Blaze Your Own Trail - A 25 + Year Entrepreneur with Jeff Lopes

Episode Date: May 4, 2021

About Jeff: As a proud father of two, family man, Jeff has built an impressive resume with over 24 years as a Entrepreneur.  His passion for brand building has led to globally known brands like Kimurawear from his home basement to a multi-million dollar corporation that has sold well over a quarter million pairs of boxing gloves worldwide since inception.   In 2008 when Jeff’s second child was born, the family faced a life changing moment.  He quickly realized that in order to focus on his son, he needed to alter his business paths and passive income revenues became a goal.  That became the inception of True Blue Homes and the investment into Vacation Rental's began.  The portfolio is now filled with properties in the Beautiful Northern parts of Ontario, Canada from The Blue Mountains to Muskoka. ​Over the last few years, Jeff Lopes has allocated time towards giving back to young Entrepreneurs, by Coaching and Mentoring. Jeff stated his Purpose is fatherhood and passion is to teach fellow Father Entrepreneurs a balance between Dad / Business, guiding them to build family memories, financial freedom and happiness. In this episode we discuss: Jeff's upbringing  His thoughts about school When he 1st became an entrepreneur Where he developed his skills A hard journey with his Son Some context into all of his companies Info about his show And more!  Connect with Jeff: https://www.jeffknowsinc.com/ Connect with Jordan: LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanjmendoza/⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/therealjordanjmendoza/⁠ Clapper: ⁠https://clapper.vip/jordanjmendoza⁠ Join my Facebook Group: ⁠https://www.facebook.com/groups/linkedintrailblazers⁠ Website: ⁠https://www.blazeyourowntrailconsulting.com Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Are you ready to find out how to blaze your own trail? Welcome to the Blaze Her Own Trail podcast with your host, Jordan Mendoza. In this podcast, Jordan interviews people from around the world to find out about their journey to success. If you're looking for valuable content with actionable advice, you've come to the right place. And now your host, Jordan Mendoza. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. I've got a very special guest today.

His name is Jeff Lopes. And I'm going to give him just a second to tell you who he is and what he does today. First off, thank you, Jordan, for having me. We had an epic conversation yesterday. We were talking before we went on air about 15 minutes a day. We could probably have a whole conversation even without this podcast. So great communication, great dude. I appreciate you having me on.

My name is Jeff Lopes. I'm an entrepreneur. I've been an entrepreneur for 25 years. Actually prior, I started my first business at 17. so you could probably say 27 years. And I'm just a proud dad of two amazing kids, been married for 17 years, and based on Toronto, Canada, business coach, author, podcast, host.

So a whole bunch of hats. And I'm a loving life. That's pretty much me in a nutshell. Love it, man. Love it. And we're definitely going to dive into all the amazing things that you're up to today. But before we do that,

my favorite part of the show is I like to rewind, man. I like to take it back. Let's get to those adolescent years, elementary to high school. So what kind of kid were you? Did you, were you into sports? Were you more into academics? Let's give the audience some context into Jeff here. I never liked school. And I think we had this conversation yesterday. I was never, I really, I think you mentioned this yourself. I was never, I was good in school. I hated school.

So I was a kid that just did the mere minimal to get through, but I always did well on it. And and I had that pressure coming from immigrant parents where my mom was like, You're so smart. You've got to be a doctor, you've got to be a lawyer. And going through high school, I was always a hustler. I was always the type of kid where I had to be the first to do everything of all my buddies. 16th birthday. Back then, you would take your 365, which is a written license.

And then you could automatically, as soon as you pass, I could go away your license. I turned 16. January 25th, my birthday turned 16. I told all my buddies I was going to get a tattoo. They all thought I was crazy. We all took the public transit down to Toronto, went to a place called away. I got a Superman tattoo at my 16th birthday, shit myself, because there was this big, huge dude getting a redone tattoo and I didn't know back then, getting a redone. It hurt a lot. So I saw

them like moaning and growing and I'm like, what am I doing? And I've always, and my nickname going through high school was always Superman because I did something really done when I was a kid. And I'll get into that in a sec. And so I got my tattoo. I got my 365. Three days later, I took my dad's car, went out, got my license. Four days later, had my first car, which was an I rock Camaro. So at 16, I had a teapop white I rock Camaro. And that was me in a nutshell. I was always the type where I had to do everything on my own. And it never followed. Actually, my nickname in high school was the loner because I would be the type of guy in a party or anything. And I would just pick up and this walk out because I would just be bored of people. So I've

always been the type where I had to be stimulated and I had to be trying something new and doing something new. And that led to my first business at 17 when I started a security company at 17, ran that for about a year and a half, had all my buddies from high school working for me, and ended up selling that. And the gentleman that bought that company till this day still runs the company is called Street Security Services. So that's me in the nutshell growing up. Wow, wow. So, man, a lot of synergies between us, right?

