The SHOCKING Truth About Successful People | Rob Gill

So let me tell you from my perspective, what surviving success is. It's overcoming complacency and consistently challenging yourself. And if you can't do that, then you could find yourself in a situation where whatever success you just achieved, whether it's monetary or something else in your life, you're doomed to fall back. So surviving success would be not only knowing the things that prevent your growth, but doubling down as you're climbing that wall of success or increased base camp on the mountain. But how do you keep moving forward? What are the questions that you ask yourself? And, and listen, if you're making some, some really good money and extra money, what are you doing with that money going to make the world a better place?

Well, you know, it's, it's funny, you and I met quite a, quite a little bit ago and got a chance to reconnect, which I'm excited about. I want to know one thing specifically as we kind of dig in a little bit. You've been in the financial services industry for a while. You've done very, very well in business as an entrepreneur, business owner and everything. Yep. One of the things I know you're passionate about is making sure that people understand finances at a very deep level. And most people aren't even doing the basics. So how did you get into that field? Why is it important? That kind of stuff?

Beautiful question. So for me, I grew up in Bale, New Jersey, 75, 000 people, three miles. Everything was concrete. Everybody knew each other's business. Everything was about, you know, really surviving the schoolyard. Having friends and being able to keep your mouth shut was always an important thing. My dad, my dad was a police officer who worked three jobs, also struggled with alcohol. My mom was also, and this is my other book coming out, Surviving Success. And my mom was a domestic engineer. She had been in a car accident, was on prescription pain medicine for a long time. And in my early years, I'm the youngest of four, she was in a institution where they did some shockwave treatment on her brain and some other things. I'm going in and out, Danny, on, on some other things. And as a result of that, I traveled around a lot as a young kid from different, you know, family members. And my early journey was money scarcity, financial scarcity.

I think that that stood with me when it came to wealth wounds.

Yeah.

And understanding how people, you know, make decisions suboptimally when it comes to their money, time, freedom. I believe that, you know, from that perspective, it really had a lot to do with my first 25 years of life. I eventually was able to get sober, but during my high school years, I didn't drink. I just played basketball. Basketball. St. Peter's Prep was the high school I went to and I, I, I played basketball. That was my identity because I had my, my, I have two sisters. One that was a complete drug addict by the time she was 16. Heroin addict. She got sober, but then eventually passed away. The, the best athlete in our family, hands down. And then I have another sister that I married into a family in Jersey City. Bob Hurley, who coached St. Anthony's High School for 50 years, arguably the greatest high school coach in history. He has two sons, Bobby and Danny. Bobby played for Duke, won two national championship, and Danny just coached UConn to a national championship. So that hierarchy that I was around early on, when I come across the Randy Garnes, when I come across the David Melcher's guys like yourself, I had seen early on what it looks like in the behind the scenes version of what the public would later see when it came to the success that they had. So I got the benefit of both. I know what success looks like when no one's looking, not just when it shows up, when everyone can see it. So that was a, that was always something that stood with me. But then I went on my own journey with drugs and alcohol from 18 to 25. Haven't had a drink since July 1996. And this all comes back to money. Right. Money isn't like, hey, let me get all the stacks of paper with presidents. Money is the feeling it gives us. Right. And if, if you're not right within Ed, my left talks about this with financial temperature. It's amazing your thermostat, if you're not right within you not going to be able to not only survive the success if you're able to achieve it y but come back down. Tony Robbins talked about that when he had his first wave of success where he then gained 40 or 50 pounds and was really, you know, down to his last thousand dollars before he made his next breakthrough. Yeah. And I think that for what I stand for is not only money, mindset, process, self and, and influence mastery and how to make money.

Yeah.

How do you survive what those early years look like when the money comes your way so you don't have to be like a, a professional athlete where 80% go bankrupt because they weren't ready for the money. Whether it was induced, whether it's just not understanding how money works. So what we've created, it's not out yet is a digital course, a financial education course, a four hour course. It's going to tie into the book surviving Success. And then once you know all that, it's, it's then how do you monitor and measure, diversify within, amongst asset classes? And is there a tool that you know, you could put your, your, your accountant, your financial advisor, your fiduciary, your insurance agent, your trust officer, which some would call a fractional family office, but a lot of people can't afford that. I know versions of me can't afford that. I want to not only speak to the ones that can, but the ones that can't.

Yeah.

I'm not just looking for the $100 million person, although you know, I love to talk to them, but I'm also looking for my mom and dad. I'm looking for me.

Yeah.

And people like me in the way I grew up.

Yeah. Well, about 70% of the population is, is how we grew up. Right. They're, they're, they're operating from. And I never heard this term before until you just mentioned a second wealth wounds. I want to break that down a little bit because I find that a lot of financial behavior is totally subconscious. So talk to me a little about wealth wounds.

