33: $2 Billion in Sales while Persisting through Tragedy & Towards Positive Change // The Story of Jas Takhar

Okay, I got you. I'm going to teach you for the next two, three years, but you're going to be my slave in terms of whatever I need. You're going to help me because I'm growing out my team. And for you to get my mentorship, you're going to have to give me something back, which is your time. I said, buddy, I'll clean your toilets. The fastest way to get there, no matter what, it's going to take a lot of time. You're going to have a lot of failure. Just like Eric mentioned, failures are the pathway to success. You have to fail. If you're not failing, you're probably not doing anything big.

Welcome to From Rock Bottom to Rockin It. I'm your host, Eric Gilbert Williams, and this is the podcast where we explore personal stories of people who hit absolute rock bottom, then got back up, wiped off the dust, kicked failure to the curb, and now they're rocking it like you'd never believe if you didn't hear it. Live Right here, we cover subjects in business, sports, and life in general. If you like this podcast, please share it. These interviews are intended to inspire, to motivate, to give hope and vision. So please share this episode with someone who needs it. Use your Instagram account, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. Hand signals, trained pigeon sent smoke signals up in the air. Use Morse code, whatever you like, just share the love and share this episode. Also, email me anytime. Podcasteric. Send me questions you would like to have asked of future guests and I will incorporate them. Or just send me some suggestions on how to run a better podcast. Or just say hello, I'd love to hear from you. That's podcastericgilbertwilliams.com I know you're going to love today's interview, so let's get started with us here today on From Rock Bottom, the Rockin It. Coming all the way from Toronto, Canada, about an hour from my hometown is Jaz Thakar, the owner of Rec Canada, a full service real estate brokerage with over 30 realtors under his wing, doing over 350 or about $350 million in real estate transactions annually. And Jaz personally has done approximately 2 billion in transactions in his career. But we're talking here about the challenges that he had to go through in order to get there. We're talking about the journey and overcoming that life's hammer that when it strikes, it strikes hard. This is about getting back up from life's low moments to kick some ass, no matter what your situation may be. Jaz, welcome to the show.

I appreciate you having me, Eric. Thank you so much. I love the background. Obviously your listeners can't see it, but the viewers can. And again, thanks for having me.

Yeah. You're from whereabouts in Toronto are you?

So right now I'm just outside of Toronto. Well, the recording that that we're doing is actually with like in Toronto at Don Mills and Lawrence which is about 10 minutes away from downtown Toronto. I live right outside Toronto now in an area called Brampton. It's where all the East India, my East India. I know it well, it's where they're all from. But I'm born and raised in the north part of Toronto in an area called Rexdale.

Okay, okay. Yeah, I'm from Kitchener originally. When I was 21 I moved out to Calgary and then I'm mostly spending a lot of time in California with the new startup so. So I got the Calgary tower in the background here and was back in that area in your area for all of holidays and yeah, anyways now we're here so yeah, thanks for making time. This is great. I checked you out online. You're kicking some ass and selling a lot of real estate. Now this is mostly single family homes type stuff.

Well, I have a team of 41 real estate agents and 11 support staff. My 41 agents cover the greater Toronto area. So my team doesn't go as far as where you were. In Kitchener we are border kind of on the west and our cutoff line is Hamilton, really Burlington over to the east which is in Durham, we go all the way to kind of Newcastle and then north we go to Barrie, Orillia and then right down to the lake. And so that's that 50 to 60 mile or 75 to 80 kilometer radius that my team covers.

What type of transactions? Mostly yeah.

So out of the 41 agents about 20 to 25 of them work primarily with for single family homes. Helping first time home buyers, helping buyers and sellers what we call smart size. Like either moving into a bigger home, moving into a smaller home. I myself am still a practicing broker. My business partner kind of manages and holds the team accountable where I focus all of my attention on our core clients that we've been building for the last coming up to 16 years with investment real estate. So helping investors build out their portfolio with properties such as pre construction like slash new build condo or home town home to properties with two or three doors right up to a building of 25 doors. Anything above that 25 door mark, Eric, we kind of tend to refer out to other teams that focus on apartment buildings and so. And then the other half of my time is spent in content creation. I'm proud to say that with my seven media squad members, we are now producing approximately 20 to 23 pieces of content a day on all the platforms. We try to get to 23, sometimes we hit 15 and other days we hit 27. So, um, we're right around that 23 mark every single day.

Well, that's about 22.75 points of contact more than me per day.

