Speaker 2: 0:06

Welcome to the Never Been Promoted podcast with Thomas Helfrich. Get ready for a thrilling adventure as we uncover entrepreneurial journeys and life-changing business insights every week. And now your host, Thomas.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Welcome back to another episode of Never Been Promoted, where we are here to help you unleash your entrepreneur. And it's a really simple mission I have. It's to really help one million entrepreneurs get started, get unstuck and just get better at entrepreneurship in life. And we're doing this through the story of other entrepreneurs, wherever they are in their journey. Maybe they're massively successful, maybe they're just getting going. They have a story to tell and they've learned things. And if you can learn just one thing just take micro-mentoring If you can learn one thing from any of the conversations we have, you've taken a step towards just getting better at entrepreneurship. And if this is your first time watching I really hope this is the first of many and if you've been here before, I thank you for returning. And we're going to dive in right now with Brian J Esposito. Brian, how are you? I'm doing well, sir. How are you today? You're kind of a big deal man. You're the founder and CEO of Esposito Intellectual Enterprises.

Speaker 3: 1:26

You got to be pretty smart by the way to say that I'm butchering that, so I don't think I qualify for your award, Esposito, but I don't care as long as people are saying that online Esposito.

Speaker 1: 1:31

Esposito, can I say it right now? You got it Just 400 more times and you'll be fine Esposito. Intellectual Enterprises. Do you have two of you was my first question, and have you cloned yourself?

Speaker 3: 1:51

And maybe just say hi, you know one of the biggest mistakes as an entrepreneur if you want to dive right into it. I've always tried to replicate myself and failed not scientifically in other people, and that sets you up for disappointment. So I stopped doing that and I just, you know, support people that want to support me, but I definitely found it very difficult to replicate myself. There's only one of me and that's it. They broke the mold when they made me.

Speaker 1: 2:14

You know we are going to dive into that because that's going to directly help me. So if no one else listening, you all can hang up. That's fine, you can stop watching right now. I'm going to learn something today. Selfish gear engaged, let's go. I'm going to learn about how I cannot replicate myself and still be successful. That's, you know, for those with the kind of the anti-authority disorder, you're definitely not hanging up right now because I told you to do it. So stop with your backstory. How did you get to where you know you're CEO of 45 companies?

Speaker 3: 2:48

You have 100 people in the room on the other side of the camera, like you know. Tell me, tell me, give me the back story, I'll give you a little bit. So always, always an entrepreneur, even as a kid find the need fill, need out there hustling making money, not relying on your parents or guardians to give you a few bucks to go to the movies. It's, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna go and do what I want to do. So always been wired like that and I love creating opportunities for other people. So when I would build these companies early on, I would really enjoy bringing other people into my ideas and my thoughts and my energy and having everybody flourish. And that's just who I am. That's my nature.

Speaker 3: 3:18

In the late 90s, I built the first B2B, b2c e-commerce platform for the beauty industry Great timing, taught myself how to code and launched a pretty amazing mousetrap to bring consumers to me, had a bunch of stores, global Beauty Distribution Center and launched products for most icons and distributed for celebrities, entertainers, actors, actresses, athletes. Launched over 1,200 brands, amazon's first beauty retailer, jetcom's first retailer, first to roll out Google's wallet at the time. So really did a lot of amazing things. But what I did wrong, and repetitively for way too long in my career, is that I made a lot of people very wealthy through the mousetrap and the machine that I built and I was happy just to get the brand. That was my mindset as a distributor, a retailer, a wholesaler, an e-commerce retailer. But what I did wrong is I didn't have any attachment to the equity of that brand. So when those brands that we were a big part of building got sold off to the LVMH, estee Lauder, l'oreal, revlon's of the world there's a huge exit for those equity holders and I didn't have any piece of that and those other companies have their own distribution model. So I also lost the brand. But in my mind I had this giant pipeline of brands I can continue to develop and distribute, so it didn't bother me. But when these brands sold for half a billion billion, two billion dollars, it starts to just punch you in every body part that you have and I got very mad one day and I said I don't like this model anymore. I need to control as much as I possibly can.

Speaker 3: 4:50

With that stupidly said oh well, we're always making brands and distributing brands for the music industry. Again, the music industry and launching band Very expensive, very ass-kicking moment of my career. But we launched the band. They became pretty successful. Then I said, well, I'm not going to partner with an apparel company for merchandising, we'll have an apparel company. And then I said, well, I'm not going to license technology, we're going to build and own technology.

Speaker 3: 5:08

So just kept making this pie bigger and bigger and bigger, and my mindset was I just want to control as much of it as possible, not rely on other people to make their empty promises that I never get and chase people for crumbs and then find a way to invite warranted people into my world, opposed to me constantly being invited to other people's world to help them become more successful. So present day, after 23 plus years of doing that and getting my ass kicked every way you can think of, esposito Intellectual Enterprises is a holding company that I wholly own. There's over 110 companies in that holdings. There's over 200 joint ventures around the world and we're proudly operating over 25 different industries.

Speaker 3: 5:46

And then, as you mentioned, dlmi, our public company. I took that over as CEO in August of last year. I've surrounded myself with iconic advisors that are industry legends in what they do, and we're bridging the gap between traditional financing stocks and securities, with the future of digital securities and my work and efforts in security tokens. So there's a lot going on. Get to work with amazing people and my whole MO is to create value and build opportunities for our internal teams, our partners and our stakeholders and shareholders. The dude abides man.

