Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Edwin Arroyave: Overcoming Self-Doubt - 083

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

In this episode, Bedros Keuilian interviews Edwin Arroyave, CEO and Founder of Skyline Security Management and another example of the Immigrant Edge. Like many successful entrepreneurs, he fell into the trap of complacency once he made it big: he stopped performing the habits that helped him achieve that success. After hitting the“glass ceiling” he was able to fight off his self-doubt and get back on track to building his empire. Watch or listen to discover how you can continually learn and grow, even when you think you’ve hit your peak. “Just because you are at the peak of your industry doesn't mean you have peaked” - Bedros Keuilian Here’s what you’ll discover: 4:09 - How Edwin’s mother’s faith inspired his winning mentality 8:29 - How Edwin developed the habit of learning at a young age 13:42 - When and why you should take advantage of growth opportunities, no matter the circumstance 18:56 - How to build massive confidence in anything you do 29:00- How Edwin hit his “glass ceiling” and how he broke through it “Don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.” – Edwin Arroyave Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @tedwinator Buy Man Up: https://manup.com/ Make sure to review us on iTunes: http://bit.ly/theempireshow

When I went back to studying every day, that confidence came back. All of a sudden, I was able to lead because every day I had something to talk about because I was learning every day. And the business just started to take off again. Welcome to The Empire Show. I'm Bedros Kulian, here with my co-host, Craig Ballantyne. Here on the Empire Show, we help passionate and purpose-driven entrepreneurs like you turn your idea into a business and your business into an industry transforming empire so that you can grow your energy. income, impact, and influence. If you're a new listener, then welcome to the show and be sure to

subscribe to our podcast. And if you're looking to dominate in business and in life, then this is the show for you. Hey, friends, welcome to another episode of The Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is an inside look. Today, we've got someone very special, Mr. Edwin Arroyave. And like me, he's got the immigrant edge and the American Dream is what he's accomplished. And he's here to share exactly. what he did and the blueprint that'll help you get there as well. Edwin, welcome to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming out. So I'm honored to be here. Let's uh let's kind of start in Bogota, Columbia. Yes. When we say Bogota, Columbia, everyone thinks Narcos. Yes. Right. Everyone's thinking Pablo Escobar, especially with a show that came out a couple

years ago. But that's where you were born. Yeah. That's where you immigrated from. Exactly. What was your age? So I was born in Bogota, Columbia. I came here when I was about six years old. And unfortunately, two weeks after coming to the U.S., our home gets raided by law enforcement for suspicion of drug trafficking. Wow. That day, both my parents end up in jail,

and my older sister and I end up in a foster home. Holy Spree. My mother gets acquitted in three months. My dad gets acquitted in eight months. And we're thinking the nightmare is over, but in reality it was just beginning. After that, for the next four years, years our home would get raided once a year and my dad would basically escape and then finally on the

fourth year they caught them and this time they were able to put them away for a while and if you've ever heard of or seen a raid it's just like you see in the movies like they come in your home they flip that home upside down and basically you're there to pick up the pieces the day after And when they put my dad away, I was 10 years old, and that was a big blow to me because my dad was my hero, even though I didn't know what he did for living, I admired how he always took care of people. And he always kept his word, and he showed us a lot of love. So I was heartbroken, and the cops were nice enough to allow me to speak to him that day. And before they took him in, and what he said was, son, I need you to become the man of the house. and those words just stayed with me forever and I basically promised them that I

that I would and then two years later we completely ran out of money and we ended up in southeast Los Angeles which is a city called Huntingham Park which is not to be confused with Huntington Beach right it's the polar opposite polar opposite he had borders Watts and South Central and we'd rented a three-bedroom apartment and then we realized we couldn't afford that apartment. So then we had to rent out two of the bedrooms in the three-bedroom apartment. And then mom and my siblings, which was five of us, were sleeping in a one bedroom, basically in one bedroom. And as you can imagine, very crammed, wasn't the best living situation. Roaches

waking you up at night. But my mom showed me a lot of love. And one thing that she did at very young, I would hear her pray over me every night. And, you know, and I would hear her pray over me every night. And as she's praying for me, I'm thinking to myself, man, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but I'm going to make at least a hundred grand a year. And I just became obsessed with a hundred grand a year. And then her praying over me all the time, I began to think I was blessed. And I just, I've always felt like God was with me and everything that I did. A lot of that had to do with that. Another great thing mom did for me was put me in sports.

Because sports taught me to deal with adversity. Sports was the first time where I learned if I learned if I, I worked hard enough, I could end up getting what I want because I wasn't very good at sports and I just had to outwork everyone. What were some of the sports you played? Football, basketball, those were my two favorite. I did karate for a long time. And I was always, I wasn't good, but at the end of the day, when I was starting, the season

would start, I somehow would end up as a starter. Yeah. And that just sort of started building confidence in me. And then from there, at 15 years old, I finally get the opportunity to go look for a job. I find a job. And I get a job doing telesales, selling long distance over the phone. Now, before we dive into that, let me ask you this, because I came to this country to the United States at the age of six, very much like you. The year was 1980 for me.

