Criminal Charges and a Brain Tumor Lead to an Insane Success Story with Akil Kurji

Hello, hello, welcome to the Modern Soul Podcast. This is your host Jared Goetz. In this episode, we are interviewing A.K. Kurji. You're gonna hear his story, and let me tell you guys, this is a powerful story. It's his journey. He's a modern-day entrepreneur going through the rings, working hard, and he gets slapped with a criminal offense in the process and goes to prison. For 6 months. This is the first time anyone's interviewed him about this story, so you're gonna hear it here. Um, he's extremely vulnerable, he goes into tons of depth, and you're gonna learn a ton of lessons through the process. With all of our podcasts, anything referenced—books, supplements, recommendations, websites, whatever it is—we're gonna have in the reference section on my website, JaredGoetz.com. So don't worry about taking notes Everything will be there for you. But if you enjoy this one, guys, give it a like, give it a share, show some love, and grab some popcorn because this one's gonna be really entertaining and really heartfelt. And you might want to grab a box of Kleenexes as well because it is pretty crazy, the journey that AK goes through. AK, welcome to the Modern Soul Podcast. What's going on, my friend?

Hey Jared, thanks for having me.

How are you doing? Good, man.

Weather's nice. Can't complain. I love Houston.

Only here in Texas. How is the— how's the election going over there? Are people going crazy or it's just laying low?

How's it going over there? You know, being a Republican state, I was looking at the numbers yesterday, at least in Houston and the county that I'm in. It was, it was very liberal. So I'm sure depending on who wins, you know, it's gonna be pretty crazy. I think, I don't know.

No, I have this crazy theory that the election is going to be— it's gonna take a long time to determine the winner, and then I feel like there's gonna be disputes and like there's gonna be like court cases and things about it. And I think my theory is that Trump is gonna win and then it's gonna cause like the biggest riots ever. That have ever happened. And this is recorded on a podcast. I could be totally wrong, but if it does happen, I got it recorded here that I predicted it.

No, I actually, I agree with you. I think if Trump does win, there's going to be— people are going to go crazy. But I do believe that. I think I don't, you know, you know, I can't vote, so it doesn't really matter. So but if I had to vote, I would, you know, I don't want to vote for either of them. But if I had to choose, it'd be obviously the Republican Party. But I, you know, I think in general, if he does win, yeah, there's going to be riots. But I think he's going to come through. You know, I think he's going to come through for the economy and whatever mistakes he might have made, or I think he's going to— I think he's going to fix them. Yeah.

And I'm sure people are wondering why you said you can't vote. And we'll be diving into that here shortly. But yeah, it was really weird. Like, we were watching the news last night about the election. And then I fell asleep around like 10:30 PM Eastern time. And I expected an answer in the morning. For some reason, I was like, I was like expecting to wake up and like know who our president is. So I like, I just kept having these dreams. Like I had a dream that I was like at this big news conference. Like Donald Trump was sitting next to me in a wheelchair with like a mink coat on. And then like I had a dream that Biden won. And then I, and then my dream shifted to Trump winning. I was literally like all night thinking about it. It's pretty crazy how much of an impact. This election's having, even on me, who, you know, I'm not a political guy, but it, it is like the biggest reality television show in history right now.

Yeah, but you know what's funny is whether you're Republican or Democrat, like, it doesn't matter. You control your own destiny. You can still be successful. You can still be happy. You know, I think in the grand scheme of things, like, you know, the government can't really do much. You know, you can still ultimately— you ultimately control your destiny. So when people get so gung-ho on all this stuff and start, you know, you know, I put some posts up on Facebook on about Trump and stuff just as a joke. And then people were attacking me. I'm like, man, can I not have an opinion anymore? Like, it's crazy. Yeah.

And that's why a lot of big celebrities who do support Trump, they don't say anything. The celebrities that support Biden, you know, talk openly because they're praised to, but You know, it come— like you said, I mean, you have your— you control your own destiny. The problem is that there's people that kind of take the victim stance in life. Yeah. And they utilize public and world events to, to basically validate the fact that they consider themselves victims, and they use reasoning that's out of their control to validate why they're not doing what they want to be doing. As opposed to all the successful people I know, and I'm sure you agree with me, are they take full responsibility for their own actions, their own outcomes. Yeah, exactly.

I learned that a long time ago at Unleash the Power Within with Tony Robbins. So that's kind of what changed my mindset. And ever since I did that, I, you know, I was able to find a lot of success in my life.

Yeah. And I've been to UPW, I think, 3 times now. And the biggest takeaway for me was really honing in on my vision. Like, a lot of people think they know what they want. Like, they, they want money, or they want a nice house, or they want that significant other, that girlfriend, or they want that car. But like, they don't know specifically what they want. They just think they know what they want. And at UPW, for those of you who have never been to it, there's so many exercises that you do that you really hone in on your vision. You're writing it out, you're envisioning it, you're doing meditations and thinking about it. And that Honing in on my vision, I think, has been the biggest determinate— like, determinator of being able to get there because I know what I want. What do you— did you kind of get that same feeling?

Absolutely. Because it's a mental shift on how you think, right? And you grow up, you know, and you grow up around so many people. So, you know, the events— so many— as you grow up, the events around you shape who you are. And I think that's the, I think that's the problem. And a lot of people, you know, they go in cycles. Like there's a great book by Ray Dalio called Principles, and it talks about cycles in life. There's cycles in real estate, there's cycles in the economy, there's cycles in your own personal life. So everything you do, it's a cycle. And I think when you can change and disrupt that cycle, you, you know, you actually transform into a different person. And, and that's what shapes, you know, you going forward. And if you want to be successful, whether it's in a relationship or in business or whatever, whatever that is, you have to understand why you make the decisions you make. Because if you deep— if you go deep down inside, you start realizing, man, like, I keep doing this to myself, right? And this is why I'm not successful, or this is why I can't keep a relationship. So it all comes down to that. Yeah.

And you know what, you mentioned, like, the experiences you had growing up, and like, everyone's unique, and there's millions of micro experiences you have, and all of these experiences they shape your beliefs on the world. They shape what you think is true and false. And what's true to you may be false to me and vice versa, totally based on our beliefs. And there's a concept that, that I like to think of and talk about, and I'm sure it'll resonate with you too, is that you can actually outperform your beliefs to change them. Meaning, like, if you, if you grew up a certain way in a household that made $50,000 a year, your, your subconscious beliefs are that $50,000 a year is, is the truth. That's what, that's what you make. Even if you see other people doing well, subconsciously you don't believe it. But if you stay focused and you keep working and keep doing the things that you know you're supposed to do and you, and you're consistent, eventually you'll outperform that belief. And that's how you truly shift those beliefs, is by outperforming them. For sure, 100% agree with you. But anyway, we dove in real deep. I want to introduce AK, and this is good that like we're on the same wavelength here. We met, what, maybe 4 or 5 months ago at Board of Advisors originally. And, you know, and we got to know each other a little bit, like we became friends. And then about a week ago, at the Board of Advisors event in Sarasota. It was actually like maybe 10:30 at night and I was about to go to sleep. I wanted to get a good night rest. And I saw you in the lobby of the hotel working on your presentation. And then we basically, we got into a conversation and AK told me his story. And it was truly one of the most transformational, like inspirational stories I've ever heard. And it truly put my life into perspective. And I really wanted to bring you on here to share your story that you've, you know, you've been through so many ups and downs, but the lows that you've been through were lower than really most people have ever been to. And most, so many people would have just given up, but you've been able to recover. And I'm not going to spoil the story, but they were legal issues, health issues all at once after working so hard, and you've been able to make a comeback and build something bigger than ever. So, A, I thank you for sharing that story with me, but I would love for you to share the story with our listeners here.

Yeah. How do you want to— do you want to ask me some questions and I can kind of just— or do you want to just— yeah, so for sure.

So, you know, Where did you get started in your career? Sure. So when I—

I've always been an entrepreneur since I was in high school, so I was selling candy. My dad owned a gas station, so I would basically have no COGS, right? No cost of goods. And I would just get like boxes of candy and then I would go sell it at school. And then once I sell it, then I would pay my dad back for the box of the candy, like if it was Airheads or Sour Punch, whatever, right? That's how I got started as an entrepreneur, you know, selling candy in middle school and high school. And I got my first, you know, I started making some decent money on eBay back in 2001 selling Lance Armstrong wristbands. So I bought a ton of wristbands from local shops and then I put them on eBay and the wristband that I bought for a dollar, you know, you know, I made my donation and then I would flip them because they're so hot and I was selling one wristband for like $50, $60 on eBay. And I made, I don't know, $50,000 at when I was like, you know, 15 years old selling that. And then I ended up losing all of it on partypoker.com. So that's, that's how I started. And, um, and then slowly—

so right off the bat, you basically, you were hustling, you saw opportunities, and then so, so you made money and then you lost it playing poker? Yeah. Okay, so what came next after that? You lost the $50,000. Did you Like, where do you go next?

