Coffeez with Joe Shalaby - From Addiction to 9-Figure Exit ft. Eric Spofford | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

In this raw and inspiring episode of Coffeez for Closers, we sit down with Eric Spofford—entrepreneur, real estate investor, and proof that rock bottom doesn’t have to be the end.Eric went from addiction and a felony charge… to founding one of New England’s largest treatment center networks and selling it for $115 million. Now, he’s back building again—running Spofford Enterprises, creating wealth through Section 8 housing, and mentoring the next wave of purpose-driven entrepreneurs.We talk legacy, grit, section 8 real estate, entrepreneurship as a form of recovery, how to raise strong kids in a soft world, and what really happens when you buy all the jets, cars, and watches—and still wake up feeling broke.This one’s honest, unfiltered, and hits deeper than most.Top producers at E Mortgage Capital are earning more per deal—with faster closings, better tech, and no junk fees.👉 Learn more: https://join.emortgagecapital.comAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

From an armed robbery charge to a $115 million exit, Eric Spofford didn't just turn his life around. He built one of New England's largest addiction treatment networks and sold it for nine figures. But after the exit, he got bored. So he built another empire. Yeah, it's not pretty. It's not sexy.

They print out. Today, he's teaching everyday Americans how to invest in real estate while building recovery centers across the country. This isn't a business story. It's a legacy story. Addiction, redemption, real estate, impact. You're going to die. The only question is, will you live first?

From rock bottom to nine figures. From deals on the street to deals on the deed. Welcome to coffees. What is your morning routine? God, I just got to ask this on stage. I was speaking at a clever summit, a couple thousand people. and we did a big panel and everyone laughed. I said, I'm not one of these big.

I wake up and I check my phone. Then I pee. And then I get to work. Like, it's really that easy. I'm open my eyes, zero to 100 miles an hour the second that I do. I'm eating breakfast on the phone. Sometimes I'm on my first Zoom or Teams meeting and I'll turn the screen off and wolf down my food real quick. And so I don't have this big cold plunge.

burpees meditation, red light, bah, blah, bah. I just wake up and it's, for me, I have so much that I wake up with in my head. It's just go, go, go. And then what I do do, though, is I break the day up. And so I put my workout in the middle of the day. And so I'll run hard until early afternoon and then check out for 90 minutes, hit the gym, you know, go sweat it out and then come back and kill the rest of the day. Yeah, that's unique.

Not getting the workout done first thing in the morning. That's different. You get it down like, yeah, it's 10 a.m., which is 1 p.m. your time right now. And you're like, I'm going to go to the gym at 11. So you're breaking up your day with the workout. 100%. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so give the listeners just a 20,000 foot overview of your first business, the exit,

and then what you're currently doing. Yeah, yeah. Grew up in the greater Boston area, lived a very crazy life, addiction, crime, you know, movie quality street drama back in the day got sober at December 7th of 2006 caught an armed robbery charge went on the run got intervened uses what he asked possible and at the time it was the entire police department of the city that I was in and that started my journey of changing my life and what happened after that was I personally got into recovery from addiction and alcoholism I caught fire I got absolutely more enthusiastic and excited about helping other people recover, just like I had to,

then you could possibly imagine. And I turned that into a business. I started my home state of New Hampshire's very first sober living house at 23 years old, 2008, right as the entire economy was melting down, I'm sure you remember. And we were spiraling into a recession is when I was starting my business. And so October 2008, two things happened. I started my business and I did my first real estate deal. I had saved up some money.

My dad agreed to help me with the financing and get me into a property. We bought a three unit building for Union Street, Derry, New Hampshire, for all the fact checkers out there. I bought that in October 2008 for $150,000 foreclosed from the bank. Wow. Moved in, fixed it up a little bit, furnished it, and moved a bunch of guys in. called it a sober house and figured it out 23 years old lived there for two years with all the clients 2008 to 2010 i lived in that building uh me and 11 men that were in early recovery from addiction and alcoholism did everything together uh cooked taught him life skills how to cook clean

get jobs pull your pants up shave your face go to aa meetings do recovery stuff help other people all of it wanted to grow that business and then over the next From start to finish, 13 years, two months, I grew that from that one little sober house with me and 11 guys to a multi-site collection of addiction treatment facilities, 440 treatment beds. We had 325 employees. Top line revenue at the end of it was about 50 to 55 million, and I sold it for $150 million off of $13 million TTM EBITO, December. 21st of 2021 wow yeah you're 36 years old big exit 36 amazing yeah after that you know 36 years old what happened you were just chilling you're like i don't need to work ever i didn't need to work ever again you know but uh i was in southern florida i first started at fort lauderdale at some point shortly after like 11 months later moved down to miami uh down the street

and you know i was living the dream man i bought a boat i was you know going all the nicest spots and hanging out with the cool people and doing all this stuff that people think they want to do. And I made it like months. And I was like, this sucks. I need to build something. Yeah. I'm just not really built for that. I'm a worker.

