Todd lost $3 million and hit bottom in 2011 when his house was foreclosed and his car repossessed. He lied to his girlfriend's parents about the tow truck, then realized he had to choose between staying stuck or learning money. That obsession with understanding how wealth actually works became his way out.
At that time it was crazy for me, but what'd I do? I'm back in the club with all my boys, popping bottles, making it rain in the club. And I didn't have anything to show for it at that time. So in 2011, when I lost my house to foreclosure, not because I didn't have money, because I just didn't have enough responsibility to pay my bills. That was hard. But the hardest thing was, is my wife now, Lisa, who is an absolute angel and stuck with me through being broke. You know, we were sitting on her couch. We were watching some TV. It was like some type of crime documentary, you know, TruTV or whatever. And the tow truck pulled into the driveway. And when the tow truck pulled in the driveway, she's like, what are they doing here? And I was faced with the decision. I either lie, right? Because we weren't living together yet. Right. Or I just tell the truth. And I knew why the tow truck was there. It was there to repossess my car. And they did that. And the crazy thing was we lived right across the street from her mom and dad. Uh, and now I wasn't living there yet, but I was staying there every day.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh, I did lie to her parents. Right. And I said, oh, they're here to pick up for maintenance, whatever. Right. And in that moment I was standing there and I was a father, uh, to my two girls at the time. Uh, and we weren't married yet, but I said to myself, I got to make a decision. Do I want to marry this woman? Do I want to continue being the same guy that I am and hope that she'll believe something will get better? Um, do I want to be the same type of dad that I'm being currently right now to my daughters, which I was a good dad. But I wasn't providing them anything. But for me, I didn't want to be a failure. Right. And I didn't want to have to tell my wife, um, who was my girlfriend at the time, like, you didn't marry a guy that had it all put together like you thought, you know, like we're, we're not going to be able to marry, uh, into any finances or, you know, her, her parents, they thought I had a good career, which I did, but they didn't know that I sucked at money and sucked at financial things. And I either had to be a failure. Or I had to figure out different paths. So for me, it was survival, right? Like, how do I get the things that I want in life? So you have two options. You either suck and you continue to suck, or you make a decision to change everything. And when you do that, for me, it was I had to become completely addicted and obsessed to learning about money, the evolution of money, how money works, how wealthy people deploy capital. And that's the first step. Like, it doesn't matter what business you start. Like, all these gurus are out there, just start a business, just start a business, do this, do your side hustle, start your coaching program. And blah, blah, blah, blah. Even if you do that and you do really well and you make lots of money, you are still going to fail if you don't have financial literacy and you don't understand that. And in 2011, that's what I did. I decided to learn all about money. Um, and that kind of started my, started my jump, but for me it was survival.
So, um, and I don't want to steal all the thunder from, from your stage when that transaction transition took place, because it was a mental transition. You realize the pit that you had dug. You realized the false perception that you were living. And I think that the false perception was more kidding yourself than anybody else around you. I think for most people that we see and that we coach and we work with, they're just like you. They believe they can work themselves through the chaos that they created. They think that they can outwork it. But, but you, you took a step back and said, I don't want to do this anymore. But here's the million-dollar question, Todd. Was it easy? Did it just happen overnight? Hmm.
It doesn't happen overnight. Right. You know that. Um, and here's one thing that I left out, right. And I won't go into it, but I have a lot of childhood trauma too. Right. And there was a lot of anger towards my parents for certain situations that happened while I was growing up and not being protected.
