point, everything I touched was kind of turning to gold. I was having success in building up momentum. And then I was just convinced that you can do anything you want to do, that anything is possible. And so I'm like, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna make this like the next McDonald's or or KFC or whatever it is. I really thought I was gonna do that and believed it 100%. And when I had to take the blinders off and realize, okay, I can't go any further with this. I looked around and there was just carnage everywhere. I mean, I was like, you know, what did I do? What happened? You know, how do I get out of this mess? And it left me in a catatonic state where I owed this kind of money. I had no more employees, I was winding down a business, selling the equipment. People were ripping me off for some of the equipment that they were getting for pennies on the dollar. And I was having to face either bankruptcy or find a way to pay this debt down.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

But why wasn't it successful? I mean, a healthy, I mean, I know it would be now, right? Because there's they're popping up all over the place now. So back. What was the name of the restaurant? It was called Thinker's Grill. Thinkers Grill.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

If you think about what you eat. Yeah. And it was very well received. We had a ton of publicity. We had people come out from news teams all the time. We were selling Starbucks coffee. We're an early provider of Starbucks. We had like a contract with them.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Well, like, what are some items on the menu?

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Grilled salmon burger, baked steak fries. They were like really thick uh in a convection oven, and they had like two grams of fat. No, no oil, none of that stuff. We did cold smoothies and I created hot smoothies, which were oatmeal based. And so we'd have like blueberry muffin, upside down uh pineapple cakes, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So why did it not succeed? I mean, it didn't succeed enough for you to have three locations.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

It succeeded enough to grow. My I wasn't focused on profit and getting in the black because I know that I knew I was gonna you know be in the red for a while, as most businesses are. And so I wasn't looking at that, I was looking at the number of units as the goal. So I picked something to focus on. And I said, okay, I'm gonna open up as many stores as I can. So I got the flagship open. People kept saying, is this a franchise? And that's what I wanted them to say and wanted them to think because I wanted it to be that. And I started opening up satellite stores and gyms and places like that, but everything, the foundation was so shaky. I was just spending so much money. And I think part of the problem was I just had really high, uncontrollable overhead. I had 16 to 18 kids I was paying. I had a very expensive downtown lease for the flagship store. And uh, I really made this restaurant look amazing. And I paid for it. Literally, I paid for it. And so the overhead, I just couldn't make enough money selling salmon burgers and fries to really make a dent. And even when we had some really good sales days and sales months, I could see that it just wasn't enough. And so that was a bit of a head scratcher. So I would say that one of the main reasons it failed was I overinvested. You know, the concept was great, but you know, sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. Like I heard about some restaurant, they serve cereal and they you can play video games and it's a huge success. And it sounds ridiculous to me, right? But it's working, right? Other times you see a fantastic restaurant, it just doesn't make it for some reason or any other store.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

But when you started your first restaurant, did you get advice? Like, are are your parents, did you go to them for help? Did they give you advice? Like what did your parents do growing up?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

Yeah, well, it was just my mom who raised me, so single parent, and she was very supportive and things like that, but she didn't have any restaurant experience, and she had a financial business at the time, and so she was like, you know, I I support you, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

But were you exercising every day? Like you were into health and fitness, you're like, I need to find a need. I'm trying to eat healthy, I can't find a healthy place to eat. Right. I'm gonna open up my own place.

Overhead Mistakes And BK Training

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Right. So fast food titans were the enemy. They were dirt cheap. You feed your whole family for five dollars, and every corner has three or four options. So it was too easy to eat unhealthy. And really, it's like people poisoning themselves, you know, every meal three times a day. And it drive, it drove me crazy, still drives me crazy. And so I thought, let me come up with a solution. They always say if you have a problem, don't just complain about it, do something about it. So I was doing something about it, but it just didn't work. And an interesting thing is I wanted to open it up on the West Coast because I felt people were more health conscious, California, Texas, even here. But my wife was a year younger, my my Tubi, my my future wife at that time, and I didn't want to pick up and leave New Jersey to come across the country. So I thought, okay, let me just start it out here because my goal is for it to be nationwide. I'll just start on this side of the country and work my way out that way.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

So you're dating her and then you become you got to file for bankruptcy?

