Episode 90: The Adversity of Profitability with Dr. Rob Garcia

Ticker's going. That means I'm ready, dude. There's no activity, no giggle, no nothing. No giggle. I love the way that mean to have no giggle.

I forget what he was talking about at the time, but it was just.

I mean, it's something. No activity, no giggle. Like that doesn't even really compute. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, that does.

He does. So welcome everyone, to the Profit first podcast.

Oh, I should say it right now. It's episode 90. Oh, golly.

Oh.

That'S right.

I should do more giggle next time when I do that.

We're back. Welcome everybody, to the Profit first podcast. This is the show where you have a lot of fun listening to us crazy people talk about profit. I'm Chris Curran. I'm the founder of Fractive Recording, actually.

And I'm Mike Michalhowitz, the author of Profit First. You wouldn't believe what's happening in the studio, Right? Joined in studio by bouncing happy smiley Christina Bulldog.

Hello.

And you are listening to the Profit first podcast where you learn the alpha and omega of profitability. But what if you start off impoverished and poor? What if the upbringing is tough? Can you still be wealthy and successful? Well, we have a guest today who's gonna show you exactly how.

That's right. And on this show, revenue is the bomb, but profit is.

Is in the palm.

Nice, cuz. I was going to say your mom.

Oh, your mom. That is better. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, my God.

I'm getting quick at these, man.

You are.

You can hear our show on itunes and Stitcher and Tunein Radio, basically anywhere you listen to podcasts, whatever podcatcher you use, and of course the website. Google Play.

Google Play. Google Play. Oh, my God, are you serious? It went live yesterday or two weeks ago.

April 18th. Yeah, it went live, which is.

Yeah. Two days prior to this recording.

Yeah. So Google Play. There you go. And. And you know, it's funny. I have Android and my Google Play app doesn't show podcast yet. It says it's going to take them a few days to roll it out to all the. To everyone, basically. So anyway, our website is the main thing. You should go there and comment on stuff and. And make funny jokes about. Mike Michalowicz, Profit first podcast dot com. You can comment on any of these episodes. So if you have a question or a comment, ask it. And guess who's gonna respond? Probably Mike. Or maybe even, you know, you never know. OB Ron might be in the house. He might even be lurking.

Yeah, he's lurking. He's kind of a lurker.

He is a little bit.

He sneaks around. He sneaks around a little bit. Yeah. No do comment. We got, we got some cool stuff to say back to you. Talking about cool stuff to say back to you. What have you been up to, my.

Brother, you know, did you know that I started another podcast show called the Podcast Engineering Show?

Yeah. You know, you were hinting toward that, that you want to. I mean, podcasting is exploding and you feel compelled and see the opportunity in educating other people how to put on a real podcast.

Yeah. And this, this podcast is. The show is really cool because it's just me and another podcaster or podcast engineer just talking about equipment and workflow. It's kind of getting real technical. It's not talking about how to host a show, how to use a microphone. Not any of that. It's all the back end production stuff. But it's really cool. We go through equipment and it's just a lot of fun. If you want, if you want to geek out. Podcast Engineering show and so what have you been up to?

Dude? Dude. So the Washington Post now this posted on April 19th last night, 1:36pm Washington Post says the Audible. Audible Best sellers for the week. April 15th. Now this is truly a global ranking. So on the fiction list you'll probably recognize Harry Potter and the Chamber Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner. These are. There's four Harry Potter's ranked here in the nonfiction section. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. Smarter, Faster, Better by Charles Duhigg. How to win friends and influence people. Classic. But there's one ranked above Dale Carney's book, Mike McCallowitz's book, the Pumpkin Plan.

Really?

Yeah. Pumpkin Plan is the number fourth ranked in the world in the snow Lie Audible. But. So I'm and I don't sound braggadocious here, but there's one part that's freaking awesome. If you Google this, there's a typo and it doesn't say the pumpkin plan. It says the pumpkin with an M at the end, man. As in bigger or older than a boy.

No way.

