Stay Tranquilo - 🔑 The Mindset Every Entrepreneur Needs | Stay Tranquilo Podcast w/ Gonzalo

Episode Date: March 4, 2025

Entrepreneurship is freedom—but it’s also responsibility. In this episode of the Stay Tranquilo Podcast, we dive deep with Gonzalo to discuss the mental, physical, and spiritual shifts necessary to thrive in business and life. 💡From battling self-doubt and burnout to developing discipline and faith, Gonzalo shares his journey of transformation—how he overcame struggles with confidence, found clarity through faith, and built a business with purpose.🔥 Topics Covered:✅ The sacrifices & mindset shifts required for success✅ How faith and discipline shape leadership✅ The role of fitness in boosting confidence & productivity✅ The reality of entrepreneurship—beyond the "freedom" myth✅ Strategies to balance work, life, and personal growthIf you're on a journey to self-improvement, personal success, and finding balance, this episode is for you!💬 Drop a comment below: What’s the biggest mindset shift that’s helped you grow?🔔 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell for more inspiring conversations!#StayTranquilo #Entrepreneurship #MindsetShift #SelfImprovement #business #entrepreneur #mindset Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You brought up a word which I agree and is a big reason why I kind of chose this path of starting my own thing is the freedom, right? But there's also kind of the opposite of freedom that comes with that, right? Where you are the one responsible for the way everything kind of goes. Like when I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking about it. When I go to sleep, I'm thinking about it. Obviously, during the day, I'm thinking about it. So how do you kind of, one, use that to, it's a form of leverage, but how do you also kind of like not let it consume you entirely? Yeah, that's a problem. I still have to work on that because it does consume me as well. I try to meditate. I'm a Christian, so I try to just leave it up to God. I try not to worry.

But I have the hardest time turning it off consistently. I try to use the weekends now to not work as much and to just disconnect. Where I find most peace, it's when I have time with God, you know, and I have my meditation. I live near the beach, as you saw. So I just go to the beach. I see the sunrise. And I always ask myself, is this the last sunrise? Will I see a hundred more in my lifetime? Interesting.

So I psychoanalyze myself like, man, there is no time. I have to be able to put in the work. And my mission as a purpose of a man trumps everything. What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Stay Tranquilo podcast. It's been a while since we record one here at Big Garcia Studio. so it feels good to be back and no better person to do it with than Gonzalo. I appreciate you, man.

Thank you. So before we get started in anything, obviously I want you to be able to tell the people what you do, a little bit about yourself. But I want to kind of start right off the bat with a kind of tough question. Sure. But I think you would be the perfect person to ask this thing and give a great response. Being a leader kind of like in the community, what are three characteristics that you would say are powerful characteristics?

or six of a leader? Definitely honesty. Being able to lead not just by delegating, but actually through action as well too. And I'd say number three, it would be, that's a good one. That's a very tough question, right? Because I said lead by example, being honest as well, and having knowledge and discernment. Discernment, I think, is one of the most important things because if you're leading a team, you want to be able to make the right choices in order to go in the right direction. Absolutely as well. I love that. I love that.

When, and we'll get into this a little bit, but when you kind of take upon this entrepreneurship role, right, you wear a lot of hats in life on the personal side, on the business side. We were talking offline like relationship side, right? Like there's just so many things to juggle and I want to get into that. But before we do, I want to talk about your journey into the man you've become and who you are today. So talk to me a little bit about.

how you got into entrepreneurship, how you started your own business, what kind of led you down this path. Yeah. So I didn't know what to do in life. I studied basically marketing. There's this movie called What Women Want with Mel Gibson. You ever seen it before? Where he like slips into like a bathtub and he starts, you know, reading women's mind. And in that movie, he was in a marketing agency. And I was like, wow, that's what I want to do. I'm a creative person. I like marketing. So I ended up studying marketing for quite a while. And I graduated with my marketing degree from Bear University. Then when I graduated, it was during that a 2008-2009 crash. If anybody's old enough to remember it, you know, we had like a big recession back then. And I couldn't find any marketing jobs.

