Blaze Your Own Trail - S2: Episode 7: From Surviving Death Multiple Times to Inspiring Others With TShane Johnson

Episode Date: May 15, 2020

Motivational Speaker & Marine Corps Veteran TShane Johnson is one of the most inspiring Speakers and sales coaches in the country. TShane has had numerous speaking and coaching engagements including University of Central Florida, LSU, GoDaddy, Caesar's Entertainment, Veterans Voice, Best Western Hotel and Resorts, Red Bull, Celebrities, Billionaires, Politicians, and Major Non Profits. He has shared his inspiring message with major media outlets such as Fox Business, Forbes, USA Today, IHeart Radio, WLOX 13, ABC 13, Real Radio 104.1, KLBK 13, Fox34, the Tallahassee Democrat, Panama City News Herald, Orange Observer and the Daily Record. Every year TShane Hikes Across America as Motivational Keynote Speaker running from Coast to Coast to Inspire the Homeless, Veterans, Communities, and raise awareness about Veteran suicides. His journey has covered over 7,000 Miles, 20 states, speaking in 60 plus cities passing out over 10,000 Hygiene kits to those in need and raising over $150,000 in non profit funds in 65 Days. All this while continuing to successfully operate his three businesses, and becoming a #1 Best Selling Author. In this episode we discuss: TShane's upbringing Caring for his siblings Working on the farm His time in the military How he died multiple times How he now inspires others What he's up to now Connect with TShane: Website: https://tshaneinspires.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tshanejohnson/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tshanejohnson/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tshanejohnson/ Follow us on Instagram for behind the scenes content and more! https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ 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.

Hey everyone, I hope you're having an awesome day, super excited about this episode with T. Shane Johnson. Man, this guy has had a journey. So let's get right into it. I hope you enjoy it, and I will chat with you right after. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your host, Jordan Mendoza. And today I have T. Shane Johnson on the show. And I'm going to give him a minute just to give us a little intro about who he is. and what he does. All right. Well, first and foremost, thanks for having me on the show. Super excited about it.

I always love the opportunity to be able to share a message of extreme adversity to allow other people to know that no matter what, no matter how tough it gets, that there is opportunity out of that adversity. So I'm T Shane Johnson, professional speaker, motivational speaker, author, first and foremost, father of a beautiful little girl. I do a multitude of things between starting businesses, executive leadership coaching, keynote speeches, developing relationships with customers and sales teams, you name it. Right now I'm building a mortgage company, a startup for about a year

and a half that I'm helping consult with. So a little bit of everything. But first and foremost, I think I'm a dad, which is the most important. That's awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that. And so on this show, what I like to do is rewind a little bit and, you know, give the audience some context around your journey and, you know, how you were as a kid and then we'll kind of get back to today. So growing up, so where are you from originally? Like where were you, were you say you were born and raised or, you know, there's a lot of people I talk to where they actually traveled a bunch growing up. So what was your childhood like? Actually, I grew up in a very small town, Arcadia, Florida. Florida, Florida native, one of the few and far between.

Florida is predominantly known for its beaches and vacation humming, but really it's more, I think it's the largest producer of cattle in the entire United States of America, so it's cattle in Orange Grove. My father was a correctional officer, retired over 40 years, single dad. My mom left when we were probably about nine years old, so it was my father, my younger brother,

who was blind and mentally handicapped, my other younger brother and my sister. We grew up probably about 12 miles outside of town. We used to have to probably walk in between three and four miles a day through our grandfather's ranch just to get to the bus stop. So, yeah, a small country town grew up there. And if we weren't going to school, we were working cows or building fence or doing something to make extra money to make ends meet. Awesome. So it was definitely a family affair on the farm, right?

So everybody worked together. So what were some lessons as a kid that you learned that you think have really translated into who you are to that? You know, that's a great question. You know, I talk quite a bit about the place that I grew up and kind of the experiences I went through with my dad and how that was. And I was the oldest. And at that time, you know, the name of the game was, you know, keeping the lights on and having a place to live. You know, we grew up in a single wide trailer. And I say that not to be like we grew up in a single wide trailer.

I say that in the sense that, you know, we were just a, you know, especially looking at it now. You know, my father was probably making 27,000 a year, you know, with a mentally handicapped brother and two other siblings. And it was a responsibility that had to take on our early age to grow fast to be able to contribute to the overall household income. You know, so then it was really about making sure that I didn't miss the responsibilities my father laid out with me because, you know, believe it or not, you know, had I had not done the job or followed up like I was supposed to, You know, we may not have lights that day or water that day. And, you know, I used to, you know, it was funny. I think as a teenager, I was very angry with my father for the longest time because I'd always be like, you know, I don't understand why. And why don't you do more and why don't you be more?

And, you know, I think you go through that stage of anger as a young man. And then looking back on it, you know, I'm extremely grateful for all the things that happened, you know, having that responsibility role because I think it made me a heck of a lot better father, a leader in general. I think there is a couple of downsides, you know, to it. But ultimately, you know, I think the main thing is probably just some simple principle as my dad used to always say, we're burning daylight. So, I mean, I was always up super early, you know, knocking things out. And what was funny is it wasn't, I don't think it was because they don't accomplish anything great, you know, like you're reading all of your books.

It was really just that, you know, in Florida, it'd be 150 degrees before 10 o'clock in the morning in the humidity. So if we weren't, if we were out building fence, you know, in a swamp somewhere, we had to get out there really, really fast because by 11 o'clock it'd be so hot and be so dehydrated, you know, you'd pass out. And my father and I used to build almost a mile of barbed wire fence a day. And, you know, to most people that wouldn't make a whole lot of sense of that being difficult, but, you know, we had post hole diggers.

And that's kind of, I hadn't talked about that long time now. I laughed for myself. And I was a guy that would dig the holes for the post. And so all day long, I'd do like upright rows, you know, as an exercise. We'd build a mile as fast as we could before lunch. because one, we had to get money and two, and if we didn't, it'd be so hot, we'd be able to do anything. So that burning daylight meant a multitude of things as life moved on later on. Yeah, and it sounds like, you know, I mean, that's not easy work, right?

