Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Kent Clothier: You’re Not Invincible - 137

Episode Date: February 18, 2020

Kent Clothier stops by the studio on this episode of Inside Look to give us the scoop on his story. From having his life flash before his eyes, to losing a 9 figure business, Kent has experienced a little more than his fair share of life! Kent learned lessons the hard way and is no stranger to failure. He lets us in on the secret to creating the lifestyle that you want and taking care of what really matters in life.    “To act like anything is promised to you is completely irresponsible.” “I’ve never worked for anyone.” “There’s a lot of comfort in making success complicated.” “I want the people that have a fire in their belly much more than I want the people that are over educated.”   “I want to make sure the days that I live, are the days that I am proud to live.” - Kent Clothier   Here’s what you’ll discover: 01:17 - Kent’s nightmare of a plane ride 09:44 - What Kent wants to be known for 11:54 - Why you should want to help others 16:28 - Do you have knowledge on ice? 22:28 - You’re not invincible 38:18 - Average day for Kent 49:30 - Passive income is the key to wealth   “That was ego, now you got wisdom.” “Even if you’re right doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to win.” “You had the ability to create it and it would be irresponsible if you didn’t.” - Bedros Keuilian   --   Follow us on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian / @kentclothier   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Visit Kent’s website: https://kentclothier.com/   Listen on iTunes and leave us a review: http://bedrosmedia.com/itunes131   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1 Youtube: https://youtu.be/P1zIiy9cvrw

I want the people that have a fire in their belly much more than I want the people that are overeducated. And they have all the knowledge, right? But we call it knowledge on ice. They're extremely educated. They know what to do. They just don't have the inspiration to do it. Give me the ignorance on fire all day long because those people with a little bit of information, they can change the world. Now imagine being on an airplane and it's falling out of the sky.

You look back at your wife and kids and this is the end. thankfully you make it and you have a second chance. And that's what we're going to talk about today, folks. Welcome to the Empire Show. My name is Pedro Sculian and this is an inside look. And today we've got my dear friend, Mr. Kent Clotheir, and we're doing an inside look on his life, a man who's successful, who's found balance and who's going to share with us the secret of having both. Kent, welcome to the show. Thanks for having you, brother. Yes, sir. Thank you for coming. So first, let's start off with that because that's a hell of a hook. Tell us about the story where, like, the The place was the airplane had smoke in it and it's falling out of the sky.

What happened? So this was back in 2012. I was on, I was leaving a live event that I just hosted in Memphis, Tennessee. And because I've been on the road for several days, I invited my wife and my young daughter to meet me. And the reason that's important because at any time that you book two different itineraries, it inevitably has the outcome of that you have a chance of being in two different places, right on the seating and so as we're flying home we make a connection in atlanta and so we're going

from atlanta to west palm beach and my wife and my daughter are sitting seven rows behind me i'm sitting in 19a they're 26 enf and you know like i've done hundreds of times i'm sitting there working on my computer about an hour into the flight and i get that weird smell that electrical burning a smell you don't ever want in an airplane just puts you that way that way And I look up and white smoke is just pouring down the aisle. It's like somebody was standing in first class with a fire extinguisher and just, you know, ripping it right down. I mean, it was pouring. And you clearly have that, oh my God, moment right then.

And so as that was happening, I was, you know, immediately going to a panic of what's going on, what's going on. And unfortunately, at the time, we had a flight attendant that decided that she was going to get on the loudspeaker and just basically freak out. Oh, wow. That doesn't help the situation. No, that didn't help the situation at all. That sent everybody into complete freak out mode right then. So she got on. She was obviously scared to death and got on and talked about that.

You know, crew returned to her stations. We're crew returning. And everybody grab the seats. And at that exact moment, the plane goes into a dive. Now, I didn't know this then. I know it now. That's what they're supposed to do. It's one of the things they kind of leave off of the announcements when they go.

And so as we go into a dive, now everybody is clearly, you know, this is it. This is your moment. And by the way, all this stuff's happening in a matter of seconds, right? It's thinking me longer to talk about it than it took it forth to even happen. Sure. About the moment that I see it, then we're going. And mask are dropping, smoke is filling with air, I mean, with the smoke is filling the plane. buzzers start going off.

I mean, it is everybody's worst nightmare in an instant. And unfortunately, as everybody is screaming, as everybody is panicking, and as the plane starts to level off, the only person I can hear screaming is my little six-year-old daughter, right? And it was horrifying because I could not do one thing about it. I mean, I was literally trapped in a seat, could not get to her, could not comfort her, could not do one thing to bring any kind of joy to her. And in fact, as I'm looking back, my wife and I make eye contact across everybody's head and all the chaos and literally say goodbye to each other, right?

Like, this is it, you know, and I can see the panic in her eyes. I can see, you know, it was just a horrifying, horrifying incident. There was nothing about it that was pleasurable. And obviously, they didn't, you know, fate intervened, and it worked out the way it's supposed to work out. But we leveled off. The captain came on. He told us that we were going to make an emergency landing in Tampa,

so they diverted the plane, got us on the ground. And, you know, we went through a lot of, they wanted to immediately put us back on the plane in an hour, which there wasn't a chance in hell that was going to happen, right? I'm out. And we drove home, and as we got home, You know, and one thing I left out there is as all this is happening, I don't even know how or why I did this. It occurred to me that I should film a goodbye video to my son who wasn't on the plane, which I still have today.