And either way, a lot of the public relation companies that were interviewing me, didn't like entry-level talent or I wasn't maybe good-looking enough at the time, you know. everybody there was so pretty but I just that that wasn't the case so but I ended up doing like little odd jobs I ended up doing a marketing for like a flower company okay then I ended up working at beauty schools of America I was doing like all these odd jobs doing admissions and marketing do you remember that that's cool it's no longer around I do I actually I do right so and and so I don't know how I got in there and then a recruiter ended up recruiting me out of that company into and another organization and just all these jobs, I guess,

you know how God puts you into different situations? I learned and consumed a lot of the data and information that I got in all these jobs. And then ironically, my mom was looking for a job. And then a friend of mine at the time who worked at the airport, got a DUI. And you can't work at the airport when you have anything like that. I ended up assisting him with his resume.

I ended up dressing him. And he ended up getting, I prepped him, and he ended up getting the job. Same thing with my mom. Interesting. And I was like, man, this feels good. It's very gratifying. And I'm doing it for free.

You might as well get paid for it. So I ended up calling a company called Robert Half. I had first applied for a marketing coordinator job. But when I called the Nadine is her name. When I called the hiring manager, or actually she called me, she was like, man, you sound great. Would you want to do recruitment? I'm like, yeah, exactly. This is what I really want to do.

And she brought me in. And the rest is history. I started working at Robert Half, which is a big multinational in the recruitment. industry. So I was there for a couple of years and I transitioned over to a middle market company that grew, it's a bigger, it's a bigger company now. And from then on, I was able to move to Jacksonville and I opened up the market for them. And that's when I really got into, I was more of an entrepreneur. There's entrepreneur, there's entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is somebody that has the same qualities of an entrepreneur, but does them internally under guidance.

Right. And I was able to do that through them. And we, We did really, really well in the Jacksonville market. For one reason, another couple of years later, it just didn't work out between me and the company and me and my business partner decided, okay, you know what? Why don't we just start our own company? But at the time, I will tell you this, I was 232 pounds. I was making a lot of money, but I wasn't happy with myself. I was just not physically fit.

And so part of leaving that company was for me to just get my mindset right and my physical correct as well too. And so it became much more of a lifestyle business. So it was great to make X amount of money and work out two to three times a day. Go mountain biking, you know, work out early in the morning and the evening. So it became much more of a lifestyle business. And then a couple of years later, you know, I'm younger than my business partner. I was like, man, I really want to grow this out.

I don't like feeling stagnated. I don't know about you, but I don't like every year feeling the same. That also means making the same income and so forth, right? So the only way to do it is to grow it out and replicate and delegate yourself. That's through processes, systems. And I'm learning all that. And I'm still going through that journey now. We now have, we don't call, nobody's an employee in my business.

We're all business partners. We all have one vision. We all drive that vision. And you were talking about, you know, what are the three key things? For me, leading today, it's making sure that everybody's taking care of. Like, if I'm able to afford a cyber truck or Ferrari, I want everybody in my team to be able to afford a cyber truck or Ferrari. Like it just doesn't want, I don't want it to be where it's just all about me and my money.

I want everybody to do well in my company. And I think that's the kind of leadership that in today's world, Jen's ears are more attracted to it. I think it's a way to go. Yeah. Oh, that's great. And it's pretty cool how that full circle moment comes together, right? You're working in marketing, kind of looking for what it is that you enjoy

and what you want out of a career. And then you find joy and just helping someone through, like you said, free, you know? It's just like, hey, I want to help you. I want to make you look good. I want to help you find the job. And then you were able to apply that into finding a passion and then turn that passion into, you know, a career, which I think that's becoming more and more common, right?

I mean, we live in this society that you work nine to five and you go home and you do it again the next day and you do it the next day and you do it for years. And there's validity to it. There's some people that that works for, and that's okay. But if you're not happy in that process, you've got to ask yourself why, right? Is it your job? Is it the routines that you've put together? And asking yourself that why, I think, is extremely important.

And in that point of your life, were you asking yourself a lot of those type of questions? 100%. Yeah, that and also, you know, I was looking at myself and I was saying, why am I 232 pounds? You know, I was putting much of my effort into the company and growing up. out the market that I lost sight in my spirituality. I lost sight in God. I lost side in myself. Yeah. I wasn't my own person. You know how you were saying earlier, you wear different hats. I was always Gonzalo, the recruiter, in every aspect of my life. Yeah. And that's not good. You know, you need to be able to learn how to balance and turn off, you know, turn that switch off, right? When you're