It doesn't matter who you are, you know, digging holes, right? And then having to smash the fence post down into that, that is, it's not easy. So I definitely think you definitely learned a work. ethic, right? Starting early at a young age and then to have to have the responsibility as the oldest child, that in itself is a lot of responsibility, right? Because you're making sure that your siblings are taken care of and they're not doing something that's going to hurt them, you know? So you're, you are acting as, you know, as a parent figure to, to other kids. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, my dad went through his own set of struggles with the divorce,

you know, multiple times and, you know, chasing his own little demons. And, you know, we all have them. And sometimes you want security of life to know that you can come home after a hard stage work and have a support system there. If someone looks at you and says, hey, you know, thanks for slaying some dragons. And, you know, I'm going to hook you up with a nice dinner and a nice meal and a nice evening. And then, you know, you're going to go back up there and do it again. But when you don't have that support, it makes a little more difficult. So it seems like the grind is all day every day. You know, I think it's important for people to appreciate a partner that's at home that's out there, striving and and playing their part, you know, like in the military, our support system is equally as

important as our team on the ground, accomplishing the mission. So, yeah, it was, you know, again, there's different stages I think you go through in life. And, you know, if you were to ask the 18-year-old, you know, T. Shane, I would be, you know, matter in hell about, about the situation. Looking back on it now, again, I'm extremely grateful for the amount of work because it's allowed me to set world records. It's allowed me to beat people in the sales environment just out of the simplicity of outworking them. I mean, that, you know, I mean, that's really just the key component. People will just quit and attrition is, is amazing. And if you can just hold on and keep grinding, I mean, what's, what is it to sit on the phone and make, you know, 300 dials in

the day to potentially get someone on the phone in comparison to stamping, you know, 200 fence posts and 120 degree weather when you're, you know, sweating to death, and mosquitoes are tearing you up. So, I mean, I'd much rather be in the office, to be honest. That's it, man. And, you know, I'm a firm believer that, you know, trials, adversity, it really does build character, right? It builds tough skin. It builds things that, and you said it, if you haven't experienced those things, you know, you're a lot more likely to quit versus keep going and persevering. Yeah, I mean, I have this little saying I've given a lot of my speech is, you know, we as humans purchase pleasure for inability to endure pain.

You know, pain is the best, best teacher. Once you appreciate pain and you appreciate struggle, and you see that it's actually the true sweetness of life, once you kind of get your head wrapped around that, I think it makes everything 10 times easier. I think that's really truly the key to success. I mean, you read a book, what you're looking for is you read it because you wanted to hear about the initial part of the success. I think when a lot of people write books, they don't tell the true pain of it all. I mean, you look at people and, you know, what do they say? 15 years to an overnight success, right? So, you know, the pain is the part that I think you appreciate. Once you become an entrepreneur or you go through something in your life, it's kind of funny because you don't, I always

tell people, you don't look back like in Marine Corps. We'd go through all this tough stuff. And I say, do any of us remember talking about the times when it was easy? You know, no one wants to read a book or watch a movie about everything that's easy, you know, the kid that has it all that has everything. People get angry with, you know, we want to understand the struggles. We want to see the pain. We want to be able to relate to say, man, we're going through that same thing. And then hopefully there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But even for those of us that have had a certain level of success in our life, you know, once we get to the part where it's like, yay, we're like, oh, man, I want to go back to the fight again.

You know, I want to get back to the struggle. I want to start that business from the ground up. I want to push myself. So it does make a, you know, a uniqueness to it all. And I think once you, it's kind of weird, but once you appreciate that, men makes it better. that's it and you know i remember being being a young sales guy right i think i got my first job when i was 14 and it was i grew up in oregon so it was the oregonian newspaper and uh me and my brother and our buddy steve from down the street we all got hired to to with this distributor

to go and knock on doors right and try to get people to sign up for the weekly paper or the weekly and in you know the daily and sunday was like that was the big commission the big $6 commission, you know. So, but, you know, that experience, I remember day one, I didn't sell a single thing and I must have knocked on a hundred doors. And it was, it was one of those things where I could feel my attitude draining out of my body. Right. Like, I'm super excited for the first 10, right?

And then all of a sudden it's like, you're bothering me. I'm trying to eat dinner. You woke up my baby. I mean, all these literally actual doors slammed in my face. And so I remember sitting on the curb and I was like, this is the worst job ever. I never want to do sales. My brother and the buddy are high-fiving each other because they got some sales and I'm just like, I am all in my feelings, you know. And I get back to the distributor's office to settle up.

Of course, I was not excited to settle up. There was nothing to settle up. So he asked me for my clipboard and I was like, hey, here you go. And I kind of like held it back. And he's like, what happened out there? And I said, well, apparently nobody buys the newspaper. No one reads it anymore. I don't know. And I was just so, my attitude was gone, right? And he said, listen, I don't know if you're going to understand this today, but hopefully one day this will make

sense to you. And I was like, all right, whatever, just I'm ready to go home, just whatever. What are you going to tell me? And he said, the sale doesn't start until the customer says no. I was like, all right, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. And I remember just kind of storming out. And I didn't think I was going to go back for day two. I really didn't. But there was free Burger King involved, right? We got a free meal out of this. I was like, you know what? Like, even if I go back, I'll at least get some free Burger King out of this tomorrow. And I went back and I remember getting sales.

And I remember like having this shift in my mindset that, you know what? If I go out and I'm, you know, expecting everybody to sign up, right? Like, that's not a good expectation. So maybe if I shifted a little bit and I say, you know what, why don't I go out and look for the nose? literally try to go find them. And every yes that I get is a bonus. And when you make that shift, that mindset shift,

it's super easy to hear them after a while. Right. Yeah, well, I think it's expectation. I mean, expectation is the biggest monster to failure. I mean, you know, you go into it because, you know, I always feel like the, I'm a big movie person. I love movies.

And I think it's interesting with movies. I think the movie industry truly failed when it started doing behind scenes, you know, DVDs, cuts. They were trying to find extra, something to upsell the product to say, okay, well, let's hear the magic find it. I think right then they really killed the industry because, you know, the whole idea behind the movie is to escape the realities or at least to have a vision of, you know, the stars of, you know, beyond it all and how we can reach it.

And that's built by design. It's like a book. It's something to read, it's something to engage and say, man, and that's what allows us to push further and further and further. And when they started to do that, they started to pull the curtains back. we realized that Oz wasn't real, you know, then, then we started questioning everything. We started questioning ourselves and our ability, but, you know, before that all happened, it's like, man, I can be Rambo or, you know, or, oh, wow, I can't kill aliens,

or there's all these cool things that you want to be in accomplished. But once they started to do that and everybody wants to know how and why and people got weak and thought they can make an extra buck by, you know, revealing that. Now people, their expectation of stuff is, well, it's not really going to happen. So why do I care? It's not really going to happen. Why does they care? You know, and it just, it pulls back the,

curtains. And I think that was a, I think it was a bad thing to do. I think, you know, we should all have that. You know, that's why I think when you have children, I think it makes you become a better salesperson and entrepreneur, not because you have to pay the bills, but because you get to see through their eyes that they still believe that that little elf is out there kicking people's butts every day on Christmas, you know, um, yes, Anna Claus is getting ready to come right down and visit them. And it allows you to say, man, look at what they can accomplish and do with that positive attitude every day. I don't think, now, man, I'm sure people have some kids that are like My daughter wakes up every day and she's just super excited.

She's just an excited kid and looking forward to just the littlest things. And, you know, when I talk to sales guys, I'm like, man, you need to put that into perspective because I think your expectations are set all wrong for it. Absolutely. So let's jump back. So work with the family farm. Did that until, was it until 18 or was it shortly after that? And what was your next move?