What year was it for you? 84. 84, yeah. Right? So we're right in that same era of the 80s, early 80s. your dad gets taken away like they raid they raid they raid on the four years later they they they get him he gets taken away yeah at this point you understand why yeah right narcotics yeah at this point yeah it's totally clear and even though it's your dad and it's narcotics do you have any

rage anger bitterness towards him at that point no but at 18 years old i did start getting some rage because i got jacked at gunpoint for this car that i had just spent all kinds of money What kind of car was it? It was 240SX that I spent like $4,000 on the rims and stuff like that. That's a lot of money back then, man. And then that same day I get laid off from the phone company. And I had nothing to show, even though I was making good money at the time, I had nothing to show for it. And I remember just driving, upset, almost crying because I'd gotten laid off.

And I'm like, what am I going to do now? And then at the time, I was obsessed with this car that I've been wanting to buy. buy for years and years and it was a brand new mischubishi eclipse. Yeah. And on the way home, I would pass by the eclipse dealership. Yeah. And I remember passing by it. And well, before that, I was mad at my dad because I'm like, man, I don't have anything

to show for it because I've been taking care of my family since I was 15 years old. Yeah. So I passed the dealership and I'm like, man, I'll never be able to get this car again. And then this was a moment that changed my life forever because the next thought in my head was, well, wait a minute, Ed, when everything you've done, you've been successful at. What are you so afraid of? What do you keep trying to wait for a perfect time? Just go and get your car now.

And someone's going to hire you because you're worth $100,000. And I literally exit it, went into the Mississippi dealership, Eclipse dealership, and came out of there with a $30,000 car and no job. Because I had just gotten laid off. But I was like, someone's going to hire me because I'm that, you know, I'm that, Good. And sure enough, the phone company calls me back the next week, hires me back with a promotion. Now, I'm curious. And they start making about $1,500 a week.

Now, $1,500 a week back then is a lot of money. Yeah. And, I mean, $1,500 a week now is a lot of money for most people. And we're talking in the 90s at that point, right? This was $94.99. Yeah, so mid-90s. Yeah. Actually, $95, because it was a 95, Mississippi Eclipse.

And you were doing phone sales, right? Phone sales, yes. Phone sales, like cold calling. Cold calling and switching people's long distance. What did they have you do? Because before we started rolling the cameras here in the audio, you told me, what did they have you do for an hour before you made the calls? I had a study for an hour every day.

What were you studying? A lot of mindset, stuff, a lot of administration, a lot of sales. But I can tell you the two things that have stuck forever with me that were instilled with me at a very, very young age. And it was literally for six years, repeat it, repeat it, which is why it's just ingrained in my head, was don't bring me problems, bring me solutions. And if I ever brought a problem to someone, I'd get lit up.

It was like, find me the solution, don't bring me the problem. And then the second thing that I learned from that company was that there's no such thing as failure. There's different ways to get from point A to point. B, as long as there's enough follow through and you don't quit and you continue to push forward, you will get it right. And you know, I failed at battles, but I've never failed at a war. Right?

And that's because, again, there's just different ways to get from point A to point B. And if it doesn't work one way, you just figure it out. So those two lessons you kind of carry through your life, I'm guessing? Yes. There's never been excuses. That was the other lesson at that company. I could not give excuses. Like I couldn't go there and say,

I didn't hit my target because blah, blah, blah, blah, I had to own everything. Everything bad that happened to me was because of me. Whoever missed an appointment, I mean, whoever missed work, it was on me. I couldn't go back and say, hey, I didn't hit my target of 700 because I had three people calling sick.

They were like, we don't care, you gotta figure it out. Make it happen. And I had to make it happen. Yes. So yeah, at a very young age, solutions, there was no problems. There was only solutions. I got used to that mentality. So how do you get good at phone sales?

Because I can't imagine you were just organically good at phone sales when you started working there. No, I used to actually, I think because I was so grateful to have the job, because I'm 15 and now I was making $5.81 an hour, which at the time was $4.25 was minimum wage. So I'm like, man, I'm 15 years old, and I'm already making more money than most of the people I know. And I was so fearful losing it that I just worked my butt off. And because I worked my butt off, I began to get results, and then I got confidence. Really, all I did was outwork everybody. And, you know, by the time I was 16, I became supervisor of five people. By the time I became 18, I was supervisor of about 40 people.

Now, the one thing that I haven't shared with a lot of people is I was passed up like four different things. times when I felt that was my, like I literally had better stats than everyone. Yeah. And I got passed. Looking back, why do you think you were passed up for these opportunities four different times? I was a little young still, so even, I think part of that was like they probably felt I was a little young.

Sure. But part of that was I also was partying a little, and I think they could see that. And I just think sometimes it's all about timing. And the one thing that as I look back, as much as I was upset, I just continued to put my head down and push through, push forward. And I knew that my time was coming. And I knew that it was just a matter of time. So the more I got passed up, the harder I worked and the more that I served. You know, I wanted to, that new manager that got promoted instead of me, I wanted to serve him even more.