going to recruit, you recruit, you do business, you do business. When you're with your family, your girlfriend, you know, you have to be able to relax and turn it off and be able to have peace in your life. And I didn't have that in particular. So that was my mind shift moment. I'm like, man, I'm 232 pounds. I don't feel confident whatsoever. The way I knew I didn't feel confident is I went to a networking event one time. And I felt so reclusive from everybody that I didn't, you know, when you're not physically

fit, it really takes on your mental, right? I think it goes hand in hand. And so my motivation for being an entrepreneur, to me, entrepreneurship is freedom. You do have a little bit more freedom. It's not, you're no longer in that nine. to five bucks, but I will warn people that are not into entrepreneurship. And you know better than I as well, too, you're always working. Even when you're on vacation or you're taking time off, you're always working, right? You're always taking that call. It doesn't turn off. It doesn't turn off,

right? And then when you're at that, when you're in that level, you still have to be able to find balance to maybe put your phone away or, you know, be in the moment with your girl, you know, or your family. Right. But it's hard. It's hard. It's hard. It brings, I think, anything in life, I'm learning, you have to go through pain in order to get to the other side of things, both emotional, emotional and physical in every aspect of your life. And I think that's very, very important. It's a lesson that I'm learning now at 38 years old, man. It's crazy.

It is. If you're not always learning and eager to continue to learn, then I think that's where you start to go backwards, right? I mean, you look at, I always think sports are a great analogy, but, you know, they are in constant improvement mode, right? Even if they had the best season of their career or whatever they may be, they look back at that season and say, hey, yeah, you take a lot of good out of it, but what can I do to improve, right? Because guess what? That person on the other side is thinking about they might have down here. Now they're working 10x harder to try to be better than you,

right? So if you're not always in that constant improvement and it's kind of like a give and take, right? Because you always want to be in constant improvement, but you also want to be appreciative of where you are in that moment and be, you know, grateful for what you've been able to achieve. But you can't get complacent. You can. Look, Kansas City probably got complacent. They were figured out. If you saw the game, I mean, they were rushing Mahomes consistently, right?

But they have their processes. They have their systems. They knew what would work? And the Eagles, for such a long time, figured them out, right? So now what does Casey have to do? KC has to rework their team. team, maybe hire new free agents and just change their processes a little bit. They've been figured out, right? And I think that's how to work in business as well, too.

Business, I always mention this guy, Patrick Bet, David, you know, and one of the things that he talks about is business is war, and you have to be able to look at it like that. You have to be a strategist and you have to see who are your enemies. What is your competition doing? And what can you do better for your competition? How do you reimagine yourself internally through processes, systems, and so forth? And that's what I'm learning now in this entrepreneurship journey, like systems, are so important processes are so important scripts just having an organizational flow chart internally that that we can all a doctrine that we can all follow through it's what's going to get us to x amount of revenue yeah i want to get into a little bit about systems but before we do i want to

rewind a little bit into something that you brought up right the confidence one struggle that you had when you were overweight right tell me a little bit about that journey right because it it happens to people, right? Whether that's, you're overweight or, you know, you just can't find your groove in the business world, right, where, you know, there's a little bit of stagnation, exactly, stagnation where you're trying to just trying to get over that hurdle, right? And sometimes it gets paralyzing, right? Because it feels overwhelming in those moments where you're like, like, I'm so far from where I want to be, right? Where do I even start? But that's kind of what I want to talk to you about. It was like, how do you start, right? Like, how do you start? How do you initiate

change to get what you want because sometimes it's tough, right? And some, you know, some people see, they don't see the whole journey, right? They just see from point A to point Z. And they're like, damn, you did it, right? And how, but like in between the lines, like there's so much that goes on as to the how and some of the adversity that you have to face to get there. So talk to me a little bit about like that starting point in and the work that went into making that change. Well, the starting point was me trying to like tie my shoe and then getting out of breath just time my shoe. That's what I'm like, okay. And then I was the kind of guy that, you know, so I was a 34, 30, I ended up being a 38 waist. But it all started with me being 34 and then me getting pants at 36 so I could

feel more comfortable. Then the 36 went to 38. And I was just, and then one day I was time my shoe and I'm like, all right, I'm out of breath. I can't keep doing this anymore. Plus, I don't, I'm going to networking events. I'm not feeling confident. So I think one of the things that I did and it was, it was, it was brilliant was I had to visualize it. I had to like psychoanalyse myself and tell my mind, okay, I need a loose weight. I have to. But really did it for me actually was I went to a New Year's, me, my business partner, his family, my family, we stayed out of a New Year's cabin. And I got the, his daughter gave me the H1N1 influenza. I got sick like a dog. And I think That's when I was like, I can't.