I mean Marine Corps. I mean, I signed up for the Marine Corps. I was 17. I had to have my stepmother, I think, at the time and my father signed because I was too young. I mean, I was bee lining out. I was doing pretty good in football. I was playing high school football. But I mean, not anything that I thought I was going to go anywhere with it. I think I got hurt my senior year briefly at my ankle and I was scared I was going to make the Marine Corps to get out. So I think I quit midseason to focus on making sure that I was going to get to the Marine Corps. But yeah, that was my next option was sign up for the Marines,

get on the bus, and get the hell out of town. Okay. So join the Marines. So where was your first stop? Where did you go to boot camp? Yeah. So I went to Paris Island where real Marines are made. Other Marines will get that joke. But I went to Paris Island. I was overly ecstatic. I mean, I was very, very happy about my decision going to the Marine Corps. When I got there, it was everything that I had hoped and wished and dreamed for the first 14 weeks of boot camp. You know, I wrote home. I was excited. Other kids were crying and they missed their girlfriend and they wanted to go back home.

And I was just, I was very happy. I mean, I did not want to go back to working with my father and doing all that stuff. So, you know, the Marine Corps was, the boot camp for me was an easy ride. It was not anything that I felt that was overly challenging that I wasn't already experiencing. And the fact of being able to grow and see something different and be more and get out of this town and experience, I was forever grateful. And the great thing about the Marine Corps is the Marine Corps doesn't give you anything. It gives you an opportunity to earn something. So it was great to earn that title as the United States Marine.

And that was top of my class, which was great. I was honor grad. So I was married to mostly promoted three times before we even made it to the fleet. So an average, the rank that I'd made in the 14, well, say, 21 weeks of being in the core usually takes about two years to accomplish. So I was able to do it in a very short time because of that enthusiasm and that leadership responsibility. So again, you know, at the time I was very upset with my father and all these issues.

however, it played in a role to allow my success to be even greater because of it. Oh, man, like, I'm just thinking about, you know, what you went through up into 18 to 17, 18. And you're right. I mean, that literally laid the foundation. And it gave you a different lens to look through in boot camp because, like you said, there's people crying, there's kids upset. And you're like, I don't want to be back there. Like, I just did that for my entire life.

Like, I'm excited to get away and to do it. do something different. And so I think that, you know, like having to do that because it was about, like, do we want electricity? You know, do we want to eat? Like when it comes down to that, everything else is super easy, right? Because I mean, that is real. I mean, man, I, you know, look, I'll tell you stories about how I grew up that you wouldn't even believe. I mean, you know, I talk about it in my first book that I wrote. And, you know, just a few of the stories. But like to give me an example, you know, we lived right on the Peace River in Florida.

And we were probably about a mile away from that river. And we live, you know, Florida's swamp land. You know, a lot of army engineers come in and they build up that ground. But, I mean, you know, flood companies make a killing off of it because it's just everywhere you're going to go. There's going to be rain somewhere. It's going to be holding up somewhere. So, you know, when you grow up in the swamp land, you know, there's an area in our house where between there and the river is what we call a saloo. So think of it like a like a, I don't know, I guess maybe like a swamp.

So I guess you would think of it traditionally. And what happens is if you've got a, if you've got a river and a little bit of a high plane and then it drops down into a slew and then you go over and you've got your property, you know, our house, our trailer had to be up on 36 inches of dirt mound. And then another 36 inches of block for swift mud in order for it to not be within floodplain. So when summer would come in Florida, you know, every afternoon it rains 4 o'clock, 4 o'clock, o'clock, four o'clock. And when you've got this river where the very top of the river, it's very, very small, and then it goes all the way down into the Gulf of Mexico. And there's just kind of

like ridges on the outside of it. When that rain comes down hard and it's been dry for so long, that water doesn't have anywhere to go. It doesn't soak into the ground very fast. So what ends up happening is, is it'll come up, push out, and then it floods. So in our front yard, there were times when the water, I swear to God, I'd go to sleep at nighttime with it raining. I'd wake up the next day and there'd probably be five or six foot of water out in the yard. And when I said the yard, I mean, like we lived on a 365 acre ranch in the back end of it. I mean, the whole front yard would be like if you were living on a house or a riverboat, you know, like. And my father, you know, worked on the other side of town.

So they couldn't stay there when it started to flood. They had to leave and go live in town. And I had to stay and make sure the animals because also, too, believe it or not, people would ride around in airboats and other boats and come through these homes and steal stuff out of them because there was nobody in them once it would flood. So each morning for high school, for my senior year, in order to get to school, I'd have to wake up in the morning, put all of my school clothes in a trash bag, tie the trash bag. I had a 40 caliber, Astra A75 pistol that I used to carry with me because you'd walk out sometimes on the front portion in the yard if there was a little bit and there'd be an eight, 10 foot alligator sitting out front. You'd have moccasins, snakes, like all kinds of stuff, you know, swimming around the water. So I'd take that trash bag, I'd put all my clothes in it, I'd tie it up, I'd take the pistol, I'd jump in the water at about, 5.30 in the morning and I would swim literally out of front yard and all the way down the road.

And I mean, that was probably, it was probably an easy 100 yards. I mean, between getting from the house to the front yard and then swimming down the water at 530 in the morning to my truck that was parked down in on the dry portion. And then sometimes you'd wake up and even where I'd parked the truck the night before, there would always be water at, you know, at the mid portion of my tires. So I'd have to back up and swim a little further. And that's how I'd get to school. I'd get to school. I'd change in the back of the truck. I had weightlifting first thing in the morning. So I was able to work out and then shower and change and get all of my stuff together to accomplish the school. And then I was, you know, future business leaders of America. So I worked after

the president. I'd work after second period. So I'd go in there change and then I'd go work and I worked at a canoe place. So I'd go work there all day long until probably about five or six o'clock. I'd come back, park the truck, put my stuff in trash bags, swim back to the house, get back up. And and that was my day during high school and that was just an example of what it was like so i mean again for the me when i got some marine corps i was like man foods already prepped i'm not swimming in in swamp infested snake and alligator water you know like i i've got a nice bed it's nothing crazy like you know i wake up in the morning i do a little pt you know i just do what they tell me to do it's not that hard follow the orders yeah like was like was good it was a crazy i mean i've got

so many crazy stories like that growing up um and and the backwoods so great experience with And listen, you know, you basically had to do a triathlon to get to school. You know, getting to the Marine Corps. I was like, oh, really? We got to do some push up right now. I know it's a lot more strenuous than that, but you're right. You know, it just built up that mental fortitude. But also, I'm sure you had to have been in good shape because you're, everything you're doing has to be done with your, with you, with your strength, right?

swim from swimming to you know digging holes to all all those things have to you have to do that it's a lot of physical activity yeah and it wasn't you know you know a great thing about that is you can't just go to a McDonald's you know you're not just going to go to a McDonald's or just going to go to a bird king I mean those things weren't around I mean it wasn't even close I mean I and and you know when you're when you're high school kids no you got a ton of money anyways and and back then we drove you know v8 78 79 truck so it would burn gas the second you touch the gas pedal So it's not like you ever had a full tank of gas, you know. So if you had any money, you're putting it in the truck.

You weren't spending it on junk food. So most of the time, you know, you just, we had to hunt for most of our food. We didn't have a ton of money. So that was actually one of our chores. One of my chores anyways is that if I'd come home and the freezer wasn't full, I had to go out and hunt for it. So I'd, you know, some days, that'd be my chore. I'd go out and eat 5 o'clock in the afternoon and go in the freezer. And my dad, you know, call from work and say, you know, hey, the freezer's running low.