I'm a builder. And so, you know, I bought a boat. I bought a bigger boat. I bought a bigger boat. I bought a bigger house. I bought all the cars I wanted, but all you know what I mean? It's like I ran out of shit to buy. It ran out of fun shit to do.

and said we got to do it again. And so jump right back into the mix and have been building two businesses since. Nice. And what are those businesses? Another addiction treatment business currently open in Ohio, just open in California, Pennsylvania. And then also second of that is a real estate business where we take average, ordinary American working class people and make real estate investors out of them. And so we have a turnkey investments group that provides a white glove experience for people that essentially don't know a lot about real estate but want to park the money in real estate instead of the S&P 500, 401ks, et cetera. And we put them into single family section eight properties that have great cash on cash returns.

That's awesome. What is the cash on cash return on section eight property right now? It really depends on the deals, but we target 30%. 30% cash on cash on section 8. Yeah. It's not pretty. It's not sexy. There's nothing sexy about it.

But if you can just close your eyes and look the other way, they print money. I didn't even know that the cash on cash returns are that high. So there's this yin and yang to it. The positives are the returns are crazy. You're not going to find those returns anywhere else. And that's in today's interest rate environment. With the cost of capital of what it is, we're still hitting 30% on average cash on cash returns. The difficulty, which is what makes it so good for our audience,

our clients, but hard for institutional investors to come in is it's very difficult to scale, right? These houses are less than $100,000. And so when you're using leverage, if you call it $100,000 a house, which most of them are less, and a 75% loan to value, you're going to deploy $25,000 for each deal. How do you deploy capital at scale? That's, you know, if you want to deploy $100,000, that's four deals. And that's four offers. for negotiations, for closings, for, you know, or, or, or, and so that's why a lot of people end up in multifamily. But if you can get operationally good at scaling and doing all the hand-to-hand combat that it

takes is a ton of money there. And that's great for the audience to know because I think most people, especially listening to this, probably wrote off section 8. It's not really a niche. Everyone talks about multifamily. We had a panel yesterday at the conference. You know, they were all multifamily guys. Some of the guys were doing some industrial.

drill, but section 8 is definitely something that's just forgotten. And the cash on cash, I'm hearing that you're offering, is it through a fund or is it through your group or are they on the note themselves? The folks are on the property. They own the property. Yeah, they purchase the property. They own the property. And we have a property management group that if they choose to use us, we'll manage it for them

on the go forward. So walk me through like the cadence here. I give you 100 grand, let's say. that gets me two houses that I'm on the deed on. Yeah. And then you just... Probably three houses, but yeah. And then you just send me a check every month on that money.

Correct. That's it. That's it. What's the margin in it for you guys? Like, how much margin is there? We charge a consulting fee up front because unlike you, you're an experienced real estate guy. You know what you're talking about, right? The majority of our clients don't.

Yeah. And so we have a team of VIP, transaction coordinators that they hold their hand through the entire process. They help them order the appraisals, help them, you know, apply for financing. They literally hold their hand. We call them transaction coordinators. They're more like transaction counselors. Like it's a very emotional process for a lot of them.

They have a lot of anxiety. They're going into real estate for the first time. Many of them, the only deal they've ever done is buying their own home. And some of them have never done that. They're renters that want to own investment real estate. So we make money on that consulting fee. And then we have a little bit of markup in the houses. And it's really a volume game for us.

We move a lot of units. We have a lot of clients. Yes. And it's amazing that you can offer this to really low-level people. So this one need the full amount to purchase a full unit or? No, we finance. Okay. Yeah.

Yeah. Good. Good. Now. 75% or 80% LTV. So they're coming up with the other 20 or 25% down. And so they're just coming up with plus fee. I have grand, 10 grand, you know, to buy a property.

No, I mean, a lot of them, you know, say the property's 80 grand. They'll have a 70, so they need 20,000 down on the property plus, you know, $5,000 for financing fees and a price old and all that stuff. Now, I like to talk about like one's journey. Now, at what age did you realize you're going to be an entrepreneur? I mean, it must have been that way. Really? Yeah.

I mean, I, I, at, yeah. had every memory since I can remember of my childhood. I had a hustle, a deal, I was constantly working something. I mean, in this third grade, I was selling fireworks, breaking down bricks of firecrackers and selling packs of firecrackers, making a profit on that. And, you know, this is a long, before the internet was the internet. And I had a stack of penthouse nudie mags. and I used to rent those out to the kids in the neighborhood. That was third grade Eric. Fifth grade, Eric, 10 years old, I actually hold my state's record, if you call it,

call it that for the youngest individual ever charged with a drug sales crime. And so in fifth grade, 10, 11 years old, I was taking quarter pounds, half pounds of weed, breaking it down. They were caught selling weed when I was in the fifth grade. That's great. That's like my little babies now. Then, like, I can't imagine. That's a little kid.

I was terrible. I feel bad for me. my parents yeah but it was just one fixing bikes i would go to the dump you know where i was from there a place where everyone brought all their stuff and threw it out there's a big metal section and so people would bring old bicycles and i would go take all the bicycles and take parts from this one and that one and spray paint them and make them cool and sell the bikes like i just have always been thought and deals can't turn it off yeah i mean like you know i it reminds me like Like, Pastor Joel Olstein, he says like, you know, well, if you're, huh?

I know of Joel, watch your stuff. Yeah, yeah. He mentions it. Like, you know, if your kid's a drug dealer, he'd stop selling drugs with, he's learning entrepreneurship, you know, he's learning how to hustle. He's learning how to. Listen, I will put, I will put my short-lived career as a drug dealer up against anyone's MBA any day long, all day long, for sure.