Speaker 1: 6:19

The dude abides. Reference for those listening the skateboard or what it is, but it's, uh, it's.

Speaker 1: 6:26

It's the dude from big lebowski, great fantastic and, by the way, most people can't watch it straight through the first time they have to. It gets cut up. Um, a challenge. By the way, just add it, they have a have a have a drink or a toke every time he does in the movie. That's why you never finish it. Yeah, um, oh, what do you got there? So he's drinking. It seems to be apple juice, aged it's completely apple juice.

Speaker 3: 6:50

It's very aged. It's probably three days aged apple juice. It's delicious.

Speaker 1: 6:55

You have a great story and you're right. You get ass kicked. You know, from the entrepreneurial idea of of just daily. I mean, like you know, there are days when I'm I wake up, ready to go and I'm ready to cry in that corner over there. That's why I don't put a couch over there, cause I would probably sleep on it at times when I shouldn't. And then, like an hour later, you know you land a deal and then the next minute you've lost another pebble out of the bow. It's like, and you look at it, what am I doing? Like, why am I in this kind of? And like you, and you get just kicked in all kinds of ways and and it, I think, with the thing with that I'm trying to say is that's going to happen.

Speaker 1: 7:30

Everyone knows you don't realize how hard it is till you do it, but what you miss Nobody's in need Is when you the moments when you should celebrate a little bit, cause you know not not make it all negative. So did you? Now you gotta, yeah, so on your own journey. Uh, you know, just tell me about how you can do some small celebrations and wins when it's, when you think it's appropriate, because, because that's something a lot of people miss is to stay the happy yeah as often as possible.

Speaker 3: 7:59

There's there's a lot of mental tricks you have to do in that process. Uh, first thing and foremost, you have to find a way to build a wall and stop comparing yourself or your accomplishments to things you may see on LinkedIn or read in the Wall Street Journal. If you see, maybe somebody in your industry or somebody that you think that you're smarter than, or you work harder than, does a billion-dollar deal and you did a million-dollar deal, you may feel insecure and you may not feel self-worth or validation, which is wrong. Any positive movement forward, any positive movement backwards that you come back from and you're still there and you're still kicking, are all accomplishments that you have to take a moment and give yourself kudos and praise, because nine out of 10 times you don't get it from your origin in a circle which is your family, friends, you know, maybe your loved ones, kids, because most of the time they're not entrepreneurs. They don't understand this psychotic gene that we have to go out into the world and make something of ourselves and leave some kind of a mark, and for the most part it's. You know, we're not money-oriented most entrepreneurs. They just want to go out there and go after a dream and a vision and actually do it, which is amazing.

Speaker 3: 9:10

I'm addicted to meeting people like that and founders like that and startups like that. My job, after everything that I've been through and I've been through hell and back a thousand times is I love being able to help founders be able to navigate how to build a successful company. I love being able to help founders be able to navigate how to build a successful company. Take the word unicorn and rip it out of your mind and never say it, never think about it, because it's not reality and you need to build a business, which I like to reference. Simple as this If you want to be in business, you have to have revenues and if you want to stay in business, you need to be profitable. Everything else that kind of went sideways on this entrepreneurial journey over the last two decades, with VCs and ridiculous valuations and unsustainable valuations and valuations that put founders at harm because they can't sustain them and they have to go out and raise more capital, and that's not easy to do, but it is a lot easier to do if you have revenues, no matter how small they are. So you know any chance you get. Take a step, look at what you've accomplished. Move an inch a day. That's been my entire model. I mean, move an inch a day somewhere somehow and just keep moving forward. And when you do that and you look back after a year or five years, a decade, you can say, jesus, look how far I've come, look what I've accomplished, look what I've overcome, look at the people that are surrounding me, look at the people that like and comment on my post about what we're doing.

Speaker 3: 10:28

There's so many ways to get that good and healthy mental health and wellness that we all need, but entrepreneurs need it the most because it is a debilitating journey. Money doesn't guarantee less problems and every day it's a challenge. Right, that's the risk we put ourselves out there. There's always. If you, if you're throwing yourself into the world and the window's open, you're inviting good and bad in. That's the deal. You just got to get smarter each day and learn to avoid the bad, which is part of the evolutional process. Not just correcting the bad, but avoiding it in the first place is how we really start to succeed.

Speaker 1: 11:03

Yeah, you um, you'll definitely be invited as a founding member to the cut the tie community.

Speaker 3: 11:08

So because because I mean- I I'll tell you the scissors. See, that's where I come, Right.

Speaker 1: 11:13

And we'll think about right, because you're you're describing the mission I'm on right Is to help as many entrepreneurs as possible, while I'm building a company and a brand around it, and I'm doing it not because of money, like this is a two year investment for me that I'm putting a matching every dollar put in and I'm building a community, because exactly what you said, it's not about the money, it's about what impact you're doing. I I fundamentally believe we need more entrepreneurs in the world. In particular, I want it to be in the U S. Just to be sorry, somewhat selfish, because I think it gives us an absolute advantage to hit what comes next.

Speaker 1: 11:45

And it is a psychotic gene. Never heard it said that way. That might be a post coming out here on LinkedIn, but it is the entrepreneurial ADD, the, the need to just kind of control your own time and destiny and meet people and have that kind of if you make money along the way. Yeah, you got to, but it's not the number one driver and I think a lot of entrepreneurs, when they get in, they think they're going to get rich and you can. But I think Alex Hormozy says it well. He's like you have this inspirational. Yeah, I'm going to do it and well, it's kind of hard and oh's. That's where the gene kind of validates itself. And I've cracked through on one of them and it's still going. And I still look at it like, oh, you know, you can't. I appreciate your thinking. I did in 2016.

