How Mirror Moments Made Me Millions - FDDTC Podcast #10

What's up? This is Devin Zander from the From Delivery Driver to CEO podcast. And today we will be discussing what I call mere moments. These are pivotal times in my life. When I said, you know what? Fuck it, I'm not settling for this. And how these moments changed my life dramatically. I definitely would not be successful. I would not be the person I am today without them. I would still be broke, fat, overworked, underpaid, all those things. So let's roll the intro and get into today's episode. Oh, my mic is blocking my face. All right, let's get into it. All right, guys, so what is a mere moment? And let me tell you really simple. I want you to practice this in your life. It'll probably be a short episode, but if you actually implement what I'm sharing with you today, it is going to change your life dramatically. Like I said in the intro, like, if I hadn't done this, I would probably still be working at Jimmy John's. I would still be an alcoholic. I would still be fucking 100 pounds overweight. Believe it or not, I used to weigh about a hundred pounds more than I do now, which is insane. Obviously, I used to be broke at one point. I grew up with a single grandma who made $2,000 a month. My dad is still a pizza delivery driver. It's not like I came from any massive means or anything. I'm just a guy showed up, worked hard every day, made it fucking happen. You can do it, too. And these mirror moments are going to be a pivotal part of that. So a mirror moment is essentially when you look yourself in the mirror and you accept that what you're doing is not going to get you where you want. You have to come to terms with yourself. Give yourself a long, hard, honest look in the mirror. And I'm going to give you two examples of times I did this and how it affected my life. The first time is what led to me becoming an entrepreneur. It is literally the title of this podcast, from delivery driver to CEO all stemmed from this one mere moment when I was a delivery driver at Jimmy John's. So essentially, I was a delivery driver at Jimmy John's. I delivered subs. They were fucking delicious. Let's be honest, Jimmy John's pretty damn good. Although they've added, like, a bunch of shit to the menu so I wouldn't go there. Now it's like they've lost their soul. You know what I'm saying? But I was a delivery driver, and when I was delivering for Jimmy John's, what we had to do was we had to pull around the back of the building. We couldn't park our car in front of Jimmy John's, we had to pull into the back. And to do that, I had to drive through an alley. And while I was driving through the alley, someone who worked at one of the other restaurants, it was a bonefish grill, they had to park behind the thing too. And they were backing up their car as I was driving past them. And I'm like honking my horn like, stop, stop, stop. You're going to hit me. You're going to hit me. They didn't stop, they hit my car. I'm like, fucking Christ, whatever. But I can't even like sit to talk to them about it. We looked at the damage. It's like, it's not that bad. I'm like, oh, fuck it, you know, whatever. I have to go, I have to go to work. Because at Jimmy John's it's all about like freaky fast delivery. So if I'm not getting back to the restaurant super quick and like, you know, just being quick, kind of get yelled at. And I want to be completely clear, like I was not at fault at all for that person hitting me. Like I'm driving through at a normal rate of speed. And then they just back out of a parking spot and hit me, even though I honked on the horn and told him to stop. So anyways, I go to work, you know, I get back to Jimmy John's, there's already a sandwich waiting for me to take to deliver. So I go, I go ahead, I grab it, I, you know, punch myself in, in the little, okay, I'm taking this delivery thing and then I leave. I deliver was pretty far away. It was delivered to a middle school, like right at the edge of our delivery range, which is only two miles. That's how they do freaky fast delivery. They only deliver in a 2 mile radius from the store. So I get back from that delivery and I'm going to pick a new order up. And then my, my boss, his name was Kyle, he grabbed me and he's like, devin, gotta talk to you. Come on, let's go, let's go to the back and talk. And you know, he proceeded to, to threaten me, yell at me, and almost fire me because someone else hit my car. You see that bonefish driver or whatever, you know that person, they came in and they complained and said I was driving like a maniac and doing something insane. And you know, I understand this is all hearsay, but I can. I promise you I was not. I was driving completely normal. But, you know, this person came in after they hit my car, after they backed into my car and they complained, and then I got yelled at my boss and I was like, look, Kyle, I'm gonna