You need to go out and get a deer or grab a hog or go do something. I'd be a chore. What I'd go do. That's awesome. Now, I've got one question from that story that you told us previously, and it is, did that canoe company give you a dang canoe? Yeah, yeah. They eventually give you one because I'm thinking about that.

You're like, yeah, yeah, Bill, like, I'm swimming to get to my truck. And he's like, oh, that's cool. Or was it like, why are you swimming? We've got canoes. Let's hook you up with a canoe. Yeah, so it's, so again, you know, that's actually a really good question. And I say that in the sense that, you know, there are a lot of people were going through a lot of problems during that time. And you got to think also, too, that a canoe company in a flooded river is not making any money.

You know, they're not, they're just trying to keep the lights on. That was a struggling business. They taught me a lot about entrepreneurship that later on I was able to utilize. And that's a whole other, a whole other story. But, you know, I didn't ask for things I couldn't pay for. You know, so my father always taught me if, you know, we're not going to be in debt to anybody. So, you know, unless we can work it off or do something. And again, that canoe company was, you know, 20 miles from our house because you had to go into town and then travel on the other side of town to get to it.

So to go to the owner who was struggling with finances and say, hey, can you take a van and drive those canoes all the way up to my house, you know, and dump one for me without me having an opportunity to pay for it or to earn it was something that we just didn't ask. We didn't ask for help. You know, we take care of your own and make sure you've got your house squared away and don't expect other people to bail you out of it. You know, you've grown-ass man. So take care of your business. That makes sense. Makes sense.

I was just curious if they had, you know, one day, I'd been like, listen, we, we appreciate you having to swim to get to work, right? To get there. Yes, I didn't know if they had given you one. Later on, later on they did. You know, later on, I think we got to a point where we needed. it for something for work. Sometimes canoers would get stuck or I had a guy drown and die once. I'd have to kayak 15 miles up river in order to save people sometimes. So, you know, eventually

it became kind of like a rescue tool, you know, because the river ended up flooding. There was a lot of people stuck because I told you. I mean, when I say it happened overnight, literally happened overnight. So you'd have people that were canoeing out in, you know, Fort Meade somewhere starting off at 7 o'clock in the morning. It would be great. Storm would come in and It would just, it would rain and rain and rain. These people are doing two and three night trips out camping. And then all of a sudden that water would just rise. And these are people that they're not familiar with the woods.

They're not familiar with, you know, they're just trying to. Honestly, they're a bunch of UF, you know, Florida State college kids out just drinking, party and having a good time. And, you know, they're hammered. Next thing, you know, they don't realize what's happened. If they're stuck on the river, they got nobody to come get them. You know, you can't just run up there and grab them. So I'd have to kayak or canoe up. So eventually it became an asset, you know, later on that I could use for both with.

that's awesome all right so in the Marines so how long did you uh did you serve just four years to serve from 98 to 02 okay and during that time what would you say was the um most impactful experience that you went through in that four years oh god there's a lot well 9-11 i mean 9-11 was a pretty big one um but i think they did shoot man there's a bunch that was a weird time i mean I think the claim to fame for conversation is the fact that I hit a brick house at 45 miles an hour and was robbed by, you know, gang members and left for dead. You know, and then 9-11 happens next. And then, of course, all the things that I experienced from leadership and accomplishment and, you know, all the stories that I could tell from from my experience of what I've done good and good and bad. But I think, I mean, 9-11 was was a big part of that.

But prior to that was my motorcycle accident, you know, where I was targeted as an initial. initiation by a specific game and gang in Southern California. So what brought you there? What brought you to Southern California? I guess it would be the first question. Yeah, so I go to Paris Island. I actually started the Marine Corps going to go to JAG. I wanted to go to study law.

Not really sure why I picked the Marine Corps for that. It was being naive. You know, when you grow in a small town, you're associated by last name, which would be the equivalent to financial stature, right? So, you know, if you're a certain last name follows suit to this, then people kind of say, well, you'll end up this way. And if your last name's this, then, oh, well, life's going to be a lot easier. So I think that's a lot of small town.

So I ended up having the opportunity to join the Marines. I earned the title. I get in there, and I'm going through boot camp, and I become honor grad. I'm at the top of my class. and I'm sitting there and the drill instructor says, you know, hey, you should, you should go to infantry. And I thought, oh, well, you know, yeah, want to not be a hard house and go to infantry. That sounds like a good idea.

So I decided to go to infantry, joined the School of Infantry in North Carolina, and then they put me in 29 Palms, Southern California, with their battalion, fourth Marines. So for anybody that listens to this, that is a Marine or serving the military knows that the worst duty station in the world is 29 Palms. It's in the Mhabi Desert. It's in the middle of nowhere. It is sucks. I mean, by far, everyone is like, oh, 29 palms, 29 stumps. Like, that place sucks.

And I'm like, yes. But it's crazy because when you come from where I come from and you go in and they say, you're going to go to West Coast, you know, I'm like, yes, Tupac. Like, great, West Coast. West Coast rap was like the best ever. I loved it way more than I did East Coast rap. I enjoyed the whole idea of being able to go to this place. And so I head out to Southern California.

They fly you into Palm Springs and they do it at nighttime. So you come into Palm Springs. And I swear God, I remember, I'll never forget. I was like, I made the best decision of my life. I am a genius. You know, everyone else is going to college. I'm doing all these things. I'm heading to, you know, Southern California, SoCal, baby.

Like, this is going to be great. I get to, I get into Palm Springs. Lights are big. It's great because, you know, in the desert, you know, there's nothing there. So a town full of lights looks like Vegas and no matter where you go, you know. So I get in a Palm Springs. It's amazing. You know, it's, I think at the time the cab was like a Mercedes and,

I just, man, I was just like, I love my life. So they get you there at nighttime. It's like, and then they take you up. It's like a two hour, three hour ride from Palm Springs to 29 palms. And it just gets like the lights get smaller and smaller and smaller and it gets darker and darker. And then there's a whole new set of lights at nighttime, which is the base when you pull up to it. And again, it looks pretty cool at night. I mean, you're like, man, this is great.

I get into my barracks. It gets situated. I wake up the next morning and I walk out the door. I'm like, what the hell is going on? And it's just pure desert, nothing. And in the very front of 29 palms, they have retention ponds that are in the front. And it's really just, I mean, it smells horrible. You got to run around and PT it all the time.

I mean, it is just devil's land. So, yeah, so that's how I ended up in SoCal, per se. So you grew up in swamp land and then you end up in the desert, right? You're like, man, what I wouldn't give for a flood right now. It's come on, you know, come washing in. Oh, man, life is fun. Yeah, so I end up in the desert. But then ironically, the first time I see snow is in the desert.

I mean, man, I swear life is just crazy. You know, it's 120 degrees during the day. So I was used to the heat, but there was no humidity. This is why I love California weather. No humidity. You weren't sweating all the time. So I could deal with the heat. The heat wasn't a problem for me.

But then at nighttime, you know, that temperature would drop and it'd be 20, 30 degrees, which again, I'm a Florida guy, so I'm not, you know, used to it being cold. So my blood's a little thinner. And then I woke up one morning during one of our trainings during Christmas. and it's snowing. And I'm like, at this place is hell, how did I even get here?