Whenever I need to humble myself a little bit and get a little dose of reality, I go back and watch it and remember exactly what I was thinking in that moment. So I filmed a video. I looked at it and it was, there's nothing. worse than saying goodbye to everybody you love and having no choice in the matter. And I got done and we got back and it just had a profound effect on me. I thought that I was, you know, I was probably lulled to sleep a little bit with success, lulled to sleep a little bit with kind of my own, you know, I have a lot of customers, a lot of people kind of projecting success on me. And so I was kind of bleeding my own BS a little bit.

We get sold into our own hype. Oh, it was unbelievable. And so right then I realized that things had to change and they had to change immediately. And I didn't feel congruent. I felt completely out of alignment that I was sitting here talking about things from stage and talking about things to my customers

and my members that I wasn't necessarily doing myself, you know, living in the moment, taking advantage of everything that's in front of me. And ever since that day, I have really put, I can honestly say I've put a lot of effort into making sure that I'm extremely present. Because I can assure you, you do not want to be sitting at

30,000 feet trying to figure it out. Right. That is not the moment to try to get that, get it together. That is not. And you had another profound moment. And the reason guys and guys watching and listening to this, I'm bringing this up is this is going to kind of set the scene for the topic today. You had another profound moment where a mentor of yours passed away as you're holding his hand. And that kind of created an epiphany as well for you. Yeah, I had, you know, I had, my, my uncle was an extremely successful man. Was in the travel industry, was a CEO, had made millions and millions of dollars. I saw him travel the world, a lot of it at the expense of his family, unfortunately, to build an empire.

And then shortly after he retired, and he was a young guy. I mean, he was like 60 years old. I got a call that he got diagnosed with cancer a few months before, but it was a completely recoverable form of cancer. But suddenly he was in the hospital with pneumonia, and my mother called me. and said, he's going to die. And he's asking for you. And so I got in a car as fast as I could,

and I drove to Daytona Beach, Florida, from Delray Beach, Florida. And I can remember driving up the turnpike, trying to get there as fast as I could, and not really, there's nothing I could do to get there faster. I remember running into the hospital. And this was a beast of a man

that was suddenly reduced to, you know, this frail guy, lost a lot of weight, was hooked up to all these machines, and couldn't breathe, couldn't speak. And it just happened, you know, a very short period of time. And I will never forget him having to write on a whiteboard.

And it was celebrate my life. And then it was, I just wish I had more time. Wow. And, you know, I walked away there thinking, man, this is a guy that there's not anybody in the world that I would look at that is more successful than him, like in every measure in my life. And had all the money in the world. but at the one moment, he only wanted one thing, and that was just time.

And that money couldn't get it. I wasn't going to get it for him. And so, again, and those two things happened. Both of those stories happened within a matter of months together. I was going to ask you how long they were apart. Yeah, so it was a one-two punch for me, right? And right then I was like, okay, somebody's trying to tell me something. And so that happened first, and then the airplane happened a few months later.

Between those two things, I was done. Message sent, message received. Like, it is all about now, right? Nothing else matters except these moments. What is happening in the next five minutes, in the next five hours is all you've got. And to act like anything is promised to you is completely irresponsible, right? So people that, I know you deal with them and I deal with them, that people that put off their dreams or put off their aspirations that's at there and, you know,

I'll get to it later next month, next year. To me, there's nothing more irresponsible than that. Because you got one shot at this. Right. That's it. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. That's all you got. Yep.

So. So, I mean, you've been very successful in real estate. You now coach and consult. I mean, you do so much. And if there was one thing you want to be known for now, what would that thing be? It would be actually having impact on people's lives. You know, real estate was a gift to me in that I found a way that I found a way that I could, improve the quality of my family's lives and then simplified in such a way that it was easy for it was

very easy for me to show people how to connect dots and get it in their lives as well but it's just a tool it's just a thing right it's just a business and you know i was i was i didn't know this when i was growing up i i definitely know it now but when i when i was growing up i was a son of an entrepreneur so i got to see my father build uh successful businesses and i saw what it took and and and You know, I really gravitated. I mean, I've never worked for anybody. I've gravitated to that my entire life. It just seems very natural for me.

But I know that's not natural for the vast majority of people out there. I know it's a very hard thing to grasp. And so the tool of real estate is cool, but knowing that you actually have impact on somebody's lives and that that father or that mother, you know, that's sitting there working, building a business, and that their kids are watching. And the impact, because I was in that relationship.

and know that what that's doing for generations, that ripple effect to me, that's what I'd love to be known for, is that I helped to create, you know, I helped to be the catalyst to help create that impact right there. And to that effect, a mutual friend of ours, Lo, Silva, introduced us, and super passionate dude. And when he introduced us, and he's like, man, you're just going to love this guy. Like, oh, holy crap, well, you know, people travel in like-minded groups. Right.

And sure enough, we hit it off. Now I'm a big fan of your social media following, and you're exactly doing that. I mean, you are just focused on impact aggressively. Why do you think it's so important for people to have this awakening that you're trying to, like I can see that you're actively trying to awaken society. You had the awakening. Right. With obviously your uncle passing away, who's a valued mentor and the plane almost falling out of the sky.

Why are you so hell bent on helping others have this awakening? Why not just live the life that you're living and enjoy it? I think it's, you know, I get very frustrated with people that have a tendency to buy into the BS that we're all, that somebody's trying to sell us all the time, right? It's just so easy to be passive. It's just so easy to fall in line and be one of the drones that are out there just, you know, going through life, half asleep, if not completely asleep. and playing the role of a victim. And that really, I don't know a better word for it, it frustrates me because it doesn't have to be that way. I mean, I know you're really passionate about it as well.