be honest with you, man. This guy, you know, he's full of shit. This is not what happened. And he backed into me and blah, blah, blah. And I told him and he was like, no, you know, I don't care. This is on you. You're making us look bad. You know, and if anything like this happens again, I'm gonna have to fire you. And I can't have my employees doing this. And I'll be honest. Like, this made me so angry because here I am. I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just trying to make this fucking Kyle dude money. Like, his parents owned the Jimmy John's. I'm just here. I'm a good worker. I show up every day, not late. I do my job. It's whatever. And this was just so insulting. And it's like, dude, why don't you believe me? Like, what is this bonefish? Like, we don't even know this guy. This guy's an asshole, right? So anyways, I was so angry. I was just so frustrated, so irritated. It's injustice, you know, and that's how I viewed it. And that's where the mere moment stemmed from. Oh, God, I have to sneeze. I went home that day. I was living at my grandma's house at the time. And I just looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, dude, is this. Is this all there is to life? I fucking. I show up to work every day. I get yelled at by my boss because someone hit my car. Someone else did something wrong, and I'm punished. I'm threatened to get fired because of this. I had to be honest. I had to look myself in the mirror. I had to say, devin, is this all? Are we settling for this? Is this the life we're settling for? Do we think that this is all we will ever be capable of? That we can just sit here, make fucking $3 an hour at Jimmy John's, plus tips. It's like $250 a week. Like, is this. Is this it for us? And I'd have a real heart to heart talk with myself, just me and the mirror. And I decided like, no, dude, fuck this. I will not stand for this. I will not be belittled by the fucking Jimmy John's manager because someone else fucked up And I decided at that moment, that mere moment when I was delivery driver was pivotal. That is what. You know what I realized? I can't do it. I can't work for someone else. I can't have this. I cannot have someone who's in control. I cannot be fearful that if someone else hits my car that I will lose my job. I cannot let my income be in someone else's control. I cannot settle for this minimum wage bullshit. I cannot settle for anything less than excellence in my life. And I definitely can't settle for working for someone else, being told what to do where they have all the leverage and they control whether or not I have a job. They control whether or not I have an income. They could decide, you know what? Fuck you, Devin. Then what if I have a family? Oh, I can't feed my family anymore. Oh, I can't afford to pay rent anymore. I can't. No, I want to be in control. And that way, although nothing's guaranteed in life, everything is up to me at that point. If I want to work extremely hard, if I want to do all I can do to succeed, then I'm in control. I just decide to work harder that night, stay a little longer, do a little more, try harder than the competition, and then I can control my income and I can control my life. So that was my first mere moment. And it was. It was seriously life. I mean, this is so powerful, such a powerful exercise. The second mirror moment, and we'll end it with this one, was more recent. It was back in 2019. And at this point, I was an alcoholic. And, you know, I. My drink of choice was Jim Beam, the bourbon. So I'm a big bourbon drinker. And to me, most bourbons taste the same. And in fact, I actually prefer Jim Beam and I think it's one of the better bourbons. And then it's got the fucking benefit of being extremely cheap, which was awesome. So heavy drinker at this point. And you know, the little pints, I was drinking one of those a day. So I would go to work for the day, I would come home. Liquor store right underneath my house. I lived downtown in a condo, and right underneath, right next door was a liquor store. The guys knew me by name. The pints are behind the counter. So right when I walked in, they just grabbed the pint. They had it right there ready for me at the counter. Oh, hey, Devin, how's it going? Blah, blah, blah. And it's like, it's first of all super embarrassing, like out of any place where people Know your name and know your order. You do not want it to be a liquor store. But sure enough, there I was. And anyways, so that wasn't the mirror moment, Although should have been. What. What it really was is I would take this bottle of liquor home, sort of pint, fifth, whatever. I don't really know what size it is, but it's not small one. It's a slightly bigger one. And I would finish that that night. And I would do that every night, seven days a week. Sit at my desk, put my feet up, watch YouTube and finish my pint. And I would drink a Pepsi with