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah. Now I never filed. It was close. Uh, but I my my toes were dangling in it. And maybe, maybe worse than that for her was when I graduated from college, everybody asked, Hey, what's Joel doing with his life? He seems really entrepreneurial. What's he doing? And uh ultimately she had to tell everybody that I took a job at Burger King out of college. I took a job at the management trainee program. And I would get up at 4:30 and I would open up the drive-thru, and my friends were stumbling in drunk from the night before, and I'm going to work at Burger King.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

And in hopes to probably own your own Burger King.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

No, no, no. Just to get the restaurant experience. Oh, oh. So I'm I'm like the uh I'm like the wolf in the sheepstand. I'm like undercover. I'm thinking I'm gonna put you guys out of business. I'm gonna come in, I'm gonna blow you guys away. But I worked there because they had a great system, they knew what they were doing, they were fast, ended up buying almost all the exact same equipment that they had too. Like the broiler that they use, like that's what I put the salmon burgers through and the grilled chicken and the meatballs and all that kind of stuff. So I worked there for two and a half months, kind of got a graduate uh from BKU graduate degree. And once I learned everything I felt I needed to learn to be able to open up my own store, that's when I quit or graduated. And then I actually started to really move along with the actual location and everything else. The equipment, the specs, the ingredients, the recipes, all that.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

So have you heard of the restaurant chain here called Protein House?

SPEAKER_01 7:57

No.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Oh my god, Protein House is your restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Okay.

A No-Excuses Fitness Routine

SPEAKER_00 8:00

You got there, there's like three of them here in town. It's fantastic. It's the salmon burgers, it is smoothies, it is buffalo, they got buffalo bowls, and they got it's so I love this place. It's so healthy. Yeah, I love it. Cauliflower rice if you want, or real rice if you want. That's great. They have all the pink salt on the Himalayan salt. So you're you're definitely, I mean, like, look at you, you're extremely healthy. You're in great shape. What is your what do you work out every day? What is your mantra or what is your how do you work out?

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Thank you. Uh I work out six to seven days a week, depending on the schedule. Uh, I just like checking off that box every day. Uh, it makes me feel more energetic. I just find when you get something done first thing in the morning, it just puts you on a positive trajectory to get other things done. Uh, and literally the chemicals that are released are very positive in your life. So I do it because I enjoy the way it makes me feel. And uh, I'm always trying to get better at whatever I'm doing. So even though I'm getting a little older, I still think I can continue to get in better shape, work on one or two different areas over time. So it's a little bit of a game to me. Um, but you know, whatever it is, I'm mixing it up. Sometimes it's whatever's not sore, I'll work out. Um, but and then eating, eating to support that for muscle growth and and and healthy fats and all that.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Like, are you like this morning? Did you work out this morning? I did. And is it an hour workout, half hour workout?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

This morning was about 40 minutes. Uh that's the other thing. I do it frequently, but I I really condense it down. So when I work out, it's usually 30 to 45 minutes. You know how people do like the hit training? Yeah. It's for me, it's we get up and then we stay up. Like I don't stop to change the song. I don't ever go stop for a water break. Like if I put my phone on 30 minutes and actually have it count down, not up, I feel like I gotta get this in. I feel like I'm running out of time. So every second matters, which is why it drives me crazy when someone's sitting uh on the uh equipment looking at their phone, watching, watching videos. Wow, that's uh that's a really different take on the exercise. So, and everyone's different too, by the way. So some people like to fast, intermittent fasting. You don't do that? I don't think that works for me. Some people swear by it, but I've always believed I would tell people this. I think the best way to get in the best shape as far as a diet kind of idea, it's a small meal every two or three hours. This was something that was popular for a period of time, and most people aren't doing that anymore. But I think it keeps your metabolism spiked. And so it's almost like putting a small log in a furnace. It just incinerates it. So anytime you put something in your body, it just burns it, and then you'll start to burn off that stored fat that you might have. So that works for me and in other people.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Are you into the sauna, cold plunge, all that stuff, or you just lift weights and diet and sleep?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

No, I I'm always trying to do all kinds of stuff. I will tell you that the one thing I don't like is the cold plunge. I find that to be one step above uh torture.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

Uh or pretty much right in line with that. I like the sauna. You know, sweating is not a big deal, but you know, it was like being in a sauna on the ride over here today. What about cardio? Cardio, I love to do that. Is that party workout though? Yeah, I like to run. So I'll do cardio two, three days a week. I'll do a stairmaster pre-corps. We have three pieces of cardio in the basement at the house of the gym, and I'm a member of two different gyms. So I'll try to mix it up, keep it fresh. Because a lot of us we don't like to do the same thing. It gets monotonous, it gets boring. So I have two different gyms in the basement. If there's something good to watch on TV, you don't even realize you're working at it sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 11:11

Do you are you aware of your VO2 Max?

