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The podcast for aspiring entrepreneurs who have families. If you're a dad looking to escape the rat and quit your 9 to 5 while keeping food on the table for the family in the process then this show is for you. We discuss the challenges, tips, tricks and hacks to help you make the leap into freedom.
Brendan:
In the next 10 minutes, I'm going to tell you why I decided to leave my well-paying job as a pharmacist. I was making $180,000 a year with benefits and everything, plenty of time off. In fact, I worked seven days in a row and seven days off, so I had plenty of time off. Why I decided to stop doing that and pursue entrepreneurship instead. Actually, there's a lot of reasons. I'll get to those reasons in just a minute. But first, I think it's important to give a little bit of background, right? I'm a millennial. I grew up in the nineties actually in Southern California, which is you could imagine the nineties in California was absolute paradise. Beautiful, beautiful childhood. I really, I really miss the mountains and everything. I'm out here in Jacksonville, Florida now. And my parents were boomers, right? They were older. My mom was 35 when she had me. My dad was actually not a boomer. He was even older than a boomer. He was 55 when he had me. Fought in the Korean War, so he was part of what's called the silent generation. And did very well for himself in terms of money, managing money and stuff. He had a lot of rental properties throughout Southern California. One time he had 14 different rental properties in the 90s in Southern California, which if he still had those today, it would be... worth an absolute fortune, but he has since passed away. So that's not the case anymore. Actually we lost them once my parents got divorced. They had to sell all the assets and divide them amongst themselves. But anyway, my dad was good with money, but he was not an entrepreneur. He was an engineer. He was an aerospace engineer. Had a very fascinating life, really. Worked for NASA, was the 101st airborne in the Korean War and all that kind of stuff. But he was not a businessman. So he never taught me any of that, never taught me really even how to invest, even though he did do a good amount of that. And the conventional advice from both of them was go to school, get good grades, go to college and become something like a doctor or a lawyer. And for whatever reason, actually, they really wanted me to be a pharmacist. I actually became a pharmacist in large part because they thought it was such a good idea. In fact, when I was in college. And really thinking about what exactly I wanted to do, I approached my dad with the idea of becoming a dentist. And he did not like that idea. He actually said, yeah, he said that, why would you want to work on people's mouths all day or something like that? And man, I wish like that was just maybe just a tiny bit of a hint for me of I should have followed my heart rather than my head. I definitely spent all of my life through school, following my head and trying to make my parents proud really. But I would have been happier as a dentist, even though I don't think I would have been as happy than if I were to become a businessman, an entrepreneur right from the start, you know, 18, starting my own business and maybe failing and declaring bankruptcy a couple times with nothing to lose. I think that would have been really fun, really educational. that I didn't know anything about that. And the school system didn't teach me absolutely anything about that. Didn't expose me in any way to the idea of starting your own business. It wasn't until much, much later on that I started looking into all that kind of stuff. And so I think that I should have become a dentist that because, and the reason I say that is because I was a dentist. In dentistry, a lot of dentists own their own practice. So there actually is a decent amount of, of a business component to it. A big, decent amount of ownership to it. I just had my, my friend, actually he'll be airing this weekend. My friend, Dr. Drew Burns, who is a dentist in Orlando. We were roommates in college and he loves what he does. In fact, he's probably the only person I know that went to college, uh, did the traditional thing and absolutely is in love with what he does. and does really well for himself, I might add. Makes a lot of money. You know, there's a lot of money to be made in dentistry. But anyway, long story short, my first love growing up was fitness, was working out, was health and fitness. I got addicted to the gym when I was about 13 or 14 years old. My dad took me for the first time, kinda showed me the ropes a little bit, and after that, it was off to the races. It was completely off to the races. I was... just going to the gym all the time. At one point I was going twice a day for years, years and years. I became a personal trainer, which was a great college job. And that was when I realized that I probably didn't want to make that my career. And the reason I said that at the time, and I don't know if I would agree with this today, but the reason I said it at the time was because I didn't want to take something I loved and make it my job because I did already kind of see what that that was what that was about because I had loved working out and then I took it and became a personal trainer. And there was just certain aspects about being a personal trainer that wasn't exactly the same thing as just, you know, working out yourself. You had to communicate with people, motivate people, um, keep them accountable. And that was all new to me. And, but those were great skills. Those were really great skills to learn in terms of how to inspire people, how to communicate with people. goal setting, all that kind of stuff. And that set a really good foundation for me, I think. And so in college, felt a little lost about what I wanted to do. I even, so I eventually settled on pharmacy school. And in the first year of pharmacy school, I even thought about quitting. And my parents drove to Gainesville, Florida, at