it, too. So, obviously, this is me ingesting, like, 1200 calories per night of alcohol and Pepsi, which in its own is fucking awful for you. But the real thing was this. We had a cleaning lady who came once a week, and I was drinking these pints, right? And I had a little trash can, you know, these tiny little ones. If you're watching on YouTube, I have these tiny little ones. It goes under my desk. And it would be full every week, but it wouldn't be full of, like, trash. I mean, it was trash. It wouldn't be full of, like, food or paper or anything. No. Every single week, it was filled with seven bottles of Jim Beam. Empty, completely empty. Seven of them. And my mere moment was when I just, like, I realized when the cleaning woman was at our house, I couldn't be there because I was so embarrassed by the fact that every single week, I had these seven Jim Beam bottles under my desk. And she would clean it every single week. I was so embarrassed that I had to leave. I could not face her. And that's when I realized I had to go look in the mirror. And I was like, dude, what are you. What are you doing to yourself, man? You have a woman you want to marry. You want to have kids one day, like you want to be successful. At this point, I was pretty successful. But obviously, if you're drinking every night, it's going to fucking hold you back. I'm like, dude, what are you going to do? You can't raise kids like this. Your wife's going to leave you. I mean, you're already. You're pretty fucking fat. Why are you doing this to yourself? All right? You want to live a nice, long life? Well, guess what, Devin. You're fucking killing yourself. This alcohol, it's going to kill you. You're going to get cirrhosis of the liver. You're gonna get cancer. I don't know if you know this, but so Asbestos, right. It's a carcinogen. It's actually so bad that they. You're not allowed to use it as insulation in buildings anymore because it causes cancer. Well, hey, guess what is more carcinogenic than asbestos? Alcohol. And here I am, every single night, without fail. If I go to the golf course, boom. Fucking get drunk. If I meet up with friends, it's like the only social life, the only way I knew how to live was by getting fucking drunk. And I had to have that mirror moment. And guess what? Here we are, it's 2023, baby, and I'm fucking. I'm sober. I've been the best shape of my life. I've got a wife. I married her. She's happier than ever. She doesn't drink anymore either. And we're planning on having our children soon. And my businesses are doing better than ever. We're making more profit than ever. My employees are happier than ever. The customers are happier than ever. And I feel I'm just healthy. I still have existential crises just like everyone else, but now I don't have to fucking cry every night because I'm worried that I'm gonna die from too much alcohol consumption. And it all started with these mirror moments. We need to look ourselves in the mirror when we're doing something that we inherently know. We're settling for a lesser version of ourselves. Working at Jimmy John's. Settling for that. Settling for being told what to do. For having my job fucking held over me like I'm a fucking parrot every day. If I don't do do what you say, I fucking lose it. Even though I did nothing wrong in the first place, I knew it wasn't for me. I had to look myself in the mirror and say, devin, what are you doing? Why are you settling for this? Why are you settling for less than you deserve out of life? Same thing when I was drinking alcohol. Devin, why are you doing this? Why are you killing yourself? Why are you settling for a person that is lesser than the person that you should be? Is this the person you want your wife to be with? Is this the person you want your kids to grow up looking at? No. I look myself in the mirror and I knew I was better. I knew that I deserved a better life, and I fucking went out there and I got it. But it all starts with looking in the mirror and being honest with yourself, ladies and gentlemen. And that is what a fucking their moment is. Do it and your life will change forever. I wouldn't be here today without him. So I recommend them you know, just. Just go out there, give it a shot. See how it changes your life. This is Devin from the From Delivery Driver to CEO podcast. We're fucking out here. We're having a good time. I hope you guys enjoy. Make sure to, like, comment, review, subscribe, obviously, and. And drop that five star review if this shit's impactful. And look, if you like this, share it with a friend, okay? That's all I ask. If you think that a friend could benefit from a mere moment, just share this with them. That's all I ask of you, okay? Above reviews, above subscription, anything like that. The best thing you could do is just share this with a friend and help them too. So this is Devin. Thank you guys for listening. I'll see you on the next episode.