Absolutely. But for me, that to me is, I believe that's kind of my calling. You know, if I have a gift, it's that I can articulate a message and get inside of somebody's head in a fairly quick way and make them understand that this is not, you know, going through life in a half-ass way is not the way the world has to be. for you. I've been very, very fortunate that I would say I'm probably not asleep at the wheel as much as other people are. So when I have these experiences, I try to put them into a box

and try to learn. And I went to Haiti a few years ago. I had a mentor that took me when he took me to Haiti and I went kicking and screaming, had no idea why he wanted me to go. But when I went there and I saw just how destitute this place is, right, where there's almost literally no economy. And there's no way out. If that's your ticket and it's punched, you're done, right? There's a high likelihood. You're never getting out of that. And so to watch people walk around now and with such an amazing country and such an amazing time with so many opportunities that are fairly easy to get involved in, and only getting easier, by the way, every day, that's a choice. Are things only getting easier? I think there are more ways to make money now.

than there ever have been. I mean, I sit there and watch people. I watch these kids that are, I mean, it's just, we make it, I think people make it complicated. I think there's a lot of comfort in making success seem complicated because then it means it's success is not for me. I get to wrap that little blanket of mediocrity

around me and play the victim. Where it doesn't take very long, I mean, there is literally a section in the Craigslist site of free stuff. it is not really complicated to go and pick up the free stuff and go put it either back on Craigslist or go put it on eBay or I'll go put it on and make a few bucks. It may not make you rich, but it may make you a living. And so, yeah, I think when you have this accessibility, things that would have been very challenging

for us to do when we were kids that can literally, I mean, the information is right in front of you walking around with it in your hand that you can be doing this today. I mean, you see people whether it's garage sales or baseball cards or are, selling stuff on Amazon or flipping. I mean, there's just so many ways to make money now. They probably all were there, but they weren't all so readily available, right? The information is right in front of us. And so that, to me, is extremely exciting.

Do you think there's anything to the fact that because information is so easy to access now, it's literally in front of us on a device that we take it for granted, we feel that whereas compared to the time where you have to search it out or you have to search out someone, you have to maybe flip through the phone book or, read a newspaper or magazine, so you got to buy the newspaper, the magazine to go through it, like success is so, or the access to success, I should say, the resource is so easily accessible. Do you think that becomes this factor that people just feel like mail, maybe, it's so easy, and they disregard it? I can't figure out why it's so easy, yet why so many people are unhappy.

I think that those same people have always existed. I think that the information, to your point, has always been there. It is easier to get than it's ever been, but there are a segment of people in our society that regardless of accessibility or what's there, what's not the motivation, the drive, the inspiration, the belief, that light bulb has not gone off in their head, right? And again, that clear, that moment where they get that clarity hasn't happened. And so without, I mean, to me, you can have, I tell people this all the time, give. me, you know, I want the people that have a fire in their belly much more than I want the people that are overeducated and they have all the knowledge, right, but we call it knowledge on

ice. They're extremely educated. They know what to do. They just don't have the inspiration to do it. Amen. Right? Give me the ignorance on fire all day long because those people with a little bit of information, they can change the world. Yeah, they'll plow through whatever adversity they have. You can't teach that to somebody, is my point. I mean, you can try to light that fire, and then we all work hard at doing that inside of people and providing that value to them.

But at the end of the day, they have to come to that realization. Either they're going to get it or they're not. So I read a study maybe two years ago, something to the effect of 70% of Americans believe that the American dream is dead. And when I read it, I was like, well, I don't think it's dead. I think the avenue of getting to it is different.

It used to be that you get a college education, You define the field that you're going to work in. You work in that job for 20, 30 years. You retire with a Rolex watch and a pension plan, and that was the American Dream. You have your house, you have your cars paid off, and you have a pension plan and some savings. 70% think it's dead.

I believe the new, the barrier to entry into the American Dream is easier today, going back to what you said. Like, what do you say to people who feel like 70% of our country? So 7 out of 10 people you're going to run into between now and at the end of the week feel like the American Dream is dead, have no hope? I can tell you that that that American dream as you defined it has never been a dream of mine. Right. And so to me, you know, I might fall into that 70%.

My American dream has always been to go out and create, you know, something of value, right? To go create a business. And I've had plenty of businesses that have failed, right, more than my fair share. But that the process of building that business and creating my outcome and designing my life, that's been my dream. And I think that if the American dream was kind of redefined like that, there might be a lot more people that were like, I feel like I can do that. And that's not something I want to do.

Going to work for somebody and making somebody else rich and getting a pension and getting, you know, all that kind of stuff. I mean, I know there's a lot of people that that's what they desire. But it's just nothing that I've ever gravitated to. Again, the way I was brought up. Sure, sure. So you said, designing my life and building a business. And those words are, words are very powerful.

designing and building. Tells me your person has a lot of control. Like you feel that the control is in your hands, no outside circumstance, whether it's Hillary or Trump or the government or the mayor or anyone else can control the outcome in your life. How important is it to have self-control that way, not self-control by way of I'm not going to eat that donut, but by a way of, hey man, I'm in charge of my destiny versus I'm just a pinball in a machine and, you know, outside factors control me. I think it's everything. At least it is for me. I mean, I have to you know, it's interesting that we all have our bad days. We all have that self-doubt. We all have that imposter syndrome, that kind of thing over our shoulder. We're like, man, do I really know what I'm doing here? And the answer is, you know, there's plenty of times. I have no idea what I'm doing. But it doesn't keep me from pushing ahead.