The pumpkin. The pumpkin Ma' Am Man. No, man, but it sounds very Ma' Am Ma' am. The Pumpkin man by Mike Michalowitz. So.

Well, dude, congratulations on that. Do you want an atomic bomb for that?

Nah. Yeah, yeah, I do actually do it.

All right. We could turn it down, but how.

Many people are on the web right now? They're like, oh wow, this most book must be great. I mean it's ranked here. I never heard of Pumpkin Man.

What is this?

What is this? Who is this man? You know, what does that mean? So whoever has a book title that is doing very well right now, I'm screwed.

Is it a knockoff? I wonder?

Maybe it is like a Chinese knockoff. Imagine a little plastic book. It just says pumpkin man like a hundred times over and over. Is the text.

It's your picture with a pumpkin head.

Yeah, right, exactly. They. They just pasted me on. I was just a woman's body.

I was just going to attempt to transpose your name into a Chinese name and say it in a Chinese accent, but that probably would have been super inappropriate, so I didn't know.

Oh, and last thing before we get to our guest talk about super inappropriate. I was on the funniest show yesterday. We recorded. It probably went live today. Today being April 20, when we recorded this, it was the solopreneur. Oh, yeah, Michael o' Neill. He was a guest on the Profit first podcast. Yeah, he is hysterical and smart. It's a scary combination because the guy throws jokes at you. Sometimes they're so sophisticated, it just goes right over my head. Other times, he stoops to my level and funny show. Hour and a half, discussion of the profit first. And the meat of it was maybe three minutes. The rest were just rabbit hole conversations about transgender. Yeah, he was explaining how he got slapped in the ass. He was once at a gay bar intentionally. He's not gay, but he was at a gay bar intentionally because he wanted to get free drinks. And he was. Oh, my God. He walked into the. The restroom and one guy slapped him in the ass and looked back at him. He says, you'll get over it. And walked out. Oh, he says, yeah. Crazy conversation.

That's. That takes a set. That takes a pair.

There's a set of pumpkin to go.

Into a bar just to get free. Gay bar just to get free drinks.

Oh, yeah, totally. I wanted to get free drinks.

I went there, you know, you're opening up a can of something there, you know.

Well, actually, clearly. Clearly acid slapping, because that's what happened to him. Well, today we're not talking about any of that stuff. We are going to be talking. Oh, do you have some shout outs?

I do have a shout out. I was just going to remind you.

Thanks. Well, tell us first the shout out and I'll tell you. We're going to talk about this.

Yes. So this goes out to our. Our listener, Doug. He emailed us in and he said, hey, Mike, this was a moving week for me. So I've been on A media fast for the last four days. But while getting dressed this morning, I reengaged and listened to the Bob Berg episode. What a great interview. And Christina's story about her grandmother and the apple. I was standing in the shower. Time shifted. Co crier. Fantastic work, my friend. Have a great weekend.

Who's. Who said that again?

His name is Doug. So shout out Doug.

Doug. Doug S. Doug S. Thank you, Doug S. Yeah, we don't say the last name here to protect your omnimity, but thank you, Doug for saying that and that was powerful what you shared.

Thank you.

Thanks, Doug. Yeah, we've said people's last names in the past and they just end up getting slapped in the ass. So we don't.

Well, this episode today is gonna be something different. You're gonna experience how to kind of give yourself a butt kicking to get yourself motivated moving forward. If you, if you're dealt a bad hand in life doesn't mean you have to play that. You still play the hand the best you can and you don't have to stay stuck there. Dr. Rob Garcia is going to be coming on the show just in a minute. He's the founder of Shift magazine and he's going to be sharing exactly how he's navigated himself. And I'm sure you're going to find some lessons regardless of what your life's experience has been like so far. The people that make the show possible, by the way, are Fundera, tsheets, nextiva, Fundbox and Receipt Bank. We want to thank our partners. We'll share a little more details on them at the end of the show. But thank you for making this show possible. Dr. Garcia grew up in a low income household and failed out of high school, out of high school once. And out of two different colleges, he joined the Air Force. You know, a lot of people go to the military when they're struggling and through the traits, what he learned there, the traits of hard work, diligence, developing an unyielding desire for success. Then he starts like cranking. He, he goes, he taught at the engineering, Engineering at the Morris High School. He's for five years despite never having an engineering degree. He's a speed reader. He does these amazing things and he's published a new magazine called Shift, Advanced Life Design magazine. We're going to discover right now how he went from there to here. Dr. Rob, welcome to the show.