Speaker 3: 12:46

My whole world turned upside down. So that's why, when I meet people after that incident that put me on a completely different journey and path, I became grateful for that moment because I needed everything to fall apart. I didn't file for bankruptcy because I said I'm going to pay people back anyway. So what happened and why was my model wrong? And now that I had a chance to rebuild from that moment, I rebuilt so much more smarter. I properly valued me.

Speaker 3: 13:14

That was the biggest piece of my missing ingredient in my formula was that I was last eaten. I thought that was like the Jesus Christ way. I mean, let me take everybody else and if there's any crumbs, I'll me. Stupidly, I just reinvested them all the time into the companies. But when there's a moment that maybe, if you're over leveraged and something happens or multiple things happen, a perfect storm and you didn't properly compensate yourself along the way, and then become your own bank which I did incorrectly for almost 15 years of my professional career, which I did incorrectly for almost 15 years of my professional career you find yourself in a moment where, my God, everything that I thought was the right way to do it, because it was the correct way for humanity and generosity. Throw it out there, it'll come back. It's not necessarily the right model, especially when you're the one that's completely over leveraged and you're the one that has to make things happen all the time and everybody else that maybe you're surrounding yourself really is dead weight and not really helping you on your journey or really performing. So for me, I needed that learning experience and I became very grateful for my little mini empire at that time completely becoming destroyed and being able to get through that, not hate the world, because you can go one of two ways.

Speaker 3: 14:27

You can become very bitter and angry with what happened to you when you think you're a good person, you're doing everything right, or you take a moment and step back and say, okay, there's a reason for everything. I don't understand it right now, but I can't hate people. That's one of my biggest assets is people want to work with me, people like my energy. They trust me. There's a lot of value in that. So I can't turn that off and I couldn't become bitter or angry, because how am I going to rebuild and go out and earn if I have these internal demons? So I think the most important thing as an entrepreneur really any living person is to be self-aware about what does your environment look like, wherever you are in life. Those are your actions, your lack of actions, your decisions, your no decisions. Everything that you've done is your reasoning. Can't blame other people.

Speaker 3: 15:14

Now, that was a very big learning experience for me. I had to stop giving other people my mentality. They weren't raised in my household. They didn't go through all my life lessons. There's no way in hell anybody in this world is going to think exactly like me. So they didn't go through all my life lessons. There's no way in hell anybody in this world is going to think exactly like me.

Speaker 3: 15:28

So when you take that out of your expectations of other people and you just, you know, get the best that you can from people that you want to surround yourself with and hopefully it's all good, positive energy and not be disappointed when somebody doesn't do what you expect them to do. Again, we don't clone ourselves. They're not robots. Everybody has certain things going on in their lives that could change at any moment. Desperate people do desperate things. Somebody could be having a bad day and make a bad decision and everything can just go sideways from there. So my learning experiences and overcoming everything I overcome key was being self-aware about my own decisions and where my journey is going and how I am very active in that process.

Speaker 3: 16:10

You, uh, you're referencing 2016. You want to take a minute to explain what happened? Yeah, I was, uh, stupidly going into the office. I also lived in Nashville, tennessee during that time, so it was a Sunday. Uh, should have went home, but it was four o'clock in the afternoon. I said the sun's still out, so I'm going to go to the office and get some work done. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. I said the sun's still out, so I'm going to go to the office and get some work done.

Speaker 3: 16:28

And a drunk driver just had a collision. Couldn't avoid it Major highway. There was really not much I could do. But I'll tell you what was really interesting about that story. If you believe in higher power and angels and things that I believe in, behind this car that veered into my lane and almost killed me, there was a couple miles behind them blocking traffic in a multi-lane highway, behind this car calling 911, saying that somebody was driving erratically and probably drunk. So when that car hit me, I spun across their side of the highway and then flew into a ditch. But if that car behind them and that couple weren't doing that, and I've called 911 on a car that I thought was a drunk driver, but I never thought to block traffic. I don't think that's a normal thought for people in that moment. If they weren't doing that, my airbags already went off and as I spun across the other lanes I would have definitely got clipped by another car, or multiple cars, it could have been, you know, there's no way I would get through that.

Speaker 3: 17:25

And other people could have gotten hurt. So from that moment I walked out of that accident, which was miraculous, but I got major concussion issues, things that I've never experienced before. And someone like me my brain works a million miles an hour. I can connect every dot. I can think of people that I met when I was seven years old and think of them and say, oh, I got to leveraging all my assets, making everything happen, doing the contracts. I was keeping everything moving and I was doing that, in my mind, successfully, for 15, 16 years equation. And then the people that were around me and this is even legal accounting compliance executives at some of these companies. They had no idea what to do. I can't blame them.

Speaker 3: 18:35

It took me a minute or two to come to that realization. I had to blame me. I'm the one that put them there. I'm the one that expected them to be able to do these things.

Speaker 3: 18:39

And what was very disappointing, as my assets started to dwindle down and my resources became negative, people that I co-signed for homes for people that I helped co-sign for cars, people that I gave jobs to that nobody would hire, the minute that I often referenced myself as a cow, the minute the cow had no milk, there would nobody be found. Very disappointing for someone like me that really genuinely loves people and loves to help people. And when you don't get it in return, even if you're not even asking for it, if you just don't get it and you expect it because look at, look at everything that I did for you Um. So I had to shake that off and say, okay, my fault, right, everything is my fault.