So wealth wound is. Or sudden? Well, a wealth wound is, hey, if I made an investment 10 years ago, like for example, I, I invested in a boxing promotion. So my first wave of financial Success happened in 2008. 9, 10 and 11. Seven figures each year. Couldn't handle it emotionally, Stayed sober, but on some deep level I felt like I didn't deserve it. One of those investments was into a boxing promotional company. Right. It had all the makings of why it would be good, but there was no research. I thought it was going to change my life. And I thought just because I did it now, I'm going to get cash flow and you know, you find out it's not going to work and then all of a sudden you can't be gun shy when other opportunities come your way. So the wealth wound would be able to overcome that mindset that not only led to that investment, but also listen, and you, Stephen, maybe you know this or not, I'm not sure, but entrepreneurs for me, I, I run into a brick wall like before I figure out what's going to work.

Yeah, I just, I always say I can get there faster.

So the version of me 10 or 12 years ago got, got gun shy. And the reason why is because I wasn't really truly right within. You know what I mean? I didn't know that until afterwards.

Yeah.

And when I say right within dealing with how I was brought up, dealing with my. My family's relationship with money, how it was handed down to me, I mean, listen, I'm in college, and I. I found out my mom and dad put a credit card in my name, but I didn't know about it. And. And all of a sudden it was like an American Express credit card they started using. I wasn't aware of that. You know, so that's a wealth wound. Right.

You know, my dad did the same thing with light bills with a progress energy bill. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a violation, right? Yeah. I had a paper out in fifth grade till eighth grade. I think I had like 1500 bucks saved up in it. And my brother, who was 12 years older than me, may he rest.

He.

And took care of me, by the way. Just. I want to be clear about how the story goes, but I had no choice. I had to give him my piggyback money, piggy bank money, so he could buy two suits for Wall Street. Now I'm like 12 years old. You know what I mean? Like, I didn't sign up for being a person that was going to financially support people in the house. Like, I didn't know that was the rule. It wasn't even said. It was just. That's the way it was, you know, So I. I got other things, but I never got that money back.

Yeah.

You know, I never got that back in. So that's a wealth wound. Those are just little examples. And I think a lot of folks, you know, when they don't address the wealth wounds, they then act that out on. On themselves later on, if they're lucky enough to get financial freedom, they start to expect certain things just because.

Yeah.

That happened to them when they were little.

Yeah. My family used to say, family helps family. And then, then I recently started telling people that nobody is entitled to your wealth. Nobody is.

Family. Family. Well, I want to know what, like, does that mean I'm putting up 100 grand to your thou. Is that how that works? Like, what's the breakdown of that? That help, you know, like, I'd rather teach somebody how to make money than just give it to somebody.

Oh, you're 100. You and I both. Because you. You and I both lived out similar stories in the grand scheme of things in a problem. But going back to that wealth issue or the worth issue.

Yep.

It probably took me a decade to say no. Oh, yeah. A no. And then to give them a. A way to make the money themselves.

Yeah, that's a great point. I, you know, I got, I got sober in 96, I made 12 grand. By the time I was in 2000, I was making like 120. By the time I got to 2005, I was at 700. By the time I got to 2008, I was over a million. And from 2000 until the day my dad passed away, may he rest in peace, every call was, can I give him money at some point? And my mom, she's still alive to this day, every call is about if she can get money. Right. So my sister, my brother and my other sister, you know, it was always about how can I help them? And even trying to give them the tools to help themselves, that, that just to this day, it falls on deaf ears, you know, so. But I'm very comfortable saying no now.

Yeah. Right.

The challenge to me, it's harder for me to say no to people that are in the grind with me, that understand certain things, but there's certain things that I see that they may not be ready to take that next step. Those are more challenging those. Or like contract negotiations. Those are challenging those. You know, being able to redo contracts, stuff like that, is like a new version of what's a challenge for me.

Yeah, no, I, I think that's so good because I, I find that this, during that, during that gravitational pull, if you will, of going from financial scarcity to financial abundance, there's always a push or pull right there in the middle where I find that people like you and myself and a bunch of other folks, when they go from that one to the other, they are trying to manage expectations of themselves and the expectations of those that are around them. And a lot of times, at least for me, I felt I would. They, I got to the point they would make me feel guilty or shameful if I didn't chirp in or help in or whatever. And then I realized, wait a minute, they're putting themselves in this position?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, are they working until 10 o' clock at night the way you are?

No.

Right. Are they doing those calls on Saturdays and Sundays?

No. And the dirt sure wasn't. They're sure what doing what I was doing was. I was up first five years of my business, my first business, which you and I talked about when I was on your show.

Yeah.

Was this. We just grind and hustle, like put every single dollar back into my business and hope. I hope that it worked out.

Yeah.

You know, and lo and behold, year six, seven, eight, it Started to work out, and next thing you know, it's like all of those people that told me I was never going to be anything, all of a sudden, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You told.