After that, I ended up just— I was still selling on eBay, so I would stay up all night. I would take my mom's and my dad's credit card and go to eastbay.com and wait at 12 o'clock. And every time Jordans were released, I would like buy like hundreds of pairs and then I would take those Jordans and then flip them on eBay.

Okay. And did you like— so, okay, so how old were you at this point?

Probably between 15 and 17 years old. Okay, so you start flipping shoes.

So you're flipping wristbands and you flip shoes. So you understand economics of buying things low, selling them high. Right. Where did that lead you to next in your career?

And then I went to college and I was still doing the same thing. Then like these, you know, at that time it was like the iPod Shuffle had come out, which was like massively big, right? So I ended up, you know, pre-selling them and then waited in line and bought the entire stock at the Apple Store before they, you know, had restrictions and stuff. So that's— I kept hustling, right? And then from there, I just went to college. I started flipping t-shirts to sororities and fraternities all throughout college. And what I would do is I would, you know, get their order, go to customink.com. Custom Ink was still a small company at the time. And I was just buying it from customink.com and selling them to, you know, sororities and fraternities. And or I would go to like local screen print shops and get them printed. And as soon as I got out of college, I ended up moving to Canada. My dad was actually going to buy a granite business from some guy. And so I went there for about 4 months and that's where I really understood how to sell. And so I started going door to door selling granite slabs to fabricators in Calgary. And after those 4 months, I got tired of it and I ended up leaving and coming back to Houston. But I learned so much about selling because I didn't make any money. I was just doing it for free and they were just covering my expenses. But I was selling like millions of dollars worth of granite for this guy. And then my dad ended up not buying the business. So then, you know, I was probably like 20, 21 at the time, maybe, and 21, 22 at the time. And then I got out and from there, I, you know, I was very passionate about music and music videos because that's kind of what I studied in and started doing music videos for a few artists here locally, like Lil Flip, who, you know, was a big rapper at one point, and Steve Francis, who's a former all-star basketball player. He started a record label. So I did like music videos for those guys. They're still good friends of mine. And, and so I did that for a little bit for fun. Then I started a, a website. I mean, not a website, a business called FreeWire Communications, which was a wireless internet service called from a company called Clear or ClearWire. And this was back when 4G was just starting and there was a technology called WiMAX. So I was one of the first few to get onto that train before it switched to LTE and now, which is 5G LTE, right? Well, it went from LTE, 4G LTE, now to 5G. But before LTE, it was WiMAX. And I got in early and it was very, the network was very choppy. We ended up in one year, I think I was like 23 years old. We ended up going from one location in a mall to 40 locations throughout the United States in about a year and a half and about 350 employees. And that's where I got my first big venture. And we ended up going out of business the following year because we grew so quickly. And it was very depressing. I mean, I went in depression because I was like, man, I just lost everything I just built. I grew so quickly. Luckily, I didn't need the funding just because the carrier was helping us fund. They gave us like a stipend to open up stores because we were just so great at sales. And so we were opening up locations around the malls, like in Jacksonville, in Orlando, Tampa, you know, California, Los Angeles, Houston, Chicago. And so what happened was we would get a commission for every activation that we would sell. So when you go to T-Mobile and get a plan, well, everyone gets a commission. And but if you cancel your plan within, within the first 6 months, there's a thing called a clawback, and they basically take your commission away. So the network was so choppy that 40% of our customers were canceling. Within the third or fourth month. So then we ended up going out of business because we just couldn't keep up with it because the WiMAX technology ended up becoming LTE and Clear ended up really getting bought out and almost going out of business and Sprint ended up buying them out and then they converted all the towers to the LTE technology. And so we ended up taking a massive hit and going out of business. And that was my first big venture. Like it grew quickly and I also failed just as fast. And man, I mean, I went into severe depression there. Just because coming from an Indian household, my dad was an entrepreneur. He was really tough on me, but it also taught me a very valuable lesson. And he was like really upset about it. And because, you know, he let me borrow some money at the time to start the business. And, you know, I ended up losing that, losing his investment. And I was fortunate at the time for him to give me an investment to, you know, pursue my entrepreneurial dream. And From there, you know, I got up and started another company called spurse.com. I was on my way closing some stores in LA and started a, you know, met these two ladies on the plane. They were selling— Let me cut you off real quick.

So you built this company to 350 employees in a year. Yeah. So now your confidence probably skyrocketed. And then you went out of business. So it probably took a really big hit to your ego. Yeah. Which set you into this, this depression. How did you muster up the energy to go back at it?

You know, I went to Tony Robbins. That's what changed everything. After I went out of business, I didn't know what to do. I was living with my parents in their garage and, you know, didn't— I mean, not in their garage, but in the guest room. And I just had to get out of college. I'm broke, I have nothing, you know, I just had food and a place to live. And, you know, and I said, you know what, I'm not going to go get a job. My dad was like forcing me to go to law school or go do something with my life. And I was like, nah, I'm just going to be an entrepreneur like you. Like, I don't want to work for you, nor I want to get into being a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer like most Indian parents want us to be, right? So I ended up going to Tony Robbins and that happened because you know, I actually was dating this girl at the time and we ended up, we ended up breaking up. She was like cheating on me and stuff. So we ended up breaking up. And then I was really close to her family and she told her, her mom called me and was like, look, you should probably go to Tony Robbins and, and, you know, and it might help you because I was just like really upset with the breakup. I was upset with the business going, going wrong. And so I went to Tony Robbins and that's when I had a humongous mental shift on bouncing back up.

Right. And it's just pretty— it's crazy how similar our stories are because after my first big venture, Electric Flurry, when I lost everything, I was living in my mom's apartment and I had— I didn't see the way out. Like I was just thinking about all my problems all day. And it wasn't until I started investing into, you know, self-improvement, reading some books, focusing on myself, on running, on meditating. That the next opportunity came to me. But it's important to note that when you're in those moments of you don't know what to do, you don't see a next opportunity. It kind of just, it kind of lands in your lap. So I'm curious, you know, how did you get into that next venture? You know, you went to the Tony Robbins event, you got your head straight, you got yourself in a state of inspiration again. How did you like move on to the next venture?

Yeah, so I ended up, I was actually coming back from LA, shutting down all the stores. That we were, you know, we were going out of business. So we're shutting down all the mall kiosks and things like that. And we were getting sued by all the malls, right? Because we had all these leases. And that's when I told myself, I'll never get back into a brick-and-mortar business ever again. And I had a friend of mine, a mutual friend of mine who introduced me to this guy who owned a decently large company selling wristbands online. And we ended up meeting up and we became good friends and we were just like, wow, there's not that many successful online entrepreneurs here in Houston. And this guy was crushing it. I was just like really inspired by what he's been able to build at a young age. And, you know, so we ended up becoming good friends and I went up to him and I said, hey, you know, I've, you know, I met these two ladies on the airplane. They manufacture Halloween costumes and sexy lingerie. That's what they call it, right? Like the, the very bougie type, like Victoria's Secret type of lingerie, like similar to AdoreMe.com, like, yeah, very similar. So before AdoreMe.com, there was a company called Spurst. So we started before these guys. And so I brought the project to them. I didn't know how to make a website. I just, and I, all I knew was eBay at the time because of my prior experience, just eBay and Amazon, right? And I didn't know about Google AdWords and marketing, you know, and this guy was just crushing it selling silicone wristbands. And I was like, hey man, like I used to sell silicone wristbands and I was just like, wow, this is cool. Like he just sells them with messages. And I remember back in the day I would tell my dad when I was selling the Lance Armstrong bracelets, like, how can we make custom wristbands with messages on it and, and help charities and schools so people can raise money? So I met this guy kind of doing that and through a mutual friend of ours and we ended up clicking and I was like, hey look, I'm going out of business. I'd love to learn from you. And I got this really cool online Halloween costume and lingerie business. Would you want to invest in it? So he's like, yeah, I'm open to it. And so him and I ended up partnering together, him and, you know, him, myself and 3 of his brothers, and I became a 20% partner in the company, and we all put in money. And, you know, he ended up growing the business through Google AdWords. I learned everything using Google AdWords, and we ended up doing like a million the first year. And come to find out, you know, he was— he actually did that project to keep me distracted so then I wouldn't get into his wristband business. And so I ended up working for really free and I ended up going to India for a few months. My grandma was sick and we ended up, you know, I ended up staying there for, you know, 3 months and they got really upset that, you know, I wasn't, you know, running the company, you know, 'cause the company was fairly automated. I put a lot of my time and effort into it. He had promised me he would give me a $2,000 salary. I was still living in my mom's, you know, house and, or my parents' house. And so, you know, I'm like this 24, 25-year-old guy who has like no job, nothing. I got this company doing a million in revenue. We're kind of breaking even. Well, I mean, I kind of read a lot of AdWords books and kind of almost, you know, get the company to break even just optimizing the campaigns. And, you know, since I ended up going to India for 3 months, they got really upset. So when I got back, they're like, hey, we want out of the partnership. And I'm like, Okay, so then they pretty much like kicked me out of the partnership, gave me my money back, and, and I was like, okay, well, what am I going to do next? You know, I totally got screwed. I have no contract with this guy. I trusted him and I'm back to square one again. And I got my money back and I was like, you know what, I don't know anything else and I would love to do wristbands one day. So I ended up starting a project to compete with him. And that's where the whole story starts of everything you saw, right?