Speaker 3: 19:21

The over leverage of these businesses, trying to keep these things moving, being the only person that could do the deals and keep everything flowing. My fault for putting people in place that weren't the right people. So I had to have that mentality. So I didn't hate the world, simple as that. Because it was very easy for me to just say F everybody, are you kidding me? Look at what I've done.

Speaker 1: 19:41

It was like you were in the spot because of neglect. It was an intervention of some sort that makes it even harder. I mean, is it fair to say you were, you had had a little bit of bitterness and you know, and and and destroy. Like almost a loneliness, like like I feel so alone with all the people I've helped and no one's here, like not no one, but people you expectedly show up Basically professionally speaking, nobody.

Speaker 3: 20:03

And I wasn't going back to my family to help with um, oh, help me, I'm in trouble. Everything again, all on me. Everything, the position that I was in all on me. It was nobody else's responsibility. All on me, it was nobody else's responsibility.

Speaker 3: 20:20

The biggest problem I had in that bitterness and that disappointment was go back to some of the brands that I launched. I launched brands that were doing hundreds of millions of dollars. They were doing ridiculous business. Brands that, if you were to reference that year alone, I probably sent them 10 something million in purchase orders. Brands that were being made in the bathroom when they met me and now they're on the shelves of major retailers and selling through my company. And and when they denied shipping me products and said lines like brian, what you want us to do? We're not a bank, you know we were concerned, you won't be able to pay the bill.

Speaker 3: 20:52

When that happened, that was the most angriest I got, because when that stopped my lifeline, the cash flows of those revenues, being able to, you know, an ant farm, bring products in and flip it. When the brands that I supported always the brands that I helped every way I could possibly help when they turned their back on me. That was that's when I was, you know raging bull right in the corner punching the wall. But I said, okay, again wrong people, I'm in the, I'm surrounding myself with the wrong everything, so learn from that completely reset. I was very grateful that woman hit me because she could have killed somebody, so I'll take the hit. I'm still here. I would take the hit again and I was very grateful that she destroyed my entire life, because I would not be in the position that I am in today and I wouldn't have the confidence that outside of health, there is absolutely nothing that I can't get over.

Speaker 3: 21:46

So when you have that mindset and that there's a solution for everything, and when people are even maybe with their bank accounts or they have a little bit of money or maybe a little negative, someone like me that was millions in debt, able to come back from that and rebuild and maybe lose a little bit of myself, but still be the man that I was, and maybe even a better, smarter man, and anybody can overcome anything Again, as long as it's not health related.

Speaker 3: 22:12

There's so many options today to be something and look what you're doing, look what you've created over the last few years. There's so many opportunities for people to go out in the world and create and build and earn. Now, if you want to drive a Ferrari and fly private jets and have model girlfriends, you're going to have to earn a lot of money. But if you want to go out and have a normal life and have control over your own life, then you can make something of yourself and you can feel good about yourself and you can actually provide for yourself and not rely on other people in a corporate environment you're telling me I can't have, uh, private jets and lamborghinis is my good looks.

Speaker 1: 22:45

I mean, I feel that's enough, it hasn't happened. But I'm I'm holding strong on that. A little humor to deflect a very discount, that's what I do you. You made me uncomfortable, brian, I'm sorry, listen. So you've persevered. How long did it take to go from the moment to where you've kicked, where you started anew?

Speaker 3: 23:05

Honestly, not that long ago. So 2016, I mean 2016, I weathered the storm because there was enough resources there. 2017 was really when it just flipped completely upside down. So from 2017 to roughly 2020, 2021, when I kind of corrected things, built a new model, had a more sustainable vision of what I'm actually doing.

Speaker 3: 23:34

It took me four years to feel somewhat comfortable with okay, I'm back on a road, and probably last year, when it really just started kicking into high gear and a lot of it majority of it is all great, strong relationships and bonds with people, and my MO always was going into every potential opportunity with how can I help, opposed to going into those opportunities with my handout and taking.

Speaker 3: 24:02

So when you do that and I've done that my entire career even as a young kid, I got invited into rooms that I shouldn't have been invited into, but I was smart enough to sit there and keep my mouth shut and learn. And then I got re-invited into those rooms and then re-invited into those rooms and started building these great relationships and trust with people and there's relationships that I built that you know in in my mind oh, this could be a great business relationship, but it's. It's a great friendship and some of them are decades long, that there's still never been a business ask but and there may never be. And those are friendships and relationships that I'll get a call from or text from saying hey, brian, I just met this guy or this girl. She's in this business I think you can help her to lead with.

Speaker 1: 24:43

And you gotta listen, you gotta, I'm not saying you can't, you don't have to make revenue but you tend to make it better when you're a resource to help people and they truly authentically like you or at least respect you. They may not like you, like I respect that guy. I mean, he's not my kind of thing, I don't want to, I don. I'm going to him like that. That's almost a better position than someone liking you but not respecting you for sure.

Speaker 1: 25:17

But when you go with the idea of altruism and service of others and the idea that you're you're there to help it but it's also clear how you could help them but you don't lead with it, I do believe honestly that that's the. That is the right way to build any business or get to build a team to get business, that someone truly wants to be there with you. In the moment when you rebuilt right and you kind of spun it back up, do you continually have like a pucker up moment where you get this inkling of something you want to do? No, no, no, no. I tried that. I don't do that again. I know it's easy and I would do that. Is there something that you like?