Like I wanted to show him that I was the best guy there. even though inside my head I thought I was better than him anyway. Right. But I still was, I just wanted to do my job. And I knew that if I could only control what I can control, and as long as I controlled what I knew how to do, it was just a matter of time. Matter of time. So are our friends watching and listening to this podcast right now?

And they're thinking, well, wait a minute. I'm not good at phone sales. This isn't something that I'm naturally good at. What I'm hearing you say is you weren't good at it. And in fact, like me, English was a second language to you, right? And so you have to actually have to learn the language before you can start selling in this language, just like I did. And you're saying that, hey, you're not organically good. You were just so grateful for having a job and making just a little bit more than minimum wage.

You wanted to keep that job. Yes. So that you could, you know, provide. At this point, you're the man of the house now. Yeah. Right? And so you made yourself study and get better at phone sales. Yeah.

And I really didn't have another option because prior to that, I went on 38. interviews no one would hire me yeah you know so I knew that was my only way to make money so that's why I was so grateful and you know similar situation to when I was 21 years old and my the VP of selves comes into my office and I'm making about $70,000 a year and he says to me hey I'm gonna resign and I'm gonna start this alarm company and I want you to come with me I can't guarantee you the 70 grand a year that you make here but if you make this work you can possibly double, triple, quadruple your income.

And at the time, I just thought, man, this is, first thing I thought is, this guy's making 250 grand a year. If he's resigning, he must be pretty serious. The second thing I thought is, if he's willing to teach me how to start a company from the ground up, I'm like, this is my shortcut to college, because I only graduated with a 1.8 GPA from high school, so studying was just not my thing. And third was that I was a big dreamer. And I was that kid that at 16 years old would go to Beverly Hills.

I would go window shop. And I literally would spend hours looking at homes and looking at views. And I kept saying to myself, I don't know how I'm going to do this, but one day I'm going to end up in Beverly Hills, Hollywood Hills. This is such a great thing because my partner and I, on this very show, Craig Ballantan, we talk about giving yourself millionaire experiences. In other words, if you don't have the money right now to go buy yourself, the Rose Royce, the Bentley, And all those things are are just mile markers of your accomplishments. They're not going to give you fulfillment. They're just mild markers of your accomplishments.

And, hey, you know, go ahead and enjoy and explore. But if you can't afford the Bentley and the Rose Royce and the Louis Vuitton or whatever, there's nothing wrong with going window shopping like you did. And as you did that, our mutual friend, Ed Milette always talks about, which you brought up earlier, the reticular activating center. Yeah. You soon start seeing what you can have that you're no different than the people who have that already. Exactly. And that becomes your expectation and standard versus the lifestyle

you were living in Huntington Park, which was a complete 180 polar opposite than that. Exactly. And I think to, you know, as you with what you said, particular active agent system, the way I look at it now, you know, what it is, it's your subconscious mind that filters your conscious mind what it thinks is important to you, right? So it's based on whatever your beliefs are, whatever your dreams and goals are, and whatever your, you need for survival. So as I look back, I'm like, well, I was obsessed with $100,000. So that I needed for survival.

I needed to buy my mom's house. That was my number one goal in life at the time. So I needed that for survival. My dreams and goals were to end up in Hollywood Hills, and I had monster belief that, because everything I had accomplished before that like you mentioned there's nothing those people have that I don't have and when the opportunity was presented to me even though everyone said I was crazy because how are you going to quit a job that's paying you $70,000 a year and again when you're living in Huntington Park and you're making 70 grand a year you're living pretty large and if you

don't have monster belief and if you don't touch the dream then you don't know that exists so that If I wouldn't have gone and touched the dream and been exposed to that dream, when that opportunity came that was going to basically change my life forever, I would have probably rejected it. I would have said, no, no, man, I'm good. I'm making $70,000 a year here. I'm not moving. But because I was able to touch the dream and be exposed to the dream,

I was like, this is my opportunity. This is what I've been looking for. And I didn't flinch. But it's funny because prior to that, I sort of had tested alarms on the side because his wife was already doing it. And for 10 days, I couldn't sell. And the reason I couldn't sell was because my necessity level wasn't where it needed to be. And I define necessity level as it's a heightened willingness that untaps a tremendous amount of ability.

And the way you get your necessity level up is to get yourself in a pressure situation. So it wasn't until I finally said, all right, I'm out, that my necessity level went up. And now all of a sudden I learned what I should have learned in 10 days. I learned in two days. And then all of a sudden, the first day out, I get five deals in one day. And I make $1,500 in one day versus making $1,500 in a week with all the troubles of managing 40, 60 people. And I remember not being able to sleep that night because then I really started daydreaming. I mean, I was like, man, if I made $1,500 in a day,

imagine what I could keep, imagine what I can get if I continue to make $1,500 for the next 29 days. And I couldn't sleep that night. I couldn't wait to go knock on doors. And that's the other thing. So you went from cold calling to knocking on doors. I was not selling home alarms. Yeah.

