The Code To Winning - INVEST IN YOURSELF || BLAKE ERICKSON || EPISODE 010

Episode Date: December 29, 2024

INVEST IN YOURSELF #010   In this episode, we sit down with Blake Erickson, a dynamic sales leader in his early 20s who’s already making waves in the world of entrepreneurship and wealth building. After excelling as a regional leader in pest control sales, Blake wisely invested his earnings into real estate, creating passive income and laying the foundation for generational wealth. But Blake’s ambition doesn’t stop there—he’s diversified his income streams, including speaking engagements and owning a rentable podcast studio, turning it into a profitable asset. As the host of the Modern Day Heroes podcast, Blake shares inspiring stories of entrepreneurs and their journeys to success. Beyond business, Blake is a man of faith, a devoted husband, and a loving father. In this episode, he shares insights on the power of self-investment, seizing opportunities, and balancing purpose with prosperity. Tune in for an inspiring conversation packed with actionable advice for building wealth and creating a meaningful life.

Freedom doesn't come from money. Freedom comes from permanent passive income. If I'm dealing with someone that's making $50,000 to $100,000 a year, I would not tell them to invest in anything physically except themselves. Here's what I've learned about real estate. What's cool about it is it always appreciates. Secondly, it's an investment that you have control over. This is the capital of capitalism. There's tremendous amount of opportunity in this country than I've ever seen in my entire life. One thing on the nine to five, that's cool, is everyone can't escape it because we have enough.

time to do so. I'm willing to say that 90% my net worth has been created through my network. The importance of manifestation. I know for a fact we are what we repeatedly think we are. I think the greatest way to create a reoccurring asset outside of real estate is that's so powerful. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of the Code to Winning Insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. Today we have a special guest. We go. by the name of Blake Erickson. Just a brief introduction of Blake. Blake is a sales leader.

He's a real estate investor. He's also a podcast host of modern day heroes and a complete stud. That's just the final like nail on the coffin as well. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the studio, Blake Erickson. I feel like I'm in Hollywood, brother.

I appreciate that. I had a guy. That was the best intro I've gotten. You know what, actually, me to start a podcast. I was knocking doors in New Jersey. And this guy came out the door so pissed. It's like, dude, why don't you just start a radio station? He literally said that. So it kind of like played on my mind. I love that. Anyway, you got a great personality for it, man. I'm grateful to be here. Thank you so much for being in the studio today. So if you could just give us a brief introduction

of who Blake Erickson is and how did you come about to where you add today as well? Yeah. So first and foremost, I'm a husband. I'm a father. I'm a son of God. And those are my greatest calling to him, which just fire me up. And I'm so grateful for. When did you and your wife meet? When? Yeah, win. So we've been married for two years. We met December 4, 2020. Okay. So it's been a little bit. That's COVID time, bro. So that's right. That was a gamble. It's the mosque. So all you could just tell about the eyes. That's right, dude. So.

Um, outside of that, I'm a real estate investor. Uh, I'm a leader of a door to organization. Um, and I just love people, man. I love learning from people. I love being with people. I love connecting with people. I love teaching people. I love inspiring people.

And so my mission is to lead, inspire, and impact the word and being. And, uh, man, I just try to spend as much my time fulfilling that mission as possible. 100% bro. Thank you so much for sharing that. Um, so, um, um, you started in the door-to-door space, which year was that? Yeah, so that was COVID year as well.

Okay. Was it your first time? Yeah, so I want to be an entrepreneur and all my friends were out doing sales and then they started buying real estate with it and I was like, cool, I'll go get some capital. So this is COVID year 2020, first year doing pest control

and went out knocked doors, fully commission base for anybody that doesn't know about door to door and made $118,000 in four months. Wow. and changed my life, dude, because for the first time my life, I didn't have to worry about money. And I always knew I was seeking freedom. I think we all seek freedom internally.

And when I tasted of it, I was like, man, how do I just get a whole lot more of that? And how do I help a lot of people go get a lot of that? And so over the next three years after my first summer of selling, I just started telling everybody about it. And so the second year, I had a team of 40, my third year I had a team 150 and my fourth year at a team of 250

It's just grown from there Which has been so fun I've been able to work with incredible people But what's been cool about it is The relationships I've formed Seeing other people succeed And also Taking money and then investing in real estate

And watching that grow and multiply And it's just been fun man It's been one of the greatest educations For life Is what I've learned on and off the doors And so I just feel like I've learned a ton through the experience in four to five year time period. Awesome.

And if you don't have me asking, how old are you? I'm 25 years old. My gosh, bro. You're aging like fine wine, by the way. I appreciate that. Just to go back onto that, I feel like the importance of being self-reliant is crucial, especially in today's world as well. But what I like the most about what you actually mentioned even further is the fact that

you utilized and you made good use of your money. So there's a stigma and often a bad reputation that sales reps have, whenever they end up like gaining so much amount of money, considering the fact that they've never gained that before, they end up blowing out on irrelevant stuff like shoes and fancy cars. And to be fair, I was also guilty of that. For sure. You know, and we often fall in that.