So. I get it, I get it. Look, I mean, if, if you're watching or listening right now, I think my bet, the best advice that I can give somebody who's thinking about producing content is just get started. Get started. That voice in the back of your head that is worried about what other people are going to think of you. That insecurity, I get it. I was very insecure when starting out producing content. But as you do it, just like anything else in life, but it starts to snowball. You get feedback about what's good, what's not good, and then you just start to like, like, if you start to like it, you'll, you'll increase those numbers of content pieces every single day. And here's the other thing that I would say to somebody. Like, look, I think video is really the best way to produce content because you can do a lot out of it. Meaning you can take the audio, then turn that into, you can transcribe the audio, turn that into a blog. You can take still images. However, if you're not comfortable right now with video, don't feel like that's the only medium that you can produce content through. Because we as humans, we consume content through audio. As somebody who's maybe taking their dog for a walk right now, driving a car or running on the treadmill, they're not watching anything, they're just listening to us. And then you can like, look, if people didn't consume content through long form writing, I don't think there would be a website like medium.com that attracts over 150 million users every single month. So if you can get started with video, awesome. Work your way up to video. Go great. But don't feel like that's the only way that you can produce content.

Well, we all have our own path, right? And your path has led you because like most realtors, if I understand, are selling, what is it, like two or three properties a year type thing. And like the statistics are just not good. The average realtor is not doing good. And somehow you've jumped up to having a team of 41 and you're rocking it there. So there's a night and day order of magnitude times 10 jump going on here.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I really appreciate that. I've been standing on the, on the shoulders of giants my whole life as well as. And right now I am like, I'm able to see further. Right. I mean, Isaac Newton put it the best when he said that, and it's so true. I mean, the team around me and then there's so many others that, that are no longer like, actually directly in my life right now. But did they ever play big roles like mentors in my life? Both directly in my life and mentors from afar? And so that's one of the main reasons, man, that yeah, we are definitely doing it differently is what I like to like. It's like how. It's how I like to put it. I don't think we're better than anyone. Worse than anyone. In fact. I spend very, very little time, maybe, maybe a minute or two every month, like, like that's how little time I spend on thinking about the competition because they're not me and I'm not them. And they have strengths and they also have weaknesses. And so what I like to do is focus in on primarily my personal strengths. And now I'm at a place where I'm really looking at my direct leaders in my organization. What are their strengths, so I can help them go all in on those strengths. And so, yeah, last year in 2020, there was a little over, call it 90,000 sales. For easy math, there's 60,000 real estate agents in the greater Toronto area. So in that Greater Toronto area, 90,000 homes changed hands. You know, 60,000 agents. Easy math. The average agent, the average agent would have done three, three homes. But we also know that 95% of the business, 95% of those 90,000 homes were done by the top 5%. So it is a very competitive marketplace here in Toronto. I like to think if you can make it in Toronto real estate, you can probably make it anywhere in the world. And I put LA there, I put New York there, I put Chicago, Calgary. I put really all Vancouver. I put really all those cities in the mix because Toronto is so competitive in terms of how many other real estate agents there are you.

Yeah, if we compare being a solo realtor to perhaps being a startup entrepreneur and starting your own business, I think there's a lot of differences, but also a lot of similarities. For me, you might not know this yet, but I dropped out of high school when I was in grade 10. I got in a lot of trouble, came out of that, found my passion for entrepreneurship and I've had several ventures ever since. Like lots and lots of entrepreneurship, just nonstop in my life and I just addicted. I'm totally addicted. So I've gone through this startup phase a lot and most of my ventures didn't work out. And statistically that's just how entrepreneurship goes now. I've had a few that skyrocketed and did pretty well. So that's kind of why I'm here today. But when we look at being the island, going on your own way, for anyone that's listening and looking at doing their own venture or whatever it happens to be, we're talking about stepping away from the statistical norms and breaking against the odds to go and rock it. The name of the show is Rocking It. Everyone's got different starting point and everyone has a different set of hurdles that pop up throughout. And some of them can hit really fricking hard, like Rocky hard. Right. And you were talking about mentors and about your team and about your business partners. And Jaz, if you don't mind, if we can talk a little bit about that because I know, know that there was a tragedy there you had to get through and some big issues that you had to work through. I think there was one of your partners and maybe you can take it from here.

Yeah, so I started in sales really like at the age of 6, 7, but kind of had my first, I guess you can call it formal job in sales as a, as a 12 year old having a paper route. And then I went into shoe sales, I went into the banking industry as a sales and service specialist. I went into car sales after that and each of those stints I spent minimum of two years. So I was always sharpening my skills as a salesperson. I think to be a salesperson you really need to understand that you have to have the skill of influencing and persuading people ethically. Right. And so you a, you can't be ashamed of being a salesperson. I think a lot. Some people are people that I. Huge.

Yeah, it's a huge stigma.

Right. I've come out. Yeah, definitely. I mean, sales salespeople are the least, least trusted profession. You know, like if firemen were at the top, salespeople are definitely at the bottom. Right. And you got your real estate, I mean, you got your lawyers and all that. Like everyone's in between there. But as I was sharpening my skills, I, I I got into real estate to. To. To invest into real estate, to learn how to purchase income properties. But I also found out along my path, and I'm kind of similar to you, Eric. Like, I didn't drop out in grade 10, but after grade, well, OSC. OAC and for the younger listeners, yes, we had what was called a grade 13 back in the day. Once upon a time, there's a grade 13. After that, I was done. Like, I didn't. I didn't pursue anything past high school. And so as I got into real estate, I learned that you could be a salesperson. I was like, wow. Like, okay, I've done the car sales. Like, real estate is really like someone's purchase of a home. All the emotion involved is awesome. But also, like, financially, it's the one probably, if not the biggest purchase somebody would make, which also means my commission for that sale would probably be the one, one of the biggest commissions that I can receive. And so I got into the business. And as I got into the business, the first three, four months, like, did I ever get slapped around? Because in car sales, I was doing very well. I was 20, 21 to. To. To about 23, almost turning 24. And people come into the showroom. You don't have to go get.