It's snowing in the desert the first time I see snow. Crazy experience. And the day before, I have sweat stains all over my camings because, you know, we're out running around 120 degrees,

you know, dehydrated. So, yeah, good times, man. It's a very exciting time. Absolutely. So let's talk a little bit. You brought up a story where you got in a motorcycle accident. So that happened while you were in California.

So you were a Marine at the time. I'm assuming. So how did that all transpire if we can just give some context to the audience? Yeah, so I joined third, Italian, fourth Marines, and infantry division. We go to Okinawa for our first pump. We go out there. At that point, you know, I wanted to, I've always wanted to be, I always wanted to be battalion recon.

And of course, you know, for those that don't know what it is, that's kind of like the Navy Seals and the Marine Corps, which was the original Frogman, which was actually before the Navy Seals. And so I wanted to be recon. So we get to, we get to Okinawa. There's an opportunity to join fifth force recon. And so we take what was called the end docs. So think of it like a tryout.

You go through a week where they just, you know, like a hell week where they just crush you and do everything. So, you know, that was kind of a weird time where funding was limited to the military. So they said, well, hey, listen, you know, Fifth Force is probably going to dissipate term battalion. And then it's going to, you're just going to be stuck here in over. Okinawa doing Battalion Recon. And, you know, there's a difference between Battalion to Force. I'm like, well, man, you know, I don't want to be, you know, battalion recon to be stuck over in Okinawa. If it is anything, I want to be force where I get more operational time.

So I decided to go back with my unit three, four, and join first reconnaissance battalion, battalion, battalion, recon. And then I said, I'll work my way up to force because those guys got all cool ops. So I leave third battalion, fourth Marines. I make it into the end doc. I go to Battalion Recon and part of their OJT program. and start going through the process. We're going through combat dive. So all the operators are getting ready to go to scuba, pre-scuba,

and we're training for pre-scuba. I'm sorry, we're training for pre-scuba for them to go to combat dive, but all of us newbies had to go with them. So, you know, we were training like crazy, hitting the pool, doing 1,000 meter fins, you know, pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, running five miles there, five miles back. You know, just PT studs.

I mean, it was just a time where we were just training like crazy. So we finally had a 72. So we had three days where we were able to get off. And, you know, in the Marine Corps, if you can't get off the base and you're within your unit and you're a newbie, you know, you're going to get hazed. I mean, no matter how you look at it. And not like the bad haze that went through that stage. I mean, just it is what it is. You're just going to get ripped.

So it's part of the process. But I did not want to do that. So I had a motorcycle and I had a buddy of mine lived up in Corona. And he was going through. They had just finished scout sniker. So he was in scout sniper. I was in battalion recon. We had like some free time.

So he went up there and I was like, man, I'm going to head up to Corona and get the hell out of here for a weekend. So I got on my bike. I head out of the back of the base. I get everything ready to go. I always joke because, you know, in the Marine Corps, you have to have, you know, your government property. So you have to have your camis on, your helmet and all this gear.

Like who wants to ride around in SoCal wearing all this gear? You know, I mean, that's just not cool. So I get off the base. I switch out to the suns out guns out and put everything in my pack. I got a tank top on, you know, pretty, pretty boot, as we would say. And, you know, I'm trying to pick up the girls. It is what it is, you know. So get out of the back of the base.

I'm riding down, going probably about 35, maybe 40 miles an hour down the lane. And, you know, down there, it's a little more hilly than it is, you know, in Florida. So as I'm going down this hill, there's a car that's kind of like in front of me, goes into the left turning lane. I drive straight to go through the light and they turn right and hit me at 40 miles an hour. So when they did, I kind of just ricocheted off the car and I caught the corner of a brick house at 45 miles an hour across my chest. And when I did, it broke my entire chest plate. I mean, when I say broke it, it didn't cry me. I broke it like it broke it in half.

My collarbone was shattered. My right hand was shattered. My shoulder blade was broken. Then all of my ribs were broken in pieces and they started to cut into my major organs. My kidney, my spleen, my liver was all cut and sliced. my lungs ended up taking 3.50 size whole pieces into them of punctured. My left bicep was lacerated. I started to bleed out.

So I think your body holds about six pints of blood. I lost four pints during that. And then when I hit the ground, they got out of the car and started kicking me and robbing me and taking all of my stuff. And because of the gang and the area, nobody would help, you know, help me. So once they left me, I put my right hand over my left bicep and started to walk two blocks. to a, luckily I found a fire station, I guess I just stumbled upon a fire station. It's a little blurry about really, I don't think it was strategic. It just happened to happen to happen. So I get there and there was a, there happened to be a doctor on site. They brought in the

helicopter. They put me in the helicopter. At that point, I'm drowning in my own fluids. So I'm taking one full breath every minute in order just to live. I'm bleeding out all over place. I'm dehydrated. I only just water is the only thing in the world I could ever have that I wanted cold water. And, and then I flatline out the first time. And I die the first time. And of course, you got to remember, you know, my entire chest plate's broken. So they can't, like, CPR me. They can't really do anything.

They have to hit the paddles to kind of bring me back. So I come back the first time. They get me to the hospital. We land down in the hospital. And then I flat line out the second time. And the second time I was dead for quite a while. They were trying to work on me pretty hard to bring me back at that point. I came back the second time.

They get me into the hospital, get me all situated, start to put the tubes in to me, get me all squared away and then I die the third time. And that's the kind of one where everyone's like, hey, did you seek out or what's that, what was that experience like and what did you go through? And that was the, that was the time where I went through that experience. And then, yeah, I was two months, three months into the hospital. I was in critical care.

I see you. They couldn't move me. They couldn't do any surgeries. They couldn't do anything because they put me under. My lungs wouldn't support it. So I'd just die. again and I ended up six months I think in total rehab. Ring Corps did not give me any rehab.

They kind of just threw me in the barracks and forgot I'm out being for a little bit. And then I rehabbed myself, got back in the pool, started training again. I mean, they really just couldn't do much with me in the unit. What was going on was too hard and too fast to really kind of pay attention to someone like that. So I just got back into it. And then I think maybe about nine months later, maybe 10 months later, I was fully operational. I was running up 300 PFT, three miles and under 18 minutes, doing 20 pull-ups again, and then back doing my crunches.

And then 9-11 happen. Wow, man. So that's ridiculously incredible because I think most people listening probably have not died once, right? I mean, I'm going to say that that's safe to say. And, you know, listen, there might be someone in the audience that has died maybe once and came back. But, I mean, three times. Yeah. So, you know, if you're listening and you want to hear a story of someone that is resilient,

this is definitely the episode to listen to you. So what were like, what was the first thing you remember hearing from the doctors when you actually eventually came to? Because they had to have been like sitting on this for a while, like, like, I really want to talk to this guy and tell him that like he literally died. three times. So I'm so curious, what was the first conversation where you knew that that actually happened? You know, I will tell you, I was crazy conscious of everything. I mean, I can remember, matter of fact, I can remember it so much. I've told this story so many times, every time I can still feel the scars that I have. I have three major scars on my body from when they had to cut me open and run tubes into my chest while I was in the hospital while I was going through it through my

ribs in order to get the fluid out. And I mean, I remember everything. I mean, there's, I remember hitting the wall. I remember being robbed. Remember being kicked. I remember, um, them cutting the open. I, I mean, I don't think there was very few times where I can't remember something that happened. So I was very conscious of the whole situation, you know, the doctor comes down to me. And, you know, of course, the typical like, I mean, the obvious, you're lucky to be alive, right? Um, and then he said to me, you know, you've endured more pain than most people will ever experience in their entire life. He's like, and the fact that you've lived through it says something.