So I was selling alarm systems in Watts. And I figured Watts is getting robbed all the time. Why not go sell there? And everyone was scared to go sell there. And I'm like, well, this is sort of where I grew up. So I started knocking doors. and selling alarms in Watt, South Central. There's so many great lessons here.

First of all, earlier you said you had no other option. When I said, well, wait a minute, you weren't good at selling. You had to learn the language. You had no other option. Really, for our friends watching and listening to this, I always talk about the gun to the head method. When someone's holding a gun to your head, and all of a sudden you have no other option,

you will figure out whatever it is they need you to figure out. I've always operated as though there was a gun to my head. Like someone's saying, if Fit Body Boot Camp doesn't become the number one fitness franchise on the planet, someone's going to pull the trigger. By operating that way, I continue to thrive no matter what, the economy, the competition, financials, whatever. And so when you said you have no other option, immediately I thought of, okay, he had a gun to his head. Like you meant he had a gun to your head.

Literally, yeah. More people need to do that. And the other thing you talked about here, and I want more clarity from you on, Edwin, is you said, all right, I went and touch the dream, which is you gave yourself a millionaire experience. Maybe you walked down a rodeo drive or you went up to the hills and you looked at the homes and drove by and, man, you know, this looks nice. Okay, great. Everyone can do that. But then you said you had monster belief in yourself. What I'm hearing you say is you had massive confidence in yourself.

How does one build massive confidence or monster belief? So I think in order to persuade people, you have to have monster belief. Belief for me was at the time I started looking back at just little successful times that I had, whether it was starting in football, starting in basketball, you know, at 16. ending up as a supervisor at 18, ending up as the manager, and just always keeping my promises, right? I think when you keep promises you make to yourself, you start to build this confidence.

But the other part is, for me, I'm big on faith, and I mentioned it earlier. I always felt like God was with me. And I think a lot of people, what keeps them from success is that fear paralyzes them. It doesn't allow them to. take that first step of action because that first step of action when you start thinking of the how you get derailed by all by all those details but what I've always done in my life is I just immediately

start taking action and then what I've realized is God starts putting the right people in front of me for the unknown and as what I do is I focus on my God-given strengths which for me I always knew I could lead I always knew I could sell so lead I just I always had influence over people. People since high school would follow me. And that was where I got confidence as well. I'm like, well, you know, I remember one time I got everybody doing this pyramid scheme at 16 years old, and we made some pretty good money doing that.

So I just, I knew we could influence. I knew I could sell. I knew I could recruit and I knew I could train. I knew how to duplicate because that's what I was good at at the phone company. And I felt like those gifts were worth, at the time, 100. thousand dollars or more and I knew that as long as I did that all the other stuff that I didn't know which was the operation stuff the organizational stuff I knew God would start putting those by people in front of me and that's when I started you know taking

action towards those those things so an example of that would be when I first you know for the first 10 years of business 99 to 2009 I was making a ton of money but I wasn't growing I hit my goal when I first started was I wanted to become the number one dealer at the company that I was working for. And I did that. But then I didn't see anyone doing any bigger things than I was. So I sort of became complacent because I'm like, I'm the big dog here. This is as good as it gets. And it wasn't until 2009 that I started seeing other people doing way bigger things than me in my industry. And it wasn't until my wife, my girlfriend, who's now my wife, she basically comes one day.

And she's like, why do you keep investing in things that you have no idea about? And I don't see you investing back into your business. And I always invested in the sales guys, but I never invested back into the organization to make it bigger. Because you need to surround yourself with, as you know, successful, I mean, with smarter people than you are. And it, like, hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm like, she is totally right. And I said, it wasn't until that day that I said, I'm going to make this my career, and I went all in, right?

And there wasn't any, I didn't want to do anything else. I said, this is what I'm going to become the best at, and this is sort of what I'm the best at. So why keep messing with things that I have no idea on? So am I hearing you say that you were just investing in different other business opportunities? Yeah, business opportunities that I had really no idea on. You know, I was just trying to hit a home run. And I wasn't putting the time in those businesses. I was just like, let me see if this works.

Let me see if that works. And then as I look back, I'm like, the minute I invested back into my company, and the first thing I did was I hired a CFO, and I had to invest $150,000. How did that feel? The first time you have to invest $150,000 in someone's salary? Man, I wrestled with that for so long, because I'm like, man, that could be like for another Ferrari or something that I could buy myself. But, and what happens if this guy doesn't make it, right? It's, again, that fear. What if he sucks after a year, and I just wasted $150,000? and finally I knew if I was going to grow and I was going to take this company to the next level,

I needed to, again, put myself in a pressure situation where my necessity level goes up. I brought in a CFO, but then I went from five, six office employees to 50 within a year. So now I really went all in and I'm like, man, I got all these employees. I better go get the sales now. And I did, you know, again, going back to faith, to me, faith is, doing things before you get what you want, right, before you see it, right? You got to, and that's what I did. I invested before I had the sales.