However, how important is it to actually make the right investments and how is that paid dividends off for you as well? Yeah, it's crucial. So I always say if you wrote me a chance, today for $5 million and I got the check, I still wouldn't feel free. The only way I could feel free is if I knew that there was something coming in every single month. And so freedom doesn't come from money. Freedom comes from permanent passive income. And so as I recognized that, and I realized, hey, in order for me to feel free and be free, I need to have consistent money coming in. I recognize

shortly that real estate's the number one producer of that and the absolute best way to get involved in that and so like I said it doesn't matter whether you make a hundred grand or 50 grand or a million bucks what matters is how much of that is getting invested and where it's getting invested and so that's been a main focus that I've tried to put as a leader to my guys of making sure that hey you're paying the price now so you can live how you want to live later rather than living how you want to live now and never really getting ahead later. And so building real wealth is sacrificing for the short term so you can have everything that you want.

I love that 100% boss. My quick question, because one of the stuff, especially with social media, there's always like, whenever you just scroll on every single page, someone's like, I can show how to get rich. Click on the link in the description section. So some of the viewers that are out there and want to try and figure out what are the right investments that you feel that have paid off for you.

And what are the things you can prove? People can avoid right now. What would you say is the first step? If somebody is earning just something basic like $50,000 a year or between $50,000 to $100,000 a year, what would you say would be more feasible for them to invest in? If it's like multi-family or single home, like just give me your example. Great question.

So my answer might be a little bit controversial. So if I'm dealing with someone that's making $50 to $100,000 a year, I would not tell them to invest in anything physically except themselves. And so any excess income, and my first advice would be live as poor as you can. Live as poor as you can. And any excess income, dump into your own brain. Dump into yourself. Because the greater you are, the greater you become,

the more money you're going to make, the more people you're going to attract, the more people want to work with you. So if you want to make more and earn more, you actually got to become the person that does so first okay so once you've done that and you need to continue to do that my and i've lost a ton of money by the way crypto stocks businesses you've named i've invested in all of it amazon stores any of those get rich quick clickbait things i've clicked on all of them i've done all of them so listen to me haven't mentioned forex bro that's once killed me i'm four x as well i've lost 35000 dollars on forex bro i'm sorry forex was my

first get rich quick scheme that I invested in. So lost money in that too. But here's what I've learned about real estate. What's cool about it is it always appreciates. Secondly, it's an investment that you have control over. You know what tenants you're going to put in there. You know how much you're buying the house for. You know how much you can charge for rent. You know what the repairs are all before you wire the money. You know all the details about the property to know if it's a good investment or not. And so I love that you have control. If I invest in the stock market, the moment I invest, I no longer have control. The moment I put it in Forex or crypto, I no longer have control.

Cool part about real estate is I have control. And so after you've invested in yourself, which if you're making 50 to 100, every excess dime you have, put it back into your own brain. Put it back into yourself. After that, go broke buying assets. And here's what I mean by that. still to this day, if you look at my bank account, it's empty. Because anytime I get money, I buy an asset. And assets are things that put money in your pocket, not take money out of your pocket.

So anytime I get money, I put it into an asset. The more assets I buy over time, the more reoccurring income I'm going to have over time, to a point where I'm going to wake up and I'm no longer going to need to be making active income because I invest in so many assets, I'm just going to be able to be able to. live off my passive income that's powerful and then can you give examples besides real estate are any other assets that people can try and invest in because because i'm going to actually start another segment of the podcast after we after our 20th episode we're going to start a side hustle thing cool i like it which i'll you know for the time this is released probably like um it's going to be just

of how people can actually make like just enough amount of money that's kind of recurring as well what are some of the assets people can also invest in early as early asset investments and then like before they can actually go into like multifamily and so yeah yeah I love it so there's some stocks out there that will pay you dividends okay so you can look into those and I think the greatest way to create a reoccurring asset outside of real estate is business and so you could go find a couple people start a business let's call it window washing and create a system and put the right people in place that go out and grow this business without you necessarily need to be involved. And that business is going to create income for you, however much it might be is depend upon however much they grow. And that's a really easy way with no money out of pocket to begin creating an asset. So if you're 12 years old or if you're 25 years old, if you have the right people process systems in place,

with no money down, you can go create an asset. Window washing is just an example. Law and care is an example. I have like a podcast studio that's an asset, right? We built it out and we rent it out. I bought jet skis. So those like wave runners you go to the lake with, I bought those, I rent those out,

that's now an asset. And so anything that you can rent out, anything that people will pay for, and the less work that is required to get that money, the better, that's considered an asset. That's so powerful, man. So I don't know if I told you this, but I'm originally from South Africa,

at Johannesburg. But I first came into America, I think, 2017. I landed in JFK, true story. I kissed the floor. I don't tell my wife that because I'll live it. I love that, bro. But let me tell you why I say that. This, I feel like personally,