Hey guys, thanks for having me.

Very glad to be here. I'm happy you stayed on with that huge preamble we had.

Well, Mike, I Just have to tell you, I think I saw Pumpkin man at Sundance. It was a Nicholas Cage art house black and white film. It was incredible.

Oh my God. Damn it. That movie's probably. If that movie takes off. Dr. Rob, that is fully attributed to this little Washington Post article, just so you know. So, Dr. Rob, you grew up in Humboldt County. What was that like?

Yeah, it was a small logging town called Eureka. And I still have a lot of family there, a lot of friends that still live there. It's pretty isolated. Median income something like $23,000 a year. So really it's just pot country and timber.

Oh, yeah, there you go. So just give us some details of your actual experience. Growing up impoverished doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad household. What was your household experience like?

It was just a lot of my family members were active drug users going to jail all the time. Like I remember as a little kid, like they used to bundle me up and take me to county jail so I could visit people in the family. It was a very surreal childhood that a lot of people, some people will relate and other people, it's completely foreign to them. When you go to school and a relative breaks into your room and steals stuff so they can pawn it off to buy meth, it's a little bit more intense than most people deal with. A lot of suicidal thoughts, a lot of depression, a lot of panic at the thought of what my 20s were going to be like because I really didn't have any guidance at all.

And were your parents also having. Did they have drug problems? Were they experiencing this too?

I had one parent, the other one left and went to Mexico. And the one parent, yeah, they had a lot of things going on. I don't really want to drag anybody through the mud, but yeah, it was pretty miserable. Ninth grade was very rough. I lived in my hoarder grandmother's house and I'd fall asleep and I'd hear the cat eating mice alive. It wasn't a very fun time and you can imagine it's not conducive to a good learning environment. So my first report card in 9th grade was straight D's and F's. I had trouble. I failed pre algebra about three times because I just didn't have the motivation to learn. I didn't have anybody that was really guiding me and it was just very mentally nerve wracking. So I struggled with my grades. The family just got worse and worse. It was pretty much imploding just because of drug use and crime. And I failed out in 12th grade, failed out, and I had to go to a charter school with the really bad kids, like the gang members and the drug addicts. So, you know, great environment to graduate to. So I ended up going back, got my credits, got my diploma from my original high school, and then I immediately enrolled in junior college, and I failed out of there after a semester just because I was having focus problems.

So I'm one of the people. This is totally fine. Far into. You know, in hindsight now, I realize how blessed I am to have grown up in, like, a beaver cleaver type of environment. But I want to know, Dr. Rob, did the system kind of abandon you, too? I mean, your family is not the family that's supporting you, but you're going to school. Clearly, the teachers and the facilitators there are seeing, here's a kid that's struggling. Does the system kick in, or does the system kind of kick you out, too?

No, and it's not their fault either, because, ironically enough, I became a high school teacher, and you don't always see these things, especially if the kid's really quiet. And I was really quiet. I just skateboarded all the time. I started skateboarding just so I could make some friends, and that was my only real focus. And so it's not really the onus of responsibility for an administrator or a teacher to kind of put all these clues in because they're managing hundreds of kids. Kids a day. There weren't any signs. I mean, I wasn't showing up with black eyes or anything. I was. I was just really depressed.

Okay, so you didn't experience abuse or physical abuse?

No, no. I would just call it a lot of neglect and a lot of. A lot of. I don't know, almost abandonment. Pretty close sometimes.

Well, emotional abuse, for sure. It may not have been physical, but it definitely affected you emotionally.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, once in a while, I go live with my grandmother and her. My grandfather were really great. They were a little bit more stable. They lived out of town, and they were very, very supportive. My grandmother's an amazing woman, and they put up with a lot because they knew the family had a lot of issues.