Yeah. I mean, you learn, you learn a true hustle. A hundred percent. I mean, you learn, you know, acquisition, disposition, market share. You learn risk management. You learn operations. You learn supply and demand. Like, there's a lot to it. Yeah. There is. And, and you're excited about a real hustle that's actually teaching you a lot, which can get you, you know, a lot of trouble. But thank God, knock on wood. You got out of that game pretty, you know, skied, ski free. Yeah, man. God was good to me. Yeah, for sure. And we, we hint on that. Now, you don't. don't do you have any kids to yeah two boys Gavin 13 years old amace will be three this saturday nice celebrate this birthday now um so i i have four kids myself now how are you teaching your kids that because your kids are you know not like you they they grew up in a prosperity driven lifestyle yeah um you grew up dirt poor like me you know we're poor so grip came different when you when you come from poverty a hundred percent i mean i tell my kids i mean my

little one is he's still two years old turning three so he's a little young for it but uh my oldest you know he's 13 years old so when he was born i didn't have money and so he was by my side through all of the hard work all the adversity all the come up you know and so he got to grow up and witness all of that so you know that's certainly he remembers what it used to be like and now what it's like now but i tell him all the time i said you're not rich i'm rich you're actually whore you have nothing like and so i make him work for it man yeah yeah he's got a job working on my boat with the boat crew and he's had since he was 11 yeah i mean that's one of the things eric that i'm always thinking i'm sure you are too it's like how am i going to instill that same

level of grit yeah kids i'm i going to make sure that they're better than me yeah you know given like hunger yeah how do how do you put hunger in kids that really don't need to be hung They're rich. Yeah. My answer is I don't really know, but I'm doing the best that I can. You know, by not spoiling them, not. And it goes against intuition. You work so hard.

You get all the success. You want to spoil the people around you. Yeah, especially your kids. But that's good for us, not for them. Yeah. It feels good for us, but what actual impact does it have for the children? And so, you know. Yeah.

They see you grind in all day long and it's like, no, I'm rich. You're poor. 100%. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Now, where do you think, like, where do you think you derive your strong work ethic? Where is that derived from? I won't say that I grew up with nothing, but my dad cut down trees for a living. And I watched them get up every day early in the morning and put on a pair of work boots and go out there and run a chainsaw.

And he was a logger and come home covered in sweat and blood. and, you know, wood chips and dirt. And, you know, we always had a place to live. We never had anything fancy. We didn't go on vacations. We didn't, you know, we didn't have any of that. But there was always food on the table and a place to live. And from my younger, like, you talk, think about why I was selling weed at 10 years old.

I wanted back then they, I don't know if remember this, but they have these jeans. They were like these big baggy jeans called jinko jeans. Yeah, of course I remember that. Yeah, I wanted the jinko jeans, man. I wanted to be, you know, wearing these cool pants with the cool kids. And I also wanted, there was a pizzeria by my house that kids hang out with because that little arcade section. And I never had money for it. I wanted to wear the jeans.

And I wanted to be able to go to that pizzeria, eat two slices of pizza, a Coca-Cola, and play as much pinball as I wanted to play. And that was like my 10, 11-year-old thoughts. And so I was like, well, I'll sell weed, you know? And that's the real, I wasn't even smoking weed at the time. And that's what I wanted. And so I've always just had this like, I want it all, man. You know, like I want it all. At a certain point, I think that that unfolded in phases for me where like I dreamt about owning a jet, like obsessed over it for four years before I took my first private flight on my friend's challenger.

And then for probably four and a half years, I was like, I had. just need to make enough money that I can own a jet and the cars and about in all this stuff. And I think a lot of it was that was the wanting all of this. And to answer a question you didn't ask, now it shifted a lot for me where I just love the process. In fact, it started to go the other way. I don't actually want any of this stuff. Like, I don't want any more cars. I don't want any more. I don't know. It just kind of lost. Once you buy it all you've had it, it's everyone should do it, but it's kind of lost its pizzazz a little bit. And so now it's a lure.

Yeah, yeah. And so now it's just for a love of the game, the love of the process. I love the people. I love to build. I love to create value. I love the mission. I love like putting it on a whiteboard and going, all right, guys, this is the play. This is what we're going to do.

And then putting it all on the line and watching it all come together and come to life. I mean, entrepreneurship, business is the coolest thing in the world. because everybody's business, this podcast, this beautiful company, your amazing office space, by the way, all of that at one point was just an idea that you had. Like you were sitting there and you just thought of it and you said, I'm going to go do this and I'm going to work hard and I'm going to take all this risk and I'm going to do it. And then to see it materialize in front of you and become a tangible asset and then to see these employees and people come in and them make their livelihood through something that you created.

I mean, it's just the most exciting thing in the world. So that's what keeps me going. It is. Yeah. And it just brings you so much satisfaction that you can serve at such a great capacity. I think I love about the journey that I'm currently on through this podcast and, you know, the social media. And it's like just the networks now. Like it's all about the people.

Like everybody in the circle that we all know, it's like nobody talks about money or no one cares. You know, it's all like we just, how can I help you? Yeah. What do you need? Yeah, man. You look at guys like Dan Fleischman. He's just relentlessly trying to help everyone. Yep.