No. I always believed in you.

Yes.

By the way, can I borrow a thousand dollars?

Yes, yes, yes. And the overnight success is always seven to 10 years in the making, right?

That's right. Yeah.

And there's nothing, I would suspect, you would agree with this. There's nothing more lonely. It's a journey. It really is. Especially when you want to go to that next level. You're by yourself a lot. And if you're lucky enough to have someone ride with you on that journey, that's an incredible thing, you know, And I'm talking about in the day to day, you know, so as, as you kind of elevate and you go higher and higher, there's sometimes it gets lonelier and lonelier, you know, at least that's my perspective.

Well, I think it definitely is until we, until you actually change your circle of influence.

Yes.

You and I run in a lot of similar circles now and have been. And at least I can say that those people are phenomenal human beings. One of the things I love about them all is they're, they're, they are acting, they're coming from a heart of service, but they also have very defined boundaries.

Yes.

Talk to me about the, the importance of having defined boundaries in, in your circle and in your mentality.

Yeah. I think to your point, that those defined boundaries are even important with your family. Right. So. But, but people that work with you, you know, your team behind you, I like to say, define the problem at all times and solve, don't just give me problems, tell me solvable terms to everything that's, that's happening. So it's about accountability and that's part of boundary making. Right. How do I hold someone accountable in my work that I really care about? That is starting to slip in certain different ways. What are some of the things I could do without, you know, losing patience or, or being able to come across in a way that may be suboptimal to kind of paint that picture of, hey, you're starting to slip, here's why. And by the way, that always comes down to surviving success, because each person has their different layers of success. Right?

Yeah.

I'm going to get to this level. I got to go through this level and I got to go through this level first. So these are challenging conversations. To your point, though, get around the meltzers, the garns. Some of these other folks, they have what I want, right? Yeah, they're up there. Right there. So then I'm like, wow, this guy gets up at 4:00 in the morning, he's got a sleep coach, he's, you know, compounding. I've never heard anyone compounding energy before in my life. So like that's a real thing. And, and you know, ran everyone's process mastery is at a place that I'm not at right now. So it's like if I'm a, if I'm a rookie in the NBA and you know, the veterans know all the things you need to do to play five or 10 years, that's where I'm at. Right. I'm just trying to learn what the are doing and that's part of the boundary setting.

Yeah. Which is, which is amazing. One of the things I love about what you do in your work is it's not just that you're focused on elevating and getting to another level. You try to bring people with you to the next level.

Yes.

More importantly, you also try to work with the people who used to be where you are.

Yes.

You, you were 100. And I know one of your passion projects historically has been helping people understand the fundamentals to get to the place where they need a fiduciary.

Right.

Talk to me about some of the fundamentals that every person should be operating from if they ever want to have hopes achieving of wealth.

Yeah, so that's a great question, Steve, because I think that that comes down to blocking and tackling, that comes down to fundamentals and that comes down to basics. And once you've cleared the debris of, of wealth, wounds and, and understand money mindset, the real estate between your ears and how to really surround yourself with folks that can empower you. Now that that's happening, you also have to learn the importance of. Okay, who do I talk to when it comes to my money, time, freedom? How can I turn decades into days and really tie into what my core values are when it comes to money? I was sitting with somebody today and they, they specifically said to me, are you, why do you make money? What are you trying to get? If life could be the way you want it to be and that life for me would be to do what I want, when I want, how I want, with who I want, without any money or time constraints like that would be an ideal life for me, right?

Yeah.

If I'm going to get there or if anyone's brand new right now, the first thing that I always think is important is you have to understand the importance of having your educators, your five educators. That's what I mean by fiduciary, insurance agent, trust officer, estate attorney and accountant on the same page. Well, how do you do that? Some people can't do that right away. So one of the things that we've created in that model is we have a technology that we use from Fidelity, it's called the Epic wealth builder where it puts everybody's financial data on one landing page, but it could also put their financial educators. So now all of a sudden if somebody has a 401k and if somebody has an after tax account, if somebody has an insurance policy, well, we could put all those professionals on there. And now that means that the person either wants to work with all their other people and have them connected or they're looking for a one stop shop.

Yeah.

Way. The most important thing is that you as the individual investor aren't hit with a bunch of different opinions from a bunch of different people based on a bunch of different things, but not really able to bring that all together for the purpose of what your outcome is. It's, it's important that you get that in your world because if you do, what will happen is your decision making will go from emotional timidity or a gut level hunch to decisions based on logic, math and science. Right.

Yeah.

So that's where the, that's where the real magic is. And then economic winter comes. And it's going to come. It comes, it goes, it comes and goes. It's going to come. Next year we got an election year. You'll be high stepping through that because you're not going to be worried about what the Jones are doing.

Yeah. Well, and that's, I think that's brilliant. I think that's a couple things. So first of all, I think that's really in the standpoint that wealthy people operate from data.