And what aboutif you're witnessing all these drugs happening and all these elements, I presume to replicate it. It's very easy. I mean, did you do drugs during this period of time?

That's a great question. I appreciate the honesty of it. I did try pot twice, and it really. It was more out of peer pressure. And really, because I saw so much dysfunction from the use and all these people, I just, in my head, I programmed that it's just a bad idea. There is no reason for anyone to, you know, I don't judge them if they do it, but it's just not my thing.

But I just couldn't imagine the peer pressure when your family, I don't know the drugs they were doing. But I think you mentioned heroin and some other stuff. I mean, if you see these varsity level intense drugs for you not to get in the mix, even though that's the environment you're physically living in. And I hope you don't mind me. I'm just so curious about this. Does your family push on, say, hey, Rob, just do it? Or why are you being critical? Or why are you not doing it? Was there any of that pressure that existed?

No. Mike, I want to be really honest, actually. The deeper we can take this, I think the more it'll resonate with the listeners. Thank you.

Thank you.

So let's go with this. No, there wasn't really. There were some people once in a while trying to get me to drink beer or smoke pot or stuff. And there were hard drugs, but I wasn't super exposed to them. They kind of did that behind closed doors. I mean, they at least didn't force anything on me. But, yeah, it was definitely out there. And I'm talking the gamut. I'm talking cocaine, heroin, meth, acid. And it was just consistent people coming in and out. You know, we moved. Here's a stat for you. Between 1st and. I want to say between 1st and 11th grade, I moved 16 times in the same town.

Oh, my God. In the same town or were you.

Just all over in the same town? Because I was kept in the same school, which was cool. That's the one thing that I appreciate about my parent, that they were really into making sure that my school was at least consistent. But yeah, 16 times. So you can imagine just the uprooting and the level of impact that has upon your attitude and your educational goals. You know, it was just tough.

Why did you move 16 times?

My parent just was very unstable. There was a lot of job hopping, a lot of bad relationships, a lot of instability or being shuffled around between family members. I was given away for a year because. Because of excessive drug use. Yeah, it was just. At the time it seemed normal, but, you know, as a kid, I didn't know any better. I didn't know that you're not supposed to constantly move around or constantly stay with somebody else. You know, it just seemed normal. At the time.

So you're part of the 1 percenters that break out of this environment and go on to be these mega successes. I know. Remember, read Blindside. That book, Blindside. Michael Ort. Right. Very similar environment. A freak fortunate circumstance where he gets moved to a different school and gets basically adopted by a family and then his life explodes. But Dr. Rob, you did this on your own. Actually, why don't we start off, where are you today? Tell us kind of the successes you've had today. And then I want to learn, what did you do to make this a miraculous turn?

Absolutely. As of now, I'm a business strategist in San Diego. I'm an eight time author. I own a company called Blue Dragon Enterprises. And I am the founder of Shift and Advanced Life Design magazine. And I'm also an Air Force reservist.

Wow.

Boom. First of all, I aspire to author eight books. Like that would be.

That's crazy. And especially the military too. I mean, do you find that you were attracted to that environment of discipline and structure because you didn't have that growing up? Is that what kind of pushed you in that direction?