They come to you, throw your money at you.

Yeah, exactly. Right. We're in real estate. You have to get people. So for the first three months, I was taught by a manager, like, just a great guy, but I think. I think his time was done. Like, he was. He was. He was. Time was done in terms of. He was thinking of retiring. And so I was going to go back to car sales. And as I was walking into the office one day, I went to go get my mail and the fax machine. I know I keep on dating myself here, but the fax machine started ringing.

And the cassette player was probably playing in the background too, right?

Back then. No, it was a cassette player. You're right. A fax came through and it said, free business development seminar. And it was like 15 minutes away in the next couple of days. And I was like, oh, this is kind of cool. I just happened to be at the office. I very rarely went to the office back then. I got this fax said, free business development seminar. I'm thinking about leaving the business, going back to car sales. The gentleman who owned the dealership where I used to work, like, he always. He was like, really? My first, first mentor who took me under his wing. He pushed me to get into real estate and said, look, if it doesn't work, the door is always open. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna go back. I saw this piece of paper. I went to that seminar two days later, and I saw a gentleman speak. And there's probably about, I'm gonna say, 100 people in the room. I happen to be almost in the middle of the room, if you can kind of picture an auditorium setting. And he asked a couple of questions. And the question that he asked me, if I remember properly. Well, sorry, ask the crowd, was, who has a good website? Who thinks they have a good website? And I put up my hand, I'm like, my website's kick ass. Jaztack R Ca. And he's like, oh, great, but how much business have you done? Like, how many transactions have you done? And I was like, none. And he's like, okay. He's like, how many leads have you got off your website? And I'm like, none. Is it? Oh, let me guess. You have, like, a really cool online brochure. And I was like, okay, I guess. And then he picked on me a couple of times and. And I left. The next morning. I called the number that was on that piece of paper, and his secretary picked up. I booked an appointment with this guy. I was in his office two days later, and I said, look, man, I'm about to leave the business, but unless you're willing to teach me, I need someone like you to take me under their wing. I know myself. I need hands on. It's why high school didn't really work for me. Because in the courses that I did well, Eric, it was because the teacher spent time with me before class or after class. I needed that. That's how I learned. And he's like, okay, I got you. I'm gonna teach you for the next two, three years. But you're gonna be my slave in terms of whatever I need. You're gonna help me because I'm growing out my team. And for you to get my mentorship, you're gonna have to give me something back, which is your time. I said, buddy, I'll clean your toilets for 13 years. For 13 years.

Wait a second. Before we jump forward, like what you just said right there, that's a big point, right? I remember for me, of course, you know, no high school, no education, got arrested, lots of trouble, had no idea. No entrepreneurship in my family, no one really to support. And when I found my first mentor, it was like, I don't care at all what you need me to Do I was working 17 plus hours a day sometimes driving all over Ontario and, you know, all over the country with this guy. Because it doesn't matter, right? Like, everyone has these little moments where they bump into a true mentor that's actually ready and capable and willing to take you to the next level. And it's like, oh, I'm busy that day. Well, it's gone, right?

You don't take advantage of those opportunities. Look, I mean, in a good way, you'll never know what was going to come out of it. On the, on the flip side though, you're never going to know what was going to come out of it, right? And so, like, what I can tell people is, is, is if you get an opportunity, like, let me rephrase this, Eric, that if whatever you're looking into doing, the fastest way to get there, no matter what, it's going to take a lot of time, you're going to have a lot of failures. Just like Eric mentioned, failures are the pathway to success. You have to fail. If you're not failing, you're probably not doing anything big and you're not definitely living outside your comfort zone. Now, to speed up the process of success, get with somebody or people that are already doing what you're doing. And most of the time, not every single time, because some people might take advantage of a mentee, but most of the time they're going to tell you the things where they hit their head against the wall so you don't have to. So there were so many times with the two mentors that like, I was directly affected by and then again the mentors from afar, because I've never met Anthony Robbins, but man, did he have a massive impact on my life. I met Gary V. And met his team, but that was for a day, you know what I mean? Like, he's not a true mentor, like somebody directly in my life, but he's a mentor from afar because he's also impacted the way that I can. I create content, the way that I think about certain business tactics and strategies. But with somebody who you're directly under, get them coffee, get them whatever they.

Need, clean the toilets, doesn't matter.