SPEAKER_01 11:13

No.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Oh, you're not?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

I've heard of that, and I've thought I'm just gonna work my butt off.

SPEAKER_00 11:16

Yeah, no, yeah. I mean, have you what about your your blood work and stuff? Are you up to date on that? How you're doing it's clean, it's good.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Everything's everything's been good. Fascinating. I mean, you never know, but uh my doctor just you know takes the height and the weight and the BMI stuff and all that. And I'm always trying to get in better shape, not in a neurotic way, but I just always think that I could still know what your body fat is? Uh right now, I don't know, probably like seven or eight, something like that. Amazing. Yeah, but I I one time had it at five and a half. Jeez. So it's like to me, it's like, can I get back to the dude?

Commission Hustle To Avoid Bankruptcy

SPEAKER_00 11:46

Did you compete in these bodybuilding shows? No, no, I went down the I was down to 12% uh up until and then and then I I don't know, it was like three, four months ago, and I was so excited. I mean, I had it for a year, and then I got I went to Hawaii, went on the whatever, and I got it, it was up 17%. I was like, it's such hard work to get back down there again. So a life switch. Tell me about the book. Like how do you go from uh almost filing bankruptcy to owning part of an NBA franchise?

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Yeah, well, it was not that step to that step. Yeah. I mean, ultimately what happened was the short story is one business failed, and and the restaurant industry is has a 90% failure rate. So that wasn't, I guess, a major surprise, although I wasn't thinking that way. So when that happened and I owed all this money, I needed$7,000 a month back in 2004 just to pay my bills. My future wife was working at a bank, she was the breadwinner, she was making$37,000 a year. You know, she was like my sugar mama. And so I realized that I need to do something, right? I'm not gonna have a massive heart attack and die, even though I I thought I might. I was too young and healthy. So God wasn't taking me away. So I'm like, I've got, you know, life goes on. And so I realized I've got to find a job where I can make enough money to not claim bankruptcy. And at this point, I still had my resume was Burger King and a restaurant for a year and a half or so. Wasn't that impressive? And if I got a job making$50,000, which was more than any of my friends were making, I'd have to claim bankruptcy because it wasn't enough. So then I realized, okay, financial services, it's commission-based. You start at zero every day and every month. And I thought, well, that's great. You start at zero because I'm used to starting at minus twenty thousand dollars. With the restaurant every month, I was just bleeding money. Here, I was just starting at zero. And so I looked at it like there was only one way to go, and that was up. And it was dependent on me, not 16 kids, not three locations, not a landlord who didn't take care of the building. It was me to put my future and everything on my shoulders and work seven days a week as much as I could. Selling what? Selling investments, insurance, anything that I was licensed to sell. And so I would just call people and tell them what I did and why I did it and would offer those kind of solutions. And most people would say no, but eventually some people would say yes. It was a numbers game. And when you got a yes, what was what kind of money was that? Like when you got a lot. It wasn't a lot. It wasn't a lot, but any money was money, right? So if it was$700, you know,$1,500, it was like small change hitting the bottom of a recently emptied vending machine. Right. It was like, okay, but there's money coming in, let's just keep going one foot in front of the other. And then I started to build a business. But I saw that it was possible to have success in financial services because there was no ceiling and that floor was zero. So it was all very appealing to me coming out of a failing situation. And interestingly, uh, that industry has a 90% failure rate too. But all I focused on was I have a 0% chance of success right now with this failed restaurant, and I have a 10% chance of success in financial services. And at that point, I liked my odds. So it saves you from bankruptcy. It totally saved me. You know, the first month I made enough to pay the bills. Wow. And that just showed me that this is possible. And it was really difficult, not just the work, uh, and and sort of like I almost was telling people I own a restaurant. Channel's like, wait, nope, that's old news. Like you're a financial advisor now, you're a financial planner. And I had a lot of grief I was carrying because the restaurant was like my baby. I mean, I had I started it as a college project and you know, had it for three or so years, maybe four years. Um, when it was dead, it was like a pretty good chunk of my life at that time, was everything. And so I'm like out there selling insurance and investments, but I'm really having this loss that I need to address at some point. So I finally addressed that, kind of got all the emotion out. Like therapy, you mean? Therapy. Yeah, actually went to a group therapy session. And the problem was everyone there was on drugs, alcohol, uh, you know, all kinds of bad things. And I'm sitting there thinking, like, okay, I just made like 8,000 last month, and and and I just I want to say that I need to make more money. And I'm like, this is not the group to share this with. Right. So I realized uh talking with your friend earlier that I just need to hold up the mirror, and everything I know I need to do, I can just tell myself, you need to go work your butt off and don't stop until you're exhausted. You know, like Dave Goggins said, don't stop when you're tired, stop when you're done. Yeah. And so when I would call people, I would call people till five o'clock, I'd go to the local Starbucks, get another coffee, start calling people for a while, then I would start calling people on the West Coast because it was three hours earlier. And I would do this six, seven days a week just because it was everything I could control. I couldn't control what they said, but I could control my output, my energy.