Yeah, that's a really good question. So we'll just move it forward a little bit and I'll explain how that kind of transitioned into that. Yeah. So high school was bad. I failed out of college. So I moved to Arizona. And I put myself in an even worse place, oddly enough, because I took that chance and I moved 1500 miles to a place where I didn't know anyone. I just enrolled in school. That was it for two years. I slept on the floor and I couldn't afford meat. It was literally rice and beans most days. Writing bad checks once in a while so I could have food. And I failed out of my second college there. And then I just said, okay, some of my friends joined the Air Force. Seems like a good idea. And my recruiter saw that I was so poor, he actually brought me a bag of groceries. So good on him. It was pretty awesome. And I joined the Air Force. I got a really, really good job working on bombers. My electronics aptitude was off the charts. So was my admin score. Because I'm a speed reader. Just because, and this is very important, especially to the listeners, I had very, very high aptitude. I just didn't have the right learning mod. Because if you think about the way that education is offered, especially when we went to school, you know, it's lecture, homework, quiz, lecture, homework, test, and that's it. That doesn't engage me at all, which is why I had such problems in high school. But I was a very, very fast reader and a very good autodidact, which at the time, I didn't know anything about that stuff. So I joined the Air Force. The discipline. Going back to Christina's statement, the discipline kicks in. Okay, so now I have a steady income, I have a team, I have a place to live, and I have food because I joined the Air Force so I could have chicken. Like, it was literally that cut and dried. I just wanted to eat chicken and go to school. That was it. Serving my country is pretty awesome too, but so I did that. So in two and a half years, I earn a bachelor's and two associates and a minor, and then I get out and I move to San Diego. And in the oddest twist of ironic fate, I'm immediately hired as an engineering teacher because I was an electronics technician in the Air Force. And so I teach at an inner city high school in a subject where I've never been an engineer and I've never made it past pre algebra in high school. And now I have to teach trigonometric concepts, algebra, pre calc, the whole nine. And then factor it in with historical engineering and design. First two years a little tricky, you can imagine. But by the end of the fifth year, I realized that I was really good at building projects and working with my hands and working with students that were intimidating by school and math. By the end of year five, I was running my own academy of engineering at that school, and I was nominated for teacher of the year. So I turned it around.

Wow. So I understand some of the trigger things. Join the military, discipline comes in place. You find you have a different learning modality. What's the conversation in your head like? Was there a transition in how you're talking to yourself?

I just set higher goals than the people around me because I knew that my life path was going to be a little different. I'm one of these guys that just didn't want a family right away. My only focus was finishing school and then trying to better myself. I applied to officer school and the FBI before I left the Air Force. I mean, I was really pushing to do something great with my life regardless. And then I just moved to San Diego onto a friend's couch. And after a couple years of really, really working hard, I'm starting to see the fruits now at 39 years old, and I'm very happy with it.

And as you look back at your story, is it in part, what kind of got you to where you are today. I mean, do you look back and say, as horrible as what you went through some of those things in your childhood, does it bring you fortitude? Does it bring you empathy? Has it brought you certain tools and skills that have made you so successful today?

Yes, because I learned how to bootstrap as an entrepreneur. I really am the epitome of a person that has had to create their own success, create their own celebrity, create their own wealth, and it's the way that I grew up. I wouldn't wish it on anybody, but it made me hard, it made me powerful, and it made me really appreciate the struggles that other people go through and to be empathetic for them.

I guess if success is defined, the distance you cover from your starting point to your ending point, you've covered more distance than probably almost everyone listening to this show. That's a little bit broad, but you definitely covered way more distance than I have in my life. Is there a certain point you say, I've done it. I don't need to go any further. I'm just going to ride smooth? Or do you say, I'm going to keep turning up the heat?

Oh, no, Mike, I'm just getting started. And I think that's a great point to bring up because as entrepreneurs, we constantly have to to do the Stephen Covey and sharpen the sword. You can't see my house right now, but I have three dry erase boards and I literally have the next three months planned out. Because whatever you're trying to do, whether you're trying to be an author, whether you've got your business, whether you got your company, you should always be trying to achieve the next level. And in fact, I wrote my newest book, the Next Level Supercharged. It's how to do any job or skill better. On that very premise that you should be operating at a level two levels above you, you should be pushing to get there consistently.

And you do a lot of public speaking also, is that correct?

Yeah, I've actually been asked to speak at the high school I taught at. I've taught or I've spoken at University of Phoenix as a keynote. That was surreal, let me tell you.

That's nice. When you spoke at your high school, University of Phoenix, as you do other events, do you share this story publicly? I mean, listen, we're on a podcast that gets like 1500 downloads, so this is kind of public. But are you up on stage telling this story? And if so, how do people respond to that? Is that good? Or is that. Do people get scared of that and saying, well, I don't know.