Most people wait until they get the sales. Let me get the numbers up, have the money, and then get the CFO. Exactly. I did it the opposite. And I sort of had the money already because the first 10 years, I was just worried about making profit because I kept thinking, I'm going to use this money to open up whatever I'm going to get into. Again, I wasn't sold on the industry yet.

So I did have money, but now when I put my money to talk, I was, again, I put myself in that pressure situation where now I had to grow. There was no retreat and I needed to produce. So did that in 2009. Then we started growing like crazy. Then again, did that in 2014. I invested in, I bought a $2 million building. I invested another million dollars in just the decor of it. And then I'm like, man, I need to fill this place up with a bunch of recruits.

and it got me working even harder. Because again, if you don't grow, you tend to stay complacent, right? And I've always, another example of necessity level is when I first started, I bought a van immediately. So I didn't wait, so basically what you do in my business, you have a van, and then you drop people off and they're selling, right? Gotcha, and then you pick them up at the end of the day. You pick them up at the end of the day.

Well, I bought the van before I had the team. But by buying the van, it made me go out and get the team. Sure. Whereas most guys, the way they think is, well, let me build a team and then I'll get the van. Well, then that day never comes. So what I'm hearing you say here, there's so many great lessons in just a short amount of time that you've shared already is, one, you constantly pick the gum back up and put it back your head. Yes. In other words, always keep yourself under pressure so that you can perform. And I've got a good friend of mine who's a psychotherapist, and he says, stress and preparation is where the athlete.

has the best peak performance when stress and preparation meet. When they cross, that's when he was good during practice, but then during the big game, he failed because stress went so high and his preparation crossed. Wow, amazing. Yeah. And so what I'm hearing you say is if you keep yourself constantly under pressure, then you're going to perform, number one. Number two, complacency kills and not enough people understand this. They think that, hey, now I'm making $2 million a year,

which is about what you said you were making, between 99 and 2009. So about a decade, two million a year. No, I was making, so every year we sort of increased, but the company was. The company was, yeah, sorry, the company was, but you weren't sold on the business, right? Yes. Folks, I got to tell you, if you're watching this, if you're listening to this, you've got to get sold on your business, you got to get sold on your industry, you've got to see that there's a much deeper pond in your industry that you can fish in. You saw that, hey, no one else is out there doing what I'm doing. I must be making the most, and you probably were, and so this must be the cap, not realizing that

there was opportunity for you to break 30, 40 million here in the future. Yeah, right? Totally. So we know the complacency kills, and of course, the advice that your wife gave you, the third and final piece that I want to extract from here is, she was, hey, dude, you're not really sold in on your business, and you're going around investing in all these other businesses, and you're losing our money. Yeah.

Why don't you get singularity of focus? Really is what you did. Exactly. You said get back and focused on your business, the thing you know better than anyone else. And most people out there will go and decide that the grass is greener on the other side, not realizing that you could just water the grass on your side and it's always going to be greener. 100%. And this is what you did.

So singularity of focus is key. Complacency kills. Always operate with the gun to your head. And know that just because you're the peak of your industry doesn't mean that you have peaked in your industry. So now 2009 comes around, Edwin. Yes. And you're like, all right, we're going to kick ass here. We're going to grow.

And as you grow, something magical happens around 2016. Why don't you explain to our friends what happens in 2016 with a little dip in your business? Yeah. So then we start growing like crazy. And we start going 37 million, 40 million. And then doubt starts to set in. Right. And what I always say is if you don't do something for a lot of.

long time, you'll tend to dislike it. So an example, you start going to the, you're in high school, you're hitting the gym every day. You graduate high school, you stop going to the gym. It's been 20 years. Well, now you won't touch a gym because you just hate it. Again, you don't do something for a long time. You tend to dislike it. For me, I studied for six years from 15 to 21. Then I started my own business. Once I started my own business, I sort of didn't think I needed to study anymore. And for 19 years, I didn't pick up a book. I didn't read a podcast. I mean, I didn't listen to a podcast.

I didn't do anything. And I started to surpass what I believed, what I believed I was worth. And when I started to surpass that, major doubt started to come set in. And I started to almost self-sabotage myself. And in 2016, I really didn't, even though we were doing great sales-wise, I began, I began to not pay attention to the business the way I should have. Right? And I began to doubt, man, I'm having to hire people that are way smarter than me now.

And even these sales guys that are coming in, they're even smarter than me. Like, how am I supposed to lead these people? Soon it becomes, they're going to figure me out that I'm an imposter, that I'm a hypocrite, and the self-doubt and the self-sabotage set in. That's exactly what was going on. Yeah, and we call that here when we coach people in the Empire Mastermind, we call that hitting the glass ceiling. There's a glass ceiling that you've set on yourself and you hit it and all of a sudden you begin to erode because you don't believe you belong up there. That's exactly what was happening.

And it all was back to this fear that I always had or doubt that I always had, which I wasn't smart enough because I graduated with that 1.8 GPA. And because I stopped studying, I could never articulate why I was successful. So then I started out, maybe you just been in the right place at all, you know, right? Thinking you might have gotten lucky. Yeah, exactly. Is that funny how the mind will do that? Like, oh, yeah, all those years I got, you began to justify your success of over a decade by luck. Yes.