And so, yeah, so, so this part of the whole beginning of the story, I haven't heard until now, but this is where things get really interesting. So I'm excited to dive into it.

Yeah. So now I'm like, man, I'm in that same position again. I'm freaking back into that depression. Like, what am I going to do? Like, I failed again. Like, fuck, man. Like, what am I going to do? And so I didn't know anything else, but the custom products business. Because remember, I used to sell wristbands, I used to sell custom t-shirts on Custom Ink. I now know how to make a website, I now know how to sell on AdWords. So I'm like, what else am I going to do? So I remember in Tony Robbins, he would always say, hey, if you want to be successful, model yourself after somebody else who's already successful, right? And so that's what I did. I said, you know what, let me just, let me just get into the, the promotional product space. So that's how I got into the promotional product space. I started creating a website. Oh my God, it was such a nightmare trying to build a website on Joomla and WordPress and— What year was this? I'm sorry?

What year was this?

This was in 2011 and '12.

So this was before like Shopify and all these like super easy tools that now we're all lucky to have access to. This is back before all this stuff existed.

Exactly. Yeah, so we ended up, so I started, you know, I ended up going to India. I tried to find a developer in India and oh my God, it was a night, you know how it is building custom code, like it's been a nightmare. And so we ended up, so I ended up, I couldn't get the website figured out. So I ended up going into the wholesale side of the business. I went to the trade show and he was, his company was also at the trade show because he was doing, he was kind of doing both. He was also wholesaling, but it was also retailing online. And so I guess one of his business partners or whatever, and another company he owned, saw me there. So I guess he called him, and then all of a sudden this guy like flies out, you know, and comes to the trade show the next day. And he comes by my booth, my old business partner, and he's like, oh, I see you're in our business now. And I said, yeah, because you fucked me, right? And he was like, "All right, well, my lawyers will be in touch with you." And I was like, "Okay." Like just trying to threaten me and scare me, you know?

And you've already been through lawsuits at this point. So like you've built up that kind of muscle where you're not super scared of the legal issues at that point.

Yeah, I've been through lawsuits in terms of the real estate side, right? Like when I got sued by malls and stuff, just on the civil standpoint. So I wasn't really scared of him because he can't stop me from competing and being in the business. But I guess he was really threatened by me because remember when I was in a partnership with him, I had no ill intentions. I had no intentions to ever compete with him. I mean, I was just doing everything and worked my butt off, put 20,000 SKUs up, built the whole warehouse. I mean, I really, really truly worked really hard. And for them to do what they did was just, you know, it was just really discouraging. And, you know, it sets you back. I mean, when I walked out with my $40,000 check that they gave me back, you know, my investment back, you know, which again was not even my money, it was my dad's money. He gave me one final chance to, you know, try this again because I was with somebody very successful. He goes, hey, maybe you should go back to school and be, and, you know, be a professional. Entrepreneurship isn't for you. That's what they said to me. And I was like, damn. And that's where the lion roars, right? That's when I was like, all right, I got something to prove now, you know? So, I mean, I've been through a lot of, a lot of shit, you know, and sometimes, you know, being the nice guy, they say nice guys finish last, right? So I kind of always, you know, tried to stay humble and I just always wanted to learn and learn from people. And I was a very knowledge-seeking individual. And, you know, so that's kind of how the whole, the whole wristband conspiracy and everything started because you know, and I'll kind of get to that story now is, you know, so I start this thing, I see him at the trade show, he makes those threats. And I'm like, you know, you know, screw this guy. And then I end up finally getting the website launched in 2012, like summer of 2012. And no, sorry, in 2013, summer of 2013, because in summer of 2012 is when I went to my first trade show. And the partnership ended beginning of 2013.

2012, I believe. And just to clarify, your, your business is about making promotional material for companies, you know, fraternities, whoever needs custom merchandise.

Yeah, so like we primarily sell to resellers on the wholesale side who are marketing agencies that sell to, you know, like, let's say, like, like a 4imprint.com. I'm sure you've heard of them, right? Yep. Like they basically, let's say you want 100 shirts for your company's brand or like Shell needs, you know, 10,000 mugs or journals, like just branded stuff for businesses. So that's the business that I was in. Right. And, and so, so from there I launched a website and then all of a sudden my website's getting hacked. I'm getting like phone calls, getting threats and like, man, what's going on? Right. And so, you know, all of a sudden we start marketing heavily on Google and, you know, I'm making, you know, I'm, you know, I don't have my finances together, so I'm making good money on my wholesale business and I'm taking all my profits and dumping it right back into Google AdWords. So because I'm chasing my old business partner and he's raising up the bid prices on Google AdWords. Right. And so we're all now paying $30, $40 a click on Google Ads and nobody's making any money. Right. And so from there, we all, you know, he hits me up and he's like, hey, dude, let's meet up. And I'm like, all right, we'll meet up. And so I ended up meeting him up and my company's, you know, growing. We finally hit like $1 million the first year in sales. We're, you know, getting some, but, you know, but we're in manufacturing. So all the money we're making is going right back into marketing and equipment and inventory. So you don't make anything in manufacturing for a good 7, 8 years. And so I'm just trying to build the infrastructure. And so we end up meeting up and, you know, and he ends up like basically saying, hey, you know, we're all losing money. Let's, let's raise the prices. And I'm like, and this is all public information, right? So, so, and I don't know what that— I didn't know what that meant at the time. I was like, okay, yeah, well, let's all— we're all going to win together. Let's, you know, because right now everyone that's anyone that's winning is really Google AdWords. So, and remember, this is a very small portion of my business. Like, I don't do a lot of online retail. Now, if you know, so he's doing, you know, for every one wristband I sell, he's probably selling like 50 or 100,000 wristbands, you know, I mean, that's how big he was. So for him, this is a huge win, right? And so, so I'm like, all right, cool. Well, you know, whatever, I'll make an extra $5,000 a month. You know, I'm happy, whatever. So he ends up asking me to get all the competitors together because I knew everybody because I'm just a friendly person. So I get everybody together and long story short, we all come together and we basically talk about basically raising prices. And apparently what that is, is a conspiracy to price fix. And I had no idea what that was. Right. And no, none of us— I didn't— I personally didn't even know that I was committing a crime. And so we end up getting together. I create, I ended up setting up this meeting. And so about a year and a half go by and we all had agreed to, they say we all agreed to basically set a certain price on the market online. And I don't even really sell online. So I just kind of followed what they said. And I kind of policed the whole thing, I guess, based on what the government created, whatever story that they said, whatever evidence they had, that I kind of policed everything. And long story short, you know, we ended up, you know, getting raided by the FBI 2 years later.

And now— hang on, hang on one second. So you go about your business as usual. You're basically selling a product. You have competitors that are selling product. You guys are like, oh, let's just increase the price so everyone can make some more money. Cool. You make it happen. Then for the next 2 years, what happens? Does your business grow? Are you doing well? Are you on track? Like, what does it look like over those 2 years?