Doesn't care about money. Like, what can I do? What can I do to help? What I do to help? The money comes. It just comes. Yep. You know, I always say, and I say this all the time, I said it on the panel yesterday.

It's like, just do God's work. It does your work. Every single time. Every single time. And you did it. You're living proof in a testament. You're like, you know, one of the biggest things people deal with that just destroys families is addiction. You're like, I'm going to.

like i'm going to take my knowledge my expertise and i'm going to apply it to you know and i'm going to build a business out of it you know one thing like you built a massive business on on serving others like really how like what motivated you to start your first clinic what do you think the underlying motivation was was it to help was it just to help yeah i didn't actually i never in never in a million years thought that that would become my full-time business and I never even had a single thought that it would become a large business. Honestly, I was a construction worker. I was following after my dad's footsteps and I was cutting trees down every day.

And so over the first two years that I had the sober house, I still got up and went to work and logged and cut trees down and, you know, ran heavy equipment and did all that stuff. And I thought that that would be my career. And this was just some side thing that, you know, that I had going on to help people. And then as it grew, you know, there was a pivotal moment that happened for me. It's a little morbid, but it was one of the most impactful things that's happened in my life was this country came under attack of fentanyl in 2012. And I will say that it came under attack because prior to that, overdose death was nothing what it looks like today.

Today, we had 112,000 Americans die last year of accidental opiate overdoses. It didn't used to be like that. When I was getting higher, I got sober in 2006. I didn't know anyone that died ever. It was real heroin. Real heroin left this country and it was replaced by a synthetic drug called fentanyl around 2012. And what happened from 2012 to 2015-16, like that next three, four, in five years, a tail of it, was that all these people that I grew up with that I love because I don't have a big family.

It was just really me and my dad. And I loved my friends. But they were street kids just like I was, troubled homes, just like I was, all of that. I watched every single one of them died, all of them. Like every, like I can go back to these memories of throwing parties at my dad's house and having 50, 70, 80, 100 kids at my house all the time. We used to throw these parties. I can remember, I can shut my eyes and walk through that party with the kegs and the big speakers, with the wires running out of the basement, blasting that old rap music with the Philly Blunts that we used to crack and empty out the guts of them and put the weed in.

I'm going to roll the shit up as a teenager, right? And I'm looking at the faces and every one of them is a fucking ghost now. And I went to every one of their funerals. and I hugged every one of them, their grieving parents, their moms, their dads, that were just shattered and broken and changed for the rest of their lives. And so in that thing, it was the most painful thing that you could imagine to go through and just watch your people disappear around you in a modern day black plague, really. And something switched in me and I went, fuck this.

I don't know what I can do, but I know how to do this. where I took the business from like these little sober houses and it's the identity that it was and I blew that thing up because it was like it was the only way that I knew how to help and like my people were dead but yours weren't yours is still here they have a chance and if I can get my hands on them I know I can help them and so that's what we did man we did 500 emissions a month we treated between five and six thousand people a year year over a year for a long time saved so many lives we made a lot of impact man that's a lot of what my personal brand was built about too I was at your event last night I had posted it twice in my story and so a lot of people came there

that follow me to the event that you hosted which was a wonderful event by the way and a gentleman came up just to take a picture with me you drove like two hours and said Eric just watching your content following you around I got off I got clean off of coke and booze that was last night at your spot wow and so yeah I got the guy's picture right here dude you know just to know that you're making that kind of impact Eric that's like that's so much more beyond money this guy if you saw him that guy came and we called him out on stage like he we thought he was like a professional athlete that guy came because he saw me post and he came there because he wanted to tell me that just my messaging inspired him to get sober and give up alcohol and cocaine

and so like dude like it's again back to what i was talking about about like the cars and the the the stuff that a lot of people that want to get into business want like did that means more to me than anything there's not a tangible thing on plant earth that can give me that feeling of like looking at that man and being like brother that means a world to me like fuck you know what i mean so that's what really was the the rocket fuel to go all in and build that business and we helped a lot of people couldn't help them all but we helped a lot of them we made a little bit big difference. Proud of the work that we did there.

And I'm proud, I'm honored and proud of what you've done. And I'm so stoked that you continue on with that mission. It's built a resilience in you that, you know, we were talking about this earlier that allows you to kind of withstand any turmoil. Like you're like, I'm a pro with Section 8 housing. Like nobody wants to deal with Section 8, but you're like, no, I got this. You know, I'm a pro with, you know, drug rehabilitation centers. No, but everyone's scared of both those businesses.

But what you're like, you're running into the fire. You know, because you know that that's where the most help is needed. Well, when you look at both the businesses, I love that they're both purpose driven. The addiction treatment stuff for obvious reasons we just discussed. But then, you know, the business of Section 8 real estate and this kind of turnkey process that we have is a win-win for everyone. We take, I believe in real estate. I have my money parked and I have my money parked all over the place. The place I love it parked the most is real estate.

state and it's not accessible to a lot of people because they think they need to buy big properties. They think they need a huge amount of money to get into multifamily or whatever it is. They don't have the knowledge. They don't have the risk tolerance. They don't have the time. They're working, you know, nine to five jobs. They have children. They have spouses. They have life going on. They've got to bring the kid to a soccer practice. They got the other one in gymnastics. They just don't have it. And so we offer them a service where we're able to put them into real estate investing and manage the entire process for them. That's pretty cool. On the backside of that, we're attacking and providing a solution to an enormous problem in America, which is a shortage of

affordable income for people that are at or below the poverty line. And the stigma around Section 8 is like, oh, they're all criminals or they're bad tenants or they're going to mess your property up or they're not good people. And I just going to tell you that may be true in some situations. Like, you know, a lot of times people think of Section 8 like the projects, big brick buildings, you know, drugs and all this crazy stuff. I know back in Massachusetts they do. In Ohio, they do.