When in reality, you were putting in the effort and you were making all the right decisions. Yeah. And it was the first time that I wasn't, I didn't feel like a leader anymore. Like I literally was avoiding sales calls. I didn't even know what to talk about. And dude, this was just two years ago. This was just two years ago, yes. and then my VP of Sales Friday here

and basically forces me to go to a 10x conference and that's Grant Cardone's event in Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas. Is that the one? This one was the Miami one. Okay. And he's here, he'll tell you how much I fought him. Now I'm just making every excuse possible on where I don't want to go. I end up going and I see at my lid, I see all these people and I'm just like, whoa.

And then on the way back, I picked up the 10x book and I'm just like, let's see what this crap is all about. And for the next six hours on that flight, I was just totally engaged on this book because everything he was talking about was things that I had done to become successful. So then that confidence started to come back like, wait a minute, you're not a fraud. Everything you just talked about is everything you've done. And then after that, I'm just like, screw that. I'm going to start studying for an hour a day. And at first it was hard. I had to go through that discomfort and I had to force myself to do it.

And part of the reason I had almost that gun in your head is I then book power players on Grand Cardone. And I slept one hour the day before I went on a show because I was so scared. And I'm like, man, what if people figure out of them fraud or whatever, right? But I prepared like crazy for that interview. And so even though I had that little doubt at first, deep down inside, I knew I prepared and I had the confidence. So again, how you build confidence is you put yourself in a pressure situation.

and then you surpass what you think you're worth, and then boom, that confidence just automatically goes up. So when I went back to studying every day, that confidence came back. All of a sudden, I was able to lead because every day I had something to talk about because I was learning every day. And the business just started to take off again, you know.

Now, why don't you, you know, it's nuts that that happened and share with our friends how quickly the takeoff part was because here we are, we're in end of November 2018. Yeah. And you started going back to your old habits of studying an hour a day. When? February of 2018.

What? Nine months ago? Nine months ago? Nine months ago. Nine months ago and you see a monumental change in your business. Huge. End up on power players. Then we did the Edmite show.

Edmoy let show. And, you know, just again, you know, now that my wife's on housewives. And, you know, again, that's another situation where, you know, I'm not. I'm, I think, a shy person. Now when you put a camera in front of me, then I really get shy. But even coming out on that show is, again, putting myself in a pressure situation that eventually would make me better. So I've always embraced discomfort.

I just can't say no to it. I can't say no to an opportunity because I feel like God's putting these opportunities in front of me for something bigger. And the more I succeed, the more I could give back. so I just I cannot stop growing. I want to continue to grow. But now, you know, that part of my life, which is the studying life, is alive. You know, and I always talk about my four pillars, which are faith family, fitness, which is body and mind.

Before I was just doing the body part. I wasn't doing the mind part. And then the finance part. And it's constantly improving those four pillars. Because if one goes down, the whole thing can go down. And again, it's the same thing. If you don't work on your marriage, then that's going to fall down. If you don't work on your study and you're going to start to dislike it.

If you don't work on your fitness, you'll start to dislike it. If you don't start working on your business, which was also a combination for me in 2016, it could crumble. And it was a humbling experience because I'd always done very, very well. and the thing is the more money you make, it could easily, as fast as you make it, you can also lose it that fast. Yeah, I don't think people will realize that. They can just rat hole it and it's going to last.

When your lifestyle starts eating away at your money. Yeah. Yeah. So that huge experience for me on that. And, you know, another thing that I talk about, that's been huge for me is realizing that life is a balance of purposes, problems, and what I call restricted freedom. And you've got to have a balance of all three.

And as long as you know that every purpose comes with a big problem, and your job in life is to solve that problem. And then once you solve that problem, you get freedom, but it could only be restricted, because if you have freedom for too long, you'll start to self-destruct. And what I mean by balance is, for instance, let's say a rich man that has everything, has women, or has the perfect family, has the perfect everything, doesn't need food, doesn't need anything,

because he's got a bunch of money. If he doesn't have problems, he'll begin to be bored, and he'll sort of self-destruct. So you have to have problems. But the only way you're going to have problems is by picking up purposes, and then you've got to solve them, and then you get this freedom to celebrate, rejoice, whatever, and it's restricted because then you better find a new purpose or else you'll self-sabotage. You know, it's funny you say this. And one of the talks that I give when I'm speaking from the stage revolves around the German Shepherd dog.

And most people don't realize this. Now I've got a German, she's part German Shepherd, part American Mastiff, big dog. And when we first got her, the person who was training us on how to handle her, on how to keep her, said, you know what, you really have to give this dog a routine and a purpose. And I'm thinking like, well, wait, we've got all these small dogs. Yeah. They just kind of yapper around. They're, what I mean?

Now I got to babysit a dog, right? Well, as it turns out, German shepherds need to do just that. They need a shepherd and herd other animals. And in the absence of having other animals to shepherd or herd or having a purpose or a family to serve and protect, they begin to get anxiety. They get depressed and they go stir crazy. Exactly. And so the lady says, then they go and start digging holes in your backyard because they give themselves a purpose, but it's destructive purpose. They just dig holes everywhere.