Yeah, so my business is growing slowly. Their business is skyrocketing, but my business was growing on the wholesale side because that was my main focus, was B2B. I never really did B2C because my website was so hardcoded I didn't have a full-time developer. I didn't have, I mean, I was outsourcing everything out to India and Pakistan, you know, for, you know, because I didn't have the money like they did. So, and my website kept breaking, so I couldn't keep up with it. And so those years, there was never a, we, based on the law of the Sherman Act, which I had no idea that even existed. It's like an, it's a law from the 1890s or something. And And I didn't— again, I didn't know that this was illegal. And it's like two gas stations across the street that have the same gas prices, right? That's totally legal. But if as soon as you meet, the competitors meet together and talk about it, well, then that's actually a federal crime and that's called collusion. And you can't do that. You're violating the Sherman Act, which now I know, obviously. But those two years before we got raided, we didn't know that. We never even actually— we had all agreed to something, but we never actually did it. So no one ever kept— no one ever ended up keeping that agreement. There was just a lot of conversation. And one of the competitors, actually, from my understanding, and I don't know if this is true or not, but just what I've read, was actually an informant to the FBI, uh, already. Maybe he was in trouble for something else, who knows. I don't know. But he's the one who ended up, um, he or she, whoever it was, ended up turning, uh, the evidence over to the government. And then that's when they raided us, um, on the basis of a conspiracy and then investigated us for about 2 years. And we ended up just turning in all of our cell phones, which had the text messages talking about it.

So paint the picture for me. So your business is growing over 2 years, you got your feet on the ground. Are you married at this point? Do you have a kid at this point? What does your life look like?

Yeah, so that's a whole nother struggle, right? So I had just gotten married in 2013. I just started the business in 2013. And, you know, I mean, I'm literally working out of my home and my father-in-law gets diagnosed with a very rare, aggressive kidney cancer and he passes away later that year in October of 2014. My wife gets pregnant in 2014, right when her dad almost, you know, a few months before her dad passed away. So that was already really, really difficult. And we were dealing a lot with that. I mean, I don't know if— I'm sure people have gone through the whole cancer process. It's not easy, right? And so we were dealing with that, and then we ended up having my son— Voiceover on. Sorry. We ended up having my son in 2015, and we got raided in summer of 2015. We had my son, and then we got raided summer of 2016.

So what were you doing that day, and what was it like? The FBI just showed up to your office or your house? Like, what happened? And what was that day? What were you doing that day?

Yeah, so I was actually— the day before they showed up, I was actually— I headed— I went— I ended up buying this JetSmarter package, right, for $10,000. And luckily there was a private jet available, you know, and, you know, for $10,000, you can, you know, at the time when JetSmarter had just come out, you can basically go on private jets, right? Which was really cool on the empty leg. So, you know, I'm like, man, I finally made a little bit of money. Let me go get a $10,000 membership. And, and so I did that. So that doesn't obviously look good in front of their eyes, right? So, so they think I have all this money and I didn't. And I ended up taking this private jet to Miami the day before I get raided. And I'm like, man, I finally like feel like I made it. I finally went on vacation for the first time. The next morning I wake up overlooking the water, finally taking my first vacation, decide to spend some money. And my brother calls me and he's like, hey, the FBI is at mom and dad's house. They're looking for you. I'm like, what? And I'm like, all right, well, let me call my attorney, tell them I'm not here. And, and so my brother's like, yeah, well, my brother's out of town. And then my brother ends up going to my office. And this is where it's like a movie, right? I wasn't there. I'm trying to log into the cameras at the office and my cameras aren't working. Right. And all of a sudden my brother's like, dude, there's like 30 FBI agents with like vests and guns. In our office, raided my office like a big, like, crime scene, right? Like I, like, killed somebody or something. Or, you know, I'm like scared. I'm like, what the heck is going on? Like, and my brother sends me a picture of a grand jury subpoena and it says you're under investigation and you need to show up to in front of a grand jury for conspiracy to price fix under the Sherman Act. I'm like, what the heck is going on?

Did you even know what that was about at that point, or were you Just confused.

I was really confused on what I had done wrong. And then when they said conspire to fix prices, that's when I was like, okay, now I understand. Okay, what I was— that conversation I had with them those 2 years was clearly illegal. I didn't know it was like at that. So I was just super like scared. I was like, man, there has to be something more to this. I mean, all I did was, you know, get a few people together and we were all losing money selling these little wristbands. And who knew this was going to be a federal crime, right? And so I was in a total shock and I'm thinking I'm going to prison and I'm scared. I'm in Miami. I call my attorney. The prosecutor calls me. He goes, where are you? I'm like, I'm not telling you where I am, right? I'm thinking like Bad Boys 2, like, you know, like, and my wife thinks this is a joke. So she's like playing the Bad Boys anthem in the background. I'm like, what the heck? Like, you know, just to try to cheer me up.

Did she know that the FBI was there and she was just like, oh, it's not a big deal? Or did she— where she thought you were like literally kidding about it?

No, she, she knew the FBI was there, but we were all— we thought this was a joke. Like, we were like, oh, they probably got this wrong person. Like, you know, so she's just like trying to make— trying to like, you know, uh, trying to just cheer me up. And, uh, you know, we didn't know this was going to be this massive like this huge big deal. You know, we would think the government has something bigger to worry about, right? Not, you know, 4 young internet guys selling silicone wristbands on the internet. Right. So, so, so that happens. And then the prosecutor calls me and I'm just like, I'm not telling you where I am. And he goes, well, I'm going to shut your office down. And I'm like, I don't think you can do that. So then I'm like, my attorney's on his way and you can talk to him because I'm out of town. And he's trying to ask me where I am. And I'm like, I'm not telling you where I am. I was like, do you have a warrant for my arrest? He's like, no. And I'm like, well, then I don't need to tell you. Right. So I kind of probably pissed him off. And I didn't mean to, but I was just— I was scared. You know, when you're scared and something happened, the first thing you do is kind of react and act all hard. You know, you're not going to just give in, you know, because I was actually acting out of emotion and fear. Right. And then from there, I come back to Houston the next day, take the next flight, go straight to my attorney's office. And my attorney's like, hey, you can— you're facing 10 years. I'm like, what? For what? And I just like start breaking down crying, and he's scaring the shit out of me. He's like, all right, give me $75,000 right now, and, and I'm gonna try to get this— I'm gonna figure— I'm gonna figure this out. I'm like, all right. So the first thing I do is give—

real quick, so how old were you at this point?

I was 20. Let's see, it was in 2016, so that's what 4 years ago. So I was like 28.

28 years old, you're back from this trip, you go to your lawyer's office, he tells you you're facing 10 years in prison and basically tells you, give me a $75,000 retainer and I'll help you figure it out.

Yeah, and that's what I did. So the first thing I did, because he's like, well, you got to show up in front of the grand jury in 5 days and produce all these documents. You know, I mean, I was like, what the hell? Like, This doesn't make sense. Like, how am I supposed to produce all these documents? I'm not a Fortune 500 company. I don't have all this. I just started this in my garage. And so we end up— I end up giving him $75,000 charged on my American Express. Luckily, I had a, you know, I have really good credit. So I ended up having a credit card that allowed me to do that. So I paid him. And, you know, my company, again, wasn't making money. So I didn't have the money to pay for all this. Um, so, you know, now the— obviously the investigation starts, and then a few weeks later the FBI is like, hey, don't worry about going to, uh, don't worry about the grand jury subpoena. You're just under investigation. You need to start producing documents, and we're going to give you this much time. I said okay. They gave us, you know, time to do that. We kept sending them stuff, but clearly we weren't doing it correctly because the attorney that I had was not like you know, he was a criminal attorney, but he wasn't like, you know, he wasn't doing stuff like, you know, he wasn't an antitrust attorney, which that's the biggest mistake I made. I should have went and got an antitrust attorney, right? I mean, it's like when you have cancer, go to a stomach cancer doctor. Don't go to just an oncologist. Like, you got it, right? I know that. So I went to like a regular attorney. I mean, he was like, he had a good name here in Houston, um, and he did some big high-profile cases, but he wasn't like a business attorney, like a business crime attorney, right? So, you know, long story short, 2 years go by and I don't hear anything from the FBI besides, hey, keep sending us your tax returns. And we didn't know— we weren't doing it correctly. We weren't producing the documents because I didn't know. I wasn't getting the right guidance. I'm just spending all this money with the lawyers. Um, and then finally, um, come to find out, my attorney had ALS. So he was battling with ALS for those for those years. He probably had just gotten it when I had just got the case and he ended up passing away and I had to get another attorney. And so my entire case got mishandled. Talk about bad luck, right? My God. So then—

Wait, so what were these 2 years like? I'm assuming there was an immediate influx of stress and anxiety. And then did it start to kind of like fizzle out over those 2 years or were you just living in a state of stress?

I was living in a state of stress. I was going to the emergency rooms. I would have panic attacks. I couldn't sleep. I started gaining a lot of weight. I gained almost 35 pounds. And was your son born yet at this time? Yeah, he was already born. So this, remember, my son was born, he was about 1 year old when it happened. Wow.