No, actually the reception is really good because I speak in a lot of charter schools as well. Because if you think about it, who goes to charter schools? Either the kids that fail out or their disciplinary problems. So the charter schools, especially the kids, really open up to me because they can see a person that's been through a similar struggle, but made it. And so I do share it so that I can teach them that regardless of whatever they're going through. We all have aptitude, we all have mental toughness, we all have strength. Just sometimes you need the right person to really resonate that message with you.

Do you ever see or run into people from your past, those early days, and they're envious of you? Or do they kind of fade away to oblivion? What's going on with people from your past?

I'll be really honest. The people that were mean to me in high school got the lives they deserved. And does seem that way, doesn't it?

It does seem that way.

And the people that were super supportive and super awesome are still in life today. And I hear from them every day on Facebook and they're always telling me how proud they are of me. And it's a great feeling. But make no mistake, I mean, if I'm doing things, if I'm getting on podcasts, if I'm appearing in magazines, it's because I'm working harder than anybody. I'm up at 4:30 almost every day. I'm doing 8 mile beach runs, I'm mentoring people for free. I'm really doing everything I can in order to create success and to share the success with others.

It'd be awesome. You, if your high school reunion be like, is that. Who is that guy? That's Doc, that's Rob. That's Rob Garcia. Dr. Rob. Oh, hey, hey. One little last thing we want to do with you. We have a book we call the 4,000 questions. Here's how it works. Pick a number between 15 and we'll say 2,000.

No, no, no. It's only 10 to 297.

Well, I thought it's 4,000 questions.

No, but it's by page. I'm having them pick a page. They're not numbered by question. They're not.

You tell the damn rules now. The whole mojo's ruined.

That's okay. Start again.

Well, no, I don't want to start again. We. We do not edit our podcast. So what does he have to do? What's he have to do?

So, Dr. Rob, if you want to pick a number between 10 and 297.

133.

Oh, that's that number. Okay. Yes. Okay.

I'm gonna make you work for it.

Question.

What is the last thing you do before you go to bed?

I sit down with a piece of paper, notebook paper, and I write out exactly what needs to be done the next day and assign a time frame to it.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Can I answer my question? That question me?

Yeah.

The last thing I go to bed is, I look at the clock. Oh, my God, it's so late. And it's usually like 9:30. Because I. Dr. Rob, it was a pleasure having the show folks listening in. They gotta get Shift magazine. They gotta learn more about you. They gotta pick up the books. How do they do all that stuff?

Thanks for having me, guys. My main website is BlueDragonent.com because it's BlueDragon Enterprises, BlueDragonent.com. you can read SHIFT magazine for free on there and you can learn about me and my books. And if you need to hit me up, I offer free general consulting for any business stuff. I'd love to help you out and teach you some speed learning.

Wow. Free general consulting.

Absolutely.

Wow. And you teach speed learning. Speed. Speed reading.

Speed learning, not speed reading. So I teach people how to think faster, how to use more of their brain, and how to improve their cognitive processes.

I like.

I think we would all like to sign up for that.

Yeah. Yeah. The three hosts would like to sign up for that. Dr. Rob, thanks again for joining us for the show.

Thanks, guys. Love to be here.

Thanks, Rob.

Hey, so we gotta recap what we learned. We are. And we're gonna also thank our corporate partners. But first, Christina, if you had to pick a number from that book, what number would you pick? She already sees me grabbing for the soundboard.

54.

Sorry. All right. I just wanted to play that sound effect. Yes. All right, so in a second, we are gonna recap what we learned.

Yes.

I have a page of notes. You're actually typing your notes. Oh, no, you're writing. You do both.

Weird.

Yeah, Both going on. Thank you. First, I want to thank our corporate partners. As a reminder, these are the folks that make this show possible. So thank you to nextiva, Receipt, Bank, Fundbox, Fundera, two different companies and T sheets for making the show possible. Today. I want to talk about nextiva.

Yeah.