Because I was that same kid in school. If it was a class that I enjoyed, I would do really well. And I would apply myself. If I didn't enjoy it, I would just be kind of my mind would be wandering. I'd be goofing off, break dancing in the hallway. You know what I'm saying? I would do other things because just you, my mind is constantly moving. I'm constantly like thinking of that next thing.

You know, thinking of the next thing I'm going to do. Let's talk a little bit. I know we talked off air yesterday or maybe when you had me on your show. So let's talk a little bit more about that hustle because I know you said you started a company, but prior to that company, you sold some other things, didn't you? So you've been kind of selling things all throughout your life. And I want to just give the audience some context into that. And what lessons have you learned from face-to-face communication for pretty much your entire life?

And where would you be if you didn't have that skill set? I've always been the type where I realize the value of exchange for money. So essentially your time. So at 13, 14 for two summers, my mom used to run a daycare center. And I actually worked for two summers at daycare. So my friends were all partying and having fun all summer. I worked for two summers. 13 and 14 years old.

I worked for two summers, made enough money. So when I was 16, I actually paid my own first, which wasn't a lot. It was like $2,600. I think I paid for that Camaro, but I paid for a cash and I paid for my first in your insurance. Love that. I did that. But on weekends, I was huge into sports cards back then. And sports cars were a massive, massive thing.

Every where you looked when I was at age, you'd find a sports car store or a sports car show on the weekends. It was just a massive industry. And my dad would drop me off at a card show every Saturday morning. We'd find a local one. I go there with like 20 bucks. I'd come back with $100,150. I'd open packs, sell stuff.

So it was always that hustle mentality. Even when I was like 14, 15, I used to get my dad to drive me to garage sales. I tried to find things I could sell on eBay and I would turn around and sell on eBay. So I've always had that hustler mentality. But I realized very quickly from a young age, the importance of sales and how to talk to people and how to communicate with people, how to look at people, how to build a rapport. And I didn't know the words like rapport, commonality. I didn't know those things, but I knew how to do it from a young age.

And when I turned 19, I was called an indirect mentor. This guy Steve, he was a sales guru. And he used to sell teaching sales tackets to gyms. So it would be walkthroughs to gyms. He would run sales conferences for gym owners. And I connected with him. I had a consultant company called Millennium Bodies, which was doing gym consulting, adding personal training to the back end of gyms.

And I ran a personal training to business at the same time. I had six trainers working for me for in-home training. in-home training. And I connected with him and I learned a lot off him. And as crazy as at 19, he was teaching me NLP, which is neuroleguistic programming. I didn't know what it was. I don't think he even knew the terminology of it, but he was teaching it to me. And all these years later, close to like 25 years later, I actually just got certified as NLP master. And as I was doing the course, I'm like, this guy 20-something years ago was teaching all these things, a commonality, building rapport, the eye contact, but how to shift somebody's mind, how to reshift, how to reframe somebody's

mind. Like all these things, this guy was teaching me. And I ended up at 1920 standing on stage in front of 300 people teaching sales conferences with them. So it was crazy as is how important sales was to me as a kid. And I took to it very quickly at 19. And I think that's something I've had this conversation with many people. And I think you'll be on it to a T is through high school. I think a lot of the things we learn in our educational system is complete waste for shit. I'm looking at my daughter and she's looking and she's going to just turned grade nine and she's doing algebra and I'm like if you're not going to be a scientist or if you're not going to be an accountant like really do you need this stuff I go they should be teaching you sales teaching you public speaking there's so many things in high

school we should be teaching our kids that are going to prepare them so much more for the real world and we're not doing that and I think that's why a lot of people like ourselves are natural entrepreneurs just get wound and lost in the whole educational system. 1,000% yeah. I mean, what they're teaching is the same stuff they've been teaching. You know, but have the times changed? The times have dramatically changed. Why is there no class on personal branding?

Why is there a class on financial literacy? Why is there a class on cryptocurrency? I mean, these are the things that are relevant to the society today. And so that's, those are the things that should be taught, you know? And that's why less and less people are now even thinking about going to college, because they're like, man, I could go to YouTube and learn this skill set and go apply it and actually get results. Right? Like I have, you know, I have my kids.

They want to do something. They're like, oh, go to YouTube. I figure it out, learn it. And they do it. It's like they've got an instructor like that. How many times have you myself? I'll be like, I got to do something at home or I got to change something on the car. I got to figure out how to do something in the car.

I'm like, oh, YouTube video. Like it's insane. Right. It's insane. It's insane. It's literally. In a split second, you can have and be taught by somebody how to do something. 100%.

Almost anything, you know, which is super, super crazy. So I want to go back to what you said because you're a thousand percent right. Those fundamental smile, eye contact, enthusiasm, how to overcome objections, your mindset. I learned all those things too. Like I started learning that at 14 when I went door to door signing people up for newspaper subscriptions And man, like, I heard every no in the book. But what did that do? Jeff, for 10 years later, when I heard no, it was like, these are easy.