Okay. So you got— so 2 years you're living in this horrible state of stress, you're getting panic attacks, and then right before the time that something's due, your attorney passes away?

No. So he was really sick. He passed away recently when I actually was in prison, but he was just crippling. He was pretty much brain dead for the most part. Right. So, you know, and then I end up hiring another attorney. And this guy, oh man, there's another story about this guy. So this guy is like, you know, luckily my company starts to take off. So my company starts to actually start doing really well. I worked really hard. I was like, look, you know what? I got to make money to pay for all this, right? How am I going to— this fine that I'm going to get, I don't— you know, I'm facing like— I mean, all I knew was, hey, I can get 10 years and $100 million in fines. And I said, okay, well, clearly I need to go make money, right? And, you know, you hear these things like, oh, well, just pay the money and you won't go to prison. Pay the money, you won't go to prison. Well, that's not true when it comes to a federal crime, right? So I ended up, you know, in my head, I'm like, all right, I got to go make more money to figure out how I'm going to fight this case. So I end up going and making more money and, you know, started selling, got out of manufacturing and started teaming up with other people in our industry and started selling all their products almost like as like a broker. And I had this whole facility with all this equipment now, right? And I'm not doing anything here. I ended up letting go most of the staff and I ended up just going back to that hustling broker business where I basically took something and sold it and brokered everything. But I had this office space of 8,000 square feet and I had to just start selling things other than wristbands, buttons, and temporary tattoos. And so our business starts taking off. And at this point, what are you brokering?

Like, are you— what kind of companies are you supplying? Are you allowed to talk about that? Or—

yeah, yeah. I was selling all sorts of other promotional products, right? Because like, for example, yourself, let's say you may want like napkins and wristbands and tattoos and t-shirts and hats and mugs and tumblers. So we would only make a few products. So the ones that— let's say you wanted buttons, so we would do the buttons. But then if you wanted like custom water bottles, well then we would just source it out to someone else who did that in our industry and makes like 20-30% doing just brokering the deal. So when we added— so what we did was in our wholesale catalog, we had all these, we had all these accounts and that would buy, you know, our core 3 products from us. So we were like, you know what, let's just sell them other things because they're coming to us for wristbands. But why not just ask them if they want anything else? Because they're obviously working on these big big marketing campaigns. So they're clearly working on t-shirts and other products. So then my brother and I ended up adding all sorts of different products of other people at our trade show. And we were, we had this humongous catalog of like 4,000 or 5,000 products now. And so people were coming to us and asking us for products we didn't even make. So we just broker those out and just started hustling again, right? And, and then from there, you know, obviously the case is still under investigation, it's still happening. Um, you know, I started doing a lot of meditation, I started doing a lot of yoga, started kind of taking care of my health a little bit because I gained all this weight. And I end up, you know, I kind of found a little bit more peace in me, but I was like, man, something is wrong, there's something off about this, right? Something's off about my energy, my You know, I'm, I'm, you know, I just— every time I'd go to the gym, um, I just could not get muscle mass. And I'm like, man, something is off. Come to find out my testosterone's like really low. And then my uncle— I go to Date with Destiny for Tony Robbins in December of 2018. I think you were there, right? But I didn't know you at the time, right? So my uncle's like, hey, let me check your prolactin levels. I'm like, all right. So, and my uncle who's in He's in Coral Springs in Florida, and he's a urologist. And thanks to him— not my uncle, but my wife's uncle— and he's like, let me check your prolactin. I'm like, sure. And I didn't even know what that was. He goes, yeah, I'll call you back. Last day of Date with Destiny, he calls me back and he's like, hey, dude, you have a brain tumor. I'm like, what? What do you mean I have a brain tumor?

Holy shit. So you find out that you're facing prison time and you don't know what you're like. You have all this stress and then you get hit with finding out that you have a brain tumor.

Yeah, he said I may have a brain tumor. He doesn't tell me if it's cancerous or benign. He just says you have a brain tumor. I'm like, okay, so now I'm like, that's fucking scary as shit. And check this out. The next day I'm actually going and meeting with the FBI, right? Like I'm flying back to Houston. I'm sitting down with the FBI for my first interview. To go over, you know, my side of, you know, what happened. They want to just interview me and show me the evidence they had against me, basically. Right. Because, you know, I could go to trial and fight them or they can just— it's called a proffer. And they say, hey, here's what we— it's called a reverse proffer. They say, here's what we have against you. Do you want to go to prison and fight it, fight with us and we're going to bring more charges, or do you want to take this plea deal? And I'm like, all right, well, so they showed me what they had against me and it was just a bunch of text messages that I turned in myself, right? Which, you know, that's under a grand jury. So they didn't really have anything but whatever I had given them. And, and so basically, so they ended up getting me on a conspiracy to price fix on text messages. And, and so, you know, conspiracies are the hardest thing to prove. That's why the feds have about like a 97%, uh, you know, uh, win rate. So you don't want to go to court with them because then you end up getting more prison time. So, but anyway, so I was the last one to plea out of the deal because my attorneys completely didn't do anything. And so that's in 2018. I mean, there's so much more to the story, right? I mean, I'm just trying to tell you as much as I can. And by the way, you're the first time I'm opening up. So you're the first one I'm opening this up to. So I appreciate it.

I'm sure everyone listening thinks that this is an incredible story so far. Do you? Did you tell the FBI agents that you just found out you had a brain tumor?

Yeah. I mean, as soon as I walked in, I mean, remember, this is the next following. I say I fly back to Houston, I go straight to their office here in Houston, and I just start crying. You know, I meet them for the first time and man, like, they had no heart at all. No heart. They're like, oh, we understand. We're sorry to hear that. And you can tell they just did not give a shit. They're like, all right, well, this is what we have against you. This is what you're facing. And, you know, a few months go by and then they came back with a plea deal. What were you facing? Uh, well, I was facing 10 years, but based on the statute of what they had against me, and like, it's like a num— you get a certain numbers, like based on your charges, they give you a certain numbers that they're like, okay, well, based on this, this, this, you're at a 15. And then you look at this, you look at the law and it tells you at 15 you're facing 18 to 24 months or whatever. So I was facing, based on whatever they had against me, based on my revenues, based on the charge, based on my lead organizer mastermind role or whatever they wanted to tag me as, because they said I was the mastermind of the wristband cartel. Right. So, so anyway, so I ended up getting— so they're like, you know, if you take the plea, you're facing 18 to 24 months. Sign here and your company is going to get a $750,000 $50,000 fine. Um, so I really didn't have any other choice, so I ended up signing that. And then, um, and that's when I ended up kind of having peace with myself once I knew like, hey, worst case I'm going to prison for this much. Hopefully the judge will understand my side and maybe give me a break, right? And so now pretty much you sign this plea with them and you end up going to sentencing because you're not going to trial, you're going to sentencing, which is when you pretty much have already pleaded guilty to the charges they bring to you under the plea deal. And so now you're almost like, you know, with the government, right? You're not fighting with them anymore. You're just saying, hey, we've accepted responsibility. They give you some additional points for accepting responsibility. And so now I go in front of the judge. I have like an entire letter, remorse letter, and my family's there. I go to sentence and within 20 minutes they hear both sides and they're pushing for obviously what the deal says, 18 to 24 months. And the judge is like, the judge that I had was amazing. I mean, I really respect him. He really realized that, hey, you know, this story is crazy. There's more to it. And he had to give me something, right? Because he gave everybody else something. And so he ended up giving me 8 months instead of 18 to 24 months. And it was shocking to kind of still get that. You know, I was expecting 6 months because he gave a couple of, couple of the other guys that were part of the case, you know, some guys got, 2 guys got 1 month. No, 1 guy got 1, no, 2 guys got 1 month, 1 guy got 3 months. My old business partner got 6 months and then I ended up getting 8 months. And, and, you know, keep in mind, like, I'm the smallest company out of all of them, but I got in trouble. The reason why I got hit the most and the government made me the mastermind is because I brought everybody together and that's under the, under the advice of my old business partner. And, you know, and it is what it is. I take full responsibility. I'm super happy that this happened because it taught me a huge lesson in life and business and people. Right. And so, you know, obviously—

So paint the picture. You're in, you're in, in a courtroom and you're like, you're there with your family. And are you in like a normal courtroom setting or like what is it? What did that day look like?