Americans don't really appreciate America as they should. Let me tell you why I say that. This is the capital of capitalism. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity in this country than I've ever seen in my entire life. You can make money of everything from donating plasma to medical trials to, you know,

starting a small side hustle, lemonade stand. I used to watch this thing on TV. This is absolutely, it's the opportunity to actually make an extra dime there is just, it's exponential, it's so big. And I feel like sometimes people don't capitalize on that because you don't have to settle for

your 9 to 5, you don't have to settle for and those can be a temporary like stop off until you reach the next step because I feel like people need to have some sort of security, which I understand, but I think from then taking it to the next level, it's just avoiding the complacency as well. Dude, I love that. Let me just say one thing. I'm so grateful for that insight because I don't know, like, what it's like outside anywhere else.

And I'm such a fan of capitalism. And one thing on the nine to five, that's cool, is 99% people are going to have them at some point. the thing that I've learned is everyone can't escape it because we have enough time to do so. Most people think if they have the nine to five, they don't have time to go create more income, like medical trials, like all these things you just mentioned. The reality is, we all have an extra 30 to 40 hours in a week that we can go create. And if you're telling yourself the story, oh, I have my 9 to 5, therefore I can't go create more income or start a side hustle or buy assets or start another business.

That's just the limiting belief that you're creating because every one of us has 30 to 40 hours. we can carve out of a week to go create it. Powerful, brother. Absolutely powerful. My question, you say something so interesting, which I loved a lot. You spoke about investing in yourself. I want to talk about the importance of that. Because I feel like it's such a broad topic

because investing could also mean like buying courses. Yeah. And can you elaborate a bit more investing in yourself? So part of my brand is I want to be the person that invests himself the most out of anybody. Like someone says, oh, that guy owns a lot of real estate. I want people to be like, yeah, Blake invests himself more than anybody. So here's what it looks like. You can invest in yourself by time, not by money.

So podcasts, completely free. You're listening to this. This is a self-investment. It cost you $0. It did cost you your time. And so that's your investment. YouTube is the greatest learning platform on the earth. There is nothing you cannot learn on YouTube.

There's millions of how-to videos. right um this takes a little bit of money but audiobooks books in general most of these authors that write these books these that specialize in these things they compile all the information they have on this topic and put it into a book and people would probably pay thousands of dollars an hour for that person to teach it to him and he gives it to you on this $20 book and so those are just really really low cost or free cost where i've learned so much much of my knowledge just by doing those and everyone has access to those. When you start getting some money, there are things that I've been involved in,

like a mastermind group that's provided a ton of value for me. That costs me money, but that's brought me incredible relationships that have landed me a lot of different things. I've sped up my learning process because they've taught me things of how they've succeeded, so therefore I've been able to fast track myself. I've been able to skip over failures. Another thing that's been super valuable is one-on-one coaching. So people that are like I have a sales coach, I have a life coach, a marriage coach, a lot of different coaches.

I have a physical trainer. So I love investing in one-on-one coaching because they hold my hand. They create accountability, group coaching. So there is infinite amount of self-investing, but those are some of the things that I do myself. in order to get ahead, in order to fast track myself, I want to be successful. So I'm going to learn from people that are already where I want to be and not have to go through all the mistakes and failure that they went through.

Man, that's so powerful. You know, it's so fascinating. The minute somebody tells me that they invest in coaches, you can already tell the trajectory that they're going to be getting. The reason why I say that, what the variety of different guests that I've had on the studio, I think I told you earlier, like last weekend I had Sam Taggart, But he told me that he paid, I think, another coach, I'm 50,000 or like 100,000 to go to, like, certain mastermind for, like, a week and stuff like that. And how much he paid for some of the gifts to come to the event.

And then following that, even Keaton Hoskins and who's telling me the coaches that he's paying, the problem is sometimes people are so hesitant and so skeptical. They all is like, I'm not going to pay for that. but there's so much value in gaining. Sometimes what you pay from the scanties people are seeing, they're just assuming that there's a lot of like just hesitancy with the people that are out there as well. So I do appreciate you stressing on the importance of, you know, of coaches as well.

I love that insight. Yeah, no. Now, the reason why, can you share any experiences you've had from the masterminds that you've been in? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm in a mastermind with a guy named Brody Fawcett. He's five years older than me. He used to do door to door sales, then retired because of real estate, and then owns a

coaching company that they coach people how to do real estate. And here's why I specifically chose this mastermind. And by the way, you've got to be careful. There's a lot of different mastermind coaches, courses out there. And some of them aren't very good, to be honest. And so when I choose who I'm going to coach with or mastermind with, I choose it based upon the person in their personal life. And so something that I'm admired about Brody, who's hosting this mastermind, is he's done it.