He's like, so you need to be very conscious of that. And of course, you know, at 20, 21 years old, I wasn't really paying attention very much. I was just kind of like, man, you know, I'm ready to get back at it again. Not until later on the life did that message really resonate with me and allow me to make some shifts on some stuff. But yeah, I was very conscious of it, you know, quite a bit of things. I remember dying. You know, when I did die the third time, you know, I came out of my body. I saw everything.

I had a discussion with God, believe it or not. And not in a physical being sort of way, just more of a subconscious conversation about choices, about, hey, you know, if you don't want to feel any more pain and you want to, you want to give up, it's okay. Like everything, everything's all right, you know, but if you want to fight, you know, there's going to be a lot of pain. But here is here's the benefits to that. I mean, it was truly a very clear, I mean, I can remember a very clear conversation about what's happening. And not until my last run across America, the past last, last fourth quarter that I've ever met anybody else that's died. And it was funny when we were sharing our stories. It was with a lady, she was 75, she had a heart attack and died and they brought her back. Our stories mimicked almost identical. So it was crazy to know, you know, it was comforting. But at the same time, it was really, I've never talked about it very much as far as like that with other people that have experienced it. But yeah, I guess when the doctor came in and said, hey, you're lucky to be alive.

You died three times. You know, listen, I think, you know, that is probably the most pivotal moment. anyone can have, right? If you're speaking to God and he is basically saying you've got two choices, either one is good. It's up to you. And the fact that in that moment, you decided to go into the hard work, right? To go through the pain and be able to share this story with others. I mean, that's your calling, right? I mean, that's, that is, you know, a there is a higher purpose and your journey was not over yet. You know, I tell a lot of people, you know, for those of you listening to this podcast and,

man, wow, wow, wow. And, you know, I think a lot of people get caught up on the fact that I was resilient to live. I think the message more here is, is that, you know, life, life is tough. But just so you know, from someone who's been there, I have an unfair advantage to the common person. That's why people always say, what's your success and what can you do and how do you keep going? And it's like, well, I mean, why would I not?

I mean, the alternative is that everything is going to be okay. I mean, it's kind of a cheat code. You know, no matter what I go through and no matter what happens at the end, everything's all right. So it gives me an unfair advantage to life. And I tell people all the time, like, you know, do something out of your comfort zone. Do something difficult. Do something hard. Everything's going to be all right, man.

Don't worry about the virus. Don't worry about the world falling apart. Don't worry about all these problems and issues you think are problems and issues, you know, between your drama with your mama and everything that's going on. Like, you know, just, just be you and know that every, he's got us. He or she's got us. Whatever it is, got us. It's going to be cool.

Like, life will be fine. Like, I've been there way too many times. And I've stepped on that side. And it is, you know how I explain it? I think it's probably the closest form of meditation you can ever experience. Like in life, we have. so much noise coming at us, right? Between the phone dinging and the text messages and the flesh and lights and the things going on and the kids screaming and the partners and the business

and the dings and the bells and everything. And we never get that full form of complete silence, ever, very few of us. So I think people that try to really focus on that Zen meditation are the ones that kind of really ever kind of reach it. But when you die, it is probably the most euphoric feeling in the world because it is complete silence. It is the only time. where you are truly with just you. There is no other noise. There is no other flashing light, no other being, nothing. It is the opportunity to experience just you and the purest form.

As deep and as weird as that sounds, it is truly just the epitome of complete silence, which we don't get to experience, if at all, as humans, because our brains are just filled with so much stuff coming at us 24-7. And once you've experienced that utopia of complete silence, you get to really, you get to really know who you are. And, you know, for those of you that are going through all about stuff out there and everything else, man, you know, for someone that has been there, like, it'll be all right. So just take the risk, you know, make it happen. Push.

Do something you've never done before. Take a risk. Fall on your face all the time. It's all right because we're all going to hit it. And when we do, just know you'll be able to rest. It'll be all good. No, I definitely love that advice. you know, you said something a little bit earlier that it really resonated with me. And again,

I've never died, right? Not even once, but I have had three near-death experiences or experiences that I would say, you know, could have went in different directions, right? And so, like, in fourth grade, I got stung by 53 bees. Like, if I was allergic to bees, I wouldn't be telling that story, right? That was tough to experience. In seventh grade, I got beat up by cops. I was falsely arrested, they thought I was a Hispanic runaway. I'm not even Hispanic, but I do look apart. And, you know, if I would have fought back, I could have been shot. You know, like, so you go through those things and then you think about like how you deal with certain things. And so I think you hit it on the head. Dealing with adversity, it definitely is a game changer because it gives you

experiences and perspective that other people have not been through. Right. So it adds that level. And I think The last one for me at 19, we got in a car accident going about 70 and flipped three times and had to have 52 staples and laser surgery and relearn how to walk. And, you know, so those three things for me, I looked at them and they're foundational to the perspective on life that I have, you know? So I think when you said that earlier, I was like, you know what? That makes a lot of sense, I think, of why I'm so optimistic a lot of the times and and why I don't like some people look at certain situations and I'm and I'm just super easy to adapt to and be like oh it's all good it'll be all good I mean I I speak to quite a few troubled teens and I go in and go you're the lucky ones and it's always funny to watch their face because they're so surprised I'm like the the rich pretentious kid that doesn't have anything with a decent parents has no story you know they have no adversity they have no scars they have no they have no strength they have nothing I mean to be normal in and in

in a life without any agony or pain is, you know, that's a, that's a major disadvantage. You know, I mean, I think those that, you know, it's a, there was a Facebook video, I want to say maybe two years ago that was out and it was interesting. It was showing, it was this like typical video where it shows, you know, these privileged kids take two steps forward if they're, you know, they get this for free. And then another two steps forward if their, if their parents help them with this and another two steps forward. And then they told that the coach told them to turn around and there was a bunch of kids in the

far back. And it was, and it was explaining that those kids in the back are the ones that, you know, that have it the worst and they're not going to be able to do this and yada, and I was kind of laughing to myself and I was kind of looking at that video and I'm going, no, because that kid in the back is going to run faster to catch up with that kid in the front. And a muscle's not going to grow unless it's tore down and built more. And he's going to become stronger and stronger and stronger. And then at the end of the day, everybody's going to watch his story because of the struggle he went through to build to get there as faster where the other person is never going to have that

advantage. Their life as a muscle will atrophy and they won't build and grow and they won't be more. I would be looking at the people in the front saying you need to go all the way to the back and learn to strive to run faster and be stronger because that's what's going to give you the competitive advantage over everyone else. That definitely makes a lot of sense. And so I want to find out, you know, like even up into this point for everybody that's listening, you know, T-Shane has obviously blazed his own trail. I mean, that's that is apparent. But I want to give the audience some context. So after the Marines, you serve four years, you experience death three times.