the University of Florida where I went, and asked me, okay, that's fine, you can quit. but what are you gonna do instead? And I did not have an answer for them. As dumb as that sounds, right? Like you would think that I would have something else in mind, anything really, but I had no idea. Absolutely no idea. And I think that most 20 something year old kids honestly don't have an idea, don't have a really good idea. Sounds crazy, it really sounds crazy because it's one of the most important decisions of your life, right? you should do as a career or as a, as a business or whatever. It's something that I think our school system actually doesn't do a great job of helping direct you in. They might give you, I remember when I was in high school, they give us this ASVAB. That was this military aptitude test that would kind of help you determine what you're good at and point you in the right direction. But that was the only time I can recall that there was any sort of help or direction in terms of figuring out what it is that makes the most sense for you to do. And it wasn't until much later on that I started reflecting on that quite heavily. And so anyway, went through pharmacy school, became a pharmacist, and started working in an ER because, and I picked that actually particularly because I thought that if there was anything in motivated to go to work in the morning. It would be being in an ER where there's lots of action. And I even tried to get on Twitter and do the free open access medicine thing. I watched documentaries on emergency medicine and just could never like ignite that passion that I know some people do have. I know some people are absolutely a hundred percent really passionate about medicine in general, or at least emergency medicine. Or even pharmacy, there are some people, there's not that many actually, there's not that many pharmacists that are truly passionate about being pharmacists, sadly, but you can maybe understand why, right? Like there's, there's a lot of knowledge that goes into the profession and just not a lot of being able to affect real change in the, in the space, in the field. And so one of the things that pharmacists have been fighting for for years is what's called provider status. It could be because they're not considered a healthcare provider on the level of say a nurse practitioner or physician's assistant, or obviously an MD themselves. And so they've been trying to fight for that. And there's some push and pull, right? Because it's a much more responsibility. You can be sued, you have to have liability insurance. And so older school pharmacists don't necessarily want to be considered a provider. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. After I became a pharmacist, I realized, I was never passionate about it to begin with. And that's when I finally started basically learning about and studying all the things that I was genuinely interested in. And at first that was things like trading options. That was really cool. Got to learn about the probabilities and the stock market and all that kind of stuff. And then I dove deep into poker, no limit Texas Hold'em and fell in love with that game. And that was probably. my second real passion, I absolutely loved it. Loved it, it's a beautiful game. I still play as much as I can actually, but realized fairly quickly that there was just no way for me to make that a profession because you have to be able to spend hours and hours and hours at it every single day. And so I couldn't just make the leap from pharmacy right into playing poker full time. And you have to have a bankroll. saved up first because there's so much luck and variance involved. So that wasn't really an option, but I do still love it. Still try to play anytime I go to Vegas and that kind of thing, or at least have a poker night here and there with some friends. And anyway, fast forward to 2020, and this was probably really the year that things are just completely changed. And it changed not just because of the pandemic, which is probably what most people were thinking of. And that's part of it, don't get me wrong. But the first thing that really made me change was what I call my financial red pill moment when I finally read Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. If you haven't read it, you need to read it. It's a very easy read, an amazing book. And by the way, I wouldn't recommend basically anything else from Robert Kiyosaki. He's great, don't get me wrong, but his other books just don't. Just don't. They just don't have the same impact. Let's just put it that way. Whereas Rich Dad Poured Out is a phenomenal book. And it made me realize that this route to financial success, this route to wealth that I'm on, even though I had a good paying job and everything was a hundred percent of slow lane and something that I couldn't really rely on. And I realized that I needed to figure out how to create cashflow. And it was then in 2020, that I started two different businesses. One was an e-commerce business, Amazon Store, that failed miserably, lost me tons of money. There's another episode that I talked about that earlier. And the other one was a digital marketing or lead generation business for home services. And that's really kind of what I consider my actual intro to entrepreneurship or business in general, because that taught me all kinds of things, all kinds of important things like how to manage the business finances. even just simple stuff like setting up the LLC, accounting, and of course, marketing and sales, which is what I do now, by and large, is sales. And so it was then that I started those things up, but I started those things up not just because I read that book, but it was kind of a coming together of a lot of different things. During the pandemic, everybody was losing their jobs. I did actually lose a few hours because I worked in a heart failure clinic and I lost those hours because the clinic closed. And there's all kinds of employer mandates that I was very concerned about. And even up until that time, I was very concerned