SPEAKER_00 16:31

But when you're calling people, who are these people? You're just cold calling people random from a uh from a book that you guys have at the company?

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Like who so you have friends and family, then you've got different connections, you know, first, second, like link.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

So you're literally doing it that way. You're just going. But making$8,000 a month, I know you owed a lot of money, but that's a hell of a lot of money right away.

SPEAKER_01 16:52

It was great. And it was that first month, but then it started to trail off.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

But it just showed me that it's possible to make enough money. And that was all I needed to see. But yeah, it was great, but I mean, I really worked like crazy. And that that made it it made it more difficult to deal with the grieving because I was exhausted. I was working seven days a week just blind. Like I don't remember almost anything about that time. You know, I had stopped watching basketball, I'd stopped hanging out with friends, I did not watch TV. I mean, I shut off myself from everything in the world except work, work, work, work, work. And my wife was working at a seven-day uh bank, so that was okay. So I just kind of, you know, blacked out and just went to work. And and uh and then ultimately, though, like I said, when I built the business, it was okay, how do I do this in a sustainable way? Because this isn't really sustainable.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Because then you had to start your own, make it your own, right? You had to like break away from whoever you're working for to make your own company.

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

And that worked.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah, and created a business that was still financial. And then I just continued to build and grow and offer more comprehensive planning. So I wasn't selling anymore. Like the first couple years, I was like, all these people.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

Uh, you how many did you you still do that? You still have the company. I still have the business. And how many employees would you have now?

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Now I've got uh four people. Yeah. So three full-timers, one part-time, and it's it's a mature business now where it's great. We take care of the people that are there. Some of them have been there from day one, but it's very different. You know, I'm very much an anti-sales guy. If people need something or or there's a need that they don't realize that's a concern, we'll bring it up. But so many people in this industry uh are very salesy, you know, and they they there's no loyalty, they they don't care, they just want to sell, they want to generate commission, and and that's that's not what we do. We try to help people.

SPEAKER_00 18:32

Do you still have any of your original clients?