You go through 9-11. And what was the next step? So when was your first dipping your toe, if you will, into entrepreneurship? Yeah, I think on a corporate platform, I started a younger, you know, with the canoe company. And I was kind of building that platform. And I ended up having, you know, these canoers, would travel midway and a two day trip and get stuck and they'd have no stores and they'd always look for beer you know we can't find beer we can't find beer and i remember my dad used to have

you know i think michelope ultra bud light used to come out with these little minis these little little like little teeny beers um and if you didn't glance at them at first you'd grab the wrong ones not realizing they were regular ones you know so my dad sometimes would mess up and like man i bought these little beers you know you'd come home after work and have a cold beer every once in a while you know start a fire and i remember um canoe canoers were coming down and i was i was sitting there and And it was like, man, I would pay $50 to have a six pack of beer right now. And I was like, and in my head, I was thinking to myself, $50. Dang, we probably paid $7 for that.

$50. I'm like, I think we got some at the house. And I was like, does it matter what kind? And he's like, just as long as they're cold, I don't care. So I ran probably a mile and a half as fast as I could all the way back to the house. I grabbed those little minis. I bring them all the way back. And the guy gave me $50 for it.

And I remember coming back and I gave my dad like $20. I was like, dad, I was like, these guys paid $20 for this six pack of beer. And, you know, so I was like, you know, I gave it to you. It was like a $13, you know, and profit. It was $30, $43 in profit. But I had kept that $30. I think he found it later or something. It was like, how are you making all this money?

And I was like, oh, well, what had happened was. And we ended up turning it into like parking cars and it was helping pay the rent. But I get out of the Marine Corps and, you know, I speak to a lot. I was just, I just did a tour. I spoke to the United States Navy. in the Army and the Marine Corps. And, you know, everybody wants me to talk about transition. You know, when you get out of the Marine Corps and military,

is it so hard to transition for those veterans out there. And it's just so difficult. And I call bullshit on that. I just, it's not, I don't understand how it's difficult. We are literally the tip of the spear of the country, right? We are the largest dominating country in the world. Everybody wants to be and come to be us. We have the most effective and killer military.

We're taught the leadership values that are instilled in us for 277 years that have done nothing but just win battle. I mean, it's just the best corporate leadership platform in existence. So I'm going to get out and I'm going to go, wow, I don't know what to do now. Like, that's just, that's bullshit. That's not, that's not what the Marine Corps taught me. I don't know about the other branches, but I know for damn sure that the Marine Corps taught me to effectively get out and execute accordingly.

And if I didn't have the Marine Corps, my father was pretty simple, get a job. You got to pay bills. That's how it works. I don't go, well, I really don't know what I want to do. So I'm just going to sit around for a couple of years and just kind of maybe figure it out. I know what I want to do. I don't want to be stuck here with 100 pounds running every day. I want to go get a job so I can make some money and have my own freedom.

You know, I don't want to be around 10,000 dudes every day. You know, it's like I want to go out and do more and be more. And the Marine Corps taught me from a leadership point to do that. So I didn't have like a transition problem. I was lost in life. I was like,

get a job. Cool. So I started selling gym memberships. Like, I'll just start sales. And that was a great platform to learn from overcoming objections and gym membership sales. And back then you have to sell like year packages and you know, you have clothes out. It would be like 100 hour weeks and all kinds of stuff.

So I learned a lot about overcoming objections. And then I wasn't making very much money. I was making like 900 bucks draw. And by the time you'd sell the membership, she'd walk away with like $1,200. But the hours didn't bother me. I was already doing it. The money honestly was fine because I wasn't making much of the Marine Corps. So I was, I was all right.

And my girlfriend was like at the time, she's like, you need to get a real job. You know, selling gym memberships is not a real job. She was like a graphic designer for some big for e-trade, I think. And I was like, okay, cool, real job. All right, got it. So back then, you'd fax all your resumes. So I'd faxed all my resumes over to a bunch of different companies. And it came down to Boston Market and AmeriQuest Mortgage.

And I was like, and honestly, I had no clue between the difference. I knew one sold chicken and the other one did something with finance. I don't know. So I know I didn't have a college degree. college for a day and that just did not pan out for me any more than it did in high school. So I got into, so I got interviewed by both. I had my account was negative like 188 bucks. I had no money.

I had to have a suit prepared. So back then you could get on like AOL and we had like a Mac computer one of the big ones. It was like a big CRT, you know, catheter ray tube type screen. And I remember like, you know, the download, like you'd click it and go, you show the picture and the picture would load. you know. So I was like trying to get my tie together and do everything to get prepped. And good thing about the Marine Corps is I was allowed to put my uniform on very, very well. I knew how to make something out of nothing and make it look really good.

So I was broke as a joke. I go in an interview with both of the jobs. I do my typical gym sales clothes, you know, go through all the objections. Get back and Boston Market comes to me and says, man, we'd love to hire you to be a manager here to sell chicken. We're going to pay you 24, I think it was. You get to wear a tie. You come in. And I'll be honest with you.

My father made barely interesting. money. I didn't have a college education. I thought that was pretty good. You know, I was like, cool. America's mortgage calls me and the lady says, it was a great interview, amazing interview. And she says, she goes, why do you think we should hire you? And I said, well, you know, by the time I was 18, I've accomplished more than most people will their whole entire life. I've been on the top of Mount Fuji. I've died three times. I've become the best of one of the most elite fighting forces in the world. And I'm like, and I'm going to bring that. same type of tenacity and leadership to your company. And the lady was like, dang, you know,

we don't have people say stuff like that, you know, at my age, you know. So I went in for the interview. It's so funny talking about this because it is interesting considering right now in this industry. But I go into the office. It's in Clearwater, Florida. You know, it's this amazing office. There's this little guy behind the front desk. He comes to me, starts to interview me, He's asking me sales questions, overcoming objections. And thank God I had been doing gym sales because I was able to overcome them pretty well. And he goes, you know, I, I, he goes, I think, I think, I think we want to, we want to hire you. And I said, okay.

And at the time, I had learned this tactic. It was kind of funny. I brought a Windex bottle with me everywhere I went to my interviews. And I had the Windex bottle and I'd always set it on the right hand part of the desk when I would do the interview. And they would always ask. It was a T up, right? Like I would save a bunch of time. It was always a T up for the cell.

So he would look at him and he was like, you know, we finished the interview. We'll get close to finish in the interview and he says, what's the Windex bottle? No, I said, I brought that for my desk. Right? I just totally assumed the clothes. And he was like, all right, this guy rocks. Like, we got to hire you. So it was really, you know, I've always, I've used that a couple different times.