I can't do this. I can't be eating bacon and pancakes every morning anymore. Yeah, yeah. I can't be doing things like that. So my mind shifted, but then, you know, one thing is the mindset and visualization, and then the other thing is putting into work. Right. So I started fasting.

I started dieting. And I just started working out two to three times a day, basically. That's what motivated me little by little. It started shifting my mind to like, you know what? I have enough confidence where I don't need to work for somebody else. I can do this on my own. I am the, the world is my. oyster and I know that I can do this and I can push this through and I credit my

business partner because my business partner led me to the other side as well too. He was my mentor at one point. So it was nice to you know kind of work with him and you know have support and and he was on the same journey as well. So we ended up going to Denver, Colorado. We ended up hiking 46 miles in three days. Wow. And yeah, we just were the we were just pushing ourselves and pushing the limit.

And I learned I learned that anything that you put your mind into. who you can do 100%. And a lot of the guests that you've had maybe have told you the same thing. It's the same story over again, right? It's just psychoanalyzing yourself and then putting in the work. You can psychoanalyse all you want, but if you're not putting in the work, right, then what's the point, right? So I think it's a mix of mind and then the physical. You have to go through pain, right? You have to go through pain. Nobody likes waking up at four in the morning and working out an hour and a half, you know? And I tell people this, because that's what I do, and they think I'm crazy. You know what I mean? And I like that. I'm. And I like that.

I'm like, okay, because I'm the kind of the guy that if you want extraordinary results, you got to do extraordinary shit internally in order to get those kind of results, you know? 100%. 100%. And in that process, was there a moment where you're like, man, I can't do this, right? Or, like, you know, like that motivation, that, you know, that's the toughest part, right? And I think that's where discipline comes into play. Yeah, right?

Discipline. Yeah. It's funny that you say that because every day it was a battle with myself. That internal kind of like tug-of-war. Yes, because I would wake up at 3.30 in the morning on purpose just so I can work out. And my mind would say, no, 30 more minutes is not going to hurt anybody. You know what I mean? Yeah.

So it was a constant battle until like that demon or whatever it was within like 20 days. I think it takes 20 to 21 days to go to have it. It was just my circadian rhythm started waking me up at 3.30. I was going and hitting it hard. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rewiring the brain is very important. I had seen an Instagram video where it's like when you are procrastinating, you got to tell your brain, do it now, do it now, do it now. And it actually works.

It does. You start psychoanalyzing your site. I don't know. You start really just rewiring your brain to where you need to get to. Absolutely. It's like a computer. Yeah. So obviously you had put systems in place to create that change physically.

Right. Talk to me a little bit about the systems that you mentioned on a day to day, right? obviously you have your systems for kind of like your personal self. Yes. How do you use some of those systems into your business to continue to succeed, continue to grow the business? Great question. A lot of the systems at all, the core is always going to be disciplined.

So it's always waking up early. And I have a routine as well, too, you know, checking the emails, you know, priority. You always got to have as an entrepreneur. And I'm sure you have that, too, a priority list and then checking off everything. And then doing time blocks, you know, okay, so for the next two hours, I'm going to work on this. And then for the next hour, I'm going to work on marketing. The next hour I'm going to work on operations.

Next few hours, I'm going to work on recruitment. So for me, what I learned through my weight loss journey was to be disciplined. If you have discipline and organization and anything that you do, you're going to be successful. I think I might have mentioned this to you when I first met you, but my business partner gave me a great acronym. And, you know, luck. I don't know if you remember me telling you. Yeah, I do. Luck stands for laboring under correct knowledge.

it just makes so much sense. You know, if you labor under correct knowledge, things are going to happen for you. Yeah, you can maybe play the lotto and win, and yeah, you're lucky at that point. But in order for you to, like, really be successful, you're going to have to labor under the right knowledge because you can labor under the incorrect knowledge, and that's just going to give you a lesson. Right. But you're not going to get the outcome that you want, you know, or it'll take time to do that. So luck, labor under correct knowledge. Once he told me that, I don't know, something woke up. I was like, oh, that makes a lot of sense. So if I labor under correct knowledge, if I just work out and do the right things, I think things will happen.