They fall right off of my back. So do you think that getting so much rejection in those adolescent years really mentally prepared you for rejection later on life? I think it's a combination, right? I mean, you're constantly learning until this day. I mean, we'll both, you have to admit, you're constantly, I'm. yesterday I sat there and I'm and I'm and I'm and I'm, I've been doing this for a couple months trying to get into this new thing and I'm like it's not going as smooth I thought it would

be and and have that self confidence where it's like this should be working. You're constantly learning. You're constantly learning to take that rejection and turn it into an actually positive experience and actually motivation. Right. So I mean, as a kid, you're, these lessons are are almost indirect. but they're constantly building you as an individual, building your character,

building how much motivation you have and how much drive you have to doing something, right? And that's the importance of everybody's story is everybody has a different story. And some are more intense than others. And we talked about your story on my podcast. You've had a different upbringing than I did. I had a very positive upbringing.

My parents were very hardworking blue collar. we didn't have much. We would get two gifts a year, one for Christmas, one for my birthday. That was it. But I never, ever felt like I didn't have enough because the amount of love my parents gave me and the amount of time they spent with me.

So everybody has a different upbringing. Some have a more tragic story. Some have an upbringing, some people have a more inspiring story. But you have to embrace your story. And you have to take the lessons you've learned from your story. And the lessons that we learned, if they're negative,

you turn them into a positive and use them and influence us to make us who we are today, right? I mean, you look at a lot of people have been through a lot, but the ones that have been through a lot, if they know what to take that and take those lessons and use them to revert themselves into a positive experience and say, you know what, I'm the man I am today because that person treating me like shit,

and now I don't want to treat my wife like shit or my dad. So you take those experiences as a kid and revert them into a positive experience that's going to change your outcome and change how you perceive people, then everything in life happens for a reason. 100%. Yeah. And, you know, you got, everybody has a choice, right?

You can play the victim card and woes me. These things happened to me or these things happened for me because they gave me the strength that I need to get through these things that I haven't even faced yet. Right? So again, it's all perspective. It's all what's your mindset. But the more that you can do exactly what you said, Jeff, and turn that negative to a positive and using it as fuel and motivation for all the things that you want to do, man, that's a big unlock. You know, that I know that's helped me in my life tremendously.

Do you not feel, Jordan, that social media, and I had this conversation with somebody the other day, social media rewards victims more than heroes? I mean by that is if somebody puts a post saying, oh, I have. just lost my job people like I'm so sorry you'll get a hundred hundred comments somebody says I just got a job you'll get one comment good job like it's they reward you for playing a victim card and I think people see that and people's natural subconscious minds want approval and they think if I should a victim mentality people are going to prove me and accept me and I think that is one of the negative aspects and there's only positive aspects of social media I think that's one of the negative aspects of social media is people rewarded for playing victims.

I can't stand it. Be honest. Well, guess who's rewarding him the victims, right? Right? Because there's a lot of victims out there. So it makes sense that they resonate with that and they're going to go to bat for them because they're in that same space. Yeah.

They haven't elevated beyond that space. But yeah, social media, it can be good. It can be bad. It's a tool, right? It's all about how do you use it? I know you use it for awesome things like sharing, giving advice, post a pictures with the family. I like to do that stuff. Like I recently posted a video of me breakdancing just to kind of show you did I got to see that some of that yeah some of that you know

style and flavor and just you know give people all of you not all at once yeah but listen when people get to actually know the real you it's a lot easier to do business with you so let's let's go back so 19 you essentially have a business that you've now sold and and say it again what you said is this business still exists. Yeah, the gentleman about 25 years. Yeah. 20,

23, 24 years later. So, so for the audience, Jeff at 19, created a business that still exists. At 17, sorry, Jeff, created a business that still exist in 2021.

Yeah. I mean, that right there shows why you're still a serial entrepreneur, why you still have multiple business that have been sustainable. because you were able to do that at a time when most people were thinking about partying and girls, you were thinking about creating sustainable feature for yourself, which is, which is phenomenal.

So do you attribute a lot of that mindset to mom and dad? Did they ingrain some of that, that confidence in you to know that you could do it then? I never even thought about that. I mean, reality is my parents, like, besides my grandfather, and then we talked a little about, besides my grandfather, my grandfather was only other entrepreneur in my family bloodline. Like literally my father's bloodline. Everybody's nine to five blue collar workers. And I saw how much my dad worked.

My dad was working at Ford Motors, great income. He was working two weeks, day, two weeks night. Two weeks a month, I went to see my dad. Not by his choice. He had to do what he had to do to provide. And my mom would leave the house super early. She was a daycare supervisor. She was doing, she spoke quite a few lines.