Buying Into The G League

SPEAKER_01 18:34

Yeah, not a ton, but still have some. So how do you go from there to an NBA team? So as I had success in the business, right, about halfway through my career, so between years 10 and 12, my my my success was going up, my income was going up, everything was great from the outside, but my level of fulfillment was going down at a pretty alarming rate. I just was not excited to get out of bed. Uh I felt like a lot of clients, I wasn't really utilizing my potential. I wasn't really maximizing myself. It was kind of easy and it was great. I wasn't complaining, but I just felt like, you know, there's it just isn't it. And so I thought, okay, what am I passionate about? So I went back to the drawing board, really did a lot of soul searching and thought, well, what do I miss? What am I good at? Uh and I was like, hey, sports. I love sports, I love the best of the best, right? Always trying to get better. And so I thought, well, let me see if there's any NBA teams I can get involved with. And the Sixers at the time were absolutely horrific. This was the time where they were tanking on purpose and everybody knew it. They were losing games. If a guy was good, like if they had a surprise draft pick or free agent, they're like, hey, what are you doing? Like, you got to go. Right. You're too good. And so they were just getting rid of everybody. In fact, there's so many players around the league that used to be Sixers that are like all-stars uh after the fact. But they were so bad they couldn't get people in the seats. They had two for one specials. So I said, hey, what about a local business guy owning part of the team and kind of mixing it up and spicing up that perspective in the in the media? And they thought, well, sure, here's how much it costs. And I said, okay, never mind. I can't afford that. But they said, but there's the G-League team. And I said, well, okay, I can afford that. And I was about to join them, but then they bought in a new management committee and they said, we're just going to shut down everything from the outside, go in a different direction. And they did. Anyway, fast forward, I found this team here, which is affiliated with the Nuggets, the Grand Rapids Gold. And they said, Hey, we'd love to have you, and we'd love to have any kind of involvement that you want to put into it. And so they don't need my help, but they were happy to have me on and not just send the check. But if I had a good idea, whether it was marketing on the court or off the court, they said, Hey, we're open to that. So that's what I was looking for a way to be involved, not just invest my money in the SP, but be able to sort of play with my money, have some fun with it.

SPEAKER_00 20:48

How long has it been?

SPEAKER_01 20:49

It's been five years. Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:51

That's it. It reminds me of that movie Will Farrell. Semi pro, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a great movie. Yeah. So now, like that ring you have, is that is that the from the Nuggets? Yeah, this is the Nuggets ring. Is it because so they win the championship and because you're part of the G League? Uh while do you remember all the any of the play? Yeah, let me just I'll tell you real quick. So a friend of mine, his son was a superstar high school athlete. Went to Marquette, just got his jersey retired like a few weeks ago from Marquette. And he went and played for the Nuggets. And they barely played him. And I think he might have gone to the G League a little bit Marcus Howard. Do you remember Marcus Howard? It's within the last five years. No. He was like 5'9.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

Really? Wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

But now he plays overseas and is a superstar overseas.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Oh, good for him.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

But so that's what happened. So you because you're part of the owner of the G League, the Nuggets win. Yeah. And you go to the ring ceremony, you get to do all that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

I didn't do all that stuff because I'm all the way in New Jersey. I've got a million other things going on. But uh, you know, I was able to be part of it, and ultimately they they shipped the ring to me. So that's so freaking cool. So I'm sitting there one day and I get this box. Well, like you didn't know? I did know. So what happened was the year before, uh, the majority Owner of our team, the Grand Rapids Gold, we were we were watching the playoffs and the Nuggets, you could tell they were just like on borrowed time. They didn't have uh Murray and things like that. I was with Jamal Murray's dad yesterday. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah, he was, yeah. But go ahead. But uh, so we knew they weren't gonna win that year. And and uh he goes, Hey, you know, just so you know, if the Nuggets win, we we get we get a championship rings. And I was like, really? Because I didn't think about that when I when I signed on. I just was happy to be part of a team. And I was like, wow, that's crazy. And then the next year, you know, Jokic had become who he is. He was like the guy. Because before that, Murray was the guy. Yeah, then it was like, whoa, this guy is insane. And so, you know, I didn't want to ask the question, like, hey, were you serious that we get rings? So they won and I kind of waited and waited a little bit that summer, and I was like, hey, were you serious about this? So nervous he's gonna say, No, man, I'm just messing with you. Right. But he goes, Yeah. I was like, You gotta be kidding me. This is amazing. So anyway, so they they ship it to my house. I open it up, and it's got like the little the box lights up and the ring's just spinning around. Uh it's got my name on it, and it just blew my mind. And and actually, I went back because this happened uh before the right before the book was done, and actually created a prologue about that moment because the ring is the real the only real tangible thing about me that shows one of my key messages, and that's anything is possible. Yeah, that's amazing when you think about it, right? I mean, you you open up a health food restaurant, it tanks, fails, and now you become a financial advisor, right? The very boring, you say seemingly boring profession, getting involved with the G League to having an NBA championship ring. So that's why I wear it, that's why I talk about it, not look at my ring, but I want people to know that anything is possible. So whatever goal you set, realize that you can accomplish that or even something better.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

Is that something that you teach your son? You remind your son, check this out.