Yeah. And that's been the case. That's amazing. And it's funny, right? Because kind of playing on that word luck, right, and the acronym around it, people are like, oh, you're so lucky. Oh, you're so lucky this. Right.

And it's like, you have no idea. I'm not lucky, man. I work hard. I try, you know, I do all, I try to do all the things that I believe are the correct things to do to create the results in my life, right? And, you know, yeah, you could win the loto. this can happen. But at the end of the day, I don't, I don't want to say that there's no such thing as luck, but there's a reason. I think everything happens for a reason, right? And that comes

from the work that you put in, the time and effort and energy, expensive knowledge. Nobody sees that. I go on your Instagram, you look like you're having the best life in the world. God damn, but they don't know anything. Nobody sees the back end that you have to do, the preparation, the organization, the everything, everything, the blood, sweat and tears to in order to get to the level that you need to get to, you got to go through a little bit of pain. But nobody will see that in our society, in our IG society. Everybody thinks everybody's just doing well and fantastic and instant gratification. And that's not the case. You know, that's not the case. Everything takes time. Anything that's worthwhile does take time. Absolutely. Right? No matter what technology or what AI we have and, you know,

AI is great, but still takes time. Yeah. And under the right knowledge. 100%. Going into a little bit about like the whole entrepreneurial journey, I want to really tap into the level of difficulty that it is, right? Because like you said, it's kind of glorified nowadays, right? You brought up a word which I agree and is a big reason why I kind of chose this path of starting my own thing is the freedom, right? Not really having a report to anyone, kind of doing things your way, having your own schedule and kind of doing it the way you want to do things, right? And there is a level of freedom to that, but there's also kind of the opposite of freedom that comes with that, right? Where you are the one responsible for the way everything kind of goes.

So your freedom is kind of limited, right, because you're so attached to making this work. That's right. Your time, your mental space is kind of consumed. Like when I wake up in the morning, I'm thinking about it. When I go to sleep, I'm thinking about it. Obviously, during the day, I'm thinking about it. And it's sometimes it's just hard to kind of like disconnect. You know, you're looking at your email all the time.

You're kind of thinking about what's the next thing I need to do because I need to continue to grow this. How do I grow? Yeah. It's always on the mind. So how do you kind of one use that to, it's a form of leverage, but how do you also kind of like not let it consume you entirely? Yeah, that's a problem. I still have to work on that because it does consume me as well. I try to meditate.

You know, I'm a Christian, so I try to just leave it up to God. I try not to worry. I don't know if you've read the book by Marcus Aurelius Meditations. Have you read it before? Man, it's a great book. It teaches you like, hey, you could only control you. You can't control anything else external. That's very true.

And it's just having peace within you, which I'm still seeking it. I'm still on that journey and that path. So I wish I can tell you right now, I have it all figured out. I do not, but I have the hardest time turning it off. consistently. I try to use the weekends now to not work as much and to just disconnect. Where I find most peace is when I'm when I have time with God, you know, and I have my meditation. I live near the beach, as you saw. So I just go to the beach. I see the sunrise. And I always ask myself, is this a last sunrise? Will I see a hundred more in my lifetime? You know, so I psychoanalyzed

myself like, man, there is no time. I have to be able to put in the work. And my mission as a purpose as a man, trumps everything. You know what I mean? So I'm vicious, man. I try to go for everything that I can. I have goals that I want to meet. And I won't stop until I meet them. But to your point, that's the hard part.

You know, when you're a killer and you have that, how do you find that balance? Because you are a human being and you could burn out. I'm almost sporty. So I'm like, damn, how do I balance it a little bit more? You know, actually to retire at my age. You know, what do I do? What can I do to balance it out a little bit more?

but the workouts, the prayers, and hopefully finding the right woman as well that can bring peace and balance is, it's where it's at, I think. Yeah, I agree. In my opinion. The physical fitness is a huge thing. You know, I think that's like a form of therapy and just doing things that kind of disconnect you from the routine of what it takes to operate a business, right? Yes. The meetings, the emails, the outreach, the day-to-day of what the business takes. Yeah.

You've got to kind of find a way to just. you know, spend an hour or two and disconnect from it. You know, that's in the form of meditation, the form of prayer. Do you do that? I do. I probably don't meditate as much as I used to. And there's not really a rationale behind it. You know, when I really was meditating a lot,

was when I was kind of trying to get into a form of really self-discovery. I mean, I really credit meditation as the start of like this, right? I was just going to ask, if that really helped create the vision that you have now with Pooch? 1,000%, you know, and it wasn't even like the vision of what this business became or is becoming, right? It's really more about what is my purpose in life. Like that was a big question that I asked myself a lot, right? It's like, why am I here? What am I supposed to do with my life?