She was translating at schools. and courts and stuff. So my parents were out of the house all the time. And growing up, it was that mindset where it's like, I wanted that financial freedom. I wanted to. And it's like I understood that from a very young age where I didn't want to be the one taking the orders.

I wanted the one being the orders. I wanted to be the leader. And I think that was even my upbringing. Just as a kid playing sports, I always wanted to be the captain. In class, I always wanted to be the captain. wanted to be the first one up the stage. Like, I, that's just, I guess, engraved to me as a kid, right?

And there's certain little lessons that happened when you're a kid. And you talked to the defining moments. And I have this one moment and this dumbest story, but it's just, these are these things that lock in your head. And I don't know if we talked about this or not, but I was not 15, maybe 15. I was working at a department store called Zellers here. And I was a stock boy there for a few. months and it was end of day nine o'clock in night or something the store is closed and I had to bring all the skids out and I was bringing a skid of bleach and I was pumping the skid of bleach and I was like I wanted

to go my dad was waiting outside I think to pick me up I was like I was like 15 or something like that and I'm rushing with the skid and I turn the corner and the whole off the pump truck the whole skid falls over and bleach everywhere and the whole department store it was a women's clothes area I destroyed so much clothes and the manager comes everybody comes running this big bang all the employees and the manager looks at me. And I still remember this guy. His name was Texerra. I still remember his look on his face and he looked at me with his disappointment.

He says, people like you are going to be accomplished nothing in life. You're a complete loser. And I don't know why. That little thing locked in my head and it just resonated with me. And I'm like, this little piece of shit, because he's wearing a suit and tie at a department store is putting me down. And little stuff like that throughout my. years of having people tell me I was not going to be able to do it, just made me want it more and more and more and more and more and more. So I think that's how I think a lot of us, and maybe I was always going to be a natural entrepreneur.

And maybe I would find reasons like that to push me and motivating me. I don't know what it was. But I've always had that mental drive where it's like I had to do something to prove to it. And it was more to prove to myself than anything, right? I love that man And I just got goosebumps because That's my Mrs. Green In my ninth grade

English teacher That caught me skipping school In the basement at the vending machines And brought the whole class And in front of the whole class said You're never going to mount to anything And I Brother

That fire has lived in me ever since that day Because I wanted to prove Yeah I wanted to prove her wrong You know because like I get negatively motivated by things like someone says I can't do it it's like challenge accepted let's do this right and so I have that same kind of negatively motivated competitive spirit where it's like all right you hold this let me do that you know what I'm saying you say I can't do it I'm going to prove you wrong so no I fully resonate with that man and

you know I don't know if it's a good thing that we let things fire us up like that but it's worked out so far so um all right so what so what happened next? So you sell that one. Okay. What, what happened next in terms of? I had finished high school. I started a, I started in college. I realized very quickly, college was something where I did it, I would say, be honest for my parents. They wanted me to go university. I graduated. I had enough of a grade that could have gotten to a decent university. But I didn't want to do it. So I went hands on to college. My parents had that mindset. It was like education, education. They were trying to push it on me. And,

At that point, I realized, like, right off the bat, I'm not going to work for nobody my whole life. And I couldn't, and it was almost like I was worried to tell my parents because they never, they weren't entrepreneurs. They didn't understand it. Obviously, fast-goated years later, they're so proud of me. And they're like, well, what are you going to do now? So things have changed. But at that point, I started college and I realized very quickly I couldn't go to college full time. It was driving insane.

So I actually transferred everything. And I graduated college all through summer in high school. And I started my full-time business, which was called Millennium Bodies, and that was a consulting personal training business. And at that time, a lot of the big box gyms didn't have personal training. This is going on 25 years ago. Now it's in every gym. And I realized that, and I thought this is a great, sustaining little income for these big box gyms. So I went and I started presenting these back-in system where I would build this back-in system. They'd give me an office. I would hire a sales staff. I would hire a couple trainers. When they'd come in the gym, they would be

forced to do an assessment. That assessment would turn around that $99 assessment. They would turn around and use that towards a tour personal training package. You don't have to pay it. We had this whole little sales thing and we started applying this and then all of a sudden the PAP which is the pre-authorized payment that walk in for the gym memberships. The back end, the personal training was making more than the front end and we started applying this into so many gyms and years later now it's something that's very common right. But so that was my gym. That was my consulting part. And then we did the sales training for the front end and then I had six trainers where I

I would get contracts for in-house training, and I would sell personal training packages, and then I would send the trainer to their house. And that business, I ended up not selling. I ended up shutting down that business because a couple of lawsuits, to be honest, I had a couple trainers that injured clients, and then they were coming after me insurance. The certifications weren't uncovering it. It was just a lot of stress and headaches. And then I had a couple trainers who were sleeping with their clients.