The Life Switch Mindset

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Oh, yeah. I mean, I I I said if nothing else with this book, if my two kids read it, read the book, then I'm happy. You know, and so my son was the first one to read it because he's a readahullock. Uh, but he has not experienced real failure and real stress yet. So I think he he doesn't fully understand some of it. Uh, but people that have been through some kind of a difficult situation, they they get it.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

And that's what like what it what what in your book, Life Switch, is it your whole story?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, it's the whole story of my life, but it's done in a way to get people to look at their own life. It's almost like looking in the mirror, uh-huh and people say are saying that that's what it's doing. It's getting them to think about their own life. It's not like people don't know who I am for the most part, but do they know who they are? And that's what the book's about is getting them to figure out who they are. And I say everyone is pre-wired for success. Everybody. But a lot of people are missing the power source. And that missing power source is learning how you're wired. So, like this room, like there's lights on. If you hit the switch, lights go off, it's dark, you can't see. Flip the switch on, everything's crystal clear. And so that's the life switch everyone has in their brain. You flip it on, you have clarity, you have energy, you have urgency for whatever it is that that makes you tick, that lights you up. And everyone's wired differently. Like me and you share some commonality with loving basketball, loving our spouses, our families. Other people are single, never been married, don't have any interest, but they can love life too, just in different ways.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

Is your mother still around?

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

What does she think about your book and your success? She's my biggest fan.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

Yeah, she's read it twice. She listened to the audiobook. She tells everyone, you know, you know, typical like what any mom would do. But, you know, I appreciate more when a complete stranger sends me a really nice note about the book. Like one lady reached out and she said, I had to call out of work because I was listening to the audiobook and I couldn't stop. And I just couldn't go to work because I wanted to know what happened. Are you reading?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Is it you that read the audiobook?

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah. I did the whole thing and uh it was it was a lot of work, but it was actually really fun. It was like the actors that do the voiceovers for cartoons and things like that. That's what it felt like. And I actually really enjoyed it. I wouldn't want to do it again, but I did enjoy the process.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Did you go to the like a studio somewhere and with the microphones like this, and that's how you had to do it?

SPEAKER_01 26:04

They they shipped everything to my house. Wow. So they sent me top-notch equipment, and this was last July, and they said, you know, you've got to shut off the air conditioning, you've got to make sure there's no noise. So I would literally run out of the house sometimes to the guy who was cutting the lawn across the street and be like, get out of here. Probably looked crazy. You know, if there was a cat meow, trash day, you know, I had to stop. Airplane going overhead.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Did they ever send back to you? Hey, we need to cut this page over again. There's too much noise in the background.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Well, at the end, yeah, they would they would let me the publisher who like who this was a company that they bought in to do this, and they were great. There was one guy who was in, I think he was in like Indonesia, the other guy was in England, but it was like they were in the booth with me. And so I'm sweating like crazy because there's no air conditioning, but it just it was it felt like really cool to be doing it, and they were pros. And at the end, we had to do one day of retakes, but it wasn't that bad. But I did it was 26 hours of recording to get down to the eight hours that the book is. Wow. Which isn't, I guess it's not terrible.

SPEAKER_00 26:58

Wow, that sounds like a lot to me. Yeah, wow. Okay, so it's where can you get the book at Life Switch?

How The G League Really Works

SPEAKER_01 27:03

You can get it on Amazon, that's where people most commonly get it because it has the ebook, the audio book, and the hardcover. You can get it at certain Barnes and Nobles as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

How long are you in town for? Uh just a few days. Are you for a few days though?

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Leaving on Wednesday.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

So do you have you met being uh at the G League? Like who were some players that have gone down from the Nuggets to the G League and back up again?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Are there uh well, there's a lot of guys that that were with us that are now in the NBA. So Colin Gillespie starting with the Suns.

SPEAKER_00 27:32

He's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Yeah, he came down to us from the Nuggets and he was a floor general. Anytime he would play, I feel like we won every time. He just was really good. He didn't have that big stature, so I think that was the question. Could he play defense? Was he tall enough? But he just helped us win. And uh I was like, why don't the Nuggets use him more? Ends up going to the Suns on the G League team, gets in a little bit, and all of a sudden then he's starting and he's doing a phenomenal job.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Well, you're on the G League team, what what city is it again? The Grand Rapids. So are they in Grand Rapids? Are they do are they they put up in an apartment? Are they roommates? Like you know how like uh minor leagues, like is it is it like that, or do are they living on their$7 million salary?