And the pushing ahead is the control. The pushing ahead is I'm taking the steps to get my arms around and push in a direction that I believe is beneficial. I'm certainly willing to be wrong, but at least if I'm the one doing the pushing, if I'm the one taking the steps, then certainly, yeah, there's a level of control that is playing into my mindset, right?

Sure. But there's so many people that would just sit back and eat Cheetos and sit on the couch and watch Monday night football and wake up the next morning and go to their 9 to 5, and there's nothing wrong with that. But there is something wrong in my mind

if you're doing that and then also playing the victim. Right. Blaming Trump, blaming the war, blaming the economy, blaming whoever. That's your choice, right? Which you're entitled to your choice, but you are in complete control of the decisions you make, right? If you are in a place that you don't want to be, then that is a product of the decisions you've made to put you there. And you have a choice getting out.

So you said you've certainly failed in a lot of businesses. Why don't we talk about the failures? Because it's so easy to shine a light on our successes. What are some of the failures in business that you've encountered? Well, probably the single biggest one is I had a business that when I was 17, I was in a arbitrage business, right? And so... What is arbitrage for our audience? Basically, what I was doing is we were going into markets where a manufacturer of a grocery item.

So there's roughly 40,000 items in a grocery store. What most people don't know is that in a grocery store, that item, that little UPC bar, code that you see on there, the scan code, that identifies that item with a 10-digit number that is universal. It is the exact same 10-digit number to identify that everywhere in the world. But what's different is the manufacturer sells that item for different prices everywhere in the world. So it took a guy like me, my father, and some other people to figure out that, man, if I could

when manufacturers want to gain market share, they will go discount that item in Miami. And they'll keep it the same place everywhere else. Well, why don't I just go into Miami and buy as much of it as I can and turn around and distribute it back out through the country? They'll go sell it for half price. We'll go put it on 10 trucks and go sell it everywhere else. Mark it up 25%. And you keep the difference. And we keep the difference.

And so that little business when I was 17, by the time I was 23, was doing $50 million a year. And by the time I was 28, we had been purchased by a larger competitor down in South Florida. and I was 28. I was run an $800 million year company and that we turned into a $1.8 billion year company by the time I was 30. And I was the guy that at that time, from 17 to 30, I'd never failed, right?

So to say that I was full of myself, we'd be putting it very mildly. All that success was because of me and all you had to do was ask me. And I was just obnoxious and, you know, had no reason. reason to believe that I could fall down. Sure. Well, you hadn't been humbled.

Right, hadn't been humbled. And I got humbled on March 14th of 2000. Basically, three weeks after I turned 30 years old, got into a run-in with the guys that were running or that owned the company. I was kind of running it and walked out of there in a huff in about a two-minute conversation without even thinking about it. So, and proceeded over the next two years to try to do everything I could to put the $1.8 billion year business out of business by trying to pirate their employees, trying to pirate their customers, trying to do everything I could to build my business at the expense of their business. And went out, raised a lot of money, got a lot of things going, and ultimately, they squashed me like a

bug. And so in 22 months, I lost literally every dollar I'd ever earned in my life. All my savings was gone. I went from several million dollars in a bank account to a little over $4,000 in a bank account, moved off the intercoastal in Bocretton, Florida to my girlfriend's 800 square foot apartment. It was the worst thing. I mean, I talk about it now kind of fondly because it really helped put me in the place I am. Sure.

But there was nothing good about it at the time. It was horrible. And I burnt every bridge, every relationship on the way down, had nowhere to turn. Thank God for my girlfriend at the time who turned into my wife, right? I mean, she saved my life.

But, man, at that point, it was a huge, huge failure in my life. And it really, really knocked me down notches that I never want to go back to. Let's take that golden thread and follow it for a moment. Now let's go back. The Kent Clothe Year of today goes back to that 30-year-old young man and says, all right, so you have a disagreement with your partners. You're going to go up in your own gig.

What would you do differently to not get squashed? Avoid them at all cost. Check your ego, right? You're nowhere near as long. good as you think you are. You're nowhere near as bad as you think you are. Right. That too, right? Yeah. But you're nowhere near as good as you think you are as well. And you can get hurt. All of those extra zeros in their bank account do matter. It's very difficult to fight an opponent, even if you're right, quite frankly, in a legal way when the objective, their objective,

is not winning. And it was a real big lesson for me. Right. It's to bleed you out. It's to bleed me out. right and that really really stuck with me that was a that was a big big deal um i never understood that prior to that i thought that it was a i mean i thought it was a product of being right or wrong and that's not necessarily in business and so i believed i was right i believed i could do what i needed to do i believed i was somebody that could go and build the business and could take on the world and all of those things could still be true and i could still lose and so i would be very very, very cautious about what you do, right? Don't get so emotional and so wrapped up in things that,

because that does not pay. There's a meme. I know you've seen it. It's Michael Phelps swimming, and then his competitor in the other lane looking at him. Ironically, Phelps ends up crushing him in that relay. Right. And it's not to say that you'd necessarily had your eyes on these guys

and we're trying to compete, but you, as you said, you were trying to pirate their employees, pirate their business. Oh, I was an idiot. Going back, would you maybe say, you know, all right, so we've got this, you know, that was ego, now you've got wisdom.