Here. I don't know. I'm about to start choking up. So I email nextiva a few days ago because Serge. Thanks. Christina is now at Bookmasters that's the printing company, by the way. If anyone prints books and you want to learn about it, maybe even dedicate an episode to how you go about writing books and printing them. We use a company called Bookmasters. Bookmasters is not a print on demand. It's a high volume, high quality production shop. But we order books in the thousands.

Yes.

Well, I tell next diva they're included in the next book, and they write back and they say, it's an honor and privilege to be on it. We'd like to order thousands of copies for our customers. Thousands. Right. Nextiva.

That's awesome.

And listen, they're not gonna be promoting themselves by getting thousands of copies. They're in there and it's like two lines about them. They are such a supporter in what we're doing here. They just. Yaniv, our contactor, said, mike, you just. We just gotta get the word out. Like, people have to know this stuff. So a special thank you to nextiva. Nextiva is a voice over IP phone system provider. And this phone system we use here, you may hear in the background, Mike Scalise, the lumberjack is on the phone right now. Ron's on the phone. Aaron's on the phone. Jackie wants to start working from home again, even though she's had her baby.

She just had her baby. She's like, I want to work.

She like, she's nextiva ing. She's like, I'm ready. I'm ready to roll. So nextiva is a very sophisticated phone system that you can even run out of a little, tiny, small basement home office. But you look like a big boy. So nextiva.com, it's n e x t I v a dot com. I can't speak more highly of them because they're such wonderful people. And maybe that's played into a bias, but I've used their system for eight years, and it's the best voice or best phone system I've ever used in its raw functionality. So check out nextiva.com, right?

And then I have Barry the maintenance guy here with me. Barry, would you ever use any other phone system besides nextiva?

No way. You crazy? So what about you, Darth Vader? Would you use another phone?

Oh, hell no.

I can't even get there fast. I'm like, what about you, ma' am? Would you use any other phone besides nextiva?

Oh, hell no.

Exactly. Exactly. Okay. I'm looking for something else, and they're all inappropriate, so I can't click on it. Christina, what'd you learn from call with Dr.

Rob, he's fascinating. I think what resonated the most with me was, you know, he was talking about his past experiences, and obviously he's had a rough go of things early on, but it kind of made me realize, okay, you know, some people have had it worse than others, but everybody has baggage. And looking back at my life, you know, certain things that have happened to me, there comes to a point where bad things are happening and you have a decision, you can either use it to push forward or let it scale you down. And I think the lesson there is, as Rob said, always be pushing to the next level. Use your past experiences to say, no, this is not what I want. This is not where I want to be. And push even harder.

Oh, that's giving me chills. Chris, how about you?

Yeah, I took away kind of the same thing. The idea of persistence came to me. You know, he just keeps going, and whatever the situation was, it is what it was. And I don't know whether he accepted it or not, but in a way, it doesn't seem like it matters, because as long as you keep moving, you can just keep moving towards what you want. And that's what he's done his whole life. And he just keeps ratcheting it up level to the next level. To the next level. It's. It's tremendous.

You know, to me, what's unbelievable is there was a study done when cars had seat belts. Yes, Christina. There was a time card that didn't have seatbelts. And that goes more back to my and Chris's time. They were just becoming popular. But many people back in the 70s were resistant to using car seats in the 60s and 50s when they came about. And the reason they were resistant is because no one used car seats before. Seat belts, car seat or car belts. No one used car belts. No one used seat belts before. And now when seatbelts came about, the excuse not to use them was, oh, you think I'm a bad driver. So if you're a passenger in my car, I'd say, don't put that on. You think I'm a bad driver. And it took decades and commercials and stuff, and still they still have it. Click it. Or ticket. It took decades to retrain us, like, duh, wear a seatbelt and not die.

Yeah.

So we get entrenched in a belief, and even though it's detrimental, we still do it. He was able to break out of it. That's very rare. Here's my takeaway. That was not my takeaway. My takeaway is this he said, set higher goals than the people around you. You know, it's not. You know, you don't have to go. Anthony Robbins is what I'm learning. You don't have to be living up, growing up in a house where there's drug use, abuse, neglect, and then be sitting there saying, I'm going to grow this wildly successful company, and I'm going to be an author of eight books. It sounds like, just set goals higher than the group you're with, because what's going to happen is that will get you out of that group and on to the next group, then set the next level of higher goals, and you're on to better and better peers for your objectives in life. That was the big takeaway for me.