Like, who am I and what do I need to be doing, right? And that's where I was really meditating a lot, journaling a lot, you know, prayer obviously. sitting, sitting in stillness and really just trying to identify that. And then when you ask the right questions and really kind of just be open, right, open to receiving answers, that's where I think you find a lot of like that clarity. Yeah. When you're just like in this go, go, go all the time, you don't give yourself an opportunity to listen, right?

Because you are in control, right, where God is not in control in that moment. And that's something that I really learned. and you kind of lose that sometimes, right? Because when you kind of find the answer that you were looking for, now it's all about execution. But then you'll kind of go through that next wave. It's like, all right, I've been executing, but I'm still not maybe seeing the results that I want.

Or am I doing the right thing thinking like, okay, I have the answer of what I want to do, but now it's like the how am I supposed to do it? Whereas you might not get the answers, but I think that's where you've got to be really more open to listening. And that comes through meditation. and for me, that's what I did, right? Like, I was like, I need to sit in stillness.

I was reading a lot of books around like purpose-driven life and how do you find a purpose in life? And it always came back to that, like, you got to sit in stillness, like ask the right questions. And, you know, to this day, I still do meditate, but not maybe as frequently. And, you know, sometimes you kind of put the pressure as like, you've got to meditate, you got to meditate, you got to meditate,

you got to do this. And I don't think that's the right approach. but when that discomfort comes, you got to ask, it goes back to that same question. Ask yourself, like, why are you feeling discomfort? Well, guess what? Maybe you're not meditating as much.

Maybe you're not sitting enough in prayer. Maybe you're not eating right, right? Like all these different things that you're like, hey, you know what? Gotta go back to that discipline. Got to go back to that what created the systems and processes. That's true. And it kind of comes in waves, right?

And that's something that like lately I've been kind of picking up again. I always pray before bed and it's usually just like a thank you for a roof over my head. Thank you for the bed that I get to lay in every night. Thank you for the people around me that allow me to do what I do. And just kind of giving a little bit of gratitude. I think it just kind of calibrates you. Yes, it does. I think that's something that's been really helpful for me.

But it really goes back to those systems, right? I think prayer's got to be a huge part of it. I think meditation's got to be a huge part of it. I think spending time in nature is also a huge thing. When you're living in Miami, that's kind of hard. But, you know, like you said, you go and you sit on the beach, that's good. And even just, you know, if you have a backyard, sit in your back. If you have a patio, sit in the patio.

Yeah. Some sort of like just component where you're hearing the bird, sure, the sun's hitting you. You can feel grass. Yes. And there's something called grounding. I don't know if you're familiar with that. That's what I was just going to say. I had read an article where like if it's good to put your feet on grass.

Yeah. Like you feel, I don't know, that like your body. the dynamics change a little bit, right? Something about the energies of the earth and they're just kind of hitting. It equalizes you. Think about it, right? If you go outside right now and you just kind of close your eyes and you let that sun just kind of like hit you.

Oh. Like you just, there's just something about it. Like you just feel different. You know, hard to be depressed. You know, hard to be depressed when you're on the sun. You close your eyes. Yeah. Take a deep breath in.

You exhale out. You take a deep breath in. You exhale out and that sun's hitting you. You're like, it feels nice. Yeah. You know? It's funny that you mentioned that because at an older age now, almost heading into my 40s.

I didn't realize this. I wish I knew this in my 20s. Gratitude. You know, even the bad things that happen. You know, now I look back in my life. Even the good, the bad. Like, I'm just grateful for it all because it made me who I am today. And I'm learning to just serve others now.

I like, I find pleasure in serving others and putting others before me. I think that's the ticket. You know what I mean? Or maybe that's just me reading the Bible too much. But it's making me more grounded in that realm. And I think just life is better that way. You know, I don't stress as much as I used to. And another thing that I like that you said is I'm a control freak and I'm learning now to like let go and let, you know, I'm like, God, you drive.

I can't. You know, drive anymore because I keep crashing. So like, you can, you take over. Yeah. You know, I'm surrendering. I can't. I can't do this anymore, you know, so. But there's a, there's, there's, what's the word?