He's been successful at real estate. He was in a similar path to me. Not only is he super accomplished financially and business-wise, but he's also a great husband. He's a great father. He's the son of God. He's a loyal. He's a faithful member of his church. And those are all things that are super important to me because I'm more interested in becoming a better

individual rather than just learning some knowledge about the business. Does that make sense? Dude, that's so powerful. I wish that was a bomb drop of you. So that's why I elected that mastermind. What's been cool about it is through that mastermind, I've now done real estate deals with some of the people in there. Brody has come and taught my people that I lead and he's poured into them over multiple days. He just connected me just through this relationship. He just connect to me with a point of contact to someone that could help me get on a TED talk. And so yesterday, actually, that just got finalized.

And I'm now going to do a TED talk. And so he's connected me to all these people. And then I've also created relationships with people within the mastermind. And then he's given me knowledge on branding and content creation and stuff like that, which was such a blue ocean for me. I didn't know anything about it. And he had done that. He had branded himself.

And so he's also shown me the path of, of what that looks like to go be successful at it. And so I feel like the return's been so significant because I'm now years ahead, years ahead, due to his knowledge and relationships, then I would have been. That's so powerful, brother. That's so powerful. Do you have your own mastermind?

I don't. Brother, we should start a mastermind together. Let's do it, man. I'm serious. That'd be fun. So the reason I was saying that, I feel like there's a saying, one of my favorite all-time coaches

by the rapper, Big Sean, and he said, you're not winning until the whole team is winning. And I feel like there's just so much power and uplifting those that are around you because I feel like the ship does ride with the ties So if everyone wins together, how more meaningful and how much more happiness does that bring as well?

You know, which goes again what we feel within our gospel principles too. And I think just these masterminds obviously are so important because I think I shared with you a few stories personally for me but like the amount of networking that I've done from coming across people in these masterminds Not necessarily even like the main mastermind creators, but within that specific group

because you have people that are like-minded, people that are just starting off, people that are far ahead. And it's always, I often find the best advice are those that are just ahead of you or two steps. Not necessarily those that are like $110 million. Like I want to know somebody that's like maybe got $2 million,

you know, like in terms of, and then I want to try and know from those like, you know, 10 million. So I feel like those, I feel like are so important because we always look at the, those that are like in the billions, which is a great form of way. But if you can easily monitor your progression by going to like the next step and the next step it's even for you to actually monitor your progress along the way as well.

So yeah, I love that. Appreciate brother. Let's do the mastermind. We'll talk after you, brother. We'll talk off to you. Speaking of Blake, actually, I was telling him another business I was starting. And the first thing this man said is that KG, I'll be your first client. This man is a man for the people, bro.

Blake Erickson, 24 on the ballot. Awesome. All right. So this is a perfect segue to this. You often heard the saying, your network is your net worth. This is actually very important for those people that I feel like are very introverted

and don't like people, don't like crowds, don't like talking. Can you just stress on the importance of networking and perhaps even express and explain any examples that you might have from that too? Oh, man. I know you have a lot, but just try and figure out one or two. This is some content we can go forever on. I'm willing to say that 90% of my net worth has been created through my network. Powerful.

Truly. and majority of my fulfillment comes from my network. I'm not like people ask all the time, hey, do you want to go to this place on vacation? I'm like, that would be fun, but I'm so much more interested on who's going on, to who's going on the vacation, rather than to where we're going on the vacation.

And so I'm just a people person. So I've been super blessed to learn from people at a people. a really high level. And by being willing to put myself out there and be an extrovert or ask for the connection, ask for the introduction, has put me a lot years ahead. So for example, last week I was on a podcast with Dan Martel. Have you heard of him? That name sounds like for me.

He's a stunt. He's crushing right now in the coaching and entrepreneurship space. And that hour I spent with him and his time is incredibly valuable. I learned probably two years worth of education. And so I was willing to email him, DM him, outreach to him to make that happen to facilitate that. Same for you. You've had guys like Andy Elliott on and the muscle on and all these guys. They didn't come to you.

You can't just wait for it. But you would have never had that if you didn't create it, if you didn't facilitate it, and if you didn't outreach it. And so in my job, all of my income comes from recruiting. And in door-to-door sales, you have salesmen, then you have, after they go on sell, they go home, and then they recruit. My real niche has been recruiting and bringing people in the I know

and who they know and helping them come into this opportunity. And I've made millions of dollars. just through recruiting and just through outreach and just through knowing people and just through having a good relationship connection with people. And so if that's a bucket that you don't feel like you want to pour into or you don't feel like you're naturally good at pouring into, that is something that fundamentally in order for you to live life in a big way and be successful, you're going to have to get around it and there's no if-hands or butts.

