Jessie Lee Talks MONEY & Eric Spofford Has a $115M Exit 📈 | E11
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You know, again, we're told to be quiet. We're told to do all this stuff. You just have to sit at the table. And I had this conversation with you when we were at the Mastermind however many months ago now. And there's a girl in the back and she's asked, she didn't see me. I was in the front. She didn't see me. And she asks, well, you know, I don't know how to, you know, it's so much easier as a man to be successful. And how do I become more successful? And you were like, I think, I don't think I should answer this. I think Jesse Lee should answer this. And I just said, what are you doing back there?

there. It is easier for us. Like we have this false reality in our minds that it's going to be harder for us to make money or harder for us to get on stages or harder for us to sit at the table. The seats are there. We just tend to not sit in them.

I just sit in them. That's the difference. I'm like, oh, hi, I'm Jesse Lee. Like, what's going on? Yeah, like I pulled it up or something like that. Just make yourself be known. And you don't have to be anything except for yourself. But there's so much opportunity. And quite frankly, I think it becomes way more powerful when you are in that room and there are a lot of men because you stand out. It's a huge opportunity.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a very special edition of the Money Mondays. This is going to be a really easy episode because I love our guest today. She's one of the only people I always brag about, talk about. It's going to be really easy to ask a bunch of questions. You guys are going to get to hear from someone who is the top network marker on the planet, but also a coach, a speaker, and everything else in between. Please welcome our special guest, Jessie Lee. Wow, thank you. Hey, guys. How are you? I'm excited.

So our co-host here, The Real Tarzan, gets over 200 million views a month on social media, helping out there to teach about animals. Welcome, Tarzan. Thank you for having me, guys. All right, Jessie Lee, we talk about three topics here. How do people make money? How do they invest money? And how do they give some away to charity? Okay. So first, we'd like you to give your two-minute bio so we can get straight to the money. Sure. So hi, I'm Jessie Lee Ward, and I am the number one network marketer in the world. And then outside of that, I use...

I used that income not even really knowing what I was doing and started investing years ago, realizing I really needed to diversify my income because especially in that space, it's just...

People get rich, they never get wealthy. And I didn't want to be like that and I didn't want to coach like that. So then I started getting into entrepreneurship outside of network marketing by investing in things that I understood, like hair salons and car dealerships and whatever. Just trying to get some more passive income going as well. And I live in Texas. I'm a dog mom. I do have stage four cancer. And so I'm beating that right now, which I'm excited about because I'm totally going to crush it.

And yeah, I love the speaking. I love all of it. But my whole thing is I do everything with kindness. That's really my number one core value. And so I think that shines through with a lot of stuff I do. And my big passion project now really is this coaching. I love it. It brings me so much energy, so much joy watching the light bulbs go off in people's minds. And getting a coach is the best thing you can do because it's like those little one degree shifts or hey, follow me through the minefield. But yeah, I'm 34 and I don't know what else you need to know, but that's that.

So we're going to dive right into some of the key topics. Why do you think it's important for people to make more money? Okay, so I was told that my podcast would change when all this health stuff happened and this is just like the first perfect example. It used to be, oh, you can change the world and its legacy and you can do so much good in the world and all those things are true. I'm not denying any of that to be a fact, but

I said it on stage today, the one thing that you want when you have all the money in the world is your health when you realize you don't have your health. And if I could give up everything that I have and then have to start all over again but be on a clear bill of health without any thought that would cross my mind, the answer, of course, would be yes. And so it's super important that people get their money right. It's super important people understand how it works. It's important people don't take advice from bad people or, quite frankly, our governments or rely on our governments for things like that. And I'm grateful that

I made a lot of mistakes really young. I started trying to figure out money really young because it put me on this path that I am on now. But yeah, I just want everybody to understand money more so that they can actually have the life that they deserve. It is important. So in the network marketing space,

a lot of people make 50 bucks a month, a hundred bucks a month, 500 bucks a month. And there's other people that can make a hundred thousand, 10,000, 50,000. And obviously like you make millions and millions of dollars for the year. What do you think the difference is be someone that kind of just gets by and fades away. So the people that are actually making five grand, 10 grand, 20 grand a month.

I've determined it's all mindset, but money is all mindset, really. It's how big can you make it? And that's your income, that's your investments, that's your businesses, that's everything. There's a ceiling that you'll build it to and it's based off of what you think your mind can do. So if I'm trying to sell you something and I think it's expensive, I'm never going to sell it. And in network marketing especially, it's like we have products or services that don't cost that much money. And then you're trying to convince people. It is a convincing thing. I never really wanted to convince people. I just thought to myself, I'm just going to

to tell people this is what they need and I had this mindset like no you need it you need this you need this you need this we're going places and I think most people don't get that $50 a month $100 a month maybe $500 a month and it's they go to that that one circle of people they know and that's all they're gonna talk to everyone in business does this it's like let me talk to just my friends well your friends are not gonna make you millionaires right and so they don't want to get out of their comfort zone and they don't want to push forward and I was just always a person who's like all right

So day one, this is a totally true story. Day one, when I bought my kid, I walk out and I said, okay, who do I know? I know everyone at work. And I got 16 no's within probably 20 minutes. And the 17th person said...

maybe I'm like so you're not saying no I know this dumb and dumber line you know I was just yeah I got a chance and I just kind of always looked at it like that I think a lot of people their mindset is just not where it needs to be and also they don't take it seriously they let other people's opinions of oh it's not a real thing it's not a real profession this is not a real business it gets in their heads and it screws with them and I was like well you might not think it's real but this guy over here has made $100

million dollars and he's 50 years old doing something. So you call it fake. I don't even care. Like whatever you want. Uh, I just didn't let people, I didn't let people's other stupid opinions affect the way I felt about what I was doing. And it really taught me so much more about entrepreneurship than I ever could have expected. It taught me the importance of personal development and it taught me how to scale businesses and work with people and lead and, and, and, and, and, and so I think the problem is people's mindsets are just so small and so limited.

So when it comes to whether it's network marketing or choosing a job, how do you think people should consider choosing what products or businesses or brands they get behind? So first of all, do both. So maybe not popular opinion in this space, but I'm always like, why does it always have to be quit your job? Right. Like if we're talking about making money, like money matter or making money impact lives or having extra money, if you're making an extra $500 a month and you're not quitting your job,

Okay, that's $6,000 a year. This is a lot of money. Most people go, I'm only making $500 a month. I'm like, no, you missed the entire point. You can do both. And I think that's the great thing of any of these side hustles. It doesn't have to be network marketing. It could be affiliate marketing. It could be just the gig economy in general. Yeah, e-commerce. It could be driving Uber. I don't really care. But take that as a side hustle and then turn that into something big. And a lot of people just won't do that. And so there's...

there's all of that and then I don't remember the beginning part of that question actually but I was like that's such a good question um oh you can also you can take it obviously and you can turn it into something full-time so but people do it too soon you know they think they get too excited they're like oh I made I had one good month right like but you're not being financially responsible right now it's possible and how do you pick something that you like

It's all about what you're passionate about. This is another reason people don't make more than $500 a month. They're selling something they don't care about, they don't like, they're not passionate about, they can't talk about all the time. I talked about Cards and Coffee with you on stage a couple weeks ago. I'm like, this is clearly something he's so passionate about, he can't let it fail. And this is the best way to make investments anyway. It's like, follow the person who is so...

They're guaranteed. There's like, no matter what, these freaking Pokemon cards. Like, let's count the deck. Don't open it. And I'm over here like, I'm opening it. I want to find a flashy card. You know, I don't even know what we're doing over here, man. But I was having fun with it. It's like, that's what you follow. And there are so many products and so many services. You can find anything. You know, you can find insurance companies that forever.

for network marketing. You can find every health and wellness product in the world. You can find, there's probably a company that sells RVs for God's sake, like energy company. Like I literally get my energy through Ambit, which is an MLM and most people don't even know. Or, you know, it's crazy, but just pick something that's actually going to excite you because ultimately you might stick with something and make some money for even five, 10 years, but you're not going to stay forever in something that's driving you crazy and you don't want to be around. Yeah, I agree. So one of the things you said has actually been part of my speech for years. It's don't quit your day job.