Like, there's a sense of relief. obviously when you let go, but there's also a sense of power, right? Like being able to do that and say, hey, you know what? Not that I can't do this, but you know what? Like you said, I've been trying and I've been trying. It's like I always put this like into perspective. It's like trying to fit a square in a circle when God has a circle there ready for you to just fit it right in and be ready to go. Yes, exactly.

But yet we're like our ego is getting the way. And it's like, no, it's got like this. It's got to be like this. I got to do it like this. But it's like, if it's not working, stop, take a pause and really think. think about, okay, well, this is not working. Let me stop and just see, okay, what is the answer? What do I need to do?

And that's where God, I think, really comes into play. 100%. I think that's where God balances you out a little bit because we're created in his image. So, yeah, I'm learning all this now, man, at an older age. But I'm a lot happier today and a lot fitter today than I was ever in my life. So whatever it is that I'm doing, I think I'm heading in the right path. Absolutely. Yeah.

Do you have a favorite Bible verse that you kind of go back to? Yeah, Matthew 1128. Come to me, all those who are wearing heavily burdened and I will give you rest. And that Bible verse saved me because I need, I'm like, God, I need rest. I'm heavily burdened. I grew up in a broken home. So I had a lot of traumas growing up through domestic violence or family members saying you're never going to amount to anything. I always used that as fuel in my adult life, but it inflated my ego to another level that I, you know,

obviously affected me in relationships and so forth. And through therapy, through prayer, like I've learned to be just more grounded at this point in time. But yeah, that's my favorite Bible verse. Funny enough, that Bible verse, you know the band Corn? Yes. The guitarist's head had left the band for a while. And that verse actually allowed him to kick the drugs and all that stuff.

And he motivated me a lot. Actually, I credit him in bringing me to God in my 20s, you know? And I never met him. He doesn't know who I am. but it's a... He had a level of influence. Yeah, a lot. And I don't think he knows how much influence he, brother.

He probably does, how much influence he... Well, he ended up going back to the band, and I like the band a lot still. That's awesome. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, same thing. I mean, in my most confusing times of my life and, you know, kind of, same thing, kind of like family trauma that was going on. You know, it created who I am today.

You know, I look at that, you know, and, you know, some of those moments can break you. Some of those moments can make you, but it really comes down to, you. you and really putting that effort in that time into becoming a better person from that writing. Becoming stronger from it as well. And mine's Jeremiah 29-11. For God has a plan for you, a plan to prosper you for hope. For God as a plan for you, plan to prosper you not to harm you plan for hope in a future. I love it.

And yeah, I remember, like, for whatever reason, like, you know, you're looking for that kind of comfort and you're looking for that in your life. and that's what gave it to me. It's like, all right, well, everything that I'm going through right now, there's a reason for it. And God has a plan for me. And it's not a plan to break me.

It's a plan for me to prosper. That's right. Yeah. And every time, you know, there's a moment of a low or a moment of confusion, I go right back to that. It's like,

stop worrying so much, stop stressing so much. Stop living in fear and live with the fact that everything that this moment right here right now, the way you're feeling or something may not be going your way, it's for a reason and it's for a reason of good. Yeah.

Right? Because God's got my back and he's going to lift me up and he's going to get me over this hurdle, just like he's gotten me over all the hurdles that I've had in my life. Right. So there's no reason why he would stop now, right? And it's funny, right, when you think about it right now. And this is just me thinking about it right now. Yeah.

Because of all the adversity that you've faced and gotten on the other side of it, that's God proving he's like, how many times do I need to tell you, stop worrying about it? Like, I've gotten it out of everything. what makes you not believe that I'm going to get you out of this too. It's funny. I feel like we leave God. God is always there knocking on the door. It's just we don't open the door.

We're like, nah, you could sit this one out. We got this until things start painting for us, right? But yeah, I'm learning that just having him in my life is just much better. I'm more calm, a lot more calm, less reactive, you know, not angry. I'm not an angry guy. You know what I mean? I'm drinking less because of it. I'm just, I'm trying to lead, lead a better life, you know?

That's awesome. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, I love it. Great dialogue.

I'm, I'm really enjoying it. But before we kind of wrap it up, I love to do our, our little rapid fire questions here. Let's do it, man. Got my brain working. Yeah. And so you move from Jacksonville to Miami. Yes. So I got to ask you, since you moved to Miami, like, what's, what's your go-to food when you're down here?