You cannot just be the guy behind the desk, behind the computer. It doesn't work anymore. We're in a social media age where people want to follow somebody. They want to know somebody. And you have to get out of your shell. It doesn't mean you have to be an extrovert. You might be an introvert, but you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. Get out of your shell and go create those opportunities and go create those connections.

Well, that's powerful, man. That's gosh dang. It's the best part about it is There is no Progress if you're stuck in the comfort zone It's often that first step And then once you become accustomed to it Then it leads to the next step

And I think that's when people get to realize That's where growth comes They say growth comes outside your comfort zone as well And so I appreciate you mentioning that Can I ask you a question? Yes sir So you've had some big people on your podcast Which is millions of followers and to the general public, the question would be, how do you do that?

Like, how can you get guys like that that are super busy, charge for their time? Like, I've spent time with Andy Elliott, and his time's not cheap. How do you get people like that to come on here and pour into your audience at no cost? If you could, if you, I'd be curious, I'd love to hear your answer to that. Okay. Now I'm going to share an example of how this, all, started as well so I got an internship in COVID time in New York City Manhattan in Bloomberg and at that time my entire goal was just to meet Michael Bloomberg net

worth of 80 billion dollars because I'm like I feel like my 20 minutes with just him is more valuable than that 11 weeks I'm going to spend over here and so just to brief overview of how I did that arrived over there and the first thing was trying to network with all the specific managers that were with that were overseeing all the interns all right and then i think i came across about 11 or 12 of them until i figured out one person that knew the HR that worked in the executive and so it was just one step after the next step as well and so in doing so i end up figuring out the one person that worked in hr in the executive and after the executive i end up trying to figure out somebody that worked closely to mike

Bloomberg which was about two more people as well and in doing so it's the hard thing is that i can't really add as much value back to michael bloomberg as he would add to me and so it's the little things that i feel like matter the most to them by seeing how much um appreciation that that you can give back in the small things like always following up with each specific person that gave you the next lead by just like giving feedback of how that one responded and doing so i had about six chains of people to like him across the executive assistants email and personal phone number. Wow.

And in doing so, it was a time in New York where there was a new governor that replaced Andrew Kumo. So he literally came into the office of 20 minutes. And I got a call on my cell phone, say, hey, listen, yeah, come over to fifth floor. Come meet Michael Bloomberg. He only has about 23 minutes if you can do so.

No way. And so I walked inside there and nervous as heck. And I'm just like, all right, what am I even going to ask? I came unprepared at all. But I sat there and we had a normal conversation. And in doing so, I remember just the valuable insights that he ended up gaining. We took a picture. He shared and said he knew my name.

He started telling me how he knows Mitt Romney, how he knows BYU. He said this thing, that thing. And he took time to actually get to know me. But like now looking back at all those specific chains and how I did that, it's just the small things that play a big part in those people that help you with the leads. It's always following up. It's always tagging them within your LinkedIn story. you know showing appreciation and in doing so it built a chain of relationships along the way and i still have the personal phone number of the executive as well so just to cut the long story short

that's how i've done as well with all these people because i i'm nowhere near the net worth i'm nowhere near their they're following i'm nowhere near their their knowledge of experience but through those specific leads and sometimes having to pay for the masterminds and selling myself and also seeing the potential and the hunger I have because I am king follow-up, man. Like, I will follow up and always have notes for every specific thing that leads to the next thing as well. So I don't know if that answers you, but I just...

KG for 2024, that's what I'm saying, dude. I'm not a parent. Hey, that's a nugget, though. I could be a vice president. Maybe we can work on that, but I can't do the president. That's a nugget, though, dude. Michael Bloomberg, that's a whole other level I haven't even thought of.

So yeah, I just wanted to share. So and I feel those like follow up and follow up is just, I feel like it's very important. Just follow up and painting a picture, showing hunger, being relentless. And all is just making sure, very important things, all is go back to the previous lead and give an update of the next lead, previous lead, update next lead. And then that whole chain that can see the progress of how you got there. And the funny thing is that even those that are like the first two leads, freaking cheer you on, reshare your LinkedIn stuff and super like you get excited

because they did. Yeah, they get involved in process. They were the first people that laid me to that. So, yeah. Very cool. That's the first person to ask me a question on the podcast. I'm taking notes, brother. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Now, thank you for coming here, brother. So I want to talk now just about self-development and just becoming like the best version of one's self. It's such a broad topic. But if you were to break it down, what are the first steps people can do right now, whether it's reading books, whether it's like working out? Like in your mind, to have success for you or currently, what's the first step you say somebody don't want to start today? Yeah. Well, let me say this. The greatest thing you will ever do in life is create the person that you're going to be. The most important work that you, that you're going to

you will ever do is creating the person that you're going to become truly there's there's nothing more important that you'll do in this world and so recognizing that it creates a little bit of a little bit of pressure to begin doing those things when i got back for my mission in 2018 um i really wanted to be successful and in all aspects financially within my family as a husband as a father as a son of God, I want to be successful in all aspects. And so here are two things that I did that I would recommend everybody to do. The very first thing I did, the next day I got home for my mission, is I called 13 people up that were very successful in specific categories, and I asked if I could interview them.