And you hear so many entrepreneurs like, go tell your boss to screw off and go start being entrepreneur.

how are you going to pay your rent in three months and six months and nine months? I like people to actually keep their day job because we live in a society where our smartphones and the apps and the services and softwares that are out there, you can do so many things in a couple hours a night. And all of a sudden you work three hours a night. That's 1100 hours a year. You can work on your side job or your side gig. It adds up real quick. And when you start to make two grand a month, three grand a month, four grand a month, even

Even then I wouldn't quit. Once you've saved up six to 12 months in the piggy bank and you have stability, like you just said that it's recurring revenue, not one, one good month. Then that's a time you can take a leap of faith where you're not going to be, Oh my God, if you have to worry about paying rent that month or worrying about feeding the kids or the family, et cetera, you're not going to sell your best. You're not going to design your best. No matter what people say, all people are going to work harder if they're struggling. I promise you when you need to go pay the rent,

you're going to end up taking side jobs and working at a bartending. You're going to do whatever you have to do to survive. That's not going to help you build your career or your side hustle. When your side hustle makes a similar income, doesn't have to make the same income, a similar income to what your core job is, and you've got six months or more in the piggy bank, then you can make the leap of faith and not necessarily be nervous about always going back. Too often, someone goes and is like, I'm going to open a restaurant. All I need is $100,000.

No, it's going to take you six to 12 months of overhead on top of the $100,000 because even if your restaurant works out well, you're going to be spending money marketing the place. You're going to spend money to hire a better chef and increase things and buy better outfits for your staff, etc. So no matter what, you're going to need extra capital. I implore you guys, keep your day job. And when you have six to 12 months saved up, then take the leap of faith. Tarzan, how do you choose to

what brands, products, and services you get behind when there's hundreds of millions of people that are going to end up seeing that thing? Passion projects. It's like you talked about how Dan is in his cards. He's like, oh, I've been having that. I love working with different brands that are actually passionate about what they do because I have passion in what I do. So I feel if two can be collaborative and congruent in a passionate space...

It's all the better, you know, and I like my Instagram and my YouTube and my TikTok and Twitter and Facebook to all flow and be authentic, you know, so when I collaborate with a brand that's passionate, that's also in with nature, animals or conservation or anything sustainability or eco-friendly, it just flows out, you know, and it's all the better, you know, for me to be in front of the camera or behind it. I just like to be able to be at peace, you know, while I'm working.

So we talked a little bit about making money. Let's talk about investing money. That's a very diverse thing to say. Hair salons, car dealerships and everything in between. How do you pick what type of things you put your money into?

Oh, it's a funny story. So I think I get the best ideas when I'm exhausted or in the shower. I think most people are the same way though. So I was on tour in Germany. I have a big business in Germany and this is after, I don't know, 50, 60 days straight of tour stops and my brain was going to explode and little introvert Jesse Lee was just dying and

And I woke up one day, I'm like, I am so tired and frustrated. And I didn't realize how much I was cash flowing, you know, comparatively to people in the world. So I thought I'm broke and I need to make more money. And like, I need to be this entrepreneur who has brick and mortar stores and is taken more seriously. And,

and I make a phone call to my boyfriend at the time. I'm like, "That's it. When I get home, I'm buying everything that I use all the time." He's like, "What are you talking about?" I'm like, "Well, I get cars, I get my hair done, I get my nails done, I like burgers." I was listing all this stuff. He's like, "This makes no sense." I was like, "It makes perfect sense to me." 'Cause I go into these businesses and I go, "You know what could be done better? This, this, this, this, this, this. Well, why is my customer service like that when you could do this, this, this, this, this? Your salespeople suck. They should do this, this, this, this, right?"

And so it was just kind of this, okay, well, when you go home, do that. And I happened to know the owner of a salon that was in the area. And I just messaged her. I said, Hey, are you looking for a partner? I wasn't actually intending to purchase. She goes, I want to sell it. I went, Oh, I said, well, let's talk to you. And I got home from Germany and that was like the first thing. And then you get presented all kinds of stuff when you're, uh,

A, when people know you have money, and then B, when people go, oh, that's somebody who can put something behind a brand like you were kind of talking about. And so there's a car dealership in Dallas, an exotic car dealership, because I like fancy cars. And he's like, hey, you're a woman who has these cars. It'd be great, and we also need capital. And I said, and we just negotiated. He wanted me to invest only in a couple of cars to have on the showroom, and when he would flip them, I would make the profit. And I said, okay, but if I give you all this money, because it was a lot of money, I said, I want money off of every single car you're selling. He's like, okay.

I'll have to think about it. And then ultimately he's like, I'm like, you keep asking me to post stuff on my Instagram, whatever, like, no, it's never going to happen unless I own part of the company. So, um, that's kind of how I got into that. And then I always, it's people, everything is the business of people. And so when, even though I'm introverted, you're introverted, I don't know, you're probably introverted. He's like, yes, please don't talk to me anymore. Um, you know, it's, it's funny because I,

I actually find that introverts can actually build the deepest relationships a lot easier because they're not all over the place trying to please everybody. Just they don't have that huge bubbly personality necessarily.

And so it's getting to know people. It's having deep relationships where I go, oh, like as an example, well, I know he's going to understand the cards and coffee thing. It just makes good sense. Or, you know, when you meet anybody, a lot of the investments, obviously, that we've done together, it's like you meet the owners and these people are so excited about what they're doing. They are not going to give up. It's their baby. It's like they're punting their family for God knows how long, you know, until their baby comes to fruition. And I like investing with people.

it's the people more than anything. But I do like investing in stuff that I understand so that then I can actually contribute something. I don't really see any need necessarily to invest in something where I can't put any kind of power into what it is, whether it's my marketing or my branding or my any expertise in anything. I just want to, I want to invest in stuff that I go, yeah, I understand that.

So a different version of investing is also investing in yourself. And the last few months when you've been kicking cancer's ass, your doctor said it was because you invest in yourself. You were healthy, you were fit, you're in the gym, you're eating right, etc. Why should people really consider investing more into themselves?

So this isn't everything. It's not even just a health thing. I actually think that's the first investment. So people used to ask me, oh, they'd say, I have an extra $10,000. What should I invest in? And I don't tell them a business. I don't tell them the stock market. I don't tell them crypto. I don't tell them any of these things. No, you don't need to go buy a single family, anything like, no, no, you don't. What you need to do is you need to invest in yourself. You need to go to events, right?

You need to buy some masterminds. You need to go to some masterminds. You need to buy some courses. You need to find something that you want to do and learn. Because that knowledge, the only reason, I mean, okay, not the only reason, but one of the reasons I am who I am is because I've put so much money into my education. If there's someone I need to get close to, I'm buying a VIP ticket to the event. I'm not just shaking hands. I'm making conversations, right? I was talking about an event I went to years ago with Amy Porterfield and some other people, and I just bought a VIP ticket. I wasn't like anybody at the time, you know?

But I have the photos with all of them. I started the relationships there. And then when I've been to people's weddings now, because we have so many friends in common and we see each other again, I'm like, hey, it's really good to see you. So for the first time four years ago, oh my God, of course. And there's that pre-existing relationship. You can pull out the photo from when you meet, name somebody, right? Yeah, we met forever ago at Dan's 40th birthday party, Lil Wayne. No, I'm kidding. But you get the point. It's like, I just, I find that there's so much value in that. So yeah.

Why did you just started to start coaching and speaking on stages? First of all, there is a massive gap in women who can do what I do Yeah, if anything people go who else does you know who else can train like you were teachers like you I'm like, it's not like a thing. I don't know any other women who do it I know Mel Robbins crushes the stage. She doesn't want to do it anymore. I just want to be on stages Rachel Hollis killed her career, you know, she'll do it anymore name the people who speak and

So there's this huge gap. And then I go to all these places and there's all these men and I've taken over the network marketing world. I've been on every stage when Eric...

my mentor Eric was trying to take over Tony Robbins and had the biggest virtual event for about an hour. And then Tony's like, watch this. Tony gets two million people registered or something for his next event. But I've spoken on all these huge stages, all the CEOs of network marketing. I was like, that's conquered. And I really you become a great speaker by doing those things, by leading in these events and by training and training and training and training and training and training and training and training and training your sales team until you're blue in the face. And then I started getting asked, oh, would you do speak?

Like, yeah, I definitely speak. Will you come speak? I will definitely speak at your event. And then it just kind of started snowballing into, yeah, that's the woman. That's the girl. She can train. She can teach. She can get people to actually get into action. Because a lot of people are super hypey and you'll get motivated. And I'm sure I motivate people at some aspect. But it's really, really, really tactical the way that I like to train. Yeah.