Yep.

Impoverished people operate from emotion.

Yep.

Wealthy people buy when markets are low.

Yep.

Or people are impoverished people buy when markets are high.

Yep.

So there's this, there's this essence of, because of the lack of understanding, you're buying and selling at the wrong time or you're not operating from the basic fundamentals of being, you know, you know, largely debt free, not having, you know, letting compound interest work for you versus against you and, and those clear fundamentals. I know in a couple things that, that we want. It's interesting, when I was growing up, it was made, I was made to believe that wealth was evil or being Wealthy was evil.

Yep. Me too. Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? And then yet the. The folks that we've been associating with for years now are very wealthy people in their own right. They, you know, they, they can afford to fly private and do all this kind of stuff, but nobody knows how much money they give away except for their close friends.

Yep.

You know, and the reason I say that is because I feel like it's important to break that cycle. I was meeting with a small group of people when I was out in Utah recently, actually, at Randy's office, trying to teach some. Just a basic fundamental class on finances, you know, And I had to challenge each and every one of them is why do you think money is evil? Why do you think being wealthy is evil? And I've discovered it's because that someone along the way decided to tell someone else no when they went to borrow money for, like, the hundredth time.

That's right.

You know, so talk a little about that kind of that, that, that, that shift of what money really is versus what people presume it is.

But, dude, that's a dynamite question. I think that once again, we. Money is a feeling. It's a charge, it's an emotion. Right? And with that comes rejection. So if you hear the word no, no one wants to hear the word no. Right. And hearing the word no goes back to the simple principle of you feeling rejected, even if it's from a girl that you want to date. Right.

Or if you ask mom and dad if you can get this toy or, you know, anything with no, the energy is just. It's terrible. And if it sits with you without understanding how to overcome it, even if you tried to borrow money for the hundredth time and it was said no again, well, that says tell a different story about whatever you're trying to borrow the money for. Right? But you and I both know if there's a good idea, and you and I both know that if you could. If you could demonstrate not just resources where someone's going to give you money, but be resourceful, be able to. To leverage that currency, that emotional equity, that relationship equity, into a business strategy, well, then it becomes not. You're not borrowing money at that point. You're leveraging your relationship that's going to provide the emotional currency that's going to allow you to move the ball forward. These are two different mindsets. Right? And I think, I think what you. That's what you're talking about right now. If you, you know, I think it was. I don't know if it was Biggie Smalls or Kanye, but they said if you change your style up, watch the money pile up. Right? Yeah, that's right. If you keep asking, they keep saying, no, you got to change your style up a little bit. But the truth is, it's, it's. What are you borrowing it for? Why you're borrowing it? Are you looking to, Are you borrowing it just because, you know, you're just trying to get by on a certain situation, or is it for a purpose that's going to make you in the world a better place?

Yeah, I think, I think, I think it always comes out to the lens of compounding. Is, Is it a. Are you spending it? Are you compounding it?

Yep.

You know what I'm saying? You know, when it comes down to it, you know, I know that you've, you've, you got a brand new book coming out, Surviving Success.

It's, it's an interesting play on words, but I think I, I also had to survive my own level of success at least once. And God, God, God willing, I won't have to go through that trial again.

But like the fifth time right now.

Yeah, right. So let's, let's talk about what it really means to survive success. Like, you know, what is the, what's the, what is the, the pitfall of success and why does that get us off track? How do we, you know what I'm saying? How do we, how do we keep moving forward versus having to fall back?

Awesome. So let me tell you from my perspective what surviving success is. It's overcoming complacency and consistently challenging yourself. And if you can't do that, then you could find yourself in a situation where whatever success you just achieved, whether it's monetary or something else in your life, you're doomed to fall back. Right? You're doomed to go to a place where your, your thermostat is at a lower number. So for me, for example, high school basketball, I was a pretty good high school basketball player by all accounts. You know, third team all county, Hudson County, New Jersey, first team all county, had two players that went to the NBA. So my, and I didn't start drinking yet. Just so you know. I started drinking that season by the time I got to college. So if I started drinking, let's say in March of my senior year, by the time I got to September of my freshman year of College, Division 3 school, I was checked out. Matter of fact, my whole goal in college was to be fun and cool. Straight up.

I think that's every dude's calling in.