And you know what they said? They said absolutely, and they loved it. They were flattered. And so every person listening to this has people in their network that would be flattered to be interviewed for free. And whether it was lunch, whether I went to their house, they came to my house, I just asked question after question after question and did these interviews. And at the end of these interviews, after a couple of days, I had a lot more clarity on how to go be successful.

Second thing is I consumed any type of content I could about being successful in the areas I wanted to be. for me it was entrepreneurship and sales and so i read every sales book every book on entrepreneurship every youtube video you name it i just consumed it and i was a sponge and so my idea behind it was i'm not rich yet i'm not successful yet etc but when the opportunity comes when the ball comes i'm going to swing the bat and i'm going to knock it out of the park and so i prep myself to be and become the person that would be able to take the opportunity when it's presented to go out and crush it. And I think a lot of people are just waiting for things to happen and you need to create it. And if you can't really control the outcome, you can't control who you're being

and who you're being is going to determine the outcome more than anything else that you're doing. That's a lot of bomb, by the way. Thank you, brother. Thank you. What are some of the books that you recommend that have been life-changing for you yeah i think that's so important we have people that love audio we have people that love reading i'm a very audio person because i'm always on the road i'm always doing something so i feel like audio is easy for you to absorb the content as well so what are some of the best books you would recommend yeah so it might be cliche but here are the fundamentals how to win friends influence people by dale carnegie uh seven habits of high effective people by stephen covey um this book buy back your time by dan martel is super

are powerful. And then here's one of the greatest books I think I have ever read is Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I recently just bought all of Napoleon Hill's books because he's been such a mentor to me. And that was one of the, that was the first book I read when I got back from my mission. And in that book, it talks about how to leverage your mind to create the things that you want and like put deadlines, put like timeframes of when you want to create it. So one of the things that it inspired me to do was to write down every day. I am a multimillioner by the age of 26 years old. And I did that when I was 20.

And through that book, through the teachings in there, through getting clarity, through thinking about it, visualizing it, writing it down every day, I accomplished that by 25 years old. And I give all credit to the fundamentals and the principles. and the principles and the teachings that are within that book. And so I highly recommend that for whatever you're trying to go create and do. I'm so glad you mentioned that book. The two books I feel like are the blueprint of my life.

Obviously, I love, what's it, rich dad, poor dad. Yeah, yeah. Best form of like blueprint in terms of real estate, self-development and just, you know, creating financial generational wealth for you and your family. But in terms of mindset and attitude and just unlocking like your brain as well, I feel like think and grow rich is so important and the secret. I feel like manifest the secret. Interesting.

Those two books are super amazing. The reason I love the secret is it just delves into like the power of the universe, likening at our potential, liking at like, you know, a higher power. out there which we know to be God and understanding the fact that we are literally, literally the offspring of our heavenly father. And because we have that divine nature inherited from him, we can literally reach our full potential to become like him. And just like thinking about that, like nothing can stop us because we are heavenly father's children. And if everyone just thinks that way, it just changes your perspective on everything, how you treat people, how you treat people,

you feel like you can achieve your goals because if you can see that there is no rule for negativity because anything that's negative belongs to the devil anything that's the lie he's the father of all lies as well so i'm glad you mentioned um thinking grow rich which leads us to the importance of manifestation can you talk about that a bit brother yeah man some people might think it's kuku but i'm serious man it's been one of the greatest things i've done in my life um and it works dude like I'm a testament of it. It works. First and foremost, people have some weird thoughts around affirmations.

I know for a fact we are what we repeatedly, what we repeatedly think we are. And so what do we affirm to ourself? What do we say to ourselves? That's what we're going to become. And so that's one way to manifest that everybody should be utilizing. is talking to yourself in a way that's productive in generating like who you're going to be in the future and living in it now and the present,

becoming that now and the present. So for example, when I was 20, I would say I'm a multimillioner by the age of 26. I knew that I had to be somebody now then at 20 that could be a multimillioner. I knew that as I looked at opportunities and things that came across my desk on what routes I should go,

I had to take that into consideration. I had to have the mindset of a multimillionaire. Does that make sense? And so my thoughts altered a lot what I did in the present. Secondly, there's an activity I do every day. It's called Top 10. So I write down my top 10 opportunities for the year that just excite me and get me so fired up with the deadline of 12 months.

So for example, one of those is 180 pounds, have a six-pack. I don't have a six-pack right now, but that's something I write down every day, and that is something that I rethink about every day, and they need to act in the present to be able to go out and do that. Another one I wrote down is TED Talk 2024, and I've wrote that down every day for six months. Every day for six months,

I will give a TED Talk 2024, and just yesterday I landed it. It's locked in, and I'm doing October 11th. And so I've just, I've seen hundreds of evidences. I have a hundred stories like that where by writing it down, by getting clarity, by visualizing it, by speaking it, God just goes to work and makes it happen. Wow, man. That's so powerful. I think one of the things I like that you mention is the fact that there's action because the problem with manifestation, why most people think of cuckus is because people are going to be like, I'm going to become multi-millionaire.