Clean the toilets, work for free. Because looking back, looking back, I've made millions of dollars in my life now and it's probably the first time I've ever said that out loud because I don't speak about what I make and all that because I don't think it matters. But on the other side, I know people, that's how they connect with Somebody I would have paid this gentleman, I would have paid him hundreds of thousands of dollars. Why? Because I learned so much. In fact, he would have been in the business now going on to about 35 years. Okay. And I've been doing it for 16 years. And where I am now and where he was at his height, it's a different stage I'm on now. Right. And so I cut the time in half. I cut the time in half. And so the fastest way to do that is go work for somebody that is doing what you want. If you can get a job, they're amazing. But if you can't, who cares? Just ask to get them copies. And if it can't be with the top person, maybe they're direct reports. Because if, like, I have interns now with me, Eric, and my interns, yeah, they probably like to be around my energy and my knowledge. But I can tell you, if I think of one of my interns, Junaid and Luke, who was an intern, they probably get more value or definitely at least the same amount of value from my directors than they do me. Because my directors have a slight. They have slightly more time than I do. Not a lot more time, but they slightly have a little bit more time than I do. But they've also learned my directors have been with me for longer than my interns. And. And so my directors are now giving that to the intern. So what I'm trying to say to somebody, that if you can't get to the top person, it doesn't matter. Get to the people that are like their direct reports. Because the psychology, the culture is going to be very similar.

Yeah. Just get started. So I built a construction company and sold it in Calgary, right. And we were doing several million annual revenue, but it started with cleaning gutters, right. I'd be up there all day, however many hours a day for years, cleaning gutters, scraping them out with my bare hands, getting this sludge and crap. You got to just do what you got to do in order to be around the right people to move you forward. My first employer in that realm never paid me. I worked for two weeks. He never paid me. He disappeared. Fly by nighter. And you'd think that's a reason to stop, right? But it's not. You got to keep moving forward. So I started cleaning gutters with someone else, and he ended up teaching me a few things. And that led me to someone else that taught me more things. And next thing you know, we got the company and we're rolling and doing all this cool stuff. So I totally cut you off because this subject of just getting started and finding that mentor and changing your schedule to just do it, it's got to be a priority, a real priority. Sleep is no longer a priority. Old friends, circles that aren't supporting you are no longer a priority. Family members that are holding you back, in my case, a little bit of that I had to deal with and they're not a priority anymore. Because my life and my happiness, as anyone listening, your life and your happiness is your number one priority. I'm going to suggest this and put it on you that your life is your number one priority. Not anything else that you might think. Anyways, I want to hit on that hard before we go to the next step.

If you're looking for work life balance, I don't think that entrepreneurship is going to be at the start, the best pathway for you to and for you to get involved in running your own business. I don't like a lot of people get into definitely becoming a real estate agent. Majority of people getting get into getting their license because they want to become their own boss. What they come to realize that the boss that they always wanted to work for is not definitely a great boss, right? And so look, I mean work life balance is, it just doesn't exist. In my opinion, something will always take a hit, either your business or your personal Life to be 50, 50 down the line. I mean I haven't got there. I very, and I know a lot of like very, very uber successful business people, they haven't got there. Now somebody might be listening and saying, well, I really want that, that, that work life, business and work life balance, sorry. And I will say to them like, man, I envy you actually. Like I wish sometimes I had it but I'm so obsessed now in, in trying to get and hit my objectives and what I want to accomplish that there is sacrifices that you have to make along the way. And look, I mean as unfortunate as this sounds, as you mentioned as well, Eric, like, look, you're not going to be able to spend as much time with your family, right? I got a five year old and a seven year old, two boys. I try to hack away and I'm not perfect at this, nowhere near it actually. But I'm just trying to get a little bit better every week. I'm trying to put in a little bit more time. Now I shut completely down and off maybe like 50 Sundays out of a fifth out of 52 a year. So that's one way that I started to hack away at it. I'D been trying to leave early on Fridays just to get a little bit more time, but I'm busier and busier and I'm getting busier and busier and so I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure out a hack there to, to get in a couple of more hours a week. But does it, does my relationship, is my relationship sacrifice with my kids as of right now? Yeah, it is. Because I'm obsessed with what I'm trying to accomplish. Now somebody might say, man, that sucks for you. Yeah, it does. Like maybe, but I love it. I don't have to come to work. I get to come to work. Right. And so there's always trade off and trying to balance it is something that is very, very tough to do.

As soon as we come back from this short little break, I want to ask you, Jaz, very openly and bluntly, what was in your opinion, your absolute rock bottom moment where you did not see the light at the end of the tunnel, you did not know what to do, it was over. And we'll go into that and talk about those details a bit that when we come back from this short little break. Thank you so much for sharing this show and spreading the love. Every time you click that share button or put it on your social media, it makes a big difference to those who listen to it, to the guests that I have on here as well, and to me personally, this is a passion project. And so all of your help, sending me feedback, sending me an email, clicking that contact me button on my website, all of that is amazing and it really touches my heart because when I was little and struggled, I dropped out of school, I got into drugs and violence. It was very difficult and I hit rock bottom. My own rock bottom in that context was when I was around 17 years old and I thought I was going to jail for a long time and didn't know what was going to happen. And I got out because people reached out to me and helped me. People picked me, people back up and gave me motivation to move forward, just like you're hearing in these interviews. So this really is a passion project for me and I'd love it if you checked out my book as well. I tell my whole story on there. You can find it on my website, ericgilbertwilliams.com just click on my book. I would love for you to download a free copy of the intro and prologue. It's there right now anytime. There's an audio version as well. And now we're going to go back to the interview. Talk to you guys soon. Okay, we're back now here on From Rock Bottom to Rockin it with Jazz. And I keep saying the name wrong. I'm really trying my pronunciation.