And it was just like, it was just like, it was more stress than anything. end up shutting that business and starting my next venture at that point. So talk a little bit about the dynamics of managing teams, right? Managing salespeople, managing trainers because, let's face it, it's not easy when you're dealing with multiple personalities, different people, different mindset. So what would maybe your top three tips be like looking at the hindsight of what you now know versus what you knew at 19 running having this consulting business about managing people what would be kind of be your top three tips so first off my mindset and i think this is pretty relevant with any

business i don't care if you're a billion dollar company i don't care if you're a mama pop a shop your biggest stress always is a voice okay that's this rule number one and anybody that says that is full of shit. I've learned over years how to properly run a team and this is something that took me years to learn. Don't get me wrong. It took me years to learn in a lot of stress and a lot of employees. In one year and one of my main companies come forward, I think we went through nine employees in one year in and out and the bare fact of retraining, reassessing, relearning, the money you're spending, the time you're spending was it was just going crazy. So I've learned a few things that now I do consistently. I've been doing this now for a few years. One is I have

company manuals. And for all positions, we build a company manual for a new position. So every single person in this office has a company manual. And that position from everything they do to day-to-day jobs and duties are all written in all their past. Everything is in there. So knock on where that person decides not to come back. Anybody could jump in and automatically just follow them and get through for the first little while. Love that. That's for a second. Every single person in my office learns everybody's job.

So every, my office is a loft setting. So we don't actually, I'm in the studio here, but I'm looking right across as a glass and it's all loft. So I sit with my staff, we have an open concept, kind of like the Google office. Our office overviews the warehouse, which is like it just, you can literally throw things up and down. It's just a fun environment. But what I do is. It reminds me of Rob Deerick's Fantasy Factory.

You remember that? But that's essentially what I try to do here. That's awesome. And what I do is every single employee that we hire, they actually go through training with all the employees. So all of a sudden, Tucker is one of my employees. Tucker is gone for a day or two. Dan could jump in and do the bare minimal to get his job done to help out for a day. So everybody can interact.

And as a boss, I know everything in this place. I could take over anybody's position in a spot. And I might not do it to the. level, but I know the very basics they get through just so the production or anything never stops. So having a team and training a team that everybody's could simulate teaching and working together is probably the most valuable thing. And then see the word I used team. This is something I learned about a couple of years ago is I used to treat everybody like a family. And I would be like these are my family. There's my things. And I treat everybody like just like my brother. And I realize

very quickly. There's nothing wrong with treating people great. That's that's rule number one. But I treat it now as a team. When I mean by that, I run it as a sports team. And when you run a sports team, I'll put a hockey. We're from Canada. I'll put that into for people to understand. You have four lines. Your first line, second line, third line, fourth line. Your first line is your stars. They're paid the most. They're your stars. They're the ones that get the most ice time. They're the ones that are going to are going to do majority of the scoring for you. But the fourth line are going to help kill penalties. They all have a role. So everybody in my office, I got my strongest, I got my weakest, but everybody has a role. And I'm not going to expect my fourth line

to do the exact same work as my first line. But at the end of the day, as a team, we have one objective to win a cup. We all have one objective. In the end of the year, we have our board. This is what we want to get accomplished this month in sales. This is what we want to do for customers. So we all have the same objective. The minute one person is not performing on the team, They're replaced. And everybody understands that. Everybody understands that they're replaceable by somebody else coming up. So as long as everybody runs it as a team, everybody knows their role and everybody

knows their level and everybody has one objective goal at the end, you're running a smooth operation. Love it. Love it. What great tips. And for everybody that's listening to this or you're going to watch this episode back, you know, that's a really, really brilliant framework, right? Because you're, for one, you put systems in place.

to make sure that no matter who comes in the door or who leaves, everybody's getting the content they need to be successful, right? I mean, how annoying is it when you start a job and your dang laptop's not ready? You don't have your passwords. Like, you're starting a new job. This should be less stressful, not more. So when you institute a system like that where it's literally plug and play, it makes it easier for everybody and it's sustainable.

So I love that. The other thing is making sure that you're a, part of the team like the way that you've designed your office it's literally designed so that everybody can see what everybody is up to it's very supportive and then having the team trained up on everything most people don't train up and it's one of the biggest mistakes that you can make because you're not building a bench you're not creating a sustainable business that can actually bring people up through the ranks right and When you're not doing that, because I'm sure you've done this the opposite, what happens, Jeff?

Oh, you fail. And you get in such situations where your business just declines very quickly. You all of a situation like this where we had one important person. They decide to wake up one day and go to another job or another opportunity, start their own business. Because, you know, it is every employee always thinks they could run the business. And then that's fine. You learn, you grow. You go on your own.

That's fine. it's a situation where we would be stuck and all of a sudden now we're trying to hire. We have that position. Who's going to do that job? Production slows down. Jobs get declined. We do a lot of customization, especially our graphic team. And we customized gyms in and out.