Anyway, let's just play Netflix real quick. I'll transfer this energy to the universe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, I will become multimillionary, but I'm all tired right now. Let me go sleep. You know, those are not actions. Like, and everything you just mentioned, there was an action, there was accountability. Everything was working in progress to reach your specific destination as well.

And I think that's so important because I always read stories like you just mentioned, and people actually write it down. Because the minute it's just in your head and you see it every single day and you tell yourself that you're going to become this person, you act a certain way, you do things a certain way. And short-term, long-term, medium-term goals, like, it's just as important as well, wouldn't you say? Oh, 100%. I love that. There's nothing I can add to that. That's perfect, brother. That's perfect. So now you put yourself on the spot now, because you're going to come back here in five years time and you're going to have to literally state everything you just said you're going to be

doing in five years time right now. So what are your goals in the long term? Yeah. So here's be careful what you said. This is. Here's some big ones. I want to have a nine figure business exit. So I want to start an own a company and that might be a little bit longer than five years out. I want to have six kids. Father Abraham, isn't it? What's that? Father Abraham. Yeah.

I want to be a New York Times bestselling author. I want to own a private jet. I just want to be a world-class husband. Just someone that serves so much in the community within the church. And I want to serve a mission within the next like seven years for my church as a mission leader. They call them mission presidents or mission leaders. and that's something that I'm speaking and putting out there, and I want to, I want to be able to do

and just be all in and serve at a really high level. So those are some marks that my wife and I together are heading towards and get super excited and fired up about and try to be really intentional about how we can create those. That's so powerful, brother. I like the fact that you mentioned your wife and how important has it been having a support wife and what would you encourage those that are currently seeking to have not just a beautiful wife

like yours but also like a very supporting one yeah you married up by the way i appreciate that and i couldn't agree more i couldn't agree more uh she's out of my league man so i believe that your spouse whether it's male or female will either be your greatest asset or your greatest liability and there's no in between wow and my wife in my case is my greatest asset She supports me like crazy. She makes my life easier. She serves me. We serve each other.

We dream together. And because of that support, because of knowing that she is just such an incredible and consecrated mother, I can then go out and make sure I do what I need to create for our family. I work with a lot of people that are married and know a lot of people that are married where their life is. their wife is a liability. You've seen it before. Where their wife wants to have all the things. They want to have the nice car.

They want to have the boat. They want to have the clothes. They want to have the nice house. And at the same time, that wife doesn't want a husband that works long hours or has to sacrifice a bunch or has to travel. She wants to have all the things and all of his times. And there's not a wife.

world that that exists. Unless you win the lotto. That's right. Even then, it usually goes away after a little bit. So, um, finding a wife that says, hey, I'm willing to buy into the vision and recognize at the same time that there's a price to pay in order to complete the vision. Long nights, imbalance, not a lot of quality, not a lot of quantity time. Finding a wife like that is on board for and totally gain for it. And your dreams are her dreams and her dreams are your dreams, that's when you know you found a good one.

That's powerful, bro. That's absolutely amazing, great advice over there. And just to add on that, one of the things I liked, you did say you guys also have like a marriage coach as well, right? Yeah.

Because I mean, right now it's still early stages, but even though nothing is broken, it's still important to all us to know the dates and just the very important details that could lead to that as well. Do you guys have like a schedule? You guys have like date nights weekly and stuff like that?

Yeah, we do. So every Wednesday night we go on a date. And that's a newer thing. For the first year or so of our marriage, I didn't prioritize that. And as I was doing my New Year's resolutions, I realized that that's an area I'm falling short in. And so that's been something that's been protected. We have a babysitter dialed in every single week. We have that time blocked out on my calendar.

It's non-negotiable. And nothing can interfere for it. with it and my relationship and my wife's relationship has just grown so much just because of that one thing and so that's something I totally recommend prior to us ever getting married when things were at its greatest we went to marriage marriage counseling we had you know counseling and coaches and stuff like that and so we don't want to wait till things are bad we want to just be proactive and continue to grow and become one of the best marriages in the world. That's powerful.

I had another question. So within our religious sect, there's often sometimes just a negative stigma where often view money as a negative thing. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, I've seen I was in a finance class and with a professor, And not necessarily what's not trying to contend or try to be the player the devil's advocate, but I think what happened is that I thought he was trying to attack the approach of how negative money is, how money is just like, you know, the root of all evil, all these different like just thoughts that came to his mind.