I loved it. And so anyways, we get to the end and I go, hey, by the way, what's the, the pay. And he says, he goes, well, you guys, you get a small salary at 24,000 in commission. And I know to some of you, like listening, it just may sound common, but I had no clue what commission was. I didn't know that you can make money above and beyond for selling a product. That's how naive I was to the world. Like I didn't, I didn't know. I just thought I get my, I mean, just like Marine Corps, I get my paycheck every month. So he calls the top guy in and they highlighted a couple of things. He takes the pace up. He turns it over to me and puts it in

front of me and the highlighted section said like $63,000 or something and and I started laughing because I said you know being a Marine we don't do math very well I just look at that and looks like grid coordinates to me so can you tell me what that actually means and he goes yeah he made $63,000 and I was like oh my God in a year he made $63,000 by just getting on the phones I was like this is the best job in the world and he goes no that was last month and I was like you you're telling me that this guy made $63,000 in a month on the phones in the air conditioning. He's like, yes. I'm like, I don't even care if this is illegal at this point.

Like, I just want in. Like, what do I got to do? You know, I was like, I could, you know, I mean, it was like, it was just beyond me that there was an opportunity. And I, I usually say this when I give this in a speech, I always say, right then, right that second is what I really understood why I fought for this. because this company was willing to pay me what I thought I was worth. Like the second they gave me a salary, they told me what they thought I was worth.

You're worth this $2,000 a month. But the second I understood commission in my brain, I said, this company is willing to pay me what I think I'm worth. And it was just a weird paradigm shift for me. I mean, I was like enamored by the fact that we live in this country that I could just go pick up a phone. and make a million dollars in a year. Like I was just blew my mind. And I remember going back to the house and I was like, I was so broke. I was like, oh my, you know, in your brain, you start thinking yourself like, what do I deserve this?

Can this happen? It doesn't make any sense. And then I think, I think just that Marine Corps mentality kicked in for me. Like I was like, I just, okay, I'm going to beat that guy. What do I got to do? So I started the job and I went in. I think the next month I made $68,000 in about 60 days after training and doing that. And then I made seven figures in that year as a 23 year old kid that didn't know anything about mortgages.

And next thing you know, like, it was just, I was just crushing it. And it was an amazing opportunity, an amazing thing for me to do. And I was so broke when I got my first check, I couldn't, I couldn't put it in the bank because the bank had a hold on my account. They wouldn't let me get any of the money. And I didn't know that you could take the check to the bank that wrote it and just pay five bucks. and get the cash. So I took it to a check cash place and I paid like 18% on $68,000, which was just stupid. But I didn't care. You know, I walked away with all this money. I was like, I go into the bank with cash and they're like, Mr. Johnson versus like, oh, you know your account's negative

in front of everybody. And they're like, come back to this room and they give you little waters and little snacks and they counted. It was just a, it was a craziest experience, man. It was a life changing for me. And again, it allowed me the opportunity to do quite a few things. So that was my my first my first real world experience with entrepreneurship slash sales or overpaid sales person is probably what it was at the time sure sure and so after that you know when did you when did you start you know speaking you know doing speaking engagements and you know getting into the other business ventures you know when did you write your first book you know when did all that start to come to fruition yeah that was later on so i you know i the mortgage mortgage industry

during that time, boomed pretty well. I opened up my first company when I was 26. My own independent company, I learned the difference between being a very high paid salesperson and a business owner at that time. And the differences between the two 2008 recession happened, which was a great time to be in the mortgage business. It was definitely not a great time to be in the mortgage business. And then I lost my company, lost everything. I ended up homeless for about two years. I'd always been a speaker, but I never actually went out and did it because I didn't feel like I had enough value. to provide to people at that time in order for it to be worth something, you know, like a zigzagler or a less brown or something. I just, I didn't have much of what I considered an accomplishment because I was

surrounded by all these people that were doing the same, if not better than me. So I didn't really look at it to the general public like I was killing it. And then I ended up on the on the streets for about two years. I mean, you know, I spent all my money taking care of other people and focusing on trying to help my father through his situations and my sister became a drug addict. And I ended up taking care of my nephew and you know she um she ended up uh her husband committed suicide and it was just an array of wonderful things that happened throughout life that allowed me the uh the opportunity to overcome them and do more so fast forward uh two years after being homeless i built three companies did over 40 million dollars a year of sales out of a dunkin donuts uh free wifi in the back of my car

um and i go through that i build another mortgage company yada yada yada build a couple other companies they start doing well, have my daughter, fast forward, fast forward, start working on the veteran issues, helping some veterans or start running across America, raising awareness for that, setting some world records. Then I wrote my first book after my first run across the country, 3,000 miles for your why. Ike across America. Talks a little bit about the stories we discussed today. And yeah, and that's kind of how it got there. And then four books later and another successful startup in the last year and a half.

and still continue to have adversities like we all do, but you just keep pushing forward. That is awesome, man. Well, I can definitely tell you for the audience that's listening, this has been super valuable, right, hearing your journey, right? Because it's definitely been a journey for sure. And so if folks that are listening, they're saying, wow, you know, T-Shane's got some tenacity that I would like inject it into my life, you know. How can they reach you?

the best place to get in touch with you if maybe they want to bring you on for like a corporate speaking engagement or maybe they want help with sales, you know, to build up that, you know, perseverance and mindset that you've been able to develop over your lifetime. So we're the best places to reach you. Yeah. So it's pretty standard. You can visit our website, t-shane inspires.com. All of my social media handles are t-shane Johnson. You could text me 704, 574, 6611. If that's easier, just shoot me a call, shoot me a text as well. And of course, my email is info at t-shanejohnson.com. Awesome, man. Well, hey, listen, I really appreciate you taking the time to hang and to tell everyone how you have blazed your own trail. And I'll definitely

be following your journey. And congrats on all of your success. And really, you know, congrats on persevering. Because I think for me, that's the biggest takeaway is that it doesn't matter what life throws at you, there's definitely someone out there that has gone through something worse, right? And so when you can really get that perspective, I think a lot of people that are listening, it'll really help them make some shifts. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, the world's an absolutely amazing and beautiful place. And it is for sure, and you're in the presence and you're in the now. And, you know, I can't tell something that relates to everyone, but I can talk to you as an parent, as a parent. You know, if you ever want to see perfection in its whole is the most

beautiful form, just look at your son or daughter. I mean, that really truly is the epitome of a perfection of life and they view it through their vision as an amazing thing. Don't ever rob them of that. You know, take the time to learn from them. They're the best teachers. We think we know it all. But in true, it is truly the young children that give us a way better vision on how life is. I definitely agree with you there, man. Being a father of four, I definitely, I learn my lessons every day, right? I learn that I am not smarter. the fifth grader sometime. That's for sure. So hey, listen, man, I appreciate you coming on the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast, and I hope you have an amazing weekend, and I hope you and your family stay safe right in the midst of everything

that's happening with COVID-19. So appreciate you coming on, my friend. My pleasure. Thanks, brother. Wow, what an amazing story and journey and all of the adversity that T-Shane has gone through. So incredible. Make sure you connect with him. All of his info will be down in the show notes. And make sure also if you're not subscribed it that you subscribe to the show and tell your friends about it you know we want to add as much value as we can to the world so please share it please subscribe and please rate it and review it on iTunes if you haven't already thank you so much for all of support and i will talk to you in the next episode