Why do you think that public speaking is the number one fear even more than wild snakes? Yeah, wild snakes. You know, a snake actually almost killed me at this one event we went to. What? The yellow and white snake. Do you remember this? Jay Prehistoric Pets. Oh, my God. So this snake, he started wrapping his...

himself, I was like his tail, himself around me. And I'm like, um, it's getting like really tight. And I'm like, hello. And no one was paying attention. I'm like, I'm going to die at this hundred million mastermind actually rest in peace in this backyard of this mega mansion. And then the guy came like running over like, oh my God, I'm so sorry. I was like, do they react to like energy or something? Like I wasn't fearful and he was really trying to take me out.

Anyway, I'm not scared of snakes, though. Thank God or else that would have been a whole moment. That would have been the end for me. I think it's I think it's because you have to be vulnerable to be a good speaker. You can't I can't be Dan and and do a good job at what I do. I can't be like any of these huge speakers that are on the circuit right now and be effective.

The reason why anybody's effective at public speaking is because they're showing who they truly are. They're being their most authentic self. And that's what translates. It's my stories. It's my real life experiences. It's how I scaled a business. This is exactly what I did. And I think a lot of people just get so scared because you can't really hide behind a mask when you're up there. You can't make stuff up. I mean, I guess you could if you're a total psycho or something, but like you're showing who you actually are. And most people are so used to hiding behind that. And then society tells you to be quiet.

Right. I mean, we're told from a very young age, you know, sit down, be quiet, sit down, be quiet, sit down, be quiet, sit down, be quiet. Well, when all of a sudden it's no, I want to hear what you have to say. It's like, oh, God, I don't know about that. But one of my I have a memory that I need to start writing to write it down as an Instagram caption or something, because it's such a good story of my life. I I never feared the public speaking. And then in college, I

I had to, everyone had to take a public speaking class. And I remember doing my first speech and it was about how the importance of sound actually, which is interesting because then now I've learned cadence and pacing all this stuff and speaking, but

My feedback from my professor was, you could have a career in this. You're so talented and gifted at this. Keep working at it. And it's funny to look back on that. That's 15, 16 years ago now being like, huh, amazing, amazing. Shout out to Professor Johnson if you're watching. I don't remember her name. So when people start to progress in their business career, some people start to make money and quickly start to...

really big overheads and go broke. We watched it happen with athletes. It happened with a lot of people and entrepreneurs that they start to make really good money and they think it's going to last forever. What would you say to someone that starts to make money? They're making 10 grand a month and now 20 grand, 30 grand. Something happens and they're like,

What would you say to someone so that they don't go broke? Okay. Get advice from good people, first of all. And you probably don't need everything people think you need. I like running a very lean business and I like knowing where the money's actually going. And too many people go, well, they told me I needed a COO. They told me I needed this. They told me, they told me, they told me, they told me, they told me. Who is they? And why are you taking advice from a bunch of people? What do their businesses look like? Does it look exactly like yours? So as an example, with even just my network marketing and then coaching on the side, two of my biggest cash flows is

you shouldn't take advice from somebody who's running say a real estate company on how to manage these two kinds of businesses it's different there are some things that are very similar that all businesses need but holy smokes I see some of the salaries of people where you need to get leaner

you need to start doing more work. And that's something I think that gets really dangerous is people go, well, I'm the boss. I mean, it's ironic because my name's Boss Lee, right? But like, I'm the boss. So, you know, I don't want to have to do all the different things. Like I already did it in the past. I don't want to do it anymore. I like to still get my hands dirty and stuff. I like to be involved in what I'm doing. I like to have my hands on projects and then pay attention to stuff that's unnecessary. You know, you kind of made a reference earlier to then you upgrade their uniforms and you upgrade this and you upgrade that and all this stuff. It happens in steamrolls so fast.

if things are not bringing in money after you've tested them for enough period of time, you know, three months, six months, whatever you want to do, stop, just stop. It's,

And especially in ways where we've got social media now, it's dumb stuff people spend money on. Sometimes they're spending money on gigantic marketing departments right now where you just need some micro influencers. What are you doing? We just bought this billboard on this. You bought a billboard. You know, I made I got a radio ad. I'm like, oh, hell, you know, this is not a good move. But be paid. Get advice from people who are doing what you want to do.

And that's a good way to start structuring your business. And just don't go crazy. Don't go and don't go broke trying to impress people. The athletes, that's what the problem is. I don't understand how when you're making 20 grand, $20 million, excuse me, $20 million. Um, what is that a year? Yeah. 20 and $30 million a year. And they're bankrupt five years later. It's like, who were you impressing? Who were you trying to be? Who and who, what are you trying to prove? Stop trying to prove stuff to people. It's like,

We walked in the RV and I'm like, oh, I love it. I could live in one of these. I just love it. That's how you do it. Yeah, you don't have to impress so many people and that's really what people are doing. So the whole concept of the Money Mondays and why we created it is because we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. Mm-hmm.

And we believe it's the opposite. It's rude to not talk about money. And my social media, your social media, your speeches, etc. We are very blunt about our earnings, our investments and everything between because I don't think it's rude at all. I think if I didn't say the actual numbers or you didn't say the actual numbers, that would be rude. The reason for it is people go out there. Let's say you have an 18-year-old daughter. She's ready to go be an accountant. And the accounting company is hiring.

And she could have got $48,000 a year, but she got $37,000 because she didn't know it was $48,000. They offer a $37,000. Why? It's rude to talk about money. We couldn't talk about it at the dinner table. How dare you bring up salary even though your uncle or aunt was an accountant and they could tell you, oh, it's $48,000 starting. You know the difference of her making $37,000? She's now like half a decade behind schedule because her next increase will be $39,000. Then she'll get to $42,000 and maybe $45,000. She's lucky five years from now.

when she should have started at 48. Just from a simple conversation of saying, oh yeah, starting salary is $48,000. And the same thing applies to apartments and rent. Should I get a lease? Should I buy it? Should I get a mortgage? What the hell is a mortgage? What's a FICO score? I can't spell FICO. Like we just don't talk about money in our society. And I think that's why we're so passionate about this and why I love your speech style because you talk about it like I make $500,000 a month and you just say it.

Yeah. Where most people like just say that they make some obscene number and they don't talk about the grind. You also talk about when you were broke and you talk about when you started getting started and the reality and the bluntness is what is so important in our society is that we don't have these blunt discussions about what it actually takes to build a business or build a career or how much you should make, etc.

And then you expect people to know how to do it. It's the crazy thing. It's like, well, just figure it out. You can't just figure out the stuff. You have to have these conversations, which is why it's so important. I remember I joked around it. This is probably 10 years ago when I made this joke the first time. I'm like, why is it that people will tell you their weirdest sexual stuff? Total stranger. You'll tell me all about this weird stuff, like whatever. And you won't tell me about your bank accounts. You won't tell me about the debt you have. You're shame. You feel shameful about your credit score. You don't even know how to find out your credit score. Right? It's like...

the biggest conversation or the most important conversation. I mean, if you have money, you can have power, period. But if you have no money, well, you can have no power. When I say the sentence, money is the root of all evil, what do you think? I think that money is the root of all evil if you're evil.

And if you're not, you're not. Money doesn't change people. It'll elevate who you are. You know, I know you're super philanthropic. I'm assuming you are too or he wouldn't hang out with you. You know that I am. It's like me becoming richer and richer and richer and richer and richer than being like, oh, I'm wealthy. Right.

Did not change me as a person. If anything, like I said, kindness is my core value. Well, now I just get to give more. Now I get to contribute to people and places and things and causes that excite me, that make me feel, wow, you get to change the world. And a lot of it is just, and I know it's actually selfish, right? But it feels so good to give.

And you don't know unless you do. And if you don't have anything to give, then like... Give your time and energy. Yeah. So I wish more people didn't think that. But I think the interesting thing about money is we all have the same money stories from our childhood. If I were to ask people that are listening to this, I'd say, hey, money doesn't grow on... Trees. Trees.