I promise you, you did great, buddy.

All right, all right. Anyone listening right now, please remember to subscribe to the channel. Share this with your friends. Share it more importantly, just with someone that you think needs to hear. It doesn't matter who that is, just share it with them. This is a philanthropic charity, motivated podcast. I do not make money on this. I never intend to. This is something I do just to give back. So help me spread the word. That'd be great. Jaz, what was your absolute rock bottom game over moment where you did not know how you were going to get through?

So as I was mentioning earlier, I was being mentored by a gentleman that was probably top three, top five in the country in terms of teaching and educating real estate agents in the industry about how to run a business, how to client service. And I was his right hand man for 13 years. Not only was I his, his right hand man, we, we, we. He became my third older brother, I have two older brothers, became my third older brother. I mean, this guy spoke at my wedding. I spent hours. We were together for, you know, 10 to 11 hours a day, six days a week for 13 years straight and really started to grow the business. I became partner of the business along the journey in that 13 years. So I started off as, as the, as the mentee, as the assistant. Then as in real estate, you call it kind of a buyer agent, the guy who runs around and shows the properties and puts up the for sale sign in the lock boxes and then taking over, just taking on, sorry, more roles within the organization and then making partner. And then one Saturday night, playing poker with my buddies, I got a phone call from a friend of mine who was out to dinner with my business partner at that time and he said that somebody walked into a restaurant and shot him. Yeah, exactly. Till this date, it's been, I think we're coming up to three years or, sorry, past three years. Now at the time of this recording, we have no idea what happened. We know, like no clue. No answers yet from the police, no answers for the family. And so that was on a Saturday night and I was under the influence a little bit of some alcohol. I couldn't put it all together until I got to the hospital and I realized that's exactly what happened. I didn't sleep that night. Obviously I have a current business partner and so luckily for Me, I had him in my life at that time because he was definitely hit as hard as I was. And then my direct team, who we all work together very closely, this changed a lot of people's lives. First and foremost, his two kids and young kids at the time, 13 and 11. That was the first thought that we all had. And then. And then three weeks later, one of our biggest clients that we did business with and serviced decided to go a different way in their business, which didn't include us, and we had a working relationship with them for half a decade. And then that happened three weeks after. And so the cloud of my partner's death didn't even pass yet. We got let go of one of our biggest clients that we serviced. And that was the time where I said, okay, I'm done. Like, I quit. I just. It's too much for me now. This was exactly three. A little over three years ago. I haven't been there for a while, Eric, so you're taking me back. And so that in that moment, a funny thing happened. As I said, okay, I'm done. I just. I don't like. I do every. Even this call that I'm doing with you right now is done on my phone. I don't have a computer, and I haven't had one for a while, so I'm not one that has a lot of stuff. But I saw a banker's box that we probably just had some files that we had in there. And, you know, all these things are going through my mind. I just got off that phone call now, and I pictured, like, you know, in movies when you get fired, you, you, you, you, you. You walk with a banker's box and with all your stuff, and I see this banker's box, there's probably a bunch of files that I don't need, but they're there. And I was like, wow, okay, that's what I'm about to. I'm going to take everything into my banker's box. And. And as I looked around my office, I was like, damn, the only thing I would need here is I have a picture of my two kids. That's really the only thing that I'm going to need. And that's when the funny thing happened. And I can't explain it, but as I saw my two boys, that picture. It's funny because that picture now sits in. Sits in my kitchen, on my kitchen counter at home. And so when I saw that, I was like, oh, no, hang on. This is actually part of my story that I'm going To tell them that I didn't quit. Oh, you also, Jaz, have all the tools in the toolbox because of not only what Simon, who passed away, that was my business partner's name, what he gave you, all the stuff that you've learned over this period of time. Because as, as I was getting to know Simon, he really, as I meant I also mentioned Anthony Robbins. He got me into personal development and the self help section of the book bookstore. I started to accumulate all these tools in my toolbox. And in that moment is when I decided that this was going to be part of my story. Haven't looked back ever since. But in that moment was when I hit rock bottom. I've never felt like quitting. I've never, in fact, like, I actually probably did quit. Like I told myself, I'm done, gather your stuff. You know, I don't know what you call it, maybe just how the universe works. You call it a coincidence, you call it a divine intervention. I don't know what it might be called, but it was my boy's picture. Seeing that, no, this is the story that I'm going to be able to tell, talk about. And now I'm sitting here with Eric from Calgary telling him that story.