Yeah, it's a normal courtroom setting. I have a suit on and, you know, it's just my family and a few of my employees because, you know, we only had about like 10 people working for us at the time. And we had, you know, we were growing, but we scaled back manufacturing. So we only had like office admin staff. So, you know, I had some staff come, my parents came and And then you had the government, right? You had the 3, 4 prosecutors that were part of their team. And then we're just going back against the evidence that they had and objecting to what they had. And, and, you know, it's just, just showing like, hey, you know, we don't want to, you know, we, you know, Kiel shouldn't get 18 to 24 months. He should be getting maybe 2 months or 3 months or not, or, you know, some sort of probation, right? Um, so we're trying to reduce our, our reduce the damages. So you have the ability, even though you signed something, but if the judge is good enough, you still have that ability to go to the judge during sentencing and kind of say, hey, look, I'm sorry, I screwed up, you know, please give me a second chance, please reduce my 18 to 24 months. So that's kind of what sentencing is.

Okay, so they give you 8 months. What about the fine? Did they give you the same fine?

Yeah, so I ended up paying $750,000 in fines. You know, my fine should have been a lot less based on the statute, but my lawyers screwed that one up too because the government thought that I had 50 employees when I didn't. And so none of my lawyers billed me for all these, all this stuff. But did they not even read my plea deal, like, to even catch that? Right. So I ended up signing something that I didn't even read because, you know, I don't understand the verbiage. So I kind of had to become a lawyer now.

And understand law. And hypothetically, could you go and sue your lawyer for malpractice? Probably, but you don't even want to focus your energy on that.

Um, I mean, because you, you do sign paperwork. I mean, they, they make you sign paperwork. Um, your lawyers, they're so slick, like they'll sign paperwork saying like, hey, release me off liability during your case, right? And If I were to go back again, I would not ever sign anything like that with any attorney and hold them accountable. Um, right. But, but they're, they're, man, they're savages. Most lawyers are savages. It's very rare to find a good, a really good attorney, right? And, um, so you kind of almost have to, you know, learn the law because your lawyers haven't gone to prison. Remember, they're just textbook. They're like doctors, you know, like they read a text, they know the system, but they haven't been. They've never been there, so they don't know how it feels. Like, all they care about is most of them, all they care about is money. And they just, they take advantage of your vulnerability.

So you're given 8 months, $750,000 fine, and then what? How much time do you have now until you actually have to go away?

Yeah, so I have, so usually they give you 6 weeks to turn yourself in. So you're supposed to get a letter from the Bureau of Prisons, the BOP. And so no one sent me a letter or anything. And remember now, I go to Florida just to kind of spend some time with my family because I know any minute I can get a letter. So all of a sudden, you know, 4 weeks go by, 5 weeks go by, I'm in Miami, and all of a sudden my probation officer calls me and she's like, hey, you got to turn yourself in next week. I'm like, what? I'm like, you guys said you're gonna give me 6 weeks. They're like, yeah, but You know, they didn't send a letter or whatever. I said, okay, well, you know, a week prior to that, or no, 3 weeks prior to that, I talked to Mike Calhoun from Board of Advisors, and I just signed up for Board of Advisors, and I spent all this money, right? And so I leave Miami on Thursday, fly out to Houston. I see the letter from the BOP saying, hey, you got to turn yourself in on Wednesday. And I'm like, shoot, man, I just spent all this money on a mastermind. Um, so I looked at my wife and I'm like, what do you want to do? Because we got to go to Sarasota on Sunday. I've already booked the tickets, I booked the flights, I got to turn myself in on Wednesday. It was my first time in Board of Advisors. What am I going to present, you know? And so I end up, um, I looked at my wife, I was like, you know what, let me just go to Board of Advisors. Because I think it'll be fun. You know, like I love being around entrepreneurs. It's motivating. So I go to Board of Advisors, go there the first day. I don't have a presentation. And then Monday night I scratched my, you know, whatever I had, I scratched it and I said, you know what, screw it. I don't know any of these people here. Let me just be myself and, and tell them my story and who I am. Right. And so I just go up there and do my presentation and get a standing ovation. And I said, hey, I'm turning myself in tomorrow. And I'm so glad that I'm, I was able to spend my, my last few hours here with you guys. And it really motivated me. Um, and it got me ready. And mainly because there's two people in there who, uh, actually that I met. Um, and I'm sure, I don't know if you know them or not, I'm not going to mention who they are, but you know, they actually went to prison before too for a business crime. And so by, by being there, I was able to kind of just learn and understand and put, you know, there's somebody actually who's been there before. And so they kind of prepped me up, you know, and it was just nice to, you know, get that, get some of that encouragement. And so I wasn't scared walking into prison the next day. And Stan, that's where I met Stan. And, you know, he was a big role model, just really was, you know, gave me some great advice and was super, you know, he just inspired me a lot after he, you know, gave me a lot of advice. And I was like, you know what, 'Okay, it's just 6 months, 8 months, whatever. I'm just gonna— or 8 months, and I'll, you know, I'll end up— I'll end up— I'll be okay, you know, I'll come back stronger, you know.' Oh my God.

So, okay, so you go to Board of Advisors, you have to turn yourself in the next day. What is that like? I mean, you're— are you driving with your wife and your child? Or like, what, what is going through your mind at that point?

Yeah, so you saw the video, right? Um, so I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna film this whole, this whole thing, right? And so, so the next day I wake up in the morning. I had to turn myself in, I think, by 2 PM, and I was at a federal complex here in Beaumont, Texas. They call it Bloody Beaumont because the amount of people that I guess get stabbed there, I guess. I'm like, oh shit, you know. Oh my God. Yeah. So I drive to Beaumont from Houston, which is about 2.5 hours. It's my mom, my dad, my sister, myself, my dog, my son, and my wife. So they dropped me off. And, you know, obviously they all cry. They— I go in. And they make me dress up in a jumpsuit, give me a pillow, a blanket, um, and some really shitty shoes and like a green jumpsuit. And then I walk back out and hug my family goodbye, and they saw me in the outfit. Um, and you know, it's a very humbling experience. And now for the next 8 months of my life, I'm gonna be in this little jungle with, you know, at a camp. And, you know, across the street there's 3 massive prisons that are like super security, high-end prisons, you know. And I'm at this little camp with 500 other inmates, they call us. And so, you know, I sit there for about 2 hours after my family left, and, and they finally like you know, take my DNA. They, I mean, they totally own us, right? And so they take my DNA, they, um, you know, check my blood, all that stuff. I meet with the doctor and then I end up, uh, they, they take me to my, my, um, I guess my, my prison room, my, uh, my cell, which is like an open dormitory cell type of structure they have at the camp. And I walk in there, there's like 4 buildings. I'm in Building C, uh, 26. And I walk in and I see, um, my, my, my old business partner's brother, who's, you know, we all got in trouble together. So my old business partner's brother is there and he's my neighbor. And so like, it was nice to see like a familiar face, right? And, you know, we all learned our lesson and been through a lot psychologically. So he was just very accommodating. And so it was really nice to see a familiar face because I was scared, right? And I walked in and the first thing I see is I meet my, my cellmate. His name is Dante King, this like big, huge Hispanic guy from this big gang. And I was like scared shitless, you know? And he ended up becoming like one of my best friends and super nice and you know, was just really accommodating, giving me food, you know, because they just throw you in there and they don't tell you anything. You have to just kind of figure it out. Like, how do you get commissary? How do you get food? How do you get your toothbrush? How do you get deodorant? I mean, all that stuff. I mean, you literally start with nothing. You have no money, you have nothing.

Oh my God. So, okay, so you're, you're there now. You're there for— did you end up serving the full 8 months? No.

So I ended up serving 6 months and I was able to get out, um, earlier because I started writing letters to the Inspector General. I mean, I had a brain tumor and I wanted to go home. And then Trump had released the First Step Act, which really helped a lot of people, right? And so I kind of read the law when I was in there and I went to my counselor and I was like, look, based on the First Step Act, based on my medical condition, you can technically let me serve my sentence at home. My entire sentence could be at home, right? They don't want you to do that because they want to make money, like the prisons need to make money. So they get $3,000 a month for each inmate. And, and, and so basically I have, you know, they, they don't want, they don't want you to leave, basically. Right. So they kind of manipulate me to not saying like, oh, well, that's not what it really states. This— I was like, no, no, no. I went to a 4-year university. I'm not an idiot. Like, I know exactly how to read. Like maybe a lot of people here may not. So don't, you know, because a lot of people in prison, you know, they're not educated. And so, you know, so she's trying to convince me that I don't know what I'm talking about, right? Because they— and I'm like, no, no, I know exactly what I'm talking about. So then I ended up learning the law and I ended up serving her in prison and, and, um, almost became like a jailhouse attorney. And so then she calls me back up like maybe 2 weeks later and she goes, all right, I was able to get you more halfway house. So they were able to release me instead of March 24th, they released me February 11th and I ended up going to the halfway house a month and a half early, which was nice. So then my family came and picked me up and it was just a great humbling experience to just get out, finally be able to see cars and trees and highways and eat food. And I had to turn myself into the halfway house for about a month. So then I went and my family would be able to come visit me. I was able to leave every day for a job. Um, so I ended up getting a job at a local print shop. Um, and so, you know, it was back to normal society, but I had to turn myself into the halfway house every night, um, by I think 7:00 PM or something and work every day and then give them a piece of my, my salary. Um, and that I did that for about a month and then And then March 24th, I qualified to go back home. So I was able to go back to home confinement. And so then I, from March 24th to April 10th, I was on home confinement. And then the rest, and then April 9th, I got hit with another case with the FTC, which I can't discuss right now, but— Wait, wait, hang on one sec before you get into that.