Everyone would know. Who has a parent who, as soon as you open the refrigerator, they're like, close that thing until you know what you want. If I left the door open, what are we trying to heat the whole state of Texas? What are you trying to cool everybody down? You're trying to bring whatever. It's like we all have these same patterns over and over again. Well, if those were patterns that are from our childhood that were ingrained in us, why can't we rewrite new patterns? So you have to start talking about it. You have to normalize it. You have to normalize conversations that are like, I don't know what a FICO score is or

I have no idea how to buy crypto or I don't know how, how, how do you get started in investments? Hey, can I, you know, what's, what's the best podcast you can listen to for investing or where's the, where's the first resource? Where did you go? Do you have financial advisor? Do you recommend having one or not? You know, how do financial advisors work? What's a trust, right? Like, well, what's, should I do if I'm an entrepreneur, should I have IRAs or should I not, or should I, where should I put my money?

nobody's talking about it, but then you expect people to figure it out. And then you get to the top of entrepreneurship and there's people who are, you know, cash flowing even more than I make a month. And quite frankly, their taxes are in disarray. Their financial house is not an order. It's built on a house of sand. Honestly, it's like, I'm better not, wind better not blow. IRS better not come over to you. Right. Or they're paying way too much in taxes or they don't have, you know, it's just like they say that rich, the rich get richer, the rich get richer, not because of

Anything except for knowledge is the true power. And when you are rich and your friends are rich, you talk and you have different conversations. So I needed financial advice. I could say, Dan, what are you doing with this right now? What what what coin do you see is doing whatever? Hey, what are you looking to invest in right now? Where are you putting your money? What's safe for you? Are you doing any offshore? Like what's going on? And I can have a real conversation. Well, that's powerful. Then I invest differently. Then I move differently.

But if you have a bunch of low-level friends who are worried about how they're going to keep their electricity on and you're taking financial advice, God forbid, from them, which they are, by the way. My aunt said, you don't do da-da-da-da-da. Oh, okay, I'm not going to do that. You know, because God forbid your aunt. Who is your aunt? Where does she live? You know, what is she living like? And so I would just, don't take financial advice from people you wouldn't trade bank accounts with. Don't take love advice from people you wouldn't want to trade relationships with. Don't take friendship advice from people with no damn friends. You know, it's like, it just seems like common sense, but for some reason with money, it's just not.

It's just not. The last topic we'd like to go over is charity. Okay. Charity is not just about money. We believe that

the time, energy, community, social media, rallying people together is a powerful way to do charity when you can't afford it or you don't want to spend a bunch of money on charity, but you want to still do the acts of charity. How do you decide what things you would either write a check for or what charities you would rally around? Yeah, easy for me. First of all, it could be a personal cause where you're just like, I'm so connected to this. The other thing could be something that just for whatever reason pulls me towards emotion. So like the Tim Tebow thing, just as an example, I was like, wow,

you see those kids faces it's very difficult to not get emotionally pulled even though i don't look anything like the kids i don't talk like i don't have anybody personally in my life who's experienced things like that thank god didn't matter i was very emotionally called to do it the other thing is i like to rally around things where maybe it's a lot of people that i love that are being afflicted by it so i've donated tens of thousands of dollars to mental health america for the simple fact that i've got

I've got a lot of friends who are struggling with mental health stuff, especially given COVID. Right. So if they donate stuff, all match donations, we'll put it all over social media, et cetera. Same things happened with we, I don't remember what the foundation was anymore, but same thing for an addiction center. We found it was like some of my best friends are in recovery, you know? So for me, super easy. I'm like, I love this. Like I, people that I love that are, that are, that are in recovery for a decade, you know, a decade or more,

those are amazing people that were just afflicted by a disease. Well, you just need more resources. So it's just stuff that I'm passionate about. And then, um, sometimes I, I think, I think that you should give exactly what you are, uh, what you feel scarce around. So you mentioned charities, not just money. Some of my favorite memories are of, um,

I guess not flipping houses, but basically flipping houses. So in areas of my town growing up that were not great, these houses are kind of run down. You take a day and everybody would come in like once a mission project, you just flip the whole house, you know, new floors. Yeah. Like maybe a weekend or something. You remodel it, you know, front to back, the whole entire thing. I'm watching those families come in back to their homes. Like, Oh,

oh my gosh you know it's the best feeling so and a lot of that is just time that was just energy that was just community getting the people together so you don't have to have the money but can you gather the community can you find a project that will serve your your town and it starts really small it starts in your town and then it goes to your city and then it goes to your state and then go to the world like a lot of your things have spread now worldwide um just because you started with an idea right i have a very serious question for you yeah how do we get more women to be like you

Oh gosh, that's a good question. I want more women on stages. Yeah. And the same way you said earlier, like name them. I can only name like Jamie Lima, Lisa Bilyeu, like on two hands, I can name all the best speakers.

there's hundreds of women, thousands of women that are probably great speakers that we just don't know because they're not out of their show. What do you think that we can do to make them want to be Jesse Lee or Jamie Lima type? Yeah, part of it, I think, is my responsibility. So I'm taking the road of like hiring a publicist, getting more in front of people and showing people you can have, you can be super feminine in your real life and very dominant in your business life. And that's more than OK. I think it just needs to be more accepted by a lot of the men. And the cool thing is, obviously, I run with you and a lot of these other guys and

I'm the girl on the stage and a lot of these men have no idea who I am until I speak and they go, Whoa. Oh, okay. And you know, again, we're told to be quiet. We told you all this stuff. You just have to sit at the table. And I had this conversation with you when we were at the mastermind, however many months ago now, and there's a girl in the back and she's asked, she didn't see me. I was in the front. She didn't see me. And she asks, well, you know, I don't, I don't know how to, you know, it's, it's so much easier as a man to be successful, um,

And how do I become more successful? And you were like, I think I don't think I should answer this. I think Jesse Lee should answer this. And I just said, what are you doing back there? It is easier for us. Like we have this false reality in our minds that it's going to be harder for us to make money or harder for us to get on stages or harder for us to have a seat at the table. The seats are there. We just tend to not sit in them.

I just sit in them. That's the difference. I'm like, Oh, hi, I'm Jesse Lee. Like, uh, what's going on? Yeah. Like I pulled seat up or something like that. Just make yourself be known and it, and you don't have to be anything except for yourself, but there's so much opportunity. And quite frankly, I think it becomes way more powerful when you are in that room and there are a lot of men because you stand out. It's a huge opportunity. Um, and

And then, yeah, I think I have to do a better job of just being even louder. I have to get on more shows. I have to get on more stages. I have to be really bullish about being put on the stages because I do have to be really pushy to get on stages still, which just seems so crazy to me. I'm like, do you know what I've accomplished? Are you stupid? Yeah, you're stupid. Okay. Like, I feel like I gotta push people sometimes. Oh, we have all these big speakers. I'm like big speakers who are broke.

And big speakers, not all of them, right? And big speakers who have done not even half of what I've done. Okay, whatever, fine. I just have to not be, no, whatever. I just have to be a little bit more bullish about it, I think. Because if somebody paves the pathway, then it's easier for people to follow. And I love doing what I do. I'm going to be here for a long time. So, and it's, you know, I've talked to you about it. I think Ed about it. Some other people. Like a lot of these people write books, but they didn't really build a business. You've really built businesses. Yeah.

So we need more people like that because there's a lot of women who are building businesses and they're just like sitting behind everything. So, yeah, I think we just need Trailblazer. So I think that should be me. Last question. Yeah. 2023, 2024. The world has a lot of chaos in the media. I don't believe a lot of it because I see it in reality. I'm out in the streets and I travel a lot and I go to places and I see

the different version of whatever recession we're actually going through is when every nightclub sold out, every restaurant sold out and good luck getting a hotel. Hotel rooms here are 1200 bucks a night. So take it easy with the word recession. But when people see chaos around them, how can they stay calm and focused?

First of all, stop looking at what you're looking at. I was on a call the other day with a publicist that I'm hiring and they were like, their energy was all off. And so I just asked, I was like, are you guys okay? And she said, oh, there's just so much going on in the world right now. And I went, what's going on in the world right now? I'm sorry. I actually don't know. She goes, well, did you see about Trump? And then did you see about Tennessee? And I was like,

I literally took my pen and I took notes. I got to Google what happened with trauma. I need to Google what happened in Tennessee because I do not know. I have a theory that if something huge is happening in the world, you're going to find out. Like if it actually is going to impact you, you're going to find out. Neither of those things needed to directly impact me in any way. I didn't need to.

didn't need to know about them, which is why I didn't know about them. So with the chaos and the craziness, it's like you get to choose what you unfollow. You get to choose what pages you do follow. You get to choose who you let talk to you. If you will continue to watch the news and read the whatever and get the daily digest of people shooting people everywhere and blowing people up and everyone hates everyone and this country's terrible and this religion's awful and whatever, you're going to be full of hate. You're going to be full of anger. And that is not where money flows, to be totally honest, because we're having a money conversation here. And so...

just turn all that of that off and you get to control your own economy. It's like when people get all excited about politicians and about elections, I go, why do you care so much? At the end of the day, that person is not your economy. Your economy is your economy. Get your money right. You learn the skill sets. If you're worried about a recession, if you're worried about everything falling apart, if you're worried about AI or whatever, well, what can AI not replace?