Yeah. And I realized that she's telling me this, I'm thinking, holy crap, I've gone through that. In the absence of having purpose in my life and solving real problems, I go and create problems in my life that are more damaging. Exactly. And I really believe whether man, woman, it doesn't matter, mankind will build and then destroy, unless they keep coming up with new purposes and solutions. Am I right?

Totally. I mean, that's totally it. And again, just think of it hypothetically. Let's say you have a bunch of purposes, which are really goes, but there's no problems. Then it's boring. Right. Imagine if you were playing basketball and you kept beating the guy 100 to, you know, two. You're not going to want to play that guy.

Like, this is boring. You've got to have a balance of problems. That's why it's got to be a balance of all three. It can't just be one-sided, right? It can't just be problems and then you don't solve anything because then you're not accomplishing squad. Which really takes us to the beginning of our conversation, doesn't? where the thing that you learned at that cold calling place was come to me with solutions, not problems.

Yes. And so you learned very quickly that, oh, shit, when I have a problem, I got to start solving. And then what I'm hearing you say is that's served you well in life. That and the fact that you constantly put yourself in a place of pressure, the gun to your head, so that you can exceed and go to the next level. And that goes with staying hungry. Same thing. Staying hungry.

and that's one thing I've always done is stay hungry as well. In fact, when I first started, when I started making these $20,000 checks, $15,000 checks, I would split my check three ways. And $3,000 is what I lived on. So let's say I made $15,000. $5,000 is sort of what I lived on. $5,000 went immediately to savings in IRS. And the other $5,000 went to just an account that I would not touch.

It was just for if all crap, you know, happens, I got enough of two years in savings to pay all my bills. And I never touched that. And again, that kept me hungry because if you don't do stuff like that, 15 grand a week can be a lot of money. And you lose that hunger because you're like, you know, I got my bills. I mean, I already paid my bills. And that's why it's important to always have a purpose.

One of the things that helped me out at the beginning is immediately when I started the alarm company, my first purpose was to buy my mother her house. And even though I didn't have the money, this is a formula I've used for everything I've done in my life. It's a formula which is society looks at having, then you take action, and then you become. So for instance, if you want to have a house,

wait until you save 80 grand, then take action, then you become a homeowner. And that's why most people will never get their home with their home. that formula is backwards, meaning you become, for me, at 21 years old, I had just done very well, and a roach wakes me up in the middle of the night. And I'm like, here we go again. And I literally go in the mirror, and I'm like, I'm not a renter, I'm a homeowner. And I just started doing well in the alarm business.

And I had money saved, but not to buy a home right away. But instead of waiting until I had the money, I immediately went to an open house that weekend. All my friends basically made fun of me because they were like, dude, what do you, like, you just started your business. Yeah, you did well this week. But what makes you think you can do that for 30 years because a house payment is 30 years? And my response to that was, well, I'm worth 100 grand a year. So even if this business goes to crap, wherever I go, I'm going to make a minimum of 100 grand because my God give time. my God given talents are worth 100 grand.

Obviously, I think now they're worth a lot more, but back then that's what I was saying. So I went to the open house, and then they gave me a blueprint on what I needed to do, and then all I needed to do was set the date. So the formula goes, you become, so you declare what you are, what you want, and you become. Then immediately you start taking action towards it.

To me, I started taking action. I went to the open house, even though I didn't have the money yet. Then I set the goal or the have on the when I was going to have it by, picked up my mom, took her to the house, and I said, mom, this home will be yours in 90 days. And then I, now I was accountable to my mother. And in 90 days, I basically came up with a blueprint. I knew I had to save 12 grand in 90 days. My bills were four grand a month. So I knew I needed to make a thousand bucks a month to pay my bills.

I knew another thousand to pay for the IRS and savings. And the other thousand was going to go for my mom's deposit for her home. Now because now I knew that I needed to do 10 deals a week to make 3,000 to 4,000 a week. And every time I wanted to quit, I would, because I had that purpose, I would continue, to knock doors and I'd land a job, I'd get a sale at 1045 at night. Everyone else quit at eight, so they had more talent, but because I actually knew what I was working for, I continued to push. And all I did was I talked to enough people.

Then when I got that deal, I got more confidence, and then I continued to go. So that first week when I got 12 deals, I think I made about six grand. If I wouldn't have had a purpose, I would have gotten complacent because my bill, were already paid off for the rest of the month. But because I had a goal, I continued to push. If you don't find a goal, then your purpose becomes your bills. And that's why there's no coincidence that at the end of the month, you always pay your grant.

At the end of the month, you always pay your car payment. It's because that's what you know. But if you actually got out of your comfort zone and went after things that you believe are possible, you'll actually stretch yourself and do things that you didn't think were possible. So that, again, it's become, you take action, and then you have. Isn't it funny that so much of society has got it backwards because, well, that's what our parents told us, and that's what their parents told them. The school system says that, be responsible.