If you were to go back to that age, would you possibly say, you know what, I don't like these guys, I don't like the way they're doing business, I believe I have a better way. I'm going to go in the same industry, but I'm going to start from scratch, get my own employees,

find my own supermarket's grocery stores to get from. Like, would they have left you alone? The reality of it is, is that at the, height that I had risen in, because I've actually thought about this, right? And so at at the level that I had risen, not only in that organization, but in the industry, right? I was, I was a perceived threat regardless of whatever. My best option was just go away. You're smart enough to go do something else, right? And go figure out what it is. And you had enough money

and I had plenty of money to do that, right? But I had fight left in me and I had, you know, again, the ego accompanied with resources is not a good, it's not a good mixture. And that's exactly, I would basically say walk away, right? Walk away, let the opportunities come to you, figure out, just figure out how vulnerable you really are. Evaluate that. You know, I had dinner with a guy last night, and it's no point in mentioning his name.

You and I are going to go to dinner tonight. Maybe we'll talk about that. But he said, you know, I ended up, so he reached out to me on social media. He's like, hey, I really love what you're all about. We'd love to connect with you. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm from another country.

I'm opening up a location here in these states in L.A. Cool, man. Let's meet up. You know, I want to encourage other entrepreneurs, and he had his poop in a group, and I'm not stupid. There might be some value there, whether he becomes a coaching client,

whether he becomes an ally of some sort. Maybe there's just something I can learn from him. Like at 45, now, like, I always show up as a white belt and go, what can I learn from you? At 25, it was a different story, right? I was like, let me just flex on you for a moment. Right? Now I don't give a shit, man, right?

I don't give a shit. And I was like, someone's got something I'm going to learn from you. And then if I could add value to your life, well, that's great too. If I can't. Anyway, so very quickly. So he's 29 years old and he's seen a lot of success, financial success in his business. And he goes, yeah, I went and visited your friend there. And he drops the name.

And he goes, I just couldn't believe that he was running his business that way. And then he was doing that in his warehouse while other people were just like working. And, you know, it seems like he was trying to do everything and he's not outsourcing enough. And then he drops the other guy's name. And then I went to this guy. So what he was doing with me, basically, hey, I'd love to meet you, da-da-da. He goes, I wasn't impressed with him. And then when I dinner with him, I wasn't impressed.

And then when I went to that guy's business, I wasn't impressed. And so I got this feeling like, you know, this dude is going to walk away dissatisfied from everything because he's convinced that his way is the best way. And that everything outside of his way, because the guys he mentioned were very successful, were dudes that we hang out with. Right. And I was like, well, that's interesting. I wonder how he's going to feel walking away from me, except I don't give two shits. It doesn't matter. And so I just stopped talking and I started asking more questions. Well, tell me more. Tell me more. Just to see, like, where he was coming from. And I realized very quickly that he had a chip on his shoulders. So they had escaped from another country, went to this other country. And he was the oldest of the siblings, which means that he had to carry. all the burden from the family, and he was raised in this other country. Very much, so what he connected with me on, that I'm an immigrant to the United States, he was an immigrant to this other country in Europe, and he connected with me on that level,

except where I'm just like, happy go lucky, let's go, let's all make money together. He's got a chip on his shoulder in a way that he has a point to prove to anyone, and anyone is everyone's adversarial with him, even if we're not in the same industry. And I very quickly realized, like, this dude has to be humbled. And interestingly, he's 29, you were 30 when that happened, And so that story that you said reminded me of that. And this is a message to everyone watching this and listening to this. Like what Kent just shared with you, I've had a very similar experience.

I've shared with you in past episodes. Realized that even if you're right doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to win. Sometimes you just have to bow out and move on to the next thing. Because if you try and hold your ground against someone who's got more zeros in the bank account or they have more leverage in an industry, they're better known. They're going to bleed you. They're going to bleed you. And unfortunately, I see this guy going there, but that's his problem, not ours.

But it's a great lesson for anyone. Their 20s and early 30s. And I always find this in that age group, 20s and early 30s. By about 37, 38, I start seeing people shifting their attitude. Like, hey, maybe I don't know it all. Maybe I can learn from someone else. Like, for me, it happened through a series of anxiety attacks. For my friend Craig Ballantin, series of anxiety attacks.

You know Joel Marion? Yeah. Joe Marion, it happened to him just through just some, other personal problems he was having. But 37, 38 is that age range that I find that wisdom begins to creep in on us if we've been. Have you found that?

Oh, of course. Yeah. And it's only, you know, I'm so much better in my 40s than I ever was in my 20s. For obvious reasons, you know, you learn all those lessons and you gain all that wisdom and that knowledge base. But, yeah, for sure, your, I think it's a priority shift. I think it's also, you know, through that,

you probably have had some knowledge. knocks. Yeah. And those knocks have a tendency to kind of knock some sense into your little. Yeah. And, you know, the, the, the big last, I will tell you that when you, when you're in your, at least for me, when I was in my 20s and I was invincible, I truly did not believe I could, I didn't think I could lose, right? And I mean, it was, I was really, I really believed that I was invincible. I was so convinced of it. And so getting knocked down and getting knocked down to the level I got knocked down quite literally losing it all and losing all my relationships in the process was the best thing that ever happened to me. But, and I would argue that, you know, even for some of the people

that are watching this, remembering that that can happen is really, really good advice. And you're not just losing relationships. And, you're not just losing relationships and money and time, you're losing, you know, your reputation. Your identity. Your identity, right? Everything that you find to find self-gratification is just gone. Yeah. And it's really hard. Dude, so to that point, actually, and I think the theme of this show is really about, like, humility. Show up with humility, realize what priorities are, and then act on those priorities because tomorrow's not guaranteed. There's a coaching client that I have. He's in the Midwest. And he does really well in business, a few million dollars a year, maybe three to four million dollars a year apparel company.