A lot of skill sets. It can't replace this. It can't replace human connection. It can't replace big relationships. It can't replace making investment decisions. It can't replace scaling a business. It can't. It can give you ideas. It can't do what human beings can do. So instead of just learning these little skills like how to hammer a nail, bad idea, but you know what I mean? Hammer a nail are things that are going to actually become obsolete and useless. Get your skills up.

Now is your opportunity before it all crashes doom and gloom. Okay, then take your money that you have now, get some coaching, get some mentorship, go to masterminds, get to events, meet some people, shake some hands, kiss some babies, whatever. Politicians, right? Like you just need to get all of that correct so that if something, heaven forbid, does happen, you have the relationships, you have the skills, you're irreplaceable, people need you. It doesn't affect you. You insulate yourself and you protect yourself. And the other thing I'll say is get some international businesses.

i saw it i'm like oh america's down no problem take a look at germany all right ladies and gentlemen you've just listened to jesse lee the boss uh the real tarzan here make sure to follow

I'm Boss Lee across Instagram and other social media platforms. The Real Tarzan on Instagram, YouTube, and every other platform. And we have one request at the end of our episodes. Because people thought it was rude to talk about money, we created the Money Mondays so you guys can help us spread the word and talk about loans, investments, leases, apartments, real estate, everything in between so people can level up their money game and feel more comfortable talking about money. So follow us. Go to themoneymondays.com. We have weekly calls every single Monday as well.

Facebook group and everything between we just want people to be a part of it So make sure to follow Jesse Lee follow Tarzan and we'll see you next Monday. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the money Mondays We are here in Miami, Florida parked right next to the fountain blue hotel. I'm here with our coast the real Tarzan We have a guest today that we really cover a lot of major topics with last year. We sold this company for 115 million dollars

after building it up for over a decade and he's probably gonna jump right back into the same category because he loves it he's addicted uh recently through a live conference he has coaching programs everything between so we're going to cover a lot of good topics for you please welcome our guest mr eric spotter thanks for having me all right eric so this is the way we work we talk about three topics how to make money how to invest money and how to give some of the way to charity yeah so if you could do a quick two minute bio so we can get straight to the money yeah i um my

My story is crazy. I started off a drug addict and a criminal till I got sober in 2006, which my journey in recovery inspired me to help others and then turned a business, turned my passion for helping others into a business, which I scaled and grew into the largest provider of addiction treatments, addiction treatment in the Northeast, maybe even the East Coast.

I worked in that business for 13 years, developed, invested, and did a lot in real estate alongside with that. Sold that business, like you said, in 2021 for $115 million and back at it, doing it again. Right back at it. Right back at it, yeah. Tried to go on a little hiatus. Did you have a vacation? Even a week? I made it like two and a half months. I was like, this sucks. You don't want to golf or tennis? No, dude, no.

All right, Eric. So let's walk through some of the process. Yeah. You knew it was your passion. So that's an easy answer already that you cared about helping people. So that's why you got into the rehab category. So most people, we have to ask them why they did it. This is an obvious one. You wanted to help people that went through some of the same struggles you went through.

when you find a category like that how do you dominate when there's so many other competitors in the space there's rehab clinics every five miles or ten miles in la and orange county and all across the country how do people determine where they should go to get a rehab clinic and then how do you stand out so that people want to come to your clinic in that example most importantly do an amazing job at what you do have the most superior product and so we constantly day in day out

Like you think of a hospitality experience as relatable like when you go to a hotel You know when you go to a hotel and you're like damn that was well put together like didn't miss a detail like every little thing And then you go to like a nice hotel, but it was like, you know We always strive to be the best of the best and

And so, you know, a lot of our business was word of mouth that compounded and snowballed over time where, you know, so-and-so got sober at this place. It changed their life. And so when they know somebody that needs help, they're making that recommendation. And then we had a sophisticated sales and marketing strategy. You know, as time evolved, I started.

I don't know if AdWords was out yet in 2008 or not, but it was still in its infancy stages in this vertical of business. But we evolved and got very good at the internet where people go for most resources. And so we became top of mind on Google and then had boots on the ground sales team. So it's interesting when you see billboards for DUIs or for rehab or for those type of things, these are usually individual moments in someone's life.

You know, you don't need a DUI attorney until you've got a DUI last night, right? You don't need a criminal attorney until a criminal situation happens. But they have these billboards to create what he just mentioned, which is top of mind awareness that in that moment, you think of Eric Spofford and his clinics. In that moment, you think of this DUI attorney or this criminal attorney or this divorce attorney. In that moment when you need them, and it's probably only be once or twice in your life, but when you need them, you'll pay whatever it takes to get there.

How do you get that top of mind awareness? Is it SEO is one of the main things? Like how does, how do you get where people think of, I'm going to go there? You know, I don't, I actually had a billboard right outside of Boston on route 93 had a major traffic. It's probably the largest highway coming in and out of the city. I had it for six months. It cost me 30 grand a month.

You know how many referrals or patients that I got from that? Rhymes with zero? Say rhymes with zero and not one. I was like, oh, this is going to light up the phones, baby. Everyone's going to see us. But your point about...

It's situational. Like everyone comes to the day where they need a DUI or attorney or they need to go to rehab. And so I don't know that it was so much top of mind. I think it was top of when they come to look for you. Right. And so what does that mean? Well, well, the, the consumer behavior, they're going to reach out for a referral from a trusted source that could be a cousin and

aunt, a doctor, a priest, a police officer, a fireman, the hospital, the social worker, or they're going to go do it on their own and they're going to pick up their iPhone and go, my son's addicted to heroin and I need help. What do I do? I need a drug rehab. And so being top of mind with the people that make the referrals is

That was important. And so we built relationships with them and maintained relationships with those. We called them referral sources and then also being the first thing that they see on Google. So this isn't a typical Money Monday's question since we mostly focus about money, but it's an important question. If someone has a friend, family or casual friend in their life that it seems like it's time for them to go to rehab, how do they have that initial discussion? What would you say? Have it.

Most people get so paralyzed in fear because they don't want to upset the other person. And so they hold on to that. Exactly what you said, because how do I talk to that person? Put aside, they may get upset. You're fighting for their life. Like you have to understand that this is a terminal illness. You know, we had 111,000 people die of opioid overdoses alone last year. And now for, I think we're going on six or seven years now.

opioid overdoses alone, that's not other drugs, that's not even alcohol, are actually the leading cause of loss of life of Americans 18 to 55. It surpassed car accidents six or seven years ago. So when you think about what that means, statistically, you're more likely to die of an opioid overdose than you are a car accident.

It's nuts. And so I always just tell people, you got to like you got to break the eggs like they may get upset. They may. But like if you really understand the truth of the situation and the plausible outcome, if they don't get help. Right. Now what? Right. And so you got to have the bravery and the courage to hurt their feelings and love them enough to not care how they feel.

On the business front for in the rehab world, how did you decide it was time to sell? At what moment you're like, you know what? I've got four clinics. Now I've got five. Now I've got seven. I've got nine. Whatever the number ends up being of this many rehab centers. When you decide, you know what? I'm going to package this up and go through a sale process.

There were a lot of different factors in that one for years the brand and the company was my life right I started when I was 23 I saw that when I was 35 and so I grew up there you learn a lot from 23 to 35 different person multiple times a different person

There was a personal journey for me that it's a hard business. It's a helping business. It's a labor of love. But when you think of even those statistics that I just rattled off, you're front line in that. And so it's very, very can be very challenging. And so I just got tired after a little while of doing the same thing. I just want to change personally. And then the moment I had that in the background for quite a while in March of 2021, I

I woke up, I looked around and I was like, I think we're at the top.

I think that this has been going so long and we've been in this bull cycle of economic growth and good times that it has to stop soon. And that was the pivotal decision on that's what I retained an investment banker, started the process. And 10 months later, I sold in December 2021. And look at what's happened in the sense that, yeah, it was timing's right on. It was like a premonition. I mean, I look back at timing and I'm like, holy shit. Right.