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Uh no, they have a really nice uh apartment complex that the team has for them. So, you know, they're renting that for them, so they don't have to pay for that. And uh, you know, whenever whenever the visiting team is in town, then we have to pay for their costs. But if we're visiting another team, that team pays the cost. Oh, right. So it's an interesting structure, but they have a nice setup. So uh, you know, I I think they're pretty happy with it. Do you go there a lot? Do you go to a lot of games? I don't go to a ton of games in Grand Rapids. I'll go to maybe two a year, try to go to the home opener and sometimes the finale. But what I do is I go to the games that are more in the northeast. So if they're in Long Island, Westchester, Delaware, uh sometimes Maine. Do they have a following? Yeah, they don't have a ton of people on the road. Right. Uh, usually don't see too many, but at home, like we had the best attendance in the league for almost the whole season.

SPEAKER_02 28:58

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I don't know if we kept that. We're the season's just about done. There's one more game, but the arena holds about 12,000 people. And we have we've had a you know a lot of games with you know five, seven thousand people in there and a handful of sellouts as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

That's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

It's not common. A lot of a lot of games you watch on TV, like G League TV or or uh ESPN2 sometimes, you look around and I kind of cringe because it's like, where's everybody at? You know, it looks like COVID days. But like I I support not just my team, but the entire G League. So I want to help the G League get on the map because when when you think about it, like when I had the restaurant at 24, 25, my back was up against the wall. I didn't know if I was gonna have any success or not. And it reminds me of a lot of these guys. They're 24, they're 25. They don't know if they're gonna make 40 or$50,000 a year for a bunch of years and go get a regular job, or if they're gonna get called up and just like that, start making a couple of million dollars a year. We have a guy on the Nuggets now, Spencer Jones. He was on our uh our team. He was a two-way, and he was supposed to be our main guy this year. He never made it because the Nuggets got decimated with injuries. They called him up and they used him quite a bit, and they started him in the starting lineup. So they just signed him to a standard contract.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

So he's he's like, so it's like you're happy for him, but you're like, damn.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Yeah, I'm like, I'm like, damn you. But hey, yeah, congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 30:16

So as a as a as an investor in the G League, is it it it's more like for like you're not looking at a payout, you're not making money being a part of the G League, are you?

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Not on a regular basis, no. But everyone's gonna meet it's like a lot of teams. You have a loss, but the goal is for the appreciation. And I'm hoping that we're gonna get that, especially when these two new teams come out soon, Seattle and Vegas. Apparently, they're gonna be going for eight to ten billion dollars. I know, and and the G League is gonna be a part of that.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

But they're not connected, huh? Like if the you're the owner of the Nuggets, you're not the owner of the G League team.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

Most teams, the parent club owns the G-League franchise.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

But there's a few, including our team, that is not that way. It's kind of a hybrid structure.

SPEAKER_00 30:56

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

And then there's other ones like Mexico City. I don't even know who owns that, but that's not an NBA.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

What about Canada? Are you familiar with the Canadian Canadian Basketball League?

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Well, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't follow them. Um, but I don't is are people still into that as much?

SPEAKER_00 31:09

Yeah, there's a team that the Winnipeg Sea Bears. Okay, and they're a new team, and they freaking sell out crazy. Yeah, it's I have some, I have one of their sweatshirts. Yeah, it's uh it's it's really interesting because it's freezing. And they should, you know, everyone wants to go to a basketball game. That's great. Yeah, plus there's so many Canadians now that are famous basketball players, right? It's true. Jamal Murray.

Where To Get The Book

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, I mean, Shea Gildris. Uh I mean, there's a lot of people like that's why I was excited about the All-Star game this year because it was U.S. versus the world and even the Olympics. I mean, Canada is coming for the US. They are, they are. So is France. Yeah, they are. It's awesome the competition.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Hey man, well, thanks for jumping on my podcast, man. Thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me. I'm really glad you rearranged your life to do this because I was really grateful. I was so stressed uh a few weeks ago when what do you mean my son's gonna get played by anyway? Thank you so much. So the book, Life Switch is on Amazon. Yes, sir. All right, brother. Thanks, man. Thank you. Very cool. It's awesome. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.