College actually did it. And to the tune of like four years later, 1.65 GPA. I never finished college. And you know, for turn, like I had the time of my life, but actually it set me on a path where all of a sudden I'm in my fourth year, there's people graduating, and now I'm going back to Bayonne to become a bartender. Right. Or landscaper. And no offense to either one, but I couldn't survive that success of basketball. I felt like I wasn't worthy. And then alcoholism, which is in my family, you know, kicked in. And it kicked in in a big way. And then I got sober, right? So when I got sober, and I'm talking 12 steps recovery sober, and I've never, you know, from day one, I never told anyone else what they had to do. I knew right away and I embraced, let me just clean up my side of the street and I can't do nothing about yours kind of thing. Yeah. In a. I remember thinking, wow, there's no one in a that makes money. And like, you know, I don't know if I could do this. And then I wound up getting a sponsor who's really successful in business. And that changed everything for me because that, because what I did at that point was listen to what he said. What he said was, and I'll keep it simple, read steps 1, 2 and 3 every day on the bus to Wall street there and back, which was an hour each way. And I did that for the first year. And that foundation, which is really a God centered foundation, and it really came down to turning my will over to God showing up every day. And at that point, I was making $400 a day on Wall street and I was working from 8 in the morning till 8 at night. And I learned every no you could possibly learn. There's really six different varieties versions of it, but it comes.

And I began to anticipate no's. And then I crafted a presentation on influence by Robert Cialdini's book on how to overcome those nos. And then all of a sudden I went from that to opening 6,000 new accounts over the phone in. No, 3,000 new accounts over the phone in six years.

Yeah.

Came down to 400 dials, 80 contacts. Of the 80, 30 people. Let me get past the first minute of those 30, I would get down to three that would say yes called leads that would give me their name, date of birth, Social Security number, we'd buy stock. And that taught me everything about influence and Sales. Right. That game that I just shared had me go to seven figures. However, I stayed sober. Right. Started to get comfortable, stopped doing what got me there. Complacency set in, but the lagging effect was still kicking me. Big checks, right?

Yeah.

So by the time I got my last big check, I was a year and a half removed from what got me there.

Yeah. It's such a slow fade.

Oh, yeah. For me it was. Yeah, for sure. And this is eventually going to lead to how you and I know each other, but 2012, 13, 14, I was going through like, you know, just chaos. Didn't drink, thought about killing myself one time for one hour.

I figured my family better, my wife and kids would be better with a $10 million check than me. Not being able to do it got us there. You know, that was my limiting belief.

Yeah.

And I read Tony Robbins book Money Masters of the Game. And what was so great about that book, besides the education and the fiduciary point and why that's so important when it comes to your money, fees and everything else and diversification, was that it was obvious to me that everyone that bought that book was going to go to Creative Planning for a free appointment. Anyone that heard him on stage was going to go from that, from that stage to an appointment with Creative Planning, which was the ria.

Yeah.

I was like, you know what, I want to model that. And I go to a Tony event in 2017 by myself for four days. Even, like I hugged a couple people, rubbed the shoulders a little bit, did have.

That's always my least favorite part when he does this stuff. I was like, I don't know you. And.

And I left there thinking, that's it, I'm gonna. It's over, I've arrived.

Kind of thing.

Didn't realize I had to put in a lot of work. Right. So by the time I get to September, I meet Sean Callagy, who's giving a presentation to. To doctors as a lawyer and talking about this formula of influence. And, you know, I. I became friends with him. And then soon after that, I said, listen, why don't you become Tony Robbins and I'll become Creative Planning. And during that time, we then eventually met Kris Krohn, who's a. An influential real estate space. And Kris Krohn was. So Sean's influence, language of sales, which is dynamite. Chris's process, mastery of social media, and that loved him, became the perfect mix of how we went from eight to 3,000 or 2,000 appointments a month. And now how do I survive that? Success. Right. Well, what if Chris somehow just shuffles off this mortal coil? Or Sean. So epic. And Rob got to create their own social media, their own messaging, their own educational course, their own book, their everything. And that's where we're at right now. Yeah, dude.

I love it, man. You know, you guys have worked really, really hard. Obviously, I think, you know, the. The heart gets refined through difficult stuff. We learn more about ourselves. We learn more about what. I think we become more appreciative when the success does happen. We have a certain level, a whole other level of gratitude.

You need contrast.

Yeah, I mean, that contrast is. Is incredible.

And by the way, Steve, let me ask you this, because you're dynamite. I wish I could sell it to people. Like, how do I give contrast to people? How do I. My privileged three kids, how do I give them the struggle that I grew up in? Like, I don't. I don't know how to do that. I'm being real right now.

Yeah. So I would say that. I would say that my. My rule of thumb or my principle that I go by is there's only. There's only two ways to learn in life. Only two ways. You either learn by the experiences of other people, or you learn by the experiences that you get as a person.

Yep.

One of them is more painful than the other.

Yes.

Right. So my first mentor poured into me, gave to me. You know, it's, you know, Mr. Meyer, we talked about him when I was on your show, you know, but I still had. I did half of my life not listening to Mr. Myrick. So I got to experience the pain. And then once I had an appreciation for the pain, I was able to listen to the principal moving forward. So I would say, from my perspective, it comes down to how do you want to learn? You're going to learn it. How do you want to learn it?

That's a great question. And do you offer that to people that are close to you?

Oh, of course.

Like that specific question.