So let's say someone's out there listening to us right now and they have their third or fourth location of something or they've got that $4 million or $12 million or $20 million in revenue, whatever that number is, and they're thinking, you know what, I do want to sell. What should they be thinking about to prepare themselves to package themselves up in order to be able to have a successful exit?

There's a lot to it. I started studying private equity and how to sell a business in 2017 and I actually completed three successful minority deals. Uh, and I had two failed processes before that. Um,

Before I had my ultimate full exit and so understand, you know, getting smart and getting hip and getting educated to what that process looks like. There's an immense amount to learn and then understanding what type of deal you're looking for. Do you want to take some chips off the table but still own the business and have control? OK, you want to you're not done yet. You want a minority deal.

Do you want to take more chips off the table, give up control, maybe even fade into the background, let other people start to work in the business more? That might be more of a majority deal. In order to achieve a full exit, you have to develop a sophisticated business

that does not need you to operate. And so that's leadership team. It's really people. The primary thing is people. It's a leadership team. And then it's totally professionalizing the business. A lot of entrepreneurs have a hard time moving from mom and pops,

owner founder entrepreneur driven to a professionalized company and that was the process of the last few years that i owned the business that i did with minority part with my minority partner when i sold the business i had stepped down as the active date day-to-day ceo to executive chairman which meant i didn't do much i went to board meetings and answered the phone for the new ceo when he had a question and that business

Continue to operate seamlessly and not only operate, but continue to grow without me being present. And so that created the security in the buyer for a total sale. Had that business needed me in the day to day, I'd still be there. Right. So I'm going to go over a topic with you guys that Eric just brought up of how I've actually structured my entire life.

So my social media agency, Elevator Studio, we spent around $60 million with influencers for brands, products, and mobile apps. Joey Carson is the CEO. Sports card stores. We have nine stores that $26 million in sales in 27 months. I don't run that. Mo Myers, Jeff Rizzo run that business. Ever Bowl Acai. We have 60 locations. We open one new location every six days. I do nothing besides help raise capital and do some connections. Jeff Fenster is the CEO. Masterminds, $17 million in revenue.

100 million mastermind avengers mastermind operation black site ali gonzalez runs it even within those masterminds i'm not the face of them they're my masterminds and i have 22 instructors for 100 million mastermind i have eight avengers for the avengers mastermind that all do big real estate deals and i have michael chandler tim kennedy badgers coolion all these guys that are the faces of operation black site

I don't want to be the face of any of my businesses. One, because I can't sell them. I'm not even planning on selling any of these, but if I were going to, I can't be the face of it. I don't run the wild jungle. Tarzan does. He's the face of it, obviously. He's got 200 million views in the animal space. Why would I put my face on it? Every single aspect of my life is run where I'm dealing with text messages and networking and relationships and helping with whatever I can whenever they need me. But I want to be the coach and they be the quarterback.

And if I looked at every single business in my life, I don't technically run any of them. And I think it's important for people to consider that, as Eric just mentioned, if he was still running it, he wouldn't be able to sell it. If he is the face of it and everyone has to come to you and be like, Daddy, Daddy, I need this. You got to sign this check and you have to do the accounting and you've got to do this Zoom call. How can he sell it then? Because the private equity groups can be like, OK, we will buy it. But Eric, we want you to stay for three years or five years or forever.

And so there's a lot of exits that you guys could potentially have where they want you to stay on for three to five years. That's okay. Well, a lot of people are selling it, not planning or wanting to stay for the three year to five year period afterwards. And it can seriously impact your deal terms, right? For sure. If they don't trust that the business isn't okay with you, they're probably going to take a position and build in and earn out.

Which means like, oh yeah, we'll give you this valuation, but you only get it after we transact and we own your business if you continue to hit these numbers. So now you close, maybe you get a little bit of money or a fraction of the money at that point in time, but now you have a gun to your head to perform. Have fun. Good luck. That's what I did not want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Go time. All right. So we talked a little bit about the making money side.

When you decided to exit the company and it sounds like you're going to jump back into the space on the investing side, you started doing a lot of investments. And it seems like most of them in the real estate category. How do you choose real estate? Why did you choose real estate? And what type of things do you like in the real estate space? I'm old school and I learned a lot from my dad. I like real estate for simplicity that I can drive up and touch my money. Yep.

Call it what it is. You know, some people might agree with me. Some people might not think that's too smart, but I like it. It's also time tested. It's, you know, a proven means of investment and making wealth. It grows over time. I like the tax benefits. I'm a real estate professional. I work in real estate. I have real estate companies. And so I'm able to, you know,

participate in cashflow. I have an appreciating asset that I'm able to create value in, but I also am able to depreciate that against all of my active income. So when someone's first considering getting into real estate investing or doing a flip or buying a property or whatever, what should they be thinking about? Should they be studying? Should they be networking? Should they do deals with someone else first or should they just take the leap? All of it. All of it. Yeah. I had partners on my first deals a very long time ago. I spent

and thousands of hours learning about real estate and getting an education in it, finding mentors, asking questions, and becoming an expert in it. My particular investment thesis around real estate is I invest mostly in B-class businesses

single family and multifamily. And a lot of that is Section 8 affordable housing. You know, you look at the forward economic conditions, just certainty of it. I know there's always, no matter what happens in the world, low income housing is going nowhere. For sure. And so I really enjoy that. And then I also back a lot of health care.

Health care real estate. Yeah. Well, I mean, what are the areas that are unaffected by economy? You know, if the economy tanks tomorrow and we're in the Great Depression and you have a health care issue, more health issues, you're going to have more health care issues. But nobody in a time of crisis or need in health care says it's a really bad time in the economy. You know. And so I like those things because they will perform through any economic condition. Some of your.

luxury assets the last couple of years after the exit that you purchased or invested into. You started flying private a lot. You bought the yacht. When you look at things like that, can you talk to us about the money it saves for you from time? Talk about renting out the yachts and take down some of the overhead. Talk us through some decisions to go buy something that costs millions and millions and millions of dollars.

I bought a jet, I bought a Hawker 850 XP. Two things on that. One, there are great tax benefits in plane ownership. They're a terrible investment. I mean, they just burn cash relentlessly, but it's one of the very few opportunities in life that you have to exchange the currency of money for the currency of time. And so my ability to operate that I can get up early in the morning, get on a jet and be in three states for three meetings and home for a late dinner,

It's unbelievable. And so it's hard to if you look at it as a standalone investment, like it's a terrible idea. Absolutely terrible idea. If you quantify it across the board of everything that I'm able to accomplish, when I can be as effective and, you know, as I can be with the plane, then it starts to make sense.

So the yacht, I have a charter company in Miami. And so I do charter that out mostly long term, you know, three to seven day charters. I'll do some day charters. It takes the edge off of the cash burn. I have never transparently never made a dollar chart, you know, chartering the yacht. That's not why I bought it. It just offsets some of the operational costs. But there's very few other ways to network with people better than, hey, why don't you come spend the day on me with my boat?

no matter who it is. Right. Household names, legends, icons. You spend a day on the boat. Yeah. Your friends by the end of it. Yeah. You know, and so I use it in that manner and networking. And then it just worked out that when I decided to launch the inner circle, my coaching program for entrepreneurs, executives, et cetera, that I utilize the boat a lot for those events.

Can you explain Inner Circle? Can you explain why you got into coaching? Because you making a couple million bucks in coaching, it's irrelevant to the $150 million number that people hear about. Yeah. Why spend the money, time, and energy to do the coaching? And what is it for? Like, who's it for?

It's for entrepreneurs, high achievers, executives, business owners, and just essentially people that want to win. We have about 65, 70 members now. It's not for everybody. We do weekly group coaching. I teach on mostly business and personal development and entrepreneurship. We have it's really community driven as well.

And so every month we have an event we just came off of every month. Every month. Wow. Yeah. We have a quarterly every three every three months. We have a mastermind. Thank you for speaking at mine yesterday.

uh, two day event. And then, uh, the other months we have a day networking event, like at the house or the boat, we'll go out on the yacht. Then we have a dinner party at the house and, and, and all of that. Uh, and then I interact with all of the members personally. And so that's not, I'm not in your business with you, but if you have questions, if you need advice, you hit me up, I'll get back to you, point you in the right direction. And it's also access to a lot of my network. Oh yeah. I know that guy. Let me, let me connect you.