So what did you do for the 6 months that you were in prison? I mean, you don't have a phone. I'm assuming you don't have a computer. Do you have a— like, how are you working? Are you planning? What are you like, what are you doing in there?

I'm reading a lot of books that my wife was able to send to me. Um, so I read a lot of books about marketing. Uh, I read a lot of books about life and, you know, personal growth and business operations. Everything I can think of, just read a bunch of books. I worked out a lot. You know, there was a little really crappy basketball court there. So we had had like, like the prison would have like basketball, like a basketball league. So we would all like have teams. So, you know, so I played on the basketball team for a little bit. There's a softball league, there was a track, but it was, you know, just all, you know, stuff that, you know, there's like a rec pretty much like a rec yard, right? And, and then so the first 3 months was, you know, it wasn't that bad. Like, I mean you know, you end up becoming friends with everybody. Everyone's nice. Obviously there's a lot of fights and stuff, but you know, everybody's just, you know, you know, it's just like one big huge, you know, all-men college dormitory. And, and so it wasn't that bad. It was just really lonely and boring sometimes. And you don't do anything but eat, sleep, work for the prison, and, and work out and repeat. So there's nothing else to do but think, right? And then the last 3 months they put us on lockdown because so much contraband was coming in. So when they put us on lockdown, you know, we were just in our rooms for 3 months, and it was just— we couldn't go outside, only when we wanted to eat. Um, and so that was really depressing. So you're just locked up in your room the whole time, and sometimes, you know, we were— you know, there was so much stuff that went on in there where, you know, the inmates would rebel and not eat. So then, you know, they would like only give us peanut butter jelly sandwiches for like 4 or 5 days straight. Um, oh my God. There's times where I would call my wife crying cuz you know, we had certain minutes we can call cuz I was like super hungry. I didn't have any more food. Um, you know, it's just a very humbling experience and you kind of learn to survive with nothing.

And what type of like ideas or plans did you come up with while you were there? I'm assuming with all the time you had to think and with really no distractions, you must have came up with some pretty good stuff.

Yeah, I mean, I ended up working on my, my current project, which is my print-on-demand platform. And, and that's, that's where I started it, right? So I designed the whole thing while I was in prison and my journal. And then when I got out, I worked on it and, and we're very close to launching it here next week. And so, you know, when I got out, COVID hit, right? That's a whole nother story, right? So we went from like 10 to 150 employees because it was nuts because my brother ended up running the business while I was gone and we're still growing. Now we're paying this fine, you know, every month we got, we had to pay the government fine. We also got fined with a class action lawsuit since it was like hurting the consumer since it's an antitrust violation. So we had to settle that as well. So, you know, every month we're paying almost $25,000 right now for all the fines. So we worked out a payment plan with the government and then we just went back to work. And, you know, fortunately when I got out, the COVID hit and our company ended up taking off because a few years prior to that, we ended up pivoting into print on demand and everything went online and we are fulfilling for some of the online companies out there that sell apparel. And so our apparel business went up and we also pivoted our business into face masks. And that's where like cloth face masks with designs on it. And that's where we ended up growing, you know, to where we are today.

So you started basically supplying a bunch of these print-on-demand companies that I'm sure a lot of listeners know of because a lot of people listening to this are in the e-commerce space. And then you go and you realize that face masks are a humongous opportunity. And actually, you're supplying the face masks on Zendrop right now. Which is a business venture we got into. But so this, all this stuff after you got out of prison, um, were you— when you get out, did, did you have enough money? Like, was the business doing well enough that you were able to, to continue to live before you kind of started taking off? Or like, where did you stand right when you get out of prison?

Yeah, so I was, you know, I was struggling. The company kept growing on the top line, but on the bottom line, we weren't making money because we kept putting it back into growth, legal fines, right? And so, but luckily I had enough customers and I ended up just, you know, the company kept growing and, you know, 2019 we actually had a pretty good year while I was in prison. And, you know, any business takes time to make, so especially manufacturing. And so, you know, it was like our 8th year, 7th year, whatever. And we ended up, we ended up being profitable for the first time in 2019. But remember, in 2018, end of beginning of 2018, I ended up pivoting into print on demand. And, you know, in terms of like a contract print on demand, like contract printer for print on demand platforms out there. And, and that's where we ended up, you know, making some good money. And we use that money to obviously pay the fines, pay the lawyers to really survive our business. Because we almost lost it all. So luckily we made enough money to survive. So when I got out, we were still at like a almost, we had a little bit of money in the bank account, but we remember we saw the fine. So if I pay the fine off, then I don't have any money left at all. So I was just working hard to pay the government and my lawyers because that was the only two things I That's the only two things I could do. So when COVID hit, I'm just blessed that we made some good money last year and I was like, you know what? At least I can keep paying my fine. I'll figure it out. I don't have much overhead besides this big facility now with equipment and I'm not doing any manufacturing. And once COVID hit, I turned all my equipment into face masks and it just took off. So I was like, luckily I had all this space. And I just had to pivot. And that's why we were able to grow so quickly because my infrastructure was strong and I had spent all this money and time on user acquisition and my customers were still there. Gotcha.

So, and I kind of want to touch on one other thing though, not monetary. You know, you're in prison for, you know, months on end. You get out, you're with your family. What is, what changed in your outlook on life? Did you become more appreciative of the little things? Like what did it teach you? Like what did it teach you that you think would be valuable for others to learn?

Well, here's something funny. I got out right when COVID hit. So when the city went on lockdown or the country went on lockdown, I just got out of lockdown. So my lockdown was completely different than everyone else's lockdown. So when I was at home with my family, I was like super like blessed.

You were ecstatic to be locked down.

Oh yeah, I was like, this is great. Like, you get to spend all this time with my family, you know, call Lupe Tortillas and fajitas over. Like, I mean, this is great. Like, I can eat ice cream and I can eat all this food while everybody's like complaining and bitching, right? And I'm just like, man, they have no idea, right? So while everybody's like depressed about that, I'm like, this is, this is easy for me. I'm gonna go build my, my mask business, right? I mean, I'm in a clear mindset to go execute while everybody's like uncertain about their future. I was like, well, I just went through all that early on. So for me, COVID was like a breeze.

So this was like less than a year ago. And what, what is— what's happened with your business since?

Yeah. So we've gone from about 20 people to 180 people. We created a lot of jobs this year. Our manufacturing facility now is 100% full when it went from no production to a lot of production because usually we were only doing production like during the wintertime for fourth quarter and most of the orders we were getting, we would dropship. And so now our facility is like, can't even walk because it's just so packed with orders and people and, and now we're growing and we just closed on a 10-acre lot to build a 180,000-square-foot facility. And so, you know, we're just expanding and I'm just super blessed to be in this position after what I've went through. And now I'm just super excited to provide jobs. I think that's the biggest thing, especially times like this. And, you know, and I look back and I'm like, you know, within the last 8 months, my life has completely changed not because I waited on someone else. I did it myself. And that all goes down to the training I had from Tony Robbins and my mind.

So, okay, I have a couple more questions for you. So you've been through highs and lows. You know, I've been through highs and lows, but my lows have never been as low as yours. At my lowest points, in those moments, I never was able to see a way out. It kind of— something just kind of always came, but it came because I kept pushing. So what is your advice to people, you know, who— a lot of people listening to this haven't been through these highs and lows. If they got into a low, they wouldn't know where to go. And a lot of people give up when they get to those lows. What's your advice to people who are kind of— who think they're at rock bottom or, you know, don't know what to do?