Make sure you have the money first before you buy the house. Exactly. When in reality, the truth is, is completely the opposite. Completely opposite. And I've done that. So many. Get. And then you set that deadline.

You said that. I mean, and you brought your mom. You said, mom, in 90 days. that's going to be yours and you're being held accountable to another human, a human that you trust, that you value. Right? So you're not going to let this person down. And so many people don't declare that to someone else and therefore keep it within and therefore, hey, if I can just lie to myself and, you know, kick that can down the road, maybe it's 90 days, maybe it's 90 months. Who cares? Yeah. And the other thing that did for me was it built confidence because now I was like,

whoa, I did it. So now my identity even grew bigger. Right. Right. I'm like, man, I was able to do that. What else can I do? What else can I do? And then I succeeded at another goal, and then another goal, and then another go. And then before you know it, there's just like this huge, huge confidence until I surpassed what I thought I was worth. Now that I went back to studying, I'm like, wait a minute, I am worth a billion dollars. What do you know? You see, you know?

And now the business is, what do you know? Everybody's like, you know, business is taking off and all these, you know, everything in life is energy. Dude. All of a sudden, all these doors start opening like crazy. You've aligned yourself. That's truly it. You've aligned yourself with the right people, in the right industry, with the right vibration. We had Dave Metzler here a week ago, and he was talking about everything has vibration.

Like this cup has vibration. The desk, you and I have, and he says, the lowest vibrating things isn't dirt. Dirt. And then, you know, atmosphere, and then you have sound, and then you have light. And the highest vibration is thought, energy, right? thought and if our thoughts are aligned and all of a sudden we start saying the same stuff at the same time and working together now if there's two guys who are in line with the right energy right vibration working on the same task we're going to get it done twice as fast and you get yourself an army of

people that are aligned with you and your energy yeah yeah good for you hey how do people find find out more about you reach you contact you learn more from you yeah so on instagram's probably the my biggest platform, it's Tedwinator. The other Instagram is join skyline.com. And join Skyline is the Instagram. Another thing that I wanted to just quickly talk about, there's a lot of people that now have the mindset because of all these, because of social media, right? And they're learning from guys like yourself, guys like Edm Elyette and stuff like that that are doing very, very well for themselves. But they don't have a vehicle. And our industry right now is blowing up. So, you know, if anyone feels like they're in that position where they,

they want to do better, they just haven't found a vehicle, then definitely hit us up. But that's probably the best way to find me. I wanted to give you a quote that I read the other day that sort of sums up my success. And it was by my pastor, Erwin McAnus. He wrote this, he has this book called Chasing Daylight. And he, I see this quote. and it just hit me and it says, the mundane is not the best context for a miracle. If you keep playing it safe, you're taking God out of the formula.

If you only do what you know and you only do what you're certain that you will succeed at, then there is no need for God. But whenever God gives you an invitation, which is a big opportunity that can change your life forever, that's your need for God gets heightened. And when you take on God-sized challenges,

then self-proficiency is no longer an option. And I looked at that quote, and I'm like, wait a minute, that's been my life. People have always looked at me like this risk taker. Man, how do you do that? How do you do that? And literally that's, and we talk about the gun to your head, the pressure situations, it's when you put,

when you put yourself in those risky situations, you have to believe in something. Whether it's the universe for some people, for me it's obviously Jesus Christ, but whatever it is you believe, you have to believe in something as well. You have to believe in yourself. Sure. And again, it's whatever you need to build your confidence. And that quote was, I mean, I've blown away by it. Yeah, it was blown away by it.

Well, listen, I want all of our listeners and viewers of this show to go and follow you because there's so much wisdom that you dropped. I mean, you come from a foreign country, just like I have. You're the immigrant edge, the American dream. Your dad gets put away and you become the man of the house at the age of 10, right? And now you're having to learn phone sales, and you weren't good at it,

but you had no other alternative because you got turned down by 30 other jobs. Yeah. So you got good at it. You started managing people, even though you were passed up with the opportunity to manage others four times. you didn't give up. In fact, you started to serve those who passed you up until you got the opportunity.

You got the nod. And when given the opportunity, you decided that you're going to create your own business, Skyline alarms, right? That's the company there. And, of course, one of my favorite messages here was you spent a decade or so in complacency until your wife slapped you out of that

by saying, hey, look, you're investing all this money and all the other business opportunities, when in reality, you know one thing better than anybody else, which is alarms, go all in on skyline, on your business. And when you did, you surpass $40 million a year in gross revenue. Is that right? Yep.

And we feel like we're just getting started. You're just getting started. Well, listen, folks, lots of purpose, lots of passion. And, of course, you're going to live like there's a gun to your head because when you do, you'll take action like a motherfucker. Have a great day, guys. Hey, thanks so much for being here for today's Empire Podcast show. we would love for you to a quick little favor for us.

Just go to iTunes and give us a five-star rating, leave a comment, share it with your friends. And if you're interested in growing your business faster, go to bedroskoolion.com forward slash empire, fill out the application to see if you're a good fit for our Empire Mastermind Group.