Yeah, absolutely. Because everybody. And you get this too, man. Everybody wants to know, how. How did you get to. From X to Y to Z? Like, how did you get from here to there? Like, it's like, well, I sacrificed a great deal. I got my heart broken a thousand times. I gained it, I lost it. I, you know, I was busted up. I busted my knees. And people. I'm like, okay, so you. You want to do that?

Yeah. And then.

And most people are like, no, I don't. Okay, well, in that case, listen to my advice, you know? But I also Rob, one of the things that I do specifically for me is if I give advice a few times and no one takes advantage of it, stop giving the advice. I, I only give my advice to hungry people.

Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever got caught in a trap, though, where you're a little bit codependent? Because that happens from time.

Oh, yeah. Especially early on. Okay. Because you, when, when someone changes your life or gives you the, gives you the information and the skill set to change your life, you want everybody to have that same experience. Everybody.

Yep.

2 out of 10 are actually going to be worthy of the investment because everybody else is going to be further behind on the journey. You're right. You know, so the only way, you know that is by testing a little bit, saying, okay, here's, here's step one. Did you do step one? You know, don't ask me for step 10 to do step one. I did this with a, with a young entrepreneur of mine. He's basically my father, my son in law. You know, for three years he was like, well, how do I build a bigger chest? That's our, that's our, our little inside joke. Right. So because he was, he's saying, how do I do this, how do I do that? I would say, well, dude, they did that.

Yeah.

And then he would do the opposite of it.

Yeah.

Then he would come back, ask me the same question, same stuff I gave you before. And he did it. He wouldn't do it. Three years later, he comes back to me and said, dude, I'm not giving you more advice. Like, I already told you to do this, this, and this. You haven't done either one of those things. When you do those three things, then you can come and talk to me.

Yeah.

Eight months later, he comes back to me after doing those three things. He made his first $300,000.

There you go. That's it.

So, yeah, so it comes down to that pain point.

Right.

At what point is that thorn in their butt hard enough where they actually want to get up and move?

Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. I agree. I agree. You know, it's when Tony talks about creating change with people, you got to get leverage on them. Then you got to the pattern, and then you got to come up with an alternative.

Yep.

But it's, it's so important to make sure that that disruption is so real. And the alternative has to be measured in a way that they own it, not that you own it. And that's always my struggle.

Yeah, man. Well, look, you're already doing great work. You're. You're on the journey, you're going to do like everybody else. We're going to get, we're healthier and healthier boundaries. We're going to encircle ourselves with better and better people along the way. I do want to understand why was now the best time to kind of write the book. What, you know, what was it about what's missing in the marketplace right now that you feel like, hey, I've got, I have to speak up.

You know that Steve, I think that for me, I didn't time to do the book now. I. It wasn't done by design, you know, it was really done as a.

Desire to serve. Yeah. Message out. And you know, one of my partners here, Alexa Criollojo, was very instrumental at holding me accountable towards getting all that out of my head into recordings and being able to have the gentleman that's helping us write it do it in the past, I would never fulfill on that. And it really, it came down to not so much what, what time we are in the economy, but really where I'm at in my business life cycle, let's call it where I think that there's enough experience that I have, you know, I have good proof that I have. I have the opportunity to share a message and it's just my journey. Right. Yeah, it's my journey on what I've learned, what works and what doesn't work. Just trying to, trying to send the message out on what, what has worked for me. But. But put it into bite sized information.

Yeah, man. Well, the other thing that kind of makes me also think of this is like when I write materials or create courses or books or whatever. When I'm doing that, sometimes I feel like I'm actually called to the project. And then when I'm in the middle of the project, I kind of discover who I'm making the project for. Have you discovered who this book is.

For me, my family, 20, 30 years ago and anyone like us?

Yeah. Yeah. See, it's crazy that. It's crazy that one of the most common truths with success that I've seen is the same thing with the greatest purpose in life that you've heard me talk about before, which is serving the person. Used to be.

Yep. Even I that and I answered that without even a brain. That was just straight hard. Yep.

Well, that's what I'm saying though. It's like it's. It's so intuitive.

Yeah.

That I actually believe that's why certain people go through harder things than other people because I believe they're designed to take back the solutions to an earlier version of themselves to prevent the same level of suffering.

Amazing. I agree.

A couple of the. Maybe one or two of the key principles in surviving success that maybe we haven't touched on yet that you think are just vitally important for people to know about.