How do you resonate with this wording of, you know, it's not the end of the story, it's just the end of the chapter. Does that mean anything to you?

Definitely. I mean, I take it to that if it's like, if you haven't, if it's not over yet, right, then you haven't hit the end yet. And so you got to keep going, you got to continue. So what you said in terms of it's not the end of the chapter, I totally resonate with that. And now I just needed to start a new chapter, man. So if anyone's listening right now, I hope that resonates with you, what Eric mentioned. I hope my story resonates with you. Because as I was able to turn a new chapter in my book, so much has opened up to me now, you know, and now I'm like writing my own book. Literally, I'm writing a book as we speak. Like, I never thought I would be doing that. Right. I have my own podcast. I, I produce all this content. We help so many clients. But I also understand that in that moment when you hit rock bottom, you don't feel it, you don't see the light at the end of the tunnel. But I think we just need to sit back and realize that it's not the end yet.

Yeah. And so on that subject of when is it over? I mean, I've had a bunch of failures. I had a huge restructuring, almost went bankrupt in 2014. Had to rebuild and get that all back. A couple ventures that completely bottomed out. My first venture was what, 18 to 20? And it did great. It was amazing. But then it tanked. I wasn't the leader of the company, so there's nothing I could do. So, speaking of cleaning toilets, I was a nighttime janitor for what, eight months, I think, cleaning up all the shit that's left at the bottom of the bar on the floor at 4am after everyone goes home. Or that was me.

Literally speaking.

Literally speaking, yeah. And there's worse things than cleaning toilets, I tell you, because I cleaned them. It would have been so easy to think that it's over. Right. But it wasn't. And so when is it actually over? When is it the right time to stop trying on something? Or when is the rock bottom so far that there is no coming out? What do you think that definition is?

For me, I think it would be like one of two things, maybe, maybe three, but one of two things, water would be the health and well being of my two boys. That would. That would take a lot for me to get out and over and then really. And I'm not exaggerating, it's when. It's when the line goes flat. For me now, like once you're. That's it. Anything other than that, I'm. I'm prepared now. Like, I'm ready. I'm okay with like. We just did a massive podcast project launch today and it's as right now, it's going really well, but I've had some project launches that, you know, I hit goose eggs on. Meaning, like, nothing. I didn't. Nothing happened out of it. I just have a lot of perspective. Like, that doesn't mean anything. Yeah, my team is going to be disappointed. We all have goals and objectives that we want to hit, but for me, I'm just like, don't. There's another one that's coming up. I get another shot at it. The only time I'm not going to get another shot at it is once I'm done, like, completely. Like, I'm dead. And I passed on up until then, I'm going to just keep getting up and taking punches. Why? Because now I have. Now I have confidence. How do you get confidence? In my opinion, experience will breed it. And so you got to keep on getting back up again. There's very little other than the Health and wealth. Well being of my two boys that even distracts my day, let alone makes me want to quit. Like, you know, my, my wife called me a couple of days ago and was just telling me that one of my boys needs to go in for, for a minor surgery. That fucked me up, like, excuse my French, that screwed me up, that got me very distracted, that halted my production, the machine that I am, that halted it for a while, until I talked it out, until I thought about it. But other than that, Eric, there's not much that's going to be able to stop me at this point.

So a short story and a question. One of my startups, some of them I just self funded and did it myself and a couple others I had outside funding and had to find some investors. And in one of them in particular, it was a different industry than I'd ever done before. Something brand new for me in New Horizon. And so I made a list, I curated a list of what seemed to be the top related investors that would be interested in this type of journey. And they put themselves out there as yes, this is what I do. Contact me if you want. So it wasn't like a spam thing, it was, you know, here's a real list of people that have invited this. I had 3,497 give or take people on this list who specifically said they were interested in this style of investment. So now I got to convince them. And remember, I went through that list one at a time, mano e mano to try and find someone to invest in it. And it wasn't until I was at the very last 10 of those contacts. So we're talking 3,004, 400 and some odd either nos or non replies or waste of times literally. Objectively speaking, after that many nos, you could say there's no reason to believe in the venture anymore. There's no reason to continue. Why subject myself to another hundred no's after 3400 and something of them? But it was in that last, last batch that I finally got the first yes. And it wasn't just a little yes, it was a big frickin yes. And that one yes triggered a domino effect that came back and started getting other people to say yes. Oh well, he's doing it. Yeah, sure, I'll do it too. And next thing you know, the whole thing's venture funded and closed. But there is literally no reason for a sane person to continue that list and keep going to the end. But something drove me, of course, to push forward and drove you to push forward.