I did it because operating the addiction treatment business for 13 years, I ran groups for clients, even though it didn't change my paycheck or the value of the business. I just loved it. Every day for 13 years, almost I taught groups for addicts that were trying to change their lives. Unfortunately, in a health care facility or recovery, you don't bring a videographer with you. So it's not well documented.

But but teaching was a passion of mine. Watching people change their lives was a passion of mine. And I did that in the addiction and recovery vertical. And so now where I'm so heavy in this entrepreneurial space and passionate about that as well, it's really like brought me a lot of joy to be able to help other people break into those next levels, get through the bottleneck, break through the plateau. So I do it because I like it. Why do entrepreneurs, even high level ones, need a coach?

Because there's, you know, the way that I think of it and inner circle also, the way I put it together, it's everything that I needed along that journey. Like I had, I had access to inner circle. I probably would have gotten to where I got to faster and easier and probably with a lot less pain. Um,

When you're in the business, no matter how talented, educated, experienced you are, when you're in the day to day, you're so close to it. Right. You're just you're incredibly close. It's like taking a painting and you're looking at it, but your nose is six inches off of the painting. It's kind of blurry. You can't really make it out.

I get to be the guy that's standing 20 feet behind you looking at it and it's in focus a little more. And I'm like, hey, have you thought of it like this? Have you looked at it like that? You know what I see that I don't think you've considered is. And so even just the fact that a lot of the folks in my group, I do probably have more experience in business than some of them are neck and neck with me. But I'm just in a different perspective than you are. Right. I get to see this differently than you do. And so that's been very helpful.

So as you decided to start investing in real estate, started doing coaching programs, why be so active? Why not just hang out on the yacht? Why not just go golfing? Like what is it inside of you that you think is it?

You know, it's an interesting experience when you go from the day to day CEO of a business with 325 employees and everything's very busy and you're putting out fires all day long and and then step into that executive chairman role. And I led the process of the sale. And so that was very busy. And then you sell that.

Your phone stops ringing and it gets real quiet and you wake up and you go to the gym and maybe you set up a lunch with somebody and you take a tennis lesson and and it's still only 2:30, you know, it's like What am I doing now? They go home kind of sit there I'm happy. I haven't turned a television on and I don't know how long I've never been a big TV guy, but I

I'm happiest when I'm being productive. I'm happiest when I'm on a mission, when I'm building something. I like interacting with other people. I like teams. I like camaraderie. And all of that stuff really brings out the best in me.

And so, you know, the delusion that a lot of people have of this life of like, oh, I'm going to make so much money and I'm going to go on the boat and I'm going to sit on the beach. And I did it for I lasted two and a half months. And I was like, God, this sucks. You know, this is terrible. And, you know, when you're the guy with the plane and the yacht and the house in Miami and you're sitting on the beach, nobody wants to hear you complain. Right. So you just get back to work. You just change it. Just get back to work. Just get back to work.

All right. So you see an entrepreneur like Tarzan, 200 million views a month, starting the wild jungle brand, pet products and pet accessories and pet this and pet that. What do you say to an entrepreneur that has a social media following and they're ready to start their business? What should they do to set up shop? How did they get started?

Um, either partner with a tenured business person or, you know, really divest into learning business in all angles. I think that's, I'm a big believer in, in self-education, right? Like I'm a 15 year old dropout. I dropped out while they asked me to leave when I was in the 10th grade at 15 years old and I haven't been in formal education since. And so I think anyone can learn business, having an audience, having

200 million views. That's insane with a huge opportunity. But start to obsessively learn business from all angles and learn how to learn, learn how to learn, learn how to learn.

Why do you think masterminds are important? Outside of the instructors themselves, I often talk about the networking of the other members that are in the group because they've already proven to you that they also want to be better. They already proved to you that they fit into your similar business category world and they have a Rolodex of other people within them. Why do you think that's important for people to join mastermind groups or create their own mastermind groups?

groups? For a couple of reasons. One is the unlock of the creativity of talking to other people. There's just a lot of power in that coming off of our two day mastermind right now. I'm watching the connections happen. I'm watching the conversations. I'm watching the light bulbs go off.

with none of us, none of the speakers, none of the facilitators, none of that. They're doing that on their own. And so they're leaving better because of it. One of the most painful things in my entrepreneurial journey that I ever went through, though, was the changing guard of the people around me.

As I became successful, there was jealousy. There was envy. There were knives in backs. There were throats getting slit. I mean, there were like, it was really, really painful that people that I loved and I wanted to be successful. And in fact, I probably wanted them to be more successful than they ever wanted to be for themselves.

And one day I realized like I'm the guy that doesn't get invited to the barbecues on the weekends anymore because I'm up here and they chose to stay here. That was their choice. And yeah,

Joining these groups you just meet other like-minded people that are on the same path the same journey These are your peers and I think a lot of entrepreneurs have a tough time because they come from their own life in their own ecosystem and They change and people around them don't change and then eventually they realize shit I can't take these people with me where I'm going. This isn't a fun exercise and

goes wrong for a lot of us. I think most successful entrepreneurs have some of those stories of painful relationships as a result of success. And so in these rooms, you find the camaraderie of a bunch of people that have been through the same things, that are on the same mission, that are like-minded. One of my best friends, he wire transferred $871,000 to himself. Another business partner made a fake account

identical name to a business that we were invested into, just changed one letter, wired himself $630,000. I've never been heartbroken like I have been from people that I loved through this journey, my closest people. And so what worked for me?

I, again, inner circle, my mastermind group is everything that I needed. That's why I throw an event every month because I want to foster in-person relationships that you can't offer zoom every week. And so, you know, I, what I did was went out and built a network of other entrepreneurs and other business people.

You know, my relationships with other entrepreneurs aren't transactional or the base of the relationship isn't transactional. I'm friends with you guys because I like you and I'm friends with you guys. We may do business outside of that, but I don't actually need anything from you and you don't need anything from me. You know, whereas the guy that I grew up with who I've been friends with my entire life looks at me and he's like, hey, nice Rolls Royce. Like,

I got this problem and it's $8,000. And that's not really not a lot of money to you. Right. I was on Andy for sellers podcast a couple of weeks ago. We were actually talking about this and he said one thing that really hit me. I had me laughing. He said, dude, you, you, it's not a lot of money. Like you could solve this guy's biggest problem with five or $10,000. Yep.

No big deal. But the problem is, is now you're the solver of problems and it's like feeding a stray cat. And I was like, damn, it is like feeding stray cats. You know, I got a lot of those stray cats. Shit. A lot of stray cats. They keep coming back, you know? That is one of the main reasons why we hear the stat about 85% of athletes go broke within five years of leaving the league. It's the people around them. Yeah. It's a lack of information of how to invest and who to...

And then the people around them are dragging them down and they're creating these large overheads. And it's like, oh, just 20 grand here. Oh, it's 50 grand. I can cover that. Oh, they do need a car. Why do they need a Range Rover? And you look back like, why do they need a Range Rover? They were broke. Yeah, Honda would have worked. That would have got them from here to there. And I've seen it and we've all seen it from a lot of our mutual friends that just made a $14 million football contract. And then now they got to borrow 20 grand from one of us. Totally. They got a $21 million NBA contract and they want to work for six grand a month for one of us.

And it's frustrating because very simple things like the knowledge and the people around them could change their life forever. Like imagine getting $14 million in a sports contract and then being broke. And it's not some one-off story when you hear about the stat of 85%. Even that number is halfway true. 85% within five years is just... I think about that number literally every day. It's stuck in my head. It's so frustrating because I've watched so many...

athletes, rappers, influencers, friends, and business people that just make a bunch of money and then they go broke for just a couple key things. Really, the reason we've created Money Mondays is so we have these discussions.

Because a lot of people don't talk about it. It's like therapy for some people to actually say, man, this person stole this money from me. Hey, my partner just screwed me over. Hey, my legal bills are going to be 200 grand, but the lawsuit's for 50 grand. Should I just settle? People don't have this. Nobody talks about lawsuits ever. I want to do some podcast that was just about lawsuits. I've been sued. You're going to fight me back. I've been sued 14 times and I've won 14 times. Yeah, I've been through. I'm in the middle of two more lawsuits. I'm going to win both of them without a hand. There's no chance. Yeah. And I'm going to just get increasing my record to 16 for 16. Yeah.