And so, you know, I raised my hand and I just spoke about the importance of self-reliance. Because often what that does, it brings. stability for you and your family. It also helps you to provide for you and your family, which already takes away the big stress away from the wife and yourself. And in doing so, you can also help and uplift others as well.

So yes, we have a few cases where it cannot get to people and then you end up like doing certain stuff, but there's nothing wrong with being as self-reliant as possible and gaining as much for you and your family. Can you just talk a bit about that? Oh, man, I got so much. Let's go for it, brother. So first thing first.

If you don't have enough money, what are you going to worry about all the time? Bloody money. That's right. When you don't have to worry about money anymore, what you're going to begin worrying about all the time is the people around you. And so what money does is it takes away the stress of needing to provide for your family. and then you can then focus on providing for them spiritually, mentally, physically, and all the other aspects that you don't need to with money. And then once you know that your family's taken care of and you have enough for your family,

what you then get to go do is take care of the people outside your family, the people in your community, your friends, your extended family, strangers. And that's when money becomes really fun, is when you and your family are good, and all you get to do now is just go serve, you continue to serve people in your family, but you serve the people outside of it. Money is bad when you're a bad person.

When you're a good person, there's not a person in the world that I'd rather give money to because good people do good with money, bad people do bad with money. Money is a magnifier, and it just makes you more of who you are and what you are. And so I think I'm a good person,

and I know I'm going to be a good steward over money so the more money I can go create and the more wealth I can go create the more good I know I can do. Dude, what's crazy? I don't even give you the questions in advance because there are no questions. I can see, but that there's absolute golden nuggets.

Wow, thank you for sharing that. You're welcome. I know we have to head to an event soon but I'll probably want to conclude maybe two, three questions before we end up like coming to it. The first one, I've never actually asked people, because you're so young,

I usually ask people when they're in their 40s and like multi-millionaire, like what advice would they have for their youngest self. But I'm going to actually switch it up. I'm going to ask you, looking back after you finish your mission, I want you to give advice to yourself then and give you advice for yourself now for 10 years from now. Interesting.

Okay. So I know it's tough. You want me to speak to 20-year-old me, and then 25-year-old me. Is that right? That's exactly what. What advice would you have given 20-year-old you knowing what you know now?

And knowing what you know now, what advice would you give yourself in a few years time? That's very different. I've never asked that question before. I love it. I love it. So my 20-year-old self, I would say dream bigger, faster.

When we accomplish things, we realize that we could have done it bigger and we could have done it faster. The only limitation was just our ability to think that big or think that fast. And so I remember Todd Peterson, who's the owner of Vivint, he plays bigger than anybody that I've seen. And he always talks about all the time how he wishes he played even bigger.

I'm like, dude, if this guy who's a billionaire is saying that he should have played bigger, I need to play literally a hundred times bigger. And so that's what I wish I could tell my 20-year-old self, to my 25-year-old present self. What I would say to him now is focus on contribution instead of accumulation. And by doing so, the accumulation will come. This guy's a motivational speaker. So give me tickets for that TED Talk, grower.

I'm the Elpsitting in that VIP section. Have been Blake Erickson. I knew him before you. I knew him before you formed the baby. So, obviously, this is a little bit of the baby. So obviously the code to winning insights you need today to seize the world tomorrow. The last question, we always ask all the guests because of the compelling motto and what we stand for winning. In your opinion, there is no right to wrong answer.

What is the definition of winning? So Dan Clark says success without fulfillment isn't success. all. And success with fulfillment is significance. So for me, winning is creating significance in your life and bring others along with you in the process. There's a lot of people out there that are winning by the world standards. But unless and until they can bring others along with them, I don't think they're going to experience the fulfillment, the true satisfaction of winning. they're just going to be winning for themselves. And in order to feel significant,

which is the success and fulfillment, they got to bring others alone with them. True happiness come by serving others. You got it. Powerful. So if you could tell the guests where they could get in contact with you, social media and so forth as well.

Yeah, absolutely. So best place is my Instagram. It's the Blake Erickson. Show me a follow. DM me. I'd love to get to know you and be in touch. You can look at my podcast. It's called Modern

day heroes on podcast and uh would love to connect awesome without further adieu thank you so much blake erics thank you for having me on brother much love i think i've always had a growth mindset because in this day and age i've had so many people like where does that come from elizha exactly very a contagious personality because every time like i want to play a basketball with her like i i want to i want to shoot my shot for crying out loud i want to get the three point over there so i quit my job and i had this vision so i visited a bunch of people in europe that i knew and I came up with a contract to go play. And this was after coaching for like seven and eight years.

I've learned in sports, you have a mindset. But when you're in sales, I feel like that's the next level of mindset. If you are not growing and working on mindset and your personal development, you will not survive. I was driving my car back from Texas. I found a shirt at the Walmart in my color, and it said, where God guides he provides. I have my gifts to.

Everybody has their own gifts. And that's why we should not compare it, because everybody has different ones. and we're here to help each other.