So all of a sudden our graphic guys gone. Now we're backlog two, three months of orders. So having somebody to jump in, having backups too. I have backups where we have backups on people we work with on Fiverr as well. and stuff like that where we'll throw them a little bone every once in a while just to make sure they're there. And if anything were to happen or we get overwhelmed with extra work, boom, it's still in production. They know our systems. They know what we want.

They know the style. They know the style. They have our logos. And they can do the work like this. 100%. Yeah. I don't care what business you're in. You're always going to have attrition.

That's a guarantee. And so if you don't have that bench, if you don't have those contractors, these people that can replace somebody. at the drop of a dime, like you said, work starts to get backed up. Other people get stressed because now they're having to overcompensate. So now they resent the other person that's not pulling their weight. So like, but when everything's in working order, different story. It's like a well-oiled machine. Everybody's on the same page hitting the common goal.

So love that, man. Love that. So let's talk a little bit about what was next, right? You got the fitness business. Some lawsuits happen, right? Shut that thing down. And so now what was kind of the next couple steps. Yeah.

I'll skip over a couple of business. That's fine. Yeah. I've had Sony little company. So in the process, 2006, I started a company called Camaro where. But in between that gap, I ran a events company. I've had two gyms. I built and sold.

And I had a couple other like T-shirts companies. I would, I love building things. So I would build something. We can tell, Jeff. We can tell. We build something till the point where I could profit off it. So I would get the trademarks, build the websites, build it, build the whole system, and then boom, try it.

So I like building stuff where I can hand it to somebody and they could automatically run it. I make a little profit off it. We move on to the next. Camorware was one of those goals. It was just a company that we were just going to build for fun. 15 years later, we're still running it. We've sold over 300,000 pairs of gloves in right across North America. We sell to about 1,800 gyms.

We run a full wholesale system to all the gyms. We design in-house. We manufacture overseas, but the overseas factory, we have a full different system. We actually buy our own raw material. We have our own machinery we pay for, and we pay a salary to somebody to overviews, everything. So we have a manager. Love that. So we have full control of our factory.

So we never, ever have any issues with production. And we built a system. And 15 years later, this is, Camoror has been the cash cow to everything, all my other ventures since then. And it's something where there's some certain times I sit there and like, What I'm going to do with this company five years, 10 years, 20 years from now? Is there an exit strategy? And every time we try to plan an exit strategy where I have somebody trying to buy in, I keep sitting back and like, you know what, this thing has so much more growth.

Let me just keep riding and see what happens. So that's where I am with that company. And through the process, nine years ago, 12 years ago, a little story, I'll run out. You know the whole thing of my son, but I'll do a little cold on it. My son was born. I almost lost my wife, my son the same night when. And he was born. He spent the first four months at sick kids hospital.

We almost lost him five, six times. Tons of little stories in there. When he was discharged, he was diagnosed with several palsy. So that became a purpose of mine. And family became a huge purpose of mine. So 12 years, I focused on fatherhood, studying parenting. And I took him from essentially a wheelchair to AFO to braces to at 12 years old. We were getting together to run our first marathon.

So it's been an incredible journey. And he's my absolute purpose. And he's my why. And through the journey, I realize I need a more passive. income so I really dove into real estate and particularly commercial and vacation real estate and I build a decent portfolio which is a huge part of our income now is is a sustainable income through the passive income through all the rentals so we run that as a company called true blue homes and that started about roughly about nine years ago awesome man well hey first of all you know with what you're

doing with your son just just incredible you know I mean to have someone almost not even make it to the world and then have some of the physical conditions. But what you did for this last 12 years, investing in him, making that a priority. Like that right there is probably what's helped him get through more than medicine. You know what I'm saying? More than any of the stuff. It's that relationship and that connection that you guys have been able to develop. So that's phenomenal.

And we could probably talk about that for 100 hours on how. amazing that is and what his life would be like if he didn't have you in his in his mom you know you know what honestly the truth is to this all jordan is two things one he doesn't realize that the lessons he's taught me have been more valuable than any business anything that anybody's ever taught me his mindset his will his love his unconditional desire to be someone and there's been we talked about this before moments i'm gonna talk about a few moments so When we got discharged from the hospital, it was that subconscious pain in my mind where I didn't want to see my son suffer that kind of triggered me. That was one of those moments that just triggered.