Speaker 3: 26:08

I keep trying to repeat this mistake that I catch myself on exceptional support and people and resources. I can get it done a lot stronger, a lot quicker and with the right resources and support behind it. A good example is I tried to build everything I was building out of Monmouth County, new Jersey that's where I was born and raised Asbury Park area, about an hour south of Manhattan and I think I did pretty good building what I could build there and that was my biggest issue. If I was building what I was building out in you know just reference the United States and Silicon Valley, san Francisco, even Los Angeles to a certain extent I would have taken my ideas and thoughts and they would have blown up. I created a company called Payback P-A-Y-B-A-Q way before Venmo because I was out in the world in 07 and 08.

Speaker 3: 27:01

And when the world was collapsing and I saw this constant exchange of microloans and people lending money and relationships being ruined because somebody didn't pay them back, and I built this exceptional platform, I went and got the rights to Wimpy from Popeye I'll gladly pay you on tuesday for a hamburger today and I still think my platform is even a lot better than venmo. But issue was and a lot of my issues as who I am. I think. I think I'm like this because I travel over the place, I work with so many different people, I'm involved in so many different cultures, so when you, when you, when you're observant to the world, you constantly see a need. So I filled that need. I built the platform and I surrounded myself with what I thought was the best of talent.

Speaker 3: 27:43

But in central Jersey Shore not the right area I couldn't get banks to understand what I was building local community banks. Now I have banking partners all over the world that if I were to show them something like this, I would get so much more support. I don't have a banking license and I said well, I have to live in Costa Rica and never come back into the country or I have to turn this company off because it was working. We were doing payments in and out constantly. I even created a token system. You needed a token to be able to access the platform and that was the whole universal currency I was creating. Way too early, way too expensive, but again too early. As an entrepreneur is a very painful experience and many people listening probably fully understand this, and keeping that alive until the market catches up is expensive.

Speaker 1: 28:34

And people catch up and they copy and they, they do all the stuff you shouldn't have done better or well they've been, they have you and they have in your past over.

Speaker 3: 28:42

Yeah, and they have better relationships into vcs or they have better relationships to capital and they use you as a reference point. Say, look what this company's doing. They created the market. They have no resources to scale it. They either will it. Which odds are? They'll just copy it. It's much easier To your point. Exactly the second one, the Google to Yahoo, the Facebook to MySpace and even Lyft, I think, is a little bit better than Lyft to Uber. It's still as passive.

Speaker 1: 29:08

They used to be Uber. I'm like, oh no, lyft's doing this way better now Agreed.

Speaker 3: 29:12

Yeah, so agreed. Um, yeah, so to answer your question, I never have that pucker up moment. I'm more excited now than before because I have a real turnkey solution to really bring anything to market that I want to get behind which is exciting.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Let's, let's pivot, tell me about your current ventures.

Speaker 3: 29:34

Let's, uh, start with the I think the holding company and and kind of walk me through with how that works, you know, in the context of what you learned from 2016, what you've pivoted to, type of ecosystem of companies that I either start build, acquire or just have in my equity holdings In 2017, because I was very vocal about my story, honored to speak on platforms like this to tell people what I've been through, maybe give a little bit of a nugget to somebody to help them push through and get through another day. That was really rewarding for me and it connects with people when you're very vulnerable and you tell them the realities of life and some experiences that may help them get through it. I got to be invited into a lot of startups that are reaching out to me, much like the brands that I was building or the stuff that was in the music industry and spirits industry. So I've always been involved in multiple industries. Now it's over 25 different industries but when these startups were coming out to me, I had to perfect this model where I just I normally just like to help people.

Speaker 3: 30:46

I don't really I never had this financial component attached to it. I love helping people, I love connecting people and seeing something come out of it, but because I had to rebuild and needed to pay bills and survive, I said, okay, well, how do I take this inbound interest that people wanted to work with me and convert it into some sort of a value proposition. So I can price products, I can price IP, I can price anything. I've done that my whole life. How do you price yourself? That's a weird philosophy to think about. What am I worth in the market and how do I get people to commit to that? I never had to ask people for money from my work. You can think of it like a consulting type of a gig or an hourly rate for a psychiatrist, a lawyer or any type of professional services and accountant.

Speaker 3: 31:33

I said I have no idea what the hell I'm worth. I'm worth millions, but nobody's going to pay accountant. I said I have no idea what the hell I'm worth. I'm worth millions, but nobody's going to pay that. So how do I, where do I start and how do I not undercut my value and how do I create something that can I can replicate? So that was a big learning curve. So I needed to come up with this hybrid of a monthly cash component so I can help pay off some of this debt and survive. And I had to have my equity slug because I was no longer not going to be attached to the upside of building something and being part of something and creating value, and I sure as hell wasn't going to rely on people's word that they would say oh Brian, we'll take care of you, don't worry, because the business amnesia that I coined a long time ago is an epidemic around the world. People forget all those promises.

Speaker 3: 32:15

So even if you have a contract sometimes it's you still got to pay to enforce it, yeah, it's a it's not the world that the current world is not the world that I was. Definitely. My old soul was made, and I'll made, in a handshake. Let's go out and get it and let's go. Let's go earn.

Speaker 1: 32:33

If you didn't get punched in the face. That was like the that's the Gen X way I edit and let's go, let's go earn. And you didn't get punched in the face. That was like the. That's the Gen X way punch you in the head If you don't keep your word.