Yeah, I think once. I think you don't have to go back. I think it. It comes. I think when we write goals with deadlines and outcomes and. And the goals are tied to our why. Right. Our true why. That makes us cry. It's not so much that outcome, it's the what we learned along the way. And, you know, if it's. For me, if it's tied to continuously serving and contributing and just not stopping doing that, then I think that the exponential growth would be a beautiful multiplier because there's no need to stop what you did to get. It's about momentum. Right. There's no need to stop what got you to that next phase and what got you. Or at least me. It's about helping others. The second I want to go about myself and I make it about me, myself and I, everything falls off the rails. So I already know that. Shame on me if I do it again. Yeah, on me if I do it again. Right. So surviving success would be not only knowing the things that prevent your growth, but doubling down as you're climbing that wall of success or increased base camp on the mountain. How do you keep moving forward? What are the questions that you ask yourself? And. And listen, if you're making some. Some really good money and extra money, what are you doing with that money? It's going to make the world a better place. And, and not just given to the Red Cross. No offense, but, like, what is your. What. Who are you trying to help? How are you trying to help them? And. And how could you keep doing that? Like. Yeah, to me is where I think you could survive success.

Yeah, dude, I love it. You know, it's one thing that's crazy is it's probably been a year since you and I connected. Connected.

Yep.

Maybe a year, year and a half. And I already see on the other side of this camera a more authentic Rob than even the first Robin I met. The first Robin I met was awesome.

Thank you.

You know what I'm saying? So I'm really curious what's happened in the last 12 or 18 months. That. That is really kind of not shook you, but maybe shook you or shaped you to kind of. Because your. Your energy is completely different. I love it.

Yeah. I think for Me dealing with personalities, understanding, you know, understanding that people have lives and, and what people say matters. Like everybody is the king and queen of their universe.

Yeah.

And I think like when Oprah talks about she gave the microphone to 35, 000 people. The whole purpose of that was to point out what they said mattered, right? So, so I'm trying to tap more and more into the human side also as I go through that. I'm also dealing with massive personalities in my business non stop. And you know, I'll say to myself, like, listen, how do I, what can I learn? You know, these are the questions, what could I learn from this? And, and how do I, how do I make it better? How do I make it more optimal? How do I service? And by the way, the biggest challenge is if whenever I'm going through something that's real difficult in my life, how do I handle that while I'm going through something real difficult? So I have, I have three kids, right? Two sons and a daughter. And basketball is, is a dream. And I started this AAU program really for them two years ago. And, and then this year when my one guy doesn't want to play anymore, which is fine, but my other guy, who's a really good player is like, he doesn't want to play with the way we set it up, right? So what happened this year? Because you know, he comes from an environment that I never came from. But as I built this out, I went back to my high school. And my high school is where my parents pounce checks. My high school is where we had no money. My high school is where, you know, life was so difficult for me. And once I started helping these kids out in the last, I'd say six or nine months that weren't privileged, that basketball was their only means, my message to them was like, look, There's a million five high school players of which 1500 get Division 1 basketball scholarships, of which 30 make it to the NBA, of which 24 go bankrupt. Why don't you now learn financial literacy today, which is we create a financial literacy course or AAU program and understand that if you're good in sports, then you're going to be a good entrepreneur, but you need to learn about marketing and branding. So, so that that human side helping those kids has been such a gift. And the other gift was when I went to the Ukraine, like there was wives in their kitchen with like guns that were 100 years old fighting against tanks. The last thing I want to do is come home and, and deal with, you know, Folks that were complaining about all the gifts that they have in front of them, you know, in my office, where we, we've been blessed in abundance with leads, all of a sudden, you know, some of the folks who are complaining the leads weren't good enough anymore, you know, so when I started to see that, I got connected. And as I mentioned, Alexa was helping me out with a lot of stuff in my book, but she and some of the younger folks here were the ones that really began to make me think, wow, I really want to help an agent now that's coming up. Because if I could share with them the challenges that I had, but also talk about, hey, if you're going to work with me, you're going to start doing well, but how do we survive? You doing well?

Yeah.

Combination of all that stuff that's been going on. Yeah. Maybe it's a midlife advantage versus a midlife crisis, I don't know. But my perspective is different and, and I'm super grateful for that new perspective and I never want to go back.

Yeah. Well, it's crazy how, it's crazy how you can be. And I experience myself. You can become uber successful in business and finance and whatever. You can do a lot of really good things, but it's not until you're really starting to reinvest your time, your talent, your resources into helping those who are in need. But receptive. Yes, that's kind of my thing is like, you're in need, but are you receptive? Are you, are you willing to take the advice? Are you willing to take the steps? Are you willing to follow the strategy? Are you willing to watch the courses?

Well said, brother.

You know what I'm saying?

So well said.

What, what mechanism do you use now to kind of maybe choose? Because I know I have to do this, choose.

Who is advantageous for you to pour into. Because, you know, one of our most limited resources, you and I specifically, and a lot of others kind of at our, at our current level is time. There's only so many hours in a day, you know, and I, I did some math. I told somebody one time ago. They were like, well, I was like, well, how much do you make an hour? They're like an hour. I make X number of dollars a year. Right. In salary. I'm like, yeah, but there's 20, 80 hours workable hours in a given year. If you work 40 hours a week, take your annual income and divide it by those hours.