Floyd Mayweather lawsuits. Yeah. By the way, since we're talking about lawsuits, a really easy way to win lawsuits is in the beginning. If you do things correctly in the beginning and you have good paperwork in the beginning and none of your intentions along the way from your text, your emails, your discussions are ever to screw that person over, you're not going to lose in court most of the time. Outside of a bad judge or a bad jury or whatever.

The reason I've never lost is in the beginning, I'm at a good paperwork. And along the way, I never did anything intentional to hurt somebody over. So when in that moment that things don't go well, that's going to happen to everyone listening. By the way, if you are going to be an entrepreneur, you are going to get sued. Let me just be really clear. There is no like literally no business person that I've ever met that did over seven figures in sales that wasn't sued. Zero. And none of them got sued once. Like they got sued a bunch of times.

and so don't be shy about it you can have these discussions um if you have business people in your life where you can join a mastermind like inner circle it's really important to be around people that you can have these real discussions with because otherwise you're going to be 140 000 in legal fees in the case that you could have solved just from asking your friend wait a minute what if i did this because your friend already went through it and that's why groups and podcasts and things like this are important all right so for the third final segment we're talking about charity charity is not just about money obviously you could

donate 10 grand, 50 grand, five grand, a hundred grand, 1,500 bucks, whatever it is. So charities, but there's a lot of things that we talk about here where people can put in their time, energy, and just rallying the troops, like getting the community together in their local town. How do you decide what type of charities that you're either going to put money into or put your name brand behind? I do it quietly. And so like, you won't find a single piece of media. You won't find a single piece of content about what I've given away.

I don't know why I've been like that. I've just always not wanted to get the eyeballs on on what I've done out there. But I had this experience. It's kind of morbid, but it's not meant to be. But when overdoses started to spike in America is in about 2012 and 2013. And that was because a synthetic opioid showed up that wasn't really formally here. And it dominated the addiction area called fentanyl. Almost most people are aware of fentanyl. Right.

And fentanyl started to kill people at scale. And I grew up with a bunch of street kids that I got high with. And and most of those guys died over the next five years, you know, till from 2012, 13 to 17, 18. I was just going to funeral after funeral until by the time it was like 2018, 2019. I don't really have too many friends left that I grew up with. A lot of them had had children. And so what got left behind were a bunch of parentless kids. Wow.

And so that is where I've spent most of my time and in most of my financial giving has been around helping those children, the children of my friends and beyond that, the children of other people that had addicted parents or affected by addiction. And so, you know, I got one of my homies that died in 2013.

I paid his child support until his kids turned 18 and, and he's still my little homie and we hang out and stay in touch. And, um, you know, I got people that, that are in this world that know of these situations that will bring me opportunities to be helpful, you know, um,

Mom strung out dad died Dad's in prison mom died of an overdose Grandparents raising kids on fixed income who's buying the hockey gear? How are they gonna pay for summer camp? Those type of things and so that that to me is and that's quiet like what am I gonna do? I'm gonna take a picture of that and like hey look at me and Johnny I just put them through summer camp like I just keep it quiet and

try to keep it off the radar. And a lot of times I try because I'm known in that industry and that space and have a personal brand. I even try to stay removed that they don't even know it's me. Wow. A lot of times. Sometimes it's impossible, but that's really where I spend most of

I get shaken down by all of you and your charities and all that shit too. Absolutely. We're not going to stop. Yeah, yeah. Keep bringing it. But my passion and my love around philanthropy is helping addiction-related causes. So Tarzan, on the opposite side, outside of money, you're bringing a ton of exposure to charities. You're trying to get them 49 million views on a video.

How do you choose what charity you're going to make famous, essentially? I love animal charities, of course. And finding real legit organizations that has boots on the ground, pulling snares out of the jungle, and medically dehorning rhinos so they don't get killed by poachers and stuff like that. So I think one of my first charitable things, I worked with Timothy Sykes back in the day.

um, we did a thing called Karma Gal. It's like a nonprofit for animals and just natural disasters. It's like they put schools in different jungles and shit where, you know, little kids don't have schools. Like 90 schools already. Something crazy. Yeah, 90 schools. There's a pencil department and stuff like that. So, um,

Think one of our first days we ever did we all went to Africa like different videographers that were like really good at photos and videos You know, we got a guy that's really good at storytelling a girl. That's really good at swimming You know Tim really go putting people together. I had the platform and a viral itty, you know So when we all got there, we all mesh and we made a video 90 seconds 60 seconds dropped it on Thanksgiving and it got like 29 million views and

We raised a million dollars in like a week. Right. You know, and we just really, you know, the organization we tagged, they grew 400,000, 700,000 followers. You know, small organization that was partnered with it had like another 150K, you know, donation. So it was like, it was so cool to see the chain effect of like actually not making money, but like,

helping someone else make money through our platform. And it was like, oh, bro, it felt so good. And the same thing with the wildfires in Australia. Like, right in the beginning of, like, 2019 or 2020, around that time, Australia was on fire, like, around New Year's. And everybody's like...

oh happy new year you know everybody's like you know at their parties and i'm like bro australia is on fire like you know i started posting on my platform i did the same thing about brazil um when they was burning amazon for you know cattle and stuff like that you know raise cows but they're just destroying our forest and natural ecosystems you know so to raise awareness and raise money towards those people it brought feels it's

Hell yeah. Yeah, it's the best, bro. It's like I'm addicted to it. Right. You know, it's like now that I'm looking for the next natural disaster to happen, but I'm like, I'm waiting, you know, help there, point over there, you know, repost this. So it's so good, man. I love it. I feel like we're going to have a really hot summer. So I'm worried about the fires. Yeah, man. Having four months of extra rain is scary. What's going to happen this summer? I have a question.

So we've had a lot of guests on our podcast, and I always like to observe people's disciplines, you know, like a boxer. He's like real strict with his diet. He's running every night. He's boxing. Finance guy. You have a different level of discipline, and I've known you for a while now. So I've been watching your posts and seeing you. You can't slip because you're going to go –

to a whole nother level of going back you know so i would like to know how your discipline in your life has affected your finances but like tell us about that discipline because yours is different than everybody else's i feel around sobriety yeah totally just totally totally

Yeah, I live. One thing I know about myself, which is, I think, a double edged sword. It is my yin and my yang is anything I do. I do all in obsessively at excess. And so I do business. I'm all in. Right. All the chips. And so but I also have to be careful with that. That's addiction. That's, you know.

It just is what it is. And so I do live my life in a certain framework that I don't deviate for much or really anything ever. It's to me, it's non-negotiable. I get up early. I typically admit in bed pretty early unless I have a reason not to be. I haven't had a drink or a mind altering substance in more than 16 years. I eat pretty clean. I work out. I just have these certain things that

I'm 110% committed to. I don't smoke nicotine. Like I know for me, um, to like everyone was smoking cigars. Like, Oh, you can have a cigar. And I'm like, yeah, dog, me and you having a cigar are two different things. Like you're going to have a cigar and go on with your life. I'm going to be sitting in my garage, like a degenerate smoking six of these things a day. Cause that's just how I do it, you know? And so I just have these certain things built into my life that, um,

just is what it is you know it's non-negotiable yeah I don't I don't spend any time with that voice of like like in that moment like you could probably have one cigar like it's okay or you could have one drink like it's been 16 years why can't you have a drink like I don't entertain that at all and so I just shut the noise off and I know what's true for me and it'll be true for the rest of my life and you know I feel confident telling you that

Whenever my time is up, I will do it. Haven't never had another drink of alcohol, haven't never had another drug, haven't never used nicotine. And these things that I'm committed to, I will do every day for the rest of my life until I die. I love that, man. Yep. Ladies and gentlemen, you have just listened to another edition of the Money Mondays podcast. Please follow Eric Spofford across social media, especially on Instagram. It's a lot of fun to watch.

and travel around the country buying up real estate and working out every morning taking care of the kids jumping on boats jumping on jets it's really fun to watch the actual life experience of someone who's really done it you've watched a lot of entrepreneurs who've kind of done it you're gonna get to watch eric in his real life sense also check out the real tarzan obviously to watch his hundreds and zillions of views about animal content and if you can do us one favor the money mondays was created so that we have more deep discussions about money it's really important in our country and our society we've

people to have these discussions about salary fico scores apartments leases rents everything in between investing business etc we want people to understand money and have these deep discussions about money so share the podcast have discussions with your friends family offices etc and we'll see you next monday