Speaker 3: 32:40

Now you get sued for that. Now someone's recording you and you're going to go to jail to try to get back what you, what you deserve.

Speaker 1: 32:44

Some people just need to get punched. Let's put that as lesson number five of the night.

Speaker 3: 32:48

Yeah, I agree, I agree, so on your company.

Speaker 1: 32:52

You got a holding company. What's kind of the hypothesis of that company Like? What do you look for to put in there and how does it? Does it all work together?

Speaker 3: 33:01

Yeah, all these companies work very well together. Just characteristics I look for before I look at any company I want to work with. Do we align on values, morals, ethics? I look for empathy. I need founders and leadership to have empathy for people, empathy for humanity. If you don't have that, we're not working together. If you're showing off all your nice things, we're not working together. If you brag and talking about your watch and your expensive belts and trips and we ain't working together.

Speaker 1: 33:28

Doesn't mean I'm judging you.

Speaker 3: 33:30

I only get the ones. I mean some people will come in with the big H belt on their waist, hermes type of belt, but they wear the tightest shirt and the tightest pants, so that logo is just like.

Speaker 1: 33:47

It's so pushed out If I remember to wear a belt. I'm in good shape Because I'll tell you right now.

Speaker 3: 33:50

Same here.

Speaker 1: 33:50

I'm not wearing a belt today. Same here. Keep going Like the love handles, pinch it on the corners, and I just don't want to wear a little tmi there.

Speaker 3: 33:59

anyway, no judgment no, no judgment to people tweets their own. I just know what doesn't work for me and and the theory is very simple if you are focused on I won't call it a theory, I think it's a fact if you are focused on things, material things, and you're chasing these things all the time to feel good about yourself, or you're trying to offset an insecurity and that's your North Star and that's your God, and that's constantly what your motivation is then, because of my experiences, you will put me in harm's way because you'll do anything to get that. I'm not subscribing to that. I want you to have nice things. I want you to have the best. Not subscribing to that. I want you to have nice things. I want you to have the best life you can possibly have. I want you to earn and reward yourself. I don't want you to show it off. I don't want you to make people feel awful about their lives because of how great that you're doing, and I don't want to be collateral damage because you're caught up in that lifestyle and you're going to do everything you can do to maintain it. So I'll get up and leave those types of meetings where people want to work with me and that's their characteristics. It just doesn't work for me, and I also think thank God that's. The true definition of freedom is the ability to make choices, and I'm so grateful that I can now make choices of who I get to work with and who I get to not work with, and unfortunately I turned down more business than we take because I don't align on very basic, I believe, simple human traits that we all should have Good characters, golden rule, high morals, high values, high ethics and, again, strong sense of empathy because people are suffering.

Speaker 1: 35:31

I think they are, and it's just coming out of that a little bit. Back about two and a half years, I had plenty of comedy sets on religion and faith. That way, fast forward here two and a half years, I found a little bit. I'm not sure I subscribed to all the ideas of it, but the teachings and the learnings and the ideas that you'll be remembered for what you give and not what you had, not what you had, and, uh, the idea of empathy and and and just love, right In general, of of being being a giver and being humble and humility. And it's in my book. Uh, I've never been promoted.

Speaker 1: 36:08

My last chapter is have some faith, and it's something bigger than yourself. Um, and I tell the story of. You know, we're part of this church called North point, which is an hour facing big community, but it's really about it's for my brand of people who've lost face or never had it. But the point being is that they do such a good job about talking about these things you just described where the if you're focused on the materials, it'll, it is a giant black hole of emptiness, because you can never have enough and someone's always going to have more, and when it's taken away, you're left with nothing. And so I love what you're saying there, cause I'm the same way. I've I've fired clients that I've, I've, didn't you know you kind of, oh, I'll get in benefit of that and you get in Yep, he's a racist or horrible person and I'm like you know. I just I need the money. I told my wife I had to get rid of them because I couldn't lose my whole team over it.

Speaker 3: 37:01

A minute later. Didn't you feel good that you didn't even think about the money? Oh, I wrote a whole article on it.

Speaker 1: 37:05

He's like is this about me? I'm like maybe Not me, it's definitely you.

Speaker 1: 37:12

I did get rid of you an hour ago. I did get rid of you an hour ago. My teams, I will say reply. They're still here, I think, because I put them first and I say, guys, I know it's a lot of revenue, we're going to get tight, we're going to have to take some pay cuts here just for a little bit, but we can't have people like that working for us. So I said I'll do a better job of screening the customers so we don't get in this position where we're dependent on someone like this.

Speaker 3: 37:36

Well done. Well, that's a very plus. You mentioned you had a mortgage.

Speaker 1: 37:40

I mean that was at the time 34% of our revenue.

Speaker 3: 37:45

I mean, talk about the strength you had to have to make that decision. I mean, to me that's your golden moment as a leader, as an entrepreneur. You put so many things in front of money that you knew had to be corrected. I mean, most people don't have the strength, the courage or stupidity to right, I think mine was.

Speaker 1: 38:08

I really like my teams and my main guy came to me and said hey, you know, I think this guy's kind of racist. And I was like what do you mean? He's like, well, he kind of made some really off comments. He has a few times when we have the one-on-one and I'm not in the meeting, he puts a different face on it. I was like, really, I was like dude, we're an SLA type of company. We're not like you know, jesus, you're like going to heal your leprosy. Um, the the point being is I got in.