And small little warehouse, everything's tight, you know, everyone's working hard like little elves and shipping stuff out and printing shirts and shipping stuff out. And he decides that I'm going to get a 40,000 square foot warehouse. And then he gets a 40,000 square foot warehouse. And you and I know this being in our 40s, he's in his early 30s. It ended up costing him more than he thought. The construction took longer and cost more than he thought. The permitting from the city so that he can have UPS trucks come and going took longer than he thought. The loan that he was going to get from the bank was less than he thought.

It gets better. He signed a big deal and got a big advance from a company that he was going to make sure it's for, only to find out that that company then quickly went out of business. So he got a big check from them, but there was no continuing big checks. So he went and bought a McLaren on a lease. Oh. And he was posting up pictures on Instagram, and this just hurts my heart. But it has to happen.

And I hope this story serves the story of Kent and mine and the sky I told you guys about from Europe. And now this story from the Midwest, month number four, the McLaren gets repossessed. Because he either has to pay the lease on that or he has to pay for another month of standing that 40,000 square foot warehouse. Right. Now, here's a crazy thing. He's not only my coaching client, we here at Fit Body Boot Camp headquarters are looking to possibly partner with him to make all of our Fit Body Boot Camp gear because we've outgrown that.

And so we don't want to do it in-house anymore. We've got all these franchise locations across the United States. We just want to outsource it. And now I'm thinking, do I want him to take that gig? Is he going to be around? Right. You know, and it's an unfortunate thing because ego does a scary thing because he wanted to have a car parked in the warehouse. house, door open vertically, him looking at his iPhone.

The cool pick. Right? So he could post it on social media and a bunch of people that he doesn't know. You live in Snowy Midwest. When are you going to drive that fucking thing anyways, right? Get a fucking truck. You have a truck. Anyways.

And I share that because it's a lesson that I see people need to learn through falling into it instead of just watching. I mean, there's a lot of people that we know, right? And we see this, especially with social media, that are clearly playing up to a game of keeping up with the Joneses or whatever it is, creating these outside appearances with their businesses instead of facing the fact that the business is on the ropes or whatever. I mean, getting humbled, getting knocked down. I mean, it doesn't happen to you. It happens for you. It does.

Right? It does. And there's a reason. And so to act as if the lesson isn't being learned is only, you're only dared, you know, you're going to repeat it. And there's a reason I don't go drive the supercars and all the Ferraris and everything else is because I did all that stuff in my 20s. And so in my mind, there's this whole negative association. Like, I'm never going back to that guy. I don't want to be that guy ever again.

There you go. And so that's, you know, I'm just not that I'm judging anybody. Right. Everybody do whatever you want to do. But for me personally, that lesson was, that scar runs very, very deep, right? I'm always in touch with it of how fast that can happen, how quickly life can change. Because, again, for 13 years, basically for at least 10 of those 13 years, I never made less than a million dollars in many of those years. Towards the end, I was making multiple millions, right? And in your 20s, making that kind of money on top of the world, I mean, it was.

It was a great life, and I believed all of it. You believed all of it. Guys, listen to what he just said. Like, there's so much wisdom in the words coming out. He believed all of it, meaning there was a charade happening. Right? I just 100% believed the success was because of me, so therefore I could continue to just replicate it. And quite frankly, had the track record to prove it.

You know, I meet with... Right, 17 to 30. I mean, that's quite the track. guys all the time like I did I've been doing this for for five years it's not going anywhere I got this oh that was me that was the guy that was the guy that was the guy that did not believe that something could go off the rails and oh by the way it just did and it went in a big big way and I think that that's a I'm very grateful that that happened to me because I wouldn't be the guy that I am today if it hadn't happened to me and and to that point let's circle back

to who you are today because the lessons that you learned as an entrepreneur the lessons of hard work all those lessons stay the the being humble right learning how to manage money, how to get your money to work for you, which is what led to real estate. And then of course those two traumatic situations that took place that we talked about earlier on in the episode with your uncle passing away who was a mentor to you and the airplane falling out of the sky. Thankfully you guys survived. What is your lifestyle today?

Like what does the average day, average morning look like? Well, I moved to San Diego, so I ran a business. Because can I tell you something? Because if I just see you in a grocery store, there's nothing on you that tells you me this guy's a multi-millionaire living like on the water in San Diego, real estate mogul. And this is honestly why I'm attracted to when we first met and then when we went out with you, me, Ed Milette, Weatherford Lewis House, we went out. I was like, I like this guy. There's no flashing because you don't need to. You've been there and you know how it tastes.

Right. Yeah. I mean, and again, it tastes good in the moment. But again, I have this kind of negative thing associated with it. I make a point of not ever wearing a watch. I wear a bracelet that says the time is now, and I kind of make a joke that every time I look at my wrist, I'm right. Right. The time is now. That's right. And so I am, I, my life today, I moved to San Diego eight years ago, and it was a complete lifestyle move, right? I knew I could move my business from Florida over here. I moved there because it's where I wanted to be, right? Back to that whole congruent thing. This is after the plane. I was like, I've talked about, my wife and I've talked about our perfect day, our perfect, you know, life.