But this is different because these are our families essentially. Like our tenants, like if you look at the avatar of who rents these properties, the Section 8 tenants we have, the majority of them are three. three buckets of people, single hardworking moms that have one, two, three children that have, you know, many of them had their first children young. Many of them are raising their children alone. They have jobs. But, you know, look at America today.

How are you going to be a woman that, say, I think of a recent tenant that we at least do, she had two children. She did the math. They were like five and seven. I think she had her first one when she was like 18 years old. George's at Walmart. And so she's got two children. She was pregnant at 17, had the baby at 18, had another baby several years after, and works at Walmart.

How are you going to survive in today's world? Like the middle classes is evaporating, right? Like my grandfather worked at a steel mill in Lawrence, Massachusetts. He owned a home on two acres of land at a stay-at-home wife or raised three boys. Can't do that today. Not a steel mill. Not a steel mill. You can't be a roof or a plumber or an electrician.

You can have a job in the union and still not be able to do that, right? You can't own a home, have a stay-at-home wife and raise three boys as a union carpenter, electrician. No way. And so, you know, like these tenants, they're actually really good. We screen them well, but they're actually really good people. We also get a lot of elderly folks. A lot of those elderly folks are raising grandchildren. They didn't expect to raise because the life circumstances didn't go the way that they planned.

and then a lot of people are just disabilities. And so the people, you know, that we're serving on that side of things, they're actually really good people. And a lot of them work really, you know, some of the ignorant stuff that people say in Section 8, and I hear it all the time, of course, they're like, oh, why don't those people get a job? I'm like, she has two. She has two jobs. She's just three children.

What do you want her to do? You know? And so I feel good about that too. I feel good about the work that we're doing. for those people providing them high quality you know single family homes for families and stuff like that i got to ask this question just because it's just such a hot topic um is there any room and there's room for this and i think any vertical like how is ai impacting the drug rehab business as a whole and section 8 housing as a whole haven't seen a i well all right i guess a couple

examples of AI. AI in Section 8, we actually have a software that we use that shows us heat maps of properties and is able to gather all these different data points and find distressed properties and all sorts of different stuff. And so we haven't fully utilized it yet, but we have it, and it's a project that's in the making. Actually, the CEO of Property Radar was that on the panel. I don't know if you met him, but I need to put you in touch with him. Oh, cool. He can create, he has an AI that will create that heat map with the stress properties. Yeah.

Yeah. Unbelievable information. So that on real estate, but on the health care side, AI is going to change the game on health care because in health care, I mean, health care is the most regulated industry in the world, right? We have licensing accreditation, all these people. I think banking, we're pretty regular. I always say mortgage industry is the most regular. You should try health care.

We deal with human beings, right? And so it's arguably, maybe neck and neck, but health care is incredibly regulated. We have to document every interaction. And so if you're a patient and I'm a therapist and I come talk to you, I have to go make an entire note in your medical record of the conversation that we just had. You can go talk to your clients for your mortgages

and you don't have to do it in a record keeping system that is then audited by the state, you're in payers and accreditation bodies. It's wild. And so healthcare providers, half of their job is actually treating patients. The other half is documentation. And so now they've developed AI that it just sits there and gathers the entire interaction and types the medical notes for you.

Oh, that's awesome. The best. And so we've just started to experiment with that and roll that out and getting that up and running. And so it just gives us so much time. I mean, think about how much more. more time, the people, the people, the health kid, the therapist, the case managers, you know, the doctors, the nurses, these people need to spend time with the patient. When does the patient

benefit? The patient's not benefiting when you're sitting in their chart, typing the notes. The patient's benefiting when we're face-to-face having our conversations, having our experience. And so it gives them their time back to go spend it with the patients. I actually was at a conference last week and someone introduced me to Plod, which is a thing that goes onto your phone and records your conversation. Plot is rolling out a neck wear where you just wear it, you turn it on, and it will record the conversation and transcribe it all. It's just like a necklace. Crazy.

So you're probably going to want to buy Plod when it comes out with the new neck piece. I think they're taking pre-orders right now and probably be out by the time the show is released. And they all just walk in with their necklace and it just documents the whole thing for them. That's crazy. Yeah, it's called PLA-U-D-P-D-POD. I'm going to check that out. Yeah. Yeah.

I learned about it because they had the phone one. version that goes on your phone but now the neck neckwear one's coming out and you don't have to put it on your phone you just like rock it and yeah records everything and it transcribes it all crazy yeah and then like and then creates notes bullets out of it do you ever think that we'd get here when we're no you know what i mean like it's like i i laugh all the time like i'm like a i i remember when we had the dial-up modems or america online and you know your mom would pick up the phone and it would kick you off a oh l you're not that old you're only 38 you know it's like you're Like, we have grown so far and what are our kids going to see?