Speaker 1: 38:39

I was like, hey, and he started the meeting off the way. He, you, because I think we're going to go ahead and part ways, you know as friends, he's like what do you mean? I was like well, what would you like back? If you think it's fair? He's like half. I was like he's like well, how am I going to get that? I was like it's already in your account. I just replied it in Stripe. I want you to best of luck. He was just kind of how we positioned our services and who we were going to target and why. And we had recovered the revenue within six weeks of new customers Amazing.

Speaker 3: 39:18

Amazing.

Speaker 1: 39:27

I don't make the autobiography, but I really identify to what you're talking about with this good natured person who's actually in it for the right reasons, and I think there, I think there is there's plenty of business to be had with the right set of organizations or people with it.

Speaker 3: 39:35

Yeah, I mean it's odds are it's a much longer road, but I think it's the right road to having you know if you're putting your your, you know better quality of life as your main, which it should always be. You have that. You have peace around you, have calmness around you, anything you can do to avoid stressors or triggers that's a very common word now in your life. They need to be cut out of your life and some of those decisions thankfully that was just a client you know the reality is some of those could be spouses, kids, family People are very difficult to have to do that. But I'm sorry, you get one run at this, even though I feel like I'm an old soul and I got a few different past lives in me.

Speaker 3: 40:22

You get one run at this. You need to surround yourself with the right people. You need to make tough decisions and maybe cold decisions, but you need to do, without hurting people, whatever makes you happy. That's your job. You need to do whatever makes you happy and from there you can share that happiness and positivity and great energy with other people. And you start to create this atmosphere where you want to jump out of bed in the morning and you don't even want to get that in bed at night, you just want to keep going after it. Uh, it took, it took me. Uh, pretty much it's a daily, it's a daily grind to be very, very aware not to invite the wrong person into what I've built. It's the serpent. It just takes one and it could destroy everything. I've been there there, so now my main job, with all my private holdings and then what we're building with the public company, is protect the environments, protect our shareholders at dlmi, create value and make the right decisions, and the only way you make the right decisions is you've made previous wrong decisions.

Speaker 1: 41:28

I'll tell you what decisions I'm going to make. I'm going to buy a thousand shares of dl9 after this and get on. I don't know what they cost, I'll pull that back if they're too expensive, if it's a penny stock um.

Speaker 3: 41:38

We love your support, um, love your support.

Speaker 1: 41:41

I was just gonna say I forgot yeah, it was gold, so it's gone I'm like you, but I got a great memory really short, until it's gone. I'm not you, but I got a great memory Really short, though it's unbelievable. Tell me so. If you think about it, definitely just jump in with it. But for DLMI, is it in the tokenization Web3 space? What's the play on that one?

Speaker 3: 42:04

So I've been in, even when I reference my payback story. I've been in this token environment industry since it was even an industry, but not as a speculator, as how do I build these technologies into my own companies? How do I create value, build community and create new? To me it was like, oh, you got checks, wire, cash, credit cards, token. It's another means of commerce and transacting. And then I said, well, you know, I don't care what people say, I don't care about the XRP case, if it's an asset and it could appreciate and you can earn from it. Well, my stupid little brain says that sounds like a security. And if it's a security, then how do I participate in that industry and not have to have issues with regulatory and not have to be in trouble by things like the SEC? How do we incorporate this into a regulated environment? So that's what I've been working on for a very long time, grateful that I've become a quasi leader and authority in the space on security tokens. And these are regulated digital assets, not your meme coins, not your tokens, not your NFT, but a new asset class that piggybacks traditional stocks and securities and the rules and regulations, but it lives on a blockchain or a ledger environment and we've built some incredible ones. So with DLMI is replicating what I've done in my private life and built this new vision of the company Exceptional stock security.

Speaker 3: 43:25

What I've done in my private life and built this new vision of the company exceptional stock security. If you look at the structure of it, it's why I took it over in August of last year. The stock was bouncing around 35 cents to 90 cents for almost a decade, trying to find its way. The president still president Michael Reynolds, a phenomenal guy and partner we aligned immediately on. He kept this thing alive for seven plus years. Now what I want to do with it? We align on creating shareholder value, creating opportunities, building companies, nurturing companies, providing a return to our shareholders, providing dividends to our shareholders. So we have a again referencing what I built in my career.

Speaker 3: 44:08

You have a parent DLMI or Diamond Lake Minerals company, much like a GE structure, old school GE. Underneath it industry agnostic companies that we've identified that we want to start, some of which we made announcements that we took a large interest in or an acquisition in. So it's building the companies, building products, building IP across multiple different industries. But here's where it gets interesting is each of these companies in our roadmap and what we're doing. We'll have a security token offering to it. So we've created that hybrid approach to traditional stock where people can buy and trade in the open markets in the USA, and then a pipe of opportunities where people around the world can buy into those companies because we have a security token offering that would be attached to them. So what happens there is you create a new mechanism for great access to capital outside of traditional lanes like institutional capital, banks, lines of credit, debt, series around, so you have new billions of people that that can promote this to, that can throw a few bucks into something, but on that scale it actually can be meaningful.

Speaker 3: 45:16

And, because of my work in this space, the wealth of the world still don't trust things like crypto or digital assets. They can't control it and there's too many friction points to get involved. They don't want to download a digital wallet. They don't want to download a digital wallet. They don't want to go through this new process with an exchange that they don't know of. So until it's in their Charles Schwab account, their Morgan Stanley account, where they can just click the button and buy it, it's not going to go to scale, but they hear about this space 24-7, right, everywhere they go, people are talking about this space.