Oh, man. There's, the good thing about moving back to Miami is that there's a lot of really good food, but I keep going back to this restaurant called Botaco. You ever been? No, never. It's if you ever want to feel like you're in Brazil, it's near North Bay Village. It's before going to North Bay Village. You know where North Bay Village is at that bridge, right before that bridge.

It's to the right. It's called Boteko. It's great Brazilian food, music. And if you go there on a Saturday, you think you're in Rio de Janeiro. Really? And I speak Portuguese, as you know. So, like, I just get into my Brazilian mode there. So the food there, it's, I don't know if you like Brazilian food or not.

I actually, I don't know. I mean, I've probably had some at some capacity, but I don't think I've been. Yeah, yeah. You ever have picagna? Of course. Yeah. This is not the type of Brazilian restaurant where it's like the red light green light. It's like just a regular restaurant.

Gotcha. But the vibe, you got to take your girl there one day and just there's dancing. There's just caipidinas. Nice. And it's just, it's a lot of fun. So I highly recommend the boutteco is great. I went to Cevice 105, I think it's called in downtown again. Yeah.

It's another good time. Miami, you could, you, this is a great place to be a foodie, for sure. For sure. 100%. That it is. I think the food scene does not get enough credit down here. You hear them talk about a lot of places. Agreed.

The food scene is really good. Agreed. Look, you're going to go to Jacksonville. There's good food, too. Of course, but it's different. It ain't Miami. It ain't Miami. It tries, but it ain't Miami.

Yeah. What if you could leave or, you know what, let me position the question a little bit differently. If 15-year-old you saw you today, what would you tell that person? I would tell him to get his Bible out, really focus on that, focus on your purpose, on your mission, and live a clean life as much as you can. No festivals, the partying, all that. That can come later. Just work hard.

You know, work hard, half discipline. Work out, work on your body. Hell yeah. You know, that's what I would tell my 15-year-old self. You know, don't care, don't worry about women, nothing like that. Just focus. Focus. I think if somebody would have told me that at 15.

Dude, I would have been a multi-multimillionaire right now. I know. So if I can only go back. It is part of the journey of creating who you are today. But I feel you. There's a lot of things I would tell 15-year-old to me. Yeah, right? I mean, your life would be so different now, right?

But everything, everybody goes to the journey you're supposed to go to. Absolutely. And last question I always end with, to you, what does it mean to stay tranquil? To stay tranquil is to have peace and balance in your life. And that way you could be super chill, no matter what. What is going around the world? You could always be trusting in yourself. Well, trusting in God and in yourself.

And like you had said earlier, no matter what happens, God has your back. And he's shown it time and time and time and again. And he'll continue to reveal and show himself to you. So that to me is what means stay tranquil, to be chill in the mind and be balanced in the spirit. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Amen to that. Yeah. I like it. Well, one last thing. Yeah. Tell him a little bit about your podcast now that. Yes. recently dropped and has been a good start to it. Yeah, yeah. So it's called Mind Shift Podcasts. It is for

people that are interested in getting to know people's journeys. And the reason it's called it mind shift is because everybody has a struggle. Everybody has their own trauma. And what I'm trying to ask and get to is how did they shift, where was their mind shift moment? Where did they shift in their life? What was the shift or action that allowed them to be who they are today? A lot of these people are very, very successful from Johnny Lee to Maria and Julia and then to Justin as well, which we're going to drop pretty soon. And then another guest that we have, Greg Lincoln as well, who's a number one bestselling author. Like I, you know, I just love exploring and getting to know people's mind shift. I think that that is something worth exploring as to like what made them

change to who they are today because we all have that mind shift moment. So I'm very excited to not only be working with you on this on the production side, I'm very happy with both. you and Pooch as well behind the scenes. Pooch is a very big part. You know, you can't see him right now, but he's here. He's there. But he's a very big part of the podcast and the way it looks. So I'm just very thankful and grateful for the opportunity.

So thank you. Absolutely. Appreciate you. Yeah. Well, enjoy the hell out of this conversation today. Same. I, you know, I think we gave a ton of value. And I think we should definitely do this again because I think there's a lot that we

can tap into and talk about. I agree, man. And you're just, you both of you guys, you guys are just, Super chill. I see why it's called. Stay tranquil. We try. We try. Chill out here. Try to stay a chill up here as well. And balance, man. Thank you so much. I appreciate you, brother. Thank you.