It's insane. Like, what are our kids going to see? I don't, I have no idea because, like, even talk about plot, like, I didn't know something like that existed or would exist or ever can't exist. Yeah, totally. So the stuff that comes out every single day, we had the, the tech founders and we had, like, you know, we were, AI was obviously within tech was a big, big subject. So everyone's like, has different verticals of AI and being implemented in their tech.

platforms. So it's just fascinating how tech companies are implementing it into their current environments and tech stack. Yeah. Absolutely. Now, you know, and you kind of brought this up, but you've accomplished such great success, hundreds of millions of dollars, big exit. And we talked about this, but I really want to drive this home. It's like, after all your success, how do you continue to find motivation? I don't, I just, I don't find, motivation. I just am motivated. I mean, I, for whatever reason, maybe because of the way I was brought up, maybe because of the desire for more, but I still wake up with a little bit of anxiety. I like it. It's healthy anxiety. It's not something I'm even trying to get rid of, but I feel

a little poor, a little broke, a little anxious, a little on edge. Every day. Every day. I am like that. Dude, like, I don't know why. Shit could go bad for a long time. And like, I'm still good. You know what I mean? Like I'm, it's it's totally unreasonable, but I wake up with that feeling and it just motivates the hell out of me. And so I don't know, man. I really don't know. I don't, you know, I wish I could give people advice. One of my biggest frustrations in business, coaching, mentoring, leading, managing is how do I instill this in other people? And after thousands of employees hired and fired or experience in managing them under me in an org chart and countless people have coached and all of that. I think I've just come to the determination that like you

have it or you don't, you to have a killer instinct and you're hungry as hell or you're not and you don't. And so for me, I am. And here's the other thing. If you are, good luck turning it off. Good luck. Like I would, if I didn't do what I do every day, I think I would self-destruct. I think it would be like capturing a lion from, you know, the wild where it hunts and roams and, you know, gets up every day and does a thing and put it in captivity where its main starts to fall apart and doesn't want to eat and gets all depressed. You know, I love getting up and doing this every day. I'm obsessed with it. But I, on the downside is like, I can't turn it off. It's like that all the time.

I was in Dubai earlier this year. And because of the time zone difference, it's very late in the day in Dubai. It's nine hours ahead of East Coast time, my time zone. And I'm sitting there waiting all day for my people to get up. Like, you know what I mean? I'm up before them. And they're like, can you just enjoy your vacation? Go like ride a camel in the desert or something?

I'm like, no. No, what are you guys doing? What's this? What's that? They're like, oh, my God, Eric. Leave us alone. please we were looking forward to the vacation from you while you're gone stop calling Eric when you said i wake up every morning a little broke little anxious

you know it just resonated with me yeah because every day i wake up and i'm you know doing well wake up i'm like broke again this morning i'm freaking i got to crush the day i got to figure out how to dominate this morning and and just like a crew and win accrue more followers, accrue more deals, accrue more people to work for the company. Like, because today I wake up, I feel like a failure. 100%. I don't know why that is. Yeah.

I think it's like a sickness. I think it's a winner's mentality. You know, losers, you know, they think they've done so much and they really haven't done much at all. And but winners constantly overperform and overachieve and still feel like they haven't done enough. But I don't know how to change it, man. Yeah. That's the way it is. It impacts our lives, though.

You know, impacts relationships. It impacts, you know, like, because we grind so hard. The one, yeah, man, I certainly know a couple things about that. You know, it's changed a lot of relationships with me over the years. And for a long time, there I lived in southern New Hampshire, like 40 minutes outside of Boston. It's not this big hub for young entrepreneurs. And I did this through my 20s and early 30s. And so largely, I was alone.

It was one of the reasons I made the decision to build a personal brand was to network and get out on the scene. So you got to get back here in Newport Beach. You got to get a second home out here. Yeah, I mean, I actually like Newport Beach. It was my first time being here, but I do. And I felt like something was wrong with me. I got treated like something was wrong with me because I was so unlike other people in my environment and my ecosystem there. And now most of my world is entrepreneurs and people that understand.

you know but it's one thing that i i know for certain i'm not changing so you can take me as i am and the crazy lunatic that wakes up poor and broke and has to work 16 hours today or you cannot but i'm not changing yeah i can't change i can't i've had a lot of relationships though like act like i should oh you're always on your phone oh you're you always working oh you're always this and like that's like I don't think that gets talked about enough man it's like entrepreneurial shaming you know like they call what they call it like fat shaming yeah all this no there's a lot of entrepreneurial shaming I mean we just coined that word right now yeah that that was bored right here everyone if you hear it yeah yeah we both experience so much

entrepreneurial shaming in our life yeah man and so now I I went through a lot with that for any of the entrepreneurs watching and now I apologize for Nothing. Like, this is the way I am. This is what I do. Don't even think about asking me to do anything differently. Because I'm not going to sell out on me for your happiness. I'm not going to sacrifice what I want to do for you. That's crazy. I'll just resent you and hate you over time. And this will destroy itself anyway. Yeah, I just experienced that, you know, like going through building a big company for any wife is tough. Like, so I get it. You know, like they did. deal with about that's why I now divorced so yep you know first time I had to say that on the on the state on on the show but you know like I experienced that entrepreneur shaming for for years and trying to turn it off trying to navigate it um was tough you know like because I'm always on I'm always on I wake up four or five in the morning you're we're talking about you're like

you're up that or five hours of sleep and then I wake up like I'm poor today I'm broken I'm broke today. I gotta go. Like 5 a.m. at the gym, 6 a.m. at, you know. Yeah. So, and entrepreneurial shaming is something that, you know, needs to be talked about to salvage relationships. Because the spouses that are married to successful entrepreneurs just need to just have some mercy or acceptance. I think it's all it's self-awareness and they have some decisions to make.