It all starts with your mind. I think personal growth training is the most important thing you can do. Listening to— when I'm down, I mean, I still have my downs always, right? I mean, there's always these in life. I always go on YouTube, listen to Eric Thomas, Gary Vee, Tony Robbins, and I work on my mind. Like, our brain is like a software, right? And you have to update it. And it's just emotions and it's like a dark cloud over your head and it's going to go away. And long as you know that, you're going to be okay. Like it's just a temporary feeling. You just have to know when that temporary feeling hits or when that thundercloud is above your head and you just got to just stay calm and just keep telling yourself this is going to be okay. It's going to go away. Just go to bed or go for a walk, go work out and keep your mind off of it. It. When you sit back and think about it and think about it and think about it and create all these stories and assumptions in your head, that's when you start losing your shit.

Yeah, what I like to say is like when you're in those moments, your mind always kind of points toward the worst-case scenario. Like what's going to happen next? And you're just thinking about the worst-case scenario. Like it's just our minds. And it's not just me, it's not just you, it's a lot of people listening or almost everyone. Our mind tends to think about the worst-case scenario, but almost always something better than you expect happens. And also, it's much better than what you expect.

Yeah, I went through something last night where, you know, for my current case that I have with the FTC, you know, which, you know, everything's settled, but, you know, again, I felt like I got screwed compared to the other settlements out there. I got really upset and I was like getting mad and I was kind of telling Andrea, who you met this past weekend, right? And she was like, "Akil, let's move on. It is what it is." And I said, "You know what? You're right." And then I couldn't sleep last night. I was like having anxiety again, thinking about something that doesn't even matter anymore, right? The case is settled. It's the past. Like, why am I even creating these stories in my head? Like, just let it go. And so I kept I closed my eyes and I just changed my thought pattern. I started thinking about something different. I said, you know what? I'm blessed. I've been through worse. It's okay. I'm just going to pass out. And I closed my eyes and I passed out. And then I woke up the next morning, which was today, played some music and my day is good. So it's your mind is everything and training your mind and learning from your mistakes And talking to yourself about that stuff is so powerful. Right.

And we, we always seem to think that our problems are the worst problems because they're ours. And when you think about someone else's problems, you don't feel the emotions. But for me, whenever I, you know, it's a lot of maintenance work. It's not just like I'm always in a great state of mind. It's a lot of proactive work to get into a good state of mind. When I do feel stressed or anxious, or I don't see a way out, or I see a problem that I can't find a solution to, I think it's really helpful to stop thinking about the problem and trying to find the solution and bring it back to your body. You know, stretch, work out, do something that gets your endorphins going, focus on the present moment, and allow the, you know, focus more on who you need to be rather than what you need to do. And then the thoughts you need to do what you need to do will come to you naturally. So that's, that's a lesson that I've learned in the past.

Exactly. And so many people are afraid to take that next step, right? And they just need to. Like, you're afraid to take that next job or, you know, let's say, you know, you're in a bad situation, but you're afraid to because of money or because of a— I can promise you, we are animals. We are trained to hunt like no matter what. You're gonna come out ahead because you're gonna— if you just leave or walk away from a relationship or a business or whatever, or a job, you're going to figure out that next thing because your, your body will do it anyways. It's the people that are so afraid of losing stuff that end up losing more and, and be miserable and be depressed. Like, just let it go, move on. And I promise you, like, as soon as you leave, you're gonna get— you're gonna feel better. You're like, man, It's over. And now starting tomorrow, you're gonna, you're gonna go figure out your next goal in life or your next job or your next relationship. You have to learn to just let go and let nature, like, guide you.

Yep, I've read a couple really good books that talk about this kind of stuff written by the same author, actually. First one's called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. And the next one is called The Surrender Experiment. And it's basically about surrendering to the universe. You know, you don't have control over everything and you really need to just have fun with life. It's not that serious. And the Surrender Experiment is really cool because it's the journey of Michael Singer's life. And it's like from age— I don't remember the age, maybe 19 or 18, he decided he's just going to go with whatever the universe brings him. Good, bad, ugly, beautiful, whatever. And it's his journey of he's this guy with a van to he, you know, starts doing meditation, he becomes a college professor. Long story short, he ends up building a multibillion-dollar company. He also gets into a crazy legal situation like you. FBI raids his office, he fights the case, and it's like all these things bring all this stress and our brain just obsesses over these problems and doesn't see the solution. But it's like you just have to surrender and keep doing the right thing and a better output than, or a better outcome than you expect ends up happening.

Yeah, but, you know, I truly like I was talking to my endocrinologist yesterday and I asked him like, do you think my brain tumor happened because it was genetic? And he's like, no. And I asked him, does stress play a big role into it? And he said, probably. There's a book about it, and I'm pretty sure I got this brain tumor because of this case. And it was all because of the negative thoughts that I was thinking, thinking the worst. And sometimes, you know what, those experiences in life, I think it was my second chance to live, right? It could have been worse. It could have been cancerous. I could have gone for 10 years. I mean, there could have been so much more worse. And when I went to prison and saw people there for 10, 20, 30 years, you realize, man, my 6 months that I was there, they were making fun of me in there. All my little gangster friends, they're like, you're just here to take a shit. And I'm just like, yeah, you're right. And you kind of just adjust to life and hey, at least I'm alive, I'm healthy, I'm good. I'm taking care of my family, my friends, my health. And at least I don't— there's people out there that don't even know where they're going to get their next, their meal, or they have cancer. I mean, so even my, even, even my situation may be like, oh my God, like, that's crazy, you went through all this. But no, man, like, I'm still— there's people that have it worse, you know? And, and you just have to be thankful and live in the present moment and, and, and think positive, man. And when you do that, your life changes. And I'm a, I'm a living case study because I I went through, I hit, you know, to a lot of people, I might have hit rock bottom. But I didn't because I'm still alive. And I'm still healthy. Yeah.

And honestly, it comes down to perspective. You know, some people tend to always fall on one end of the spectrum. When something happens, they fall to the negative side, and they give it negative meaning, you know, you might get, somebody might say something to you, they may say, you know, an example would was my grandfather got remarried after my grandmother passed away, and my family doesn't really like his new wife, and, or had some issues. And, you know, she would say certain things like, you know, to my grandpa, like, hey, you shouldn't drive. Let's use an example. And you can take that, like, you shouldn't drive, and if you fall to one end of the spectrum, it's like, she's taking away his manhood, she's controlling him, she's not letting him, you know, live his life or be happy. And on the other end of the spectrum, it's like, you know, maybe she's looking out for him, maybe she's looking out for both of them. And you could take the same exact thing and give it two completely different meanings, but it's the exact same thing. So if you could— and for me, at least, it's like on a daily basis, there's a proactive approach to getting myself into a good mood and a state of gratitude. And it translates into your entire day. So if you could take some time in the morning for mindfulness, for meditation, for yoga, listening to good music, feeling good, thinking good thoughts, you tend to fall to the better end of the spectrum of meaning. And I think that that's a valuable lesson that, that a lot of people will get a lot of benefit from.

100%. You hit it on the mark. And, you know, a lot of people, you know, I always realized that I would always blame other people And I realized your quality of life is based on the quality of your relationships. So if you take care of your family, you take care of your employees, you keep everybody happy around you, you're going to be happy, right? And that has worked for me. And, you know, you know, even being financially blessed now and taking care of my employees, taking care of my family and the people around me, like, I've— I live a very, very blessed and happy life. Not only with the experiences that I've gone through, but also because I'm, I'm, you know, taking care of other people and they work hard for me and take care of me. And I think when you do that and give, I think they'll, they'll, they'll bring a lot more clarity and happiness in your life.

Yeah, man, I'm 100% with you. And, you know, the story that you shared, you know, opened up, you were vulnerable and you know, myself and all the people listening have gained a ton of insight from you. And AK, man, you're just an awesome human being. You know, I really appreciate you coming on here and opening up and sharing your story. And I think you're going to inspire a lot of people with what you've been through.

Thanks, man. I appreciate you giving me the chance to speak and share my story. And you're the first one, man. You're the first podcast I'm talking to about it. So this is— I came out super raw on this one. That's amazing.

And I'm super grateful to be able to interview about it. If people want to connect with you or learn more, you know, are you on social media?

Is there anywhere people could find you? Yeah, so I'm very active on Instagram. They can follow me at Scalable CEO. That's S-C-A-L-A-B-L-E CEO. And that's my handle. So I'm always posting some great content. I'm going to continue to share my story and my mission is to inspire other entrepreneurs and, you know, so, and really just talk about my case and so they can learn from my mistakes. That gives me a lot of fulfillment.

Life is a crazy journey, AK. And, you know, if you guys want to find him, I'm following him on Instagram. If you want to connect with him, show him some love, that'd be awesome. But AK, thanks again, bro. Really appreciate you hopping on and, you know, looking forward to hanging out again soon.

For sure, man. Thank you so much.