And I looked at my wife and I said to her, and I don't know if we talked about this, but I looked at my wife and I said to her that day when we got home, he was four and a half pounds. He was only supposed to be discharged of five pounds. So he was four months old, fit in the palm of my hand. We came home. He was, he didn't even, he didn't even swallow yet. So we were, we had to get these little toy. baby bottles, one ounce, and we would feed him half an ounce every few hours and he would rejurgulate, he would have a reflex because we had to teach him how to swallow. That was us at home

with a baby, four and a half pounds, teach him how to swallow. And I looked at my wife and I said, we, and I said, either I'm going to do this on my own or you're going to help me, but we're going to do everything we can because I do not want to be 60 years old or 55 years old and we see my son in a wheelchair and thinking, I didn't do everything I possibly could. So I didn't know his future. I didn't know he was going to be running. I didn't know anything, but I did know in my head that I didn't want the regret in my life, knowing that I didn't do everything I possibly could

and give him every opportunity I possibly could to succeed. That was not even a question. So I really locked that in my mind. That was a thing. So from day one, it was rolling his leg, censoring. It was therapies. It was, I did everything. I used to walk hands on it.

It was even the little goals, the first time we saw him laugh. And I still remember that moment. And my daughter, which is a year and a half year old, he was sitting in a baby stroller. And my daughter dropped a toy on a floor by accident. He just started laughing. And it was just like, we all started crying. That was the first time he laughed.

He was about a year old. So it was like these little bowls. Every little thing was a win. When he first balanced, it was a win. When he first took his first steps, it was a win. A huge win for us was, I remember the first day he had to wear his braces to school. And he was so embarrassed. And he was like, dad, it goes, I don't want to wear these.

I'm like, you have to wear these. You know tea. You have to wear them. And I go, this is part of your journey. And my wife's, okay, put on some pants on him so the kids won't see them. And I stood there for a second. I was like, you know what? Go up to your room and put on some fucking pair of shorts.

And he looked at me. I'm like, put on a pair of shorts. You're going to owe who you are. You're going to show everybody who you are. You're going to be proud of who the fuck you are. And if you have an issue with your braces tea, you're going to work your fucking ass off to get out of these braces. And he went to school and he was prying that morning.

And he came back that night. He goes, this is, this is. He was like five. And our story, remember this. He looked at me, goes, Dad, and I'm going to do everything I can to get out of these braces. And from that day on, that was his trigger. This kid is, I'll get home, Jordan.

And I got a 12-year-old, and he's running the tremble for 45 minutes. Which 12-year-old does that? You saw the pictures I posted. The kid's jacked. He doesn't play video games. He just works out because he understands, and he put in his mind how important finis would be for his future. And he's so driven.

And the thing is, he's the sweetest soul in the world. This kid will not go to bed. We'll not wake up with alchemia. hugging a kiss. I left today and he's running. He's like, Dad, he goes, can I give you another hug? Like, that's the type of kid he is. Like, I get goosebumps talking about him. Like, he is my reason. Like I do, everything I do is in as much as, like I said, obviously, both my kids, but he's just, just drive where I, he's, there's a purpose why he's here. And there's a reason. And I want to, and I want to show the world why he's here. I want, I want him to stand on stage one day

and tell a story and inspire millions of people that think there isn't hope. There is hope. well and it's very clear that there's a reason why you're his dad because all the things you went through as a kid not giving up proving people wrong like this is this was your shot to do this for your son to to have that same drive for him and then you've literally at five instilled it in him to say I'm not giving up I'm not gonna freaking worry about like I'm just gonna get out of these things and man what a depotally. to give a five-year-old because now at 12 the freaking kids probably run faster than I do. You know what I'm saying? So you, the fact that your dad was not by mistake, my friend, at all. He needed a dad like you because most dads would give up. Most dads would have throw in that victim card that I know you that doesn't exist with you. I'll tell you a little quick story.

I know we're running on time here. I'm going to tell you a quick little story. When we were at sick kids hospital, this is obviously went from business to personal today. Yeah. When we were at sick his hospital, he was in on the fourth floor, I see you, the most intense room. It was six beds in this room. Out of these six beds every couple days, a baby would pass and another baby would rotate. It was a rotating door in this room.

And I would sit there from seven the morning till six, seven a night with my wife just by my bed to my body's bedside. And we did all day. We went and talk. We would get downstairs, grab a coffee, come back up, have our meetings with our doctors, figure out what's going on. on, but I had full control. Like everything, they wouldn't even be able, they weren't even able to take blood work without my permission. Like I had, I needed full control. I know this is my mindset, my entrepreneur.

I like, I needed full control. So he was being followed by seven departments. So in sick kids hospital, they have a department for your neurology, the department for neurology like that. So he happens, part of his brain was damaged. He's part of his, his left ventricle of his heart wasn't functioning.

His kidneys weren't functioning. Like this kid had every possible thing bad happened to him. And they would have around every morning. They wouldn't start that roundtable, the doctors, till I was present. Everything they would teach me, I would go home, study the shit out of it, and then come back the next day and kind of help them run the rent-time and help them. And that was my mindset. And through the whole, this whole little story is me and my wife would be sitting there, and we'd be only parents. The odd time we see a parent come in for a couple of minutes,

they sit down for a bit and leave. Nobody would, everybody was going through it own stuff. No parents would talk to each other. And one day I looked at the nurse and I go, like, why is there never parents in this room? Just us. And she looked at us. She goes, a lot of parents know they're going to lose their child and they don't want to build a connection with her child. And I stood there and I still remember her word.