And it has always involved being in California, yet here I am putting it off. So no more. And so we put our house up for rent. I was like, if it rents, you know, in the next month or so, that's God telling us we need to move. It rented in two days. Whoa. Okay. So we need to move, right. And copy that, God. Message set. And so we packed it up. We moved out to La Jolla, a little village there in La Jolla called Bird Rock. And the reason we moved there is because I knew I wanted to, Walk my kids to school every day. I knew I wanted to be able to walk to the office every day. Moved out there and immediately sold my car. It was important to me to have this kind of, to try to create as close as I could to this perfect life that I designed in my head. Like in my head, I always wanted to be right next to or on the beach. I wanted to surf and get in the water every day.

I wanted to be able to walk to the coffee shop with my wife. I wanted to walk my kids to school, walk to my office. Not that, you know, not necessarily a lifestyle business, but that the lifestyle part of my life really mattered to me, right? I wanted to soak up life. I didn't want to be stuck in a car for two hours every day. I didn't want any of that because I'd had it. And so, you know, we found the perfect little spot. We moved there.

And so my day now consists of that. Like, I walk my little girl to the elementary school. My older one is now in high school, so I have to drive her. But my gym is 500 yards away. My office is 500 yards away. I'm a 49-year-old guy that rides a skateboard to work. How cool is that? And I live directly on the beach.

Two breaks right behind my house. I get to do whatever I want to do, how I want to do it. That's just what's important to me now, right? I want to make sure that the days that I live are the days that I'm proud to live, right? That it actually matters to me, spending time with my kids. And I did one of the regrets as I was. building that business the first time in my 20s is that, you know, I had a young son at the time. And I took a lot of pride in being at the office at 5.30 in the morning and leaving at 8.30 at night,

you know, first one in and last one out. I wore it as a badge of honor, like a total douchebag. And a lot of that was missing really important times with my son. And so I promised my wife and my kids that will never happen in. I got, again, I got an opportunity to write some wrongs. And I try, try to make the most out of those, right? My business doesn't suffer for that at all. My business and my schedule are designed around making sure that those things happen in my life. Because those bring a lot of balance to me. They make sure that I'm the guy that shows up and does what he needs to do because I know I've got these other boxes checked that are really,

really important to me. The lesson I learned is when I lost that whole business, right? Think about it. It's much worse when you think about that, oh, in building this business, I got divorced from my high school sweetheart. And I have my son who hardly recognizes me. But we have this trick we play in ourselves where I'm doing it for them. At some point, they're all going to get it, right? What does that come from? Why do we do that? I don't know. It's just the dumbest thing.

It's the excuse, it's the story we tell us. Are we fucked up, and we know it's a fucked up thing to say that I'm just locked on, I'm obsessed. This is, I'm insecure, and this is how I value, get my identity, and so, but I have to say that it's for my family to sound nobody. I'm embarrassed by it now, but back then, I remember those conversations.

I absolutely did that. And I would even say things like, you know, so that my child doesn't, have to be in daycare. Well, that's great. I would say it that way, but then my child was also without a dad. You know, I saw more time with my daughter, who's my second child, than my son, and I can never get those times back. Yeah, they don't come back. Like, my kids will never suffer. Oh, but you know they are, right? Yeah. Yeah, they're not suffering in a daycare, but they're suffering without daddy. Who was actually believing this nonsense? And so doing that, to me, the end justified the means, right?

So I was like, well, I'm millions of dollars coming in, very successful, an entire industry. I'm the golden boy of this whole industry. I can do whatever I want to do until I couldn't, until it was all gone. And by the way, not only it was it all gone, but the other stuff I left in the wake was all gone. And so that was a huge awakening for me. I was like, second round, that'll never happen, right? My family is always front and center. That's what matters to me most.

And I don't care what business it is. Good for you. So I just have a weird question to ask because it's rare for people to move from Florida to Southern California because usually the other way. We know a few people who have moved from Southern California to Florida and you know

you obviously understand money. Let's talk about that for a moment. And when a dear friend of mine well Frank, Frank, Frank, Frank, recently moved out. I'm like, Frank, what the fuck are you doing? Like, it's human there. You don't want to move there.

Like you come here, we work out together, we crack jokes, and we have a good time. I'm not coming out there to fucking visit you. It's going to be rare. I see once a year, maybe you come out here, whatever. And of course it didn't work. And it fell on deaf ears.

But when people, and I know he also, So Natalia, you know, spent a lot of time in Miami, his wife. So that's that. But of course, he pointed to the fact that, well, hey, man, as he calls me, Beidrof. He goes, hey, Beidrof, it's a long story there. Ronnie Coleman. You know, Ronnie Coleman is?

So Ronnie Coleman is like eight or nine times Mr. Olympia, giant dude. One time I had him at a live event. And for some reason, Kern is a big fan of Ronnie Coleman. And not that he's into body building, but he's interesting. Yeah. And Ronnie Coleman is just like southern, big black dude, southern accent. and he's just one of those guys that's got work ethic. I know I'm deviating, but it's a great story to tell,

and our audience is going to love it. And so, you know, I love building muscle. I love working out. And so I had Ronnie Coleman at Fitness Business Summit as like the keynote guy, and I was going to Q&A him. And he's like, well, I worked at a pizzeria. And when I was tired of eating pizza, I went to the Burger King across the street,

and I said, I'll trade you pizza for burgers. And then I built muscle that way. And then when I was tired of eating burgers, I traded pizza for KFC. Like, he could just eat anything. and he would work out and build muscle and became an 8-time Mr. Olympia, right? And so for fun, I was like, hey, Ron, I need you to do me a favor.