Listen, I feel I have legitimate empathy for them. because and I'll speak for myself loving a guy like me is not easy you know there are a lot of easier guys for you to love than guys like me you know the plumbers the bankers the electricians the lawyers maybe that I don't know about the doctors they're always at the hospital but you know these guys that come home at five o'clock and they've shut work off their head is clear and they're ready to have an engaged conversation and they will start thinking about work at 9 a.m. when they get back there tomorrow. That's not me at all. I am just obsessively working through problems and plans and what's happening next and bupah bupah bupup and bupub and that's on date

nights. That's on events. That's at your mother's birthday party. Like it's not going to change. And so but you have to, there's a lot of benefits to be with guys like us too, you know. And so I think you just have to outweigh the good with the bad and make a decision, but stop trying to change people. Like, don't come in here and expect me to be different for you. That was the biggest thing. It was like, listen, if you're not happy with me, there's a whole lot of guys over there, but they don't travel and stay at Pelican Hill or wherever I am staying on a private jet, and they don't live this lifestyle. And so if you're willing to give up this lifestyle and all the benefits of my hard work to go be with a guy that, you know, can shut this.

off at 5 p.m. five days a week, then you should do that. To their credit, a lot of them did. All right. Yeah. I don't blame you. You know what I mean? But I think also the people that are in my life today are the right ones. And they're very supportive. And I've never felt more free as a result of knowing that is my boundary. That is my standard. This is the way it is. I'm on a apologetic about it. I will tell you that up front the day we meet. I'm not changing for anything. And now I honestly have the life that is totally free from entrepreneurial shaming. And now you're a better entrepreneur. 100%. Because listen, we're the outliers. We're strange. Like we are the minority. That's why I love this group. A hundred percent. I forget that we're the

strange ones because those are only people I associate with right this is my world yeah but when you look back up and look at it you know in the society like we are outliers of the normalities of society and so when you find people that try to drive you to conforming to this box you're definitely you're not going to be living in Newport beach on the beach you're not going to be this and the other you're not going to be private you're not going to be waterfront you know but no All that changes, you know, go marry a, you know, a manager at whatever. Yeah.

Some store, nine to five. And there is a lot of benefit to that, you know. Don't make a nice six figures. You can buy a house. You'll be, you know. Yeah, two weeks, PTO a year and get a time share. You know, like, you know, yeah, you know, but that's just, I think it's about self-awareness and people know and who they are and what they're able to.

to tolerate and live with and, you know, weed themselves out because we can't fake it for each other. If you can't deal with me and I can't meet your needs, we can pretend for a long time, but it's going to be nothing about friction between us and eventually it's going to explode. And that's what happened to me over and over and over again through the course of my career until finally I just went, all right, I is what I is. I mean, I'm like fucking Popeye. Like, I is what I is. I'm not changing for nothing or nobody. And so you can accept or you can leave but don't ask me to do if you if you look at me and say anything about me being on my phone too much one time i'm out one time i'm gone i got to go i'm going i'm going to start

a relationship now it's like there's no entrepreneurial shaming that's it that's my one role yeah can't give up on the dream i'll do anything for you but can't give up on the dream you know i can't change. I can't change who I am. You know, it just does what it is. I've got a couple last questions for you before we return here. What is a mantra that you live by?

You're going to die. You're going to die. I think about it every single day. Again, in honor and respect of all the people that I lost in the struggle, when you watch as many people die as I have, you become acutely aware of your own mortality.

And most people think that they understand intellectually they're going to die. Most people, that concept is not dropped into their heart and they don't know it. And if they knew it, they would live a lot differently than they're living. And you're running out of time. And you still have chances and you still have opportunities and you're still here. And so let's make the most of it. And that's why I play fast. I play all in.

I will take all the risk. I make decisions based off of that. Should I? Shouldn't I? What if this is my last month? What if this is my last year? I don't know. This is your last podcast. Well, this is my last podcast.

Fucking send it. You know, married to the concept that you're going to die is this one thing, which is another mantra. I think of them together. And it's my biggest fear and it's regret. I always think of this one moment every single day, and it's when I'm out of time and I'm out of chances. And there's no more I'll get to it. There's no more, yeah, yeah, yeah, I wills.

