How's everybody feel it? I walked in and I felt some major energy. So I'm like, yo, this is going to be tough. I got to get this team fired up again. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see people, you know, building their business, people changing their lives, taking things seriously, take it to the next level. In today's world, we don't see that enough, right? We see a lot of sheep out there. We don't see enough lions. I see lions in this room. Truly, I see lions. I keep hearing the stories about lions. I did some research. I'm super excited about what you guys are doing. I'm super excited to share my story to hopefully inspire and motivate you a little bit more. I do want to give a shout out to all the Michiganders out there, though.

Go blue!

Go blue!

They're going to win tonight. You know, like the video showed, I've been a part of building three companies. I've been blessed, right? I believe in God. I've got great wife. I've got great kids. And I surround myself with great people. But I grew up in a family that didn't graduate high school, that my mom married my dad when she was 16, he was 18. I was born when she was 18 and he was 20. And it wasn't

the perfect household. There was some abuse. There were some things going on. It was tough. And I'm not

making excuses because a lot of people have harder lives than I do. But I like to set the platform to

understand my mindset of how things had to

change. And so my dad was a blue collar guy that worked for AT&T. And they were closing the plant

down in Arizona. And that's where I was born. And so I was 14 years old. I had a little brother

and a little sister. And my dad's friend owned a video store.

They were going good. This is when video stores were cool. So some of the young folks out there,

there was like blockbuster, all these things. That was cool. You go on Tuesday, get movies.

That was the deal. So I remember my dad telling my mom that they're closing the plant. He's got to

transfer to North Carolina.

Or his friend Mike can open up a sub shop for him and a bakery for my mom. Now think my dad was

blue collar working in a corning plant, building fiber that's under the ground for our internet today.

And my mom was a cake decorator at a bakery. And at night, my dad would deliver papers. I would help him and then still go to school, right? We did what we had to do. Well, I heard, I was eavesdropping. I heard that story. And I heard him telling my mom we might have to move. And he said, but Mike's given us this opportunity. And they were talked about how nice it would be to do that. And then my dad said, I don't think we should. I have two kids that have asthma. That'd be my brother and sister. I have about 12 years left at AT&T. I think we should just take the safe route and move. And that's what we did. There's nothing wrong with that. Fast forward to when we moved to North Carolina, we moved into a trailer park. Now, not that it matters. I grew up in a trailer park. I can say that, you know, it's okay. Trailer trash is what I was called. I didn't know any better. I was a freshman in high school. I would go to school and people would be like, where do you live? And I'd be like Southbrook. They're like, oh, the trailer park. I'm like, yeah. Like, oh, it was a, it was a feeling that people at high school would give me. And that's not really good when you can't control who you are, what you are, what you look like, how much money your family has. Everyone can relate to that somehow, some way, right? That was the feeling I was

getting at 14 years old. I would wear fake Tommy Hill figures. For those that remember Tommy Hilfiger, I, you know, would get them fake ones. They'd be like 15 bucks at the flea market, right? People would question me like, is that a fake Tommy? No, they'd look at the tag. I was getting bullied, you know, as a freshman because I didn't have money.

Fast forward when I got my first car, I spent like 300 bucks on it. The insulation was falling out.

It was an 85 Dodge Lancer. It was like five colors. Had hub caps. I would scrub the hub caps, right,

with a toothbrush. I put a system in that was worth more than the car. I think some people

have done that before. So I, you know, but I had this, I hated the feeling that I felt limited.

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