That's right.

Right. And when you, when you do the math, you, they, they were Able to say, well, I'm actually not getting that great of a return on my time.

Yep.

So how are you choosing how to get the best return on your time?

That's a great question, brother. Wow. So if I'm gonna. If I'm gonna start putting some time into either a mentee or a mentor. Right. I'll go mentee first. I think it's important. There's a very critical question. Are you willing to do whatever it takes with integrity and, you know, without violating your moral code? And I need to know that answer, you know, before I would ask that question. I want to get to know who the person is, and that does take a little bit of time. It's a conversation and maybe an hour or two, but I want to know where they're from, where they are, where they want to go, what are their challenges? And. And, you know, what are their successes?

Why. Whatever their challenge was, why is that challenge present? Like, what is the pattern in their life that's created this continuous challenge? Right. And if I could have that conversation with somebody and say, hey, listen, if we could disrupt that challenge and then say, are you willing to do whatever it takes? That's a good starting place for me. Right.

But then.

Then you got to watch up and see. Yeah, if they show up, you gotta. Here's the other thing, Steve. And I know you go through this, you'll have people that'll do everything early on, and they'll get to that level of success, and all of a sudden, the rules start changing. Right. And that consistency.

Yep.

That's where I. I'm like, well, you know, I've been there, and I know, just like you would. You could tell if the pattern changes, what's going to happen six months later, you're not confused, and you're trying to tell this person and the challenge with getting to know each other really well, and it happens a lot here, is that all of a sudden they could say the right things that move the ball forward. And then as time goes on, if you're not careful, that's where you got to retest it. Yeah, careful. You could fall. You could fall into a situation where that pattern is going to show itself again. Now, if I'm going to have Randy coach me, if I'm going to have you coach me, or if I'm going to have David coach me. My questions now would be, what are your expectations of me? And then I'd have to sit down and evaluate. Okay, number one, can I do that? And then number two, how can I measure My return on my investment. What are the measurables I can look at to see if, in fact, this investment and this time spent is commensurate with what, everything I'm doing?

Yeah.

So those are different kind of questions. Right. So I'd have to. I'd have to ask those kind of questions. And I think distinctions and sensory acuity, you're brilliant at this. You know, Eskimos have 12 different versions or definitions of snow. Somebody in Las Vegas has one definition. Right?

Yeah.

So how do we get into the distinctions? How do we ask the right questions? And I'll always say to somebody, you know, hey, is there a question I'm not asking that I should be asking? That's because sometimes.

So that's a wise question. Most people don't ask.

Yeah, yeah. Because sometimes we don't know what to ask. You know, like. Like that's a real thing. I'll never forget there was a GA in the insurance business that I worked for, and he said like a whole bunch of, like a bunch of different things. And if you know anything about whole life insurance, the big knock is after the first year, there's no cash value. Right. So that's. Every insurance agent is ashamed of that, and that's why they fail at selling it, because they don't talk about that. Now when we do our stuff, we overfunded so much. There's a lot of money in the first year. But I said to the gentleman, I said, hey, listen, is there a question? Because it was about our compensation. Is there a question that I'm not asking that you're tapping your buddy and you're saying, thank God he didn't ask that question.

Yeah.

And I'm not working with this guy because of this. And he goes, well, Rob, that's like. That's like telling a client there's no cash value after the first year. I said, well, I actually tell clients there's no cash value after the first year. So that's an important question for me. I always want to know, hey, is there a question I'm not asking that I should be asking?

Yeah. Yeah. No, that's awesome. So integrity, compatibility and consistency.

Yep.

That's what I is, is my three big takeaways that are better than I did.

There you go.

That's what I'm good at. Breaking it down, baby.

That was awesome, man.

Dude, I love it. I love hanging out with you and getting to spend more time with you. I'm excited about all the success and stuff that you're doing. I'm also excited about this massive shift in you and what you've been doing in this. In this really heartfelt service piece that I can really sense in your heart.

Right.

I'm super excited about that. I can't wait to do some more stuff with you, man. Where can everybody find out more about you and surviving success?

Yeah, I mean, if anyone wants to email me directly as our gill @Epic Financial Strategies.com, you know, YouTube is Rob Gilore Epic Instagram is Rob gilore epic and YouTube is rob gil dash epic financial strategies, you know, and once again, if they. If they want to email me, it's our Gil Epic Financial Strategies dot com.

Dude, I love the fact you always make yourself so accessible. Love it.

Yes.

Love it.

Anybody?

Well, dude, thank you so much for coming on, man. I can't wait to see more shakeout and see you soon with Randy and Dave.

You too. Thank you, Stephen. I appreciate everything today. I appreciate this, this opportunity to spend another 35, 40 minutes with you.

Always, dude. Always, man. All right, dude. Take it easy. All right.

Thanks, brother.

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