Can I just hold the camera up and then just make a video like, hey, Frank Kern. And Ronnie Coleman has a little saying. He's like, it's lightweight, baby, lightweight. And then he'll like squat a million pounds. But before he does, deadlift it or squat it, he'll yell out that it's lightweight just to fuck with whoever's in the gym, right? Because it's not lightweight. The bar is bending.

And so, you know, Kern and I would just text you to her lightweight, lightweight baby and then uh so i'm like hey ron i'm just make a video for kern and my friend frank like so he's like hey frank kern i'm here with bedrof cool you in as well i'll let you know it was lightweight baby so since then kern calls me bedrofe as to just to fuck with me uh so long story short he moves a lot of people is it what and you designed a lifestyle so i'm asking you this you decided hey i'm going to move from florida to california i'm going to design a lifestyle the gym's 100 yards away the office is 100 yards away or 500 yards away walk my daughter to school, the other one I drive, et cetera.

What's more important, lifestyle or to save 8% on your personal taxes? Well, for me, clearly, it's lifestyle. Okay, but, you know, if you're advising some 20, 30-year-olds. I think it's a business decision. I mean, or it's a, I shouldn't even say that. I think it is a- Well, then you should be in Florida if it's a business decision. I think it's a personal decision.

Yeah, let me, I was going to re-say that. You know, there are people that the business side of it makes more sense to them, right, than the personal side, right? and you know Frank and I talked about when he moved when he moved out there and of course I told him all the reasons he was going to hate it probably like you did I mean it's humid it's bugs it's you're not going to be able to be outside right it's not California right and but you know at the end of the day that that savings and or the opportunities that were going to be afforded them out there were greater than than what he was within what he was doing here and frank's also kind of somebody

that a lot of times he's very antsy he's one of those guys that he's got to be moving he's a mover and a shaker, right? Which I love about him. And so, you know, part of part of the draw to San Diego certainly was the lifestyle part of it. But equally, I needed to get, I was a big fish in a small pond, right? My personal belief is that, one, I wasn't congruent. Two, I needed the lifestyle that I needed to have. And three, that I felt like that if I could get out here around people that I had a ton of respect for, right? Roland Frazier, who's a mentor of mine, Frank, Thann, some other guys that I had these really great relationships with that getting in close proximity, proximity is power, right, and getting close and being able to instigate more activity around

that, that the rest would kind of take care of itself, right? You'd make up that 8% of it. Yeah, I didn't blindly move out here and not having any clue what I was going to do, right? I clearly saw that there was an opportunity to kind of leverage all of these relationships and figure out a way to make some stuff happen that would clearly take care of any of my additional expense, tax expense. And the lifestyle was such a big deal to me. You know, in South Florida, we lived less than a mile from the beach.

But, you know, you could walk around and enjoy the outdoors and do it three months out of the year, maybe four. Right. Here it's every day. Right. And again, it was just a, I will never forget right before I moved out here. or the year before I moved out here, I was at an event with Fan, and we were sitting out on a patio, and it was August, and we were sitting out at this hotel, and the fire pit was on.

And I'm like, bro, it's August, right? It's 62 degrees. We're having a glass of wine. We're sitting here. This is exactly what I want, right? This is what I want every night to be like. And again, at that point in my life, I was just like, I have the ability to create it,

and I would be irresponsible if I didn't. And that's just the way I felt. I was compelled. I just felt like I needed to move. What a great place to wrap up. You had the ability to create it, and it would be irresponsible if you didn't. Powerful.

What am I missing? What did I not ask you, that I should ask you, that would add value to our Empire show listeners and viewers? Probably the only other thing I would touch on, and we kind of touched on this at your event, is that one of the things, part of what has helped,

to create my life and has been very valuable in my life is the real estate element, right, the passive part of real estate. And I think that anybody that is watching this, if you're not going out there and actively trying to create a passive element to your business, if you're just trading hours for dollars, then it's, you know, everything I've talked about gets infinitely more challenging to do, right? Because, you know, for all the obvious reasons. And so I think that you need, you have to have that part of your life well thought out and moving in an intentional way. I mean, something has got to be going. You've got it, whether it's investing in real estate, whether it's investing in, you know, other cash flow opportunities, things that are

helping to ultimately offset all of your expenses and then, you know, then some. That, Having that weight lifted off of you to where you just know, that is an extremely powerful mechanism to give you a lot of power to go and make the decisions that you need to make. As long as you've got that holding you back constantly, well, I've got to do this for the job, got to do that. Everything I talked about sounds good in practice, but until you've kind of got that weight lifted off you, it's a little bit hard to implement. Yeah, it's out of reach. Out of reach. Now, how does our audience reach out to connect with you, find you? I'm easy to find online. Kent Clothier.com, Facebook, Kent Clothier, Instagram, Kent Clothier.

The name of the company is real estate worldwide. I mean, I'm easy. Just look it up. I'm there. Well, Ken, thank you so much for spending time with us on the Empire show. And ladies and gentlemen, watching and listening, thank you so much for giving us your time and attention. I know you'd love this episode. And if you did, I want you to take a screenshot as you're listening to it or watching it

and share it in your stories, share it on your timeline. Be sure to tag me, tag Craig Ballantinthine and, of course, tag Kent Clothier. and don't forget to tag your mama. We'll see you later.