Nice. Yeah. Good episode. Great story. You know, some stories are inspiring, but other stories. I don't know, the word inspiring seems to be thrown around a lot these days. I think, you know, you see something on the Internet, it's like, oh, that's inspiring. But there's other stories that really are inspiring. They really hit you. Hit home and. And really get you thinking personally. Like, you know, what if he can do that? I mean, what can I do?

They snap you into focus, you know, makes you realize that other people are going through the same things you are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And sometimes going through it is. Is hell. But what's. What's the quote? If you're going through hell, keep going.

Yeah, right. Yeah, right, Right. With a little more fuel, because it's kind of hot down there.

So this is Fire, by the way. You can hear our show on itunes and Stitcher and tune in, and you can give us a rating or review in itunes and Stitcher and of course, our website, Profit first podcast dot com. You can see all our episodes all the way back to episode one. Hey, for. For. For giggles, go back to episode one of the Prophet.

First podcast, which I listened to is hysterical. Yeah. Yeah, it's hysterical. There is a. A reference to a drug den, which you think would not be funny. It was so funny. That's what. Dory Clark.

Oh, yeah. I was just gonna say, you know.

It'S our number one episode. I mean, not just as it was the first episode. Number one downloaded episode.

Yeah.

Yeah. I guess it's all downhill since then. Right? So your first episode's a big bang and everything else.

Yeah. We should have just peaked and then, you know.

Yeah, we should just punch back down. We did one. We did one.

So also, one of the organizations that supports the show is your organization, Mike. Profit First Professionals. Changing the world. Hello.

Changing the world for the better. It's funny. Ron Sahari and Obi. Ron Kenobi is doing an interview tonight and he's like, he hears his name, he looks over, he knows he's doing an interview tonight. And he just showed me some of his preparation notes. They said, why are you doing this? And he said, because we got to flip the odds, you know, 83% of small businesses surviving, check by check. There's another study. I'm now working with Penguin Books again for a revamp of profit first. They emailed me this morning and they said 30, only 35% of Americans can cover a thousand dollar emergency fee. So if you go to a doctor and it costs more than a thousand dollars, only 35% of the US population can handle it means 70, I'm sorry, 65% of US population. If a thousand dollar unexpected bill comes, they're done. Stick a fork em. Well, in the entrepreneurial space, it's just as bad, but no one thinks it. You hear someone's an entrepreneur, they must be rich. I'm sure you're an entrepreneur. People are saying, oh my God, you must be a millionaire. Maybe you have millions running through your business, maybe have $10,000 running through your business, but are you keeping any of it? That's what we do. Profit First Professionals was formed to help you eradicate your entrepreneurial poverty. Go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Click on the find button. We are a membership organization of accountants and bookkeepers who can reduce permanently any of your debt and get you to levels of profit like you've always anticipated. We wrote the book on this, literally Profit First. So go to profitfirstprofessionals.com right now. Check out the folks you need an account or bookkeeper. Anyway, why not have an account or bookkeeper who can actually drive the profitability that you deserve in your business. Get her done. Get er done.

That's right. Focus on the profit and you'll get more of it. Thanks again to our guest, Dr. Rob Garcia. Thanks Mike. Thanks Christina. And next episode.

Oh, you're in for a doocy. First, you're going to learn why Christina and I are bouncing right now. Literally bouncing. Secondly, you're going to meet a gentleman named David Lauderstein. Now, David's gonna blow you away. He owns a business called Nasty Pig. It is for the gay community. They make these. Well, he'll explain, but he's gonna be on the hot seat because his business hasn't been profitable. He started implementing profit first. He's having success. He wants to be coached along. And this guy's got a personality. So get ready for the ride of a lifeguard.

All right, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll see you.

Sam.