I still remember her face saying that to me. And she looked at me and I honest to God, John, she looked at me and she goes, the reason your son's going to make it out of here, I feel like I want to cry. The reason your son's going to make it out of here is because he knows you guys are here with me. And having parents have that mindset

of already giving up in their kids because they're so worried about building emotional connection to them. How fucked is that? I couldn't understand that. But that was literally every baby in that place. There were so many children that their parents didn't want to build a emotional connection. To me, I was a peer opposite. I wanted to spend every single minute I had with him.

If we only had a day, we only had a week, I wanted to spend every minute with him. So it was just, is that mindset from day one. And I've always had that. And it's hard for me to understand how other parents dealt with it. But everybody deals with their own way. I just wanted to bring that up where it is that mindset, right? 100%. Yeah.

And listen, he felt that. Like she said, he, he felt that. These other ones have given up. They threw in the card. They said, we don't want to have to live this hard life that we're seeing in front of us. And you said, nothing's going to stop me for making sure that he lives. Like, look at the, look at the perspective. shifts there. And so it's no wonder that he survived and that he's striving and that he's doing

these incredible things because look at the examples that you showed him. You freaking are running the board meetings. You know what I'm saying? Like you're taking charge because you wanted it. That's a big difference. Yeah. It's a big, big difference. Man, so like what an incredible. I know the audience skip the business crap. The audience is going to get so much value that you have, you know, lived with your son and helped him live his life. That's way more valuable than any of the business stuff we can talk about. Okay, because all those things are phenomenal, but this is what it's all about, our family, right? Like, this is why we work.

You know what I'm saying? So I apologize for the audience. If you've coming for a lot of amazing business stuff, we did give you some. We're going to make sure that we let you connect with Jeff because he's up to some amazing things. He's got a business. mixed martial arts equipment for like the last 15 years right and then you've got this vacation rental business that you know i'm sure took a hit during covid like most did but it's still operating so i i want to make sure that uh we we put all that stuff in the show notes

i want people to make sure they can connect so just let's let's give some final parting words of you know where do you want people to to reach out to you and then you know i've got a lot of inspiring entrepreneurs that are going to listen to this and say man i didn't know I was going to get this much value from this episode, but I need to, I need to connect with Jeff. It might not even be business. It might be a young parent that has a kid that's dealing with something. So where can people come find you? So in the last, I'm going to really throw this in there. In the last nine months, 10 months, I realized I also host a podcast, which I had joining on Jeff Nosein podcast, a strong entrepreneurial podcast. But the last 12, nine, 10 months, I really gasped into

fatherhood and I really wanted to harmonize fathers and entrepreneurs and in the paper I have a book coming out next week called entrepreneurial dads um that book will be out next week also I created a program for entrepreneurial dads is a membership based program where it's it's it's it's almost like a mastermind for fathers entrepreneurs who gather grow a brotherhood is called a man's purpose and you can find that on jeffreelops.com in general like my goal now is to help fathers and entrepreneurs a part of business scale up their business and scale up their lives together right and i've studied and i've literally joined in study for the last 12 years parenting and and tactical things and tools to help father succeed on both sides obviously you have a down pack but a

lot of parents a lot of dads don't well listen brother i don't have a down pack i have an mbp wife that's up there is doing all the hard stuff so let's not get it twisted i don't want a front like i'm doing all you know what i'm saying of her there is no this there is no you on my show there is no show yeah so i've got to give all the credit to the moms out there or the dads whoever it is in a relationship that's being the doctor the lawyer the teacher the scientist all that stuff because kudos to them and they're they're doing amazing yeah i agree with you 100 but yeah so that's that's that's when you venture in life is i want to be able to support entrepreneurial dads and guide them and teach them all the tools i've learned over the last uh last 14 years

be honest my daughter's 14 14 years but 12 years hard and I really focused on it so that's that's my goal and you can reach me you catch me on IG is what I'm on the most and it's just Jeff Lopes and you have any questions dad question anything like that just reach out to me I love talking and communicating and networking with people awesome awesome well hey this has been phenomenal I appreciate you being vulnerable sharing what an incredible journey that you've been on you've been in my eyes an entrepreneur since birth right since you were born you've been out there hustling and learning. But what I love about you most is that you never give up. You're always striving to be better. You're constantly, you're a lifelong learner, right? You're going to be

learning until the day that you leave this planet. So I really appreciate your time, your energy, your context, and sharing your story with my audience. Thanks for blazing your own trail, my friend. Thank you, brother. This is awesome.