Definitely. Because you said a sane person. I think, I think to make you get what I'm saying, like, and I think you know where I'm going with this. Yeah, you need to be unreasonable to be in sales and business because majority of the stuff that you're going to do is not reasonable. Why would you continuously get no's? Why would. Who wants to get punched in the face, let alone like 20 times, let alone once. You got to be a little unreasonable. Right? And definitely you gotta be able to take no's and rejection. I like to say reject rejection because it's actually, it's false. Because like, if you were going to ask somebody out for a date on a date, and you go to a bar and the girl says no to you. So if I were wanting to ask a girl out on a date at a bar and she says no, I never had the date before anyway, so my life is not any worse off. You get what I'm saying? Like, it's not like I had it and now it got taken away. I never had the date anyways. And so if you can start to train yourself like that, like, you made 42 calls, you didn't get any sales, your life didn't get any worse because you didn't have any sales before anyway, so you might as well continue to go on. But I cut you off. I know you were leading into a question.

Well, the question is when you were looking at that empty banker's box and looking to stuff it with your stuff and leave. There's two questions there. What drove you to feel like you needed to quit? And what is it that drove you to not like you lost your partner? And that's huge. And I totally get that. But why quit, though?

Yeah, because. Because it was a little too much for me all at once. So I would have been three years ago, 35, 34 or something at that time. And, and we, like before my partner passed away, we were making more money than we ever had. Our systems were in place. He passes away. Take that punch. Still trying to figure out what it all kind of means. I've dealt with death of one of my best friends at a very young age at 17. So I was able to. Able to understand it a little bit better. But then at the same time, to lose a client, of the nature of the client that we lost, it just. It was too much. It was too much for me to handle. And I. What happened in my brain at that time, because I can remember, it was like, why, why am I putting myself through this. For what reason? I could be a salesperson. Because at that time we probably had 25 real estate agents or support staff. Three support staff. So you feel responsibility and you have responsibility for them. But I said, I'm not going to leave these people anymore. Like they, like they, especially the support staff at that time, they kind of blindly follow us, myself and my current business partner, but really me, because I'm the one coming up with the newer ideas all the time. I don't have the power in me anymore to lead them. And I'm going to take them down a path that I don't even believe myself anymore. So I'm done. Why do this to them? Why do this to myself? I can just go be a real estate agent. I could go sell headphones. I'll make enough living to provide for my family. And Bob's your uncle. We're done at the same. On the same token, it was really seeing my two little boys. And this picture of them is three in one, I think. And so both of them have this innocent. They're not smiling, they're not crying. It's just. That's like they're looking right into the camera. Very innocent look, like almost like bewildered. Look at, like bewildered at life. It was probably my one year old looking at the camera like, what the heck is this thing? And that's when I came to realize, like all the stuff that you've come to learn, you now need to put it into action. And like a Rolodex, in my head, all these sayings were coming up like, the use of knowledge is real power, not just having it, like not just reading a book. That's just potential power, right? And actually using it. Executing, putting the. Bringing the team together is very important now. So as that was going on in my head, I guess I just felt that divine intervention that we were speaking about a minute ago where I said, okay, you know what? I am going to take this on now. I am. And wow, am I ever sitting here now just, just so excited at what is still in front of us, what we're able to be, what we're able to accomplish now. Because now I truly believe that my team and I are deadly because. And dangerous in a good way. I mean that. Because we have the confidence and they're led by somebody who has really unreasonable amount of confidence right now.

Good for you, man. It's fascinating to me to hear the stories of people that get back up, you know, like I have a family member, very close family member, who didn't get Back up when life hit down, right? I have no idea what to do with this person because they've been down for like 30 years and no matter what I say, they don't get up. And I've seen this continuously. It seems to almost be like akin to a fact of life. Now. You know, this person that I love very dearly is down and choosing, in my words, choosing not to get up. And it leads me to this question of choice versus circumstance. There's a lot of people that I can think of right now as I reflect their circumstance sucks. It really sucks. They didn't choose to be there. It happened to them. And they're in this perspective of this horrible thing happened to me. That's the reason life sucks. That's the reason I'm down. And that's as far as the thought process goes. It's a circle. You know, Life isn't very good because of that thing. That little thing made life not good. Life's not good because of that thing. Back and forth, back and forth non stop for 30 fricking years, right? I would like to think that I have a way to break this cycle, but it's not my brain. I can't control anyone listening to this. You can't control where your friend is going with their life or your family member is going with their life. You can only control yours. And I believe that you do have control. I believe that choice is more powerful than circumstance. I believe that you can't choose what happens to you, but you can choose what to do about it. That's my belief anyways.

100. If someone else has done what you want to do, then you can do it as well. Period. Like, look, I mean the amount of stuff, and I'm so sensitive to it all, like the amount of bad that happens to people like it. Like I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it. But if someone else got out of a rough neighborhood, if someone else was able to get past bad things that someone in their family did to them, then you know that there's a way, if you decide to take that and do something with it, is a different story to your friend and to you, Eric. I mean the only thing that. The only advice I can give you, because I've been in that position before as well where I see my family and my friends not, not, not making that choice. Just be there for them. Your role is not to make them do something. Your role maybe in their life is just not. They're not ready for you yet. And you just need to make sure that they know that you're there and in case they need you. Now, damn, I know it's been 30 years. I understand that. But maybe just like that 405,000 calls that you made and you didn't get some. You didn't get anyone. It was on the 6,000th call or meeting. Maybe it's in the 42nd year that they're going to need you. And so just, Just be there for them because it's not your role to get them up and do something. It might just be to be someone that. That could be a sounding board for them. Again, though, if, if you, if someone's watching or listening right now that has had a rough upbringing or a situation that they're going through right now, my advice to you would be search out people that got past the situation that you're in and surround yourself with them and inundate yourself with them. Immerse yourself within them. Because as you put all that positivity in you, in my opinion, it is the only way for you to get back up and become a better version of yourself.