It's over. In that hospital bed, hopefully surrounded by people I love, it's time to punch that ticket. Did I do it all? Am I happy with the life that I lived? Or am I sitting there going, oh, fuck. I wish I'd I wish I'd done it I wish I had taken that risk I wish I told that person how I felt I wish I did this when I had the chance you know and that scares the fuck nothing scares me dude nothing like I just I've been through too much like I've seen I've been through more crazy

shit than I even remember and so that stuff doesn't scare me that terrifies me and knowing with 100% certainty that day is coming. It's guaranteed for all of us. And so I use that, that I reverse engineer that into the way that I live today, like literally right now, today what I'm doing, right? Is that version of me, when I look at what is happening today

through the lens of that last final chapter, is this how I would want to write this one? and so that's how I live. Amazing. On that note, what is a personal goal that you have for yourself, a goal that you have for your family, and a goal that you have for your businesses? Personal goal that I have for myself is impact, legacy,

just trying to help as many people as I possibly can and leave as much of a dent in this world in the hearts of other people that I possibly can. Most of that for me is through recovery and, you know, my firm belief is God. God put me in this really crazy life and got me out of it and gave me a purpose. And for that, I'm indebted and I owe other people.

And so, of course, a lot of that lies around that. My family, just that they're happy, healthy, you know, find their way. find what they're looking for my kids you know whatever that is there's so much crazy shit out here man yeah i mean just to raise like good boys that have a high level of character and integrity that are living lives that they can be proud of i can be proud of that's just raising good humans essentially and then for my business um you know we're marching towards a billion dollar net worth. You know, we did 100 million. And so can we double down? Can we do a billion? And not even because I need a billion dollars. It really doesn't change anything. I would still live where I live. I drive what I drive. You know what I mean? Like there's a certain point where you cross a line where like more money doesn't change much. The index of change kind of levels off and plateaus. But I'm a heroin addict, an alcoholic in recovery, high school dropout. 15 years old, I left school, still never got a GED.

You talk like you got a PhD times three. I say that I'm the most educated high school dropout you might ever meet because I have a lot invested in in self-education, personal development. You know, I learn every day. But if I can hit that target of a billion, it'll be widely publicized. It'll get a lot of attention. And it just rips the excuses out of it. any any kid that ever thought he never stood a chance just like i didn't like if i can start from there

and get here like there's no reason you fucking can't so that's what we're working towards last question yeah when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think god's going to tell you i don't know if he's going to even know what to say to me he's going to be like you did so much good but you have so much like what do we do with you spofford you know which pile do we put you in And, you know, I'm not perfect. I make a lot of mistakes. And I try to apologize quickly, pivot quickly, change quickly. And so hopefully he sees that, you know, certainly I did nothing perfect, but I tried like help.

And, you know, I think that I think that I'll do all right when I get there. I hope because one of the things that I take very seriously and another mantra, if you will, and I say this all the time. You go in my content, scroll down. It's a theme. It'll show up over and over again. is that how do you have a close relationship with god right how do you do that if god like like you know the lord's prayer we say our father our father who are in heaven right so so in that prayer which is an

unbelievable prayer if you break it down right emma fox wrote a book uh that really is lord emette fox it's a great author broke down the prayer it broke down the prayer it's been a long time since i read it but it's beautiful but one of the things that says is it defines the relationship that we have with God, right? It's our father, our heavenly father. And so in that, I think about, okay, so if he's our father, we're all his kids, this eight billion of God's children running around planet Earth. Now, God's God. What does God need? Nothing. It needs nothing. Me and you, you know, me and you have done pretty well in life. it's hard for our people to buy us Christmas gifts, isn't it?

Because we got everything we want. If we wanted it on a Tuesday, we had it that night, typically. We just wanted it, whatever it is. So similar to God, God's got everything. But, true, you got four kids? Yeah, four kids. What would mean more to you than me doing something kind for your children? That's crisis.

Exactly. And so I think about that with God, that God needs nothing from me, but God's kids do. And there's nothing I can do directly for you. God but if I want to do for God I got to do for his kids and so I think about that every day in like how I conduct myself and how I treat people and it's like I God did so much for me and changing my life and picking me up out of what I used to be and giving me the power to become the man that I am today and the path to live the life that I live today that every single person I interact with I view is like his kids I do that imperfectly.

catch me on the wrong day, you know, I might have an attitude or something. Certainly not a perfect journey, but I try to really focus on that, on like being, you know, my indebtedness and my servitude for him and everything he's done for me to give back as much as I can to his kids. And so hopefully he sees that. I think he does. You know, Eric, you're breaking it down to where it relates to my kids, like you, it really hits, you know, because we don't do enough for God's kids.

You know, we really got to think about it like that, like, in the context of our kids. And that simplification of an explanation just really, it resonates. And I'm hoping it resonates with those that are the audience that's listening right now, because that's what it's about. It's about doing and serving God's kids. 100%. Eric, if people want to get in touch with you. If they want to connect you, DM you, how do people find you?

Instagram is the best place at Eric Spofford. That's kind of the native platform. And I wish and pray for all the success for your boys, for your family, for your goals. I know you're going to hit a billion. That's not even going to be anything. The index of lifestyle is not going to change. You're still going to be hanging out and coming to these entrepreneurial circles and just dealing with entrepreneurial shaming.

And that was coin right here on Coffee's proposal. Yes, sir. Mr. Eric Spofford, thanks for watching, guys. Thanks, guys. Made for the climate forcing a fire They want us to fall, we're taking it higher The temperature rising I'm a survive