Speaker 3: 45:50

So for us, we are a stock where you can support this space by buying our stock, which you're familiar with, and holding that in your portfolio. And, by the way, we have a business model that supports the digitalization of tokens and assets and being able to offer these financial vehicles. Let's hope you're not too early. Again, we are, which is a good thing. We are too early, which is why I want to be leaders in this space, and I think our model I'm not even going to say I think I know our model will be replicated by every public company, because it just makes sense.

Speaker 1: 46:20

And then you might pivot at the point to the services company that helps you do it.

Speaker 3: 46:27

Well, that's interesting that you said that that's the company we bought. We acquired 24% and called Avrio. And that's interesting that you said that that's the company we bought. We acquired 24% and called Avrio, and that's what they did. They're a regulated broker-dealer and they're a creator of primary and secondary offerings of digital assets.

Speaker 1: 46:39

So you've got to have it. You've got to have the services piece to make it, and the more legit that is, the better. The crypto is interesting because I took took the advice. I took the advice of a financial person, said don't do this, but I actually said I wanted to take 10 of our revenue for instantly relevant and I said I wanted to just just. You know dollar cost average by crypto and if I had, I think we would have made more from the, the rise of current bitcoin. We've made just by putting 10 because it's gone, like you know, 5, 5x, whatever it is it's like sometimes I should just trust myself.

Speaker 3: 47:13

No, you can't even do that, because I let me tell you why you can't do that. You, everybody fantasizes about them. Oh, I should have bought this and look what it's worth today. But you may have, and you may have been smart, you may have sold it with a 10% gain, and then you'd be more mad at yourself, where you knew to buy it and then you sold it.

Speaker 1: 47:30

So don't think it was a instead of like doing a business CD we were just going to. I was just going to put it away and fire and forget it as a potential payout, then you should have bought it. Thank you, listen. Conscious of time, I always ask this question, or I try to um is what's one thing I should have asked you that you think would be a really good help for is, in context, your own journey or as entrepreneurs? Listen.

Speaker 3: 47:52

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, you crushed it. You're such a great person to speak with, so thank you for the opportunity. But something I've been referencing over the last year which was a revelation for me, that's really helped me and I think it'll help a lot of entrepreneurs that I know. 99% of them experience this, and I referenced inner circle earlier. You need to have two inner circles as an entrepreneur. Your initial inner circle, which is your family, your friends, people you grew up with, even maybe spouses or kids. Odds are, they didn't grow up in an entrepreneurial household. They don't understand the trials and tribulations, the delays, the pitfalls, the cringe-worthy moments. So, knowing that, and then creating a secondary inner circle, which you can really build a powerhouse through utilizing places like LinkedIn, meeting people like you and talking your story these are your professional inner circle that you can share business momentum with.

Speaker 3: 48:48

You need to not share anything with that first inner circle until transactions are closed, until wires transfer, until it's money in the bank, you cannot share. Yeah, you can't share it in flow because they're going to be all over. You like white on rice. Oh, you said that deal was closing, what happened to it? And then you know you just start to feel insecure, you start to feel stupid, but what really starts to happen is then you start to create a world where you have no safe place to go. You're getting your ass kicked at work, you're getting your ass kicked on calls in the car and then you don't want to go home because you shared that this deal closed and it's delayed or it's not closed, or if someone was lying to you about something that they said they have and they don't have it. So all the traditional experiences that entrepreneurs go through.

Speaker 3: 49:29

So only share done, closed, verified deals and opportunities with your first inner circle and celebrate those, if you want to share it at all, or just keep that a very healthy non-work environment where you just have your personal experience with that at first inner circle, which is what you grew up with anyway, and then that second inner circle. Those are your champions, those are your supporters. So those are people you can tell the nitty gritty to the awful experiences. Asking them for help always ask for help. It's not a sign of weakness. I think if you go out and you ask people for help, it's a complete sign of strength and, believe it or not, people like to help people and as long as you're asking, the right people with the right morals and values behind it. They won't use that as a vulnerability to take advantage of you. They'll actually want to help you. So hopefully that makes some sense. I think that's very important to your mental health and wellness and creating a very calm or as calm as possible as an entrepreneur daily routine and a life I appreciate that.

Speaker 1: 50:26

Thank you, brian, and, by the way, thanks for coming on today. Like your, your story is amazing. I hope. I hope to do another fall with you at some point as you kind of progress, because there's no doubt in my mind, your, your journey isn't even close to being where it wants to go. There is no end destination, it just keeps going and going until it can't go anymore. But thank you, thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 50:44

I really do appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 50:55

Thank you for the opportunity. It was a great discussion. Anybody who made it to this part of the interview and the podcast. I really appreciate you for listening. I am truly committed to helping entrepreneurs grow, get better, get unstuck, just get started. Stop making excuses all the things you know you're doing or you think you're going to do. I want to help you breach through that and if we can help this a little bit just through some of these interviews and some of these conversations and assets we're going to provide, you're going to be better off. And this was your first time. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you come back and, if you've been here before, thank you Until we meet again. I do hope you get out there and unleash your entrepreneur, and until we meet again, thank you for listening to the Never Been Promoted podcast.

Speaker 2: 51:33

Thanks for listening to Never Been Promoted with Thomas Helfrich. Make sure to check the show notes for our guest contact information and any relevant links. Connect with Thomas personally at neverbeenpromotedcom.