Powerful words, man. I appreciate it. And I know we're wrapping up here, so a couple brief questions and then we'll have to let you go and keep in contact. So when you chose not to quit, I'm wondering what sort of impact did it have on your close circle, your close friend circle or family circle? Were some people maybe upset or feeling betrayed that you didn't quit? And were others super excited that you found that courage to keep going? Was there a change in your circle or not, perhaps when you chose to keep going and push through?

I'm very blessed with the family and the friends and colleagues. I mean, and I use the word colleagues does not. That's not really the right word. They're family and friends of mine. I have all, like, the reason I said I've been very blessed is because they've all been very positive. Always, like, I only surround myself with positive people. If you're negative for a very long time, you're just not going to kind of make it in my world, because that's. I don't. I choose to only surround myself with positive people. And so when I, When I didn't quit, I mean, in a way it was probably expected. Like, I think most people around me now and even then would have been surprised that I even had a thought of quitting, because that's just. They don't know me as that person. I think over time, what's happened, I mean, three Years, three and a half years, whatever. It's been removed from that situation in that time. I think some have been surprised at my obsession in making sure that I'm the best version of myself. Like I'm all about making the 113 year old jazz proud of myself right now. Like that's been the obsession. And I think I, I'm sure, I mean, you'd have to ask them, but I'm sure because I don't see my friends like the guys that I used to hang out with and we used to do boys nights, I don't see them as often. Those don't happen as often. My, my, my wife and my kids, I'm sure are surprised. My parents are surprised. Yes. Because I don't see them as much as I did because I put in the hours here. Right. And so I definitely think that they're surprised at the obsession, but not so much that I didn't give up.

Right. And my last question for you here as we wrap up is if you were to go back in time and talk to yourself three years ago, you know, about to pack that banker's box, or back when you were 17 and your friend tragically passed away and you're talking to yourself and these rock bottom moments and you had like 30 seconds to give a message to yourself. Like, what would you say looking at your past self in those moments that.

At 39 you were going to be a very good looking guy. Now I'm playing. I would have said that it's going to be fine. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. It doesn't seem like it right now, but you're going to get through this and you're going to get stronger and be stronger than you ever have before. So when my seven, when my buddy passed away at 17, that took me like six months, seven, eight months. Like I had no idea. It was the first time I ever dealt with death. I mean, I didn't even understand what it meant. Like, what do you mean? He was with me last night. How was me with me today? Didn't understand that. Took me a while with my, with, with my business partner and mentor and friend passing away three and a half years ago. I probably would have, I probably could have let myself know earlier that things were going to be okay again. You just forget. But that's exactly what I went, what I went back and told myself, I think you're going to be fine, Jaz, as long as I'm not hearing that beep, flat line you're going to be fine, man.

I really appreciate you being on the show here, Jaz. And people that want to find you, they can find you in a few spots. You got your own podcast, and there's probably a couple other ways. How would people reach out and say hello or check you out?

I think the best way to kind of connect with me is probably my website. Go to jaztackheart ca. You'll figure it out. I mean, I'm all over the place on all the socials and podcasts. The podcast name is Jaztack, our podcast. But my cup is full now, Erica. And so for anybody who's listening or watching, my job right now is to give back. It's. I've been very, very blessed my whole life. Won the lottery as a kid, and so now it's my turn to give back. And so if you're watching or listening, share this. Not only this episode, but this podcast of Eric's, because he's putting in a lot of time. He's not doing this to monetize. He's doing this out of his passion, sharing. At least let one friend know about Eric's podcast because he's just doing an awesome job. What a positive vibration that you're putting out there. And kudos to you, Eric.

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it and I hope we stay in touch here. It's been great having you on the show, and if I get anything out of this podcast is to be able to connect with people like you and to know that someone out there is benefiting from these conversations. And we just spill our heart all over the table and let them know what we're thinking. So that's what I get out of this. So thanks again, man, and we'll keep in touch. Yeah.

All right, buddy. Take care. Thank you so much, Eric.

All right, you too.

All right, take care.

And that's it, my friends, for this episode. We will see you next time. Please send me an email, say hello, give me some feedback, let me know what you think, give me some tips and suggestions. I'd love to hear from you. Also, please share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, doesn't matter. Just get it out there. I really appreciate it. And we'll see you next time on From Rock Bottom to Rocking it, have a Rocking it day.