about the idea of my job eventually being replaced by things like AI and automation, which maybe wasn't as obvious at the time, but I think it's very obvious now with the advent of chat GPT. and all that, that the AI age is 100% here and jobs like pharmacy can easily be replaced by them. And so I was concerned about that, concerned about employer mandates. I also had a really low glass ceiling in terms of what I can make in pharmacy. I was basically already making as much as I'll ever make in pharmacy without, of course, the typical 2% per year raises that would try to keep up with inflation. But then inflation took off. Inflation became 7% or 8% or whatever, and you're still getting 2% raises. And so now we feel like you're on this, this financial treadmill that you're never going to get, going to be able to get ahead with. And we have millennials and younger and Gen Xers too, have a much worse financial landscape than our parents did, or in our grandparents did. They had a very prosperous time in the history of the world that they were fortunately able to take advantage of, but the dollar in the American economy has been slowing down since then. We're not as rich, in other words, as what our parents were. They were much further ahead financially at the same stage of life than we are. It's just a fact that you can go look it up. So that's why I think... Sometimes the older generations have a hard time understanding why a guy like me would leave a job like pharmacy to start my own business. Because I see the writing on the wall essentially. I see that 30 years from now, there might not be social security. Or 30 years from now, a million dollars or two million dollars or maybe even three million dollars in a retirement account will not be enough. And It honestly frustrates me a little bit, just a little bit that they, they can't see that because there's so many baby boomers that are trying to retire right now, but because the stock market's not cooperating with them, they're not able to. And so that definitely frustrates me a little bit that they can't see that because it's, it's not like we get richer over time. It's not like the dollar gets stronger, unfortunately. So 30 years from now, you know, It should be pretty obvious that that it's going to be even more difficult to retire. And so I like what Robert Kiyosaki says in Rich Dad Poor Dad, where he says that you should be investing for cashflow and not for a nest egg. And so long story short, that got me to where I am now, where I'm doing sales. Mostly I still have the digital marketing agency and I still mentor other entrepreneurs or aspiring dadpreneurs, especially that are trying to escape the rat rays, trying to do the same thing. And I also sell for other people. And now I have this podcast. And so that's where we're at today in terms of building the business and getting to where I want to go. Because my goals, my why, if you will, is essentially family. I want, I really strongly desire a better life for me and my family. I want to be able to travel with them. and show my kids awesome places and experiences that they might not have otherwise. I want to be able to retire my wife. I want to be able to get her the best help in terms of her health issues that she suffers with. I want to be able to spend more time with my kids as it stands right now in my pharmacy job. I work a lot of nights, a lot of weekends, a lot of holidays. I don't want to work any of those. I don't want to work any of those. And I want to be able to leave a legacy too. I want to be able to... have something to pass on to my kids someday. These are all important things for me and really drives me, really motivates me to do this. Because honestly, it's not easy, man. It's really incredibly hard, and I've had to sacrifice quite a lot in order to do this. I've had to sacrifice my social life, my enlarged, maybe that's probably the biggest sacrifice that I've had to make. in order to pursue entrepreneurship while raising a family, while having a full-time job. I've also had to sacrifice even going to the gym and that was a huge love of mine. I still get there occasionally, but it's probably on the average of like two times a week or so. That bothers me quite a bit because I feel like I'm getting out of shape, but I know that I'll be there in the future. It's already a habit, something that I love. And so it's not gonna be hard to get back on the horse, so to speak, in the future. But the point is, sacrifices have been made. It's very difficult, and that's why I have a heart for anybody else that is trying to do the same thing. So if you are like me, you feel trapped by your job, you feel like you maybe didn't pick the right thing to do with your life in terms of your job. Maybe you have some student debt that keeps you beholden to that job. Or maybe... You feel the pressure, you feel the obligation or the duty to your family to keep the food on the table. But you know deep down that you're meant for more, that you were supposed to do something better with your life. Then please, please reach out to me. I made this podcast for you because I am you. Right. I am you and I'm trying to inspire and educate and support you so that you can make the leap. Because I really believe that we need more dadpreneurs. more men should be able to do all those things like retire their wife or like be able to make the soccer games or like being able to leave, leave of a legacy or teach their kids how to be entrepreneurs. And so if that sounds like you, please reach out to me. We have a free discord server where you can network with other guys. Just like that. We have a free newsletter that you can get on that comes out every Sunday. And of course this podcast, which airs every week, interviews on Saturdays. and monologues on Wednesdays. So guys, thanks so much for listening. That's kind of my story, that's my background, that's where I'm coming from. And if it sounds like you, like I said, please reach out, please join me, make the transition from employee to entrepreneur, and I'll see you on the other side.