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The Grind, hosted by business entrepreneur Eric James, is a talk show about local business professionals, entrepreneurs, politicians & people of interest, that chose to bet on themselves & embraced the daily hustle that we call the Grind.
#TheGrind, channels the stories behind successful individuals by exploring their ideology of what it takes to manifest a successful business in an ever changing economic, pollical and social media environment.
Announcer 0:00
This is a KU NV studios original program.
Wesley Knight 0:04
The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.
Eric James 0:14
Good morning and welcome to the grind. I'm your host extraordinaire. Mr. Eric James, what is the grind? Simply put, the grind is a half hour conversation that speaks to local business entrepreneurs and explores their take on where our local economy is heading, and asks them to tell us their own story of the sacrifices and work ethic that it takes to have a successful business. Good morning. Good morning. Is that time again. It feels like the time goes by so fast, but it's time to come in here and knock it out of the park once again. This is your host extraordinaire. Like I'd like to call myself. I don't know if anybody else does, but I'm gonna call it's my show, so I'm gonna say what I want to say. I'm gonna host extraordinaire. My name is Mr. Eric James, and I have three fabulous guest with me today. I have a Mr. Kevin Neal. I have to Mr. Leroy longsworth, and I have Hugo Hernandez, and they are going to talk today about their business, hustle, their grind, their future, thoughts about where the economy is going and how they got to be the successful entrepreneurs that they are today. So it's weird because we have all men in the studio today. Normally there's a balance of the ladies and and the male, but today feeling a lot of testosterone in the room. So hope nobody flexes and well, you know what? I got one guest that he's a bodybuilder too, so he might try to flex on us up here in the studio, but we're gonna, I think we could take him. We might be able to, you know, slip by and catch them slipping. But anyway, gentlemen, thank you for being on the show today. I want to thank you for your time. I know your time is valuable, and we jump right into it. I'm going to start with my first guest, who is unique and special to me, because he's actually a family member of mine, Mr. Kevin. Neal, Kevin, tell the people a little bit about yourself, then I'm gonna hit them with them questions, because, you know, we're gonna talk about them days back in New York when you used to be a hip hop dancer and pop locker and you had your cane go hanging low, and you had the cardboard throwing it on the sidewalk in them sturdy streets in New York, back in the good old days. Now you're getting a little too old. The knees won't get down that low no more. But back then, you used to break it down and beat it up. So tell them a little about yourself.
Kevin Neal 2:24
Yeah, absolutely, you know, first and foremost, Eric, thanks for inviting me on the show. I love the name the grind, because business is definitely a grind constantly. It never ends when you're in business. But yeah, born and raised in New York, yeah, I had such a good time in New York, you know, growing up, used to race cars, used to, you know, do custom sound installations, things of that nature. But at age around, somewhere around age 1111, to 17, I moved to Baltimore, Maryland. My parents separated, and I wound up moving with my mom to Baltimore, Maryland. Now I don't know if you guys are familiar with Baltimore, Maryland, but there are some sections in Baltimore. There's like the show the wire, and so there was some, some, some challenges that we had to overcome growing up, you know, being young and whatnot. And thank God I was able to make it out and and move back in to New York around age 17.
Eric James 3:21
So for you young folks that don't know what the wire is, the wire was actually an incredible show on HBO back in the day about the prison system and the gang life in the Baltimore area. And was really one of the first shows that set it off with really raw, kind of hardcore pushing the envelope of television back in the day, and it was a really popular show back then. Now, Kev, you know, in my notes, I hear that you did have a few situations back in Baltimore. Looks like you said that you went to high school there for about two weeks before someone pulled a knife on you. I mean, tell me how that you go to school and somebody's trying to pull a switchblade or something on you. How do you handle that situation at age 11?
Kevin Neal 4:06
Yeah, that was actually Junior High. My first two two weeks, I went to lamel Junior High School, and, yeah, some kid, I don't know, he decided he wanted to test me and pull the knife on me. I took it from him and beat him up. And the next day, my mom found out about it. She pulled me out of the school because she felt like I wasn't going to make it back. So she wound up shipping me to all the way. I want to say I had to take two MTA busses to green spring. Junior High took me 45 minutes. Now I think about it. You know, at 1112, years old, I'm taking two MTA busses to school. I would never think about that doing it for my kids, you know what? I mean? So, so, yeah, it was, it was tough, but the school that I went to, it was much better than the mill. And I still had my challenges there, but
Eric James 4:51
we worked it out. It's different growing up. I mean, I was a latch key kid, and for those that you don't know, I mean, you had a think it was a shoe. Ring, if I remember correctly, and your key was on the shoestring, and that's how you got in and out of the house after you got home from school, because your parents had worked. There was no after school program or boys and girls club if you don't you didn't have money for that. He was you call you were a latch key kid, and you took care of yourself and and then your chores better be done by the time mom and daddy got home, as you keep you got that whooping, and so you learn to grow up a little different than this current generation. But I agree with you, my kids grow up a whole lot different. I I can't imagine them getting on the bus or handling all that, but who knows. I guess if you got to they might figure it out. So you got you moved back to New York, and I mean, given, given New York City that in itself, had to be a unique How do you make it all the way to Las Vegas via because I know you were in LA for a long time. How do you make it to Las Vegas to start a business here?
Kevin Neal 5:53
Yeah, well, somewhere around 89 I decided to move somewhere warmer. I got tired of minus 15 degrees, or four feet of snow. My dad owned like 11 rental properties, so he knocked on my door at 4am told me to go shovel out all the properties and put salt down so he didn't get sued. So after a while, I said, you know, it's time for me to go somewhere warmer. So I decided to move to California. Once I moved to California, after about, probably a year I started a used car dealership, and did you know pretty well, I was able to purchase my mom a house and move her out of Baltimore into Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was from. And until around 97 I got married in 96 and around 97 we decided to move out here because we couldn't take the traffic in. La, no more,
Eric James 6:39
that's understandable. I mean the journey. I mean, you've seen different parts of the country, different by the world. What keeps you here in Las Vegas, or what makes it a good business environment for what you do?
Kevin Neal 6:50
I think, you know, growing up in business, you know, my daddy owned a liquor store. He owned several properties. My uncle owned construction agency. He was electrician. So for a long time, I've been around entrepreneurs, and he always told me, make sure you position yourself in a area that's up and coming, because I wanted to buy real estate, and in New York is extremely expensive, and you come to Vegas, I mean, at the time, the prices were super low, and that was one of the ring things that brought me to Vegas, is is the opportunity. The area is growing so fast that you know it was perfect.
Eric James 7:26
So tell folks what actually is that you do? What's your business grind currently,
Kevin Neal 7:31
right now, I'm an AI consultant, and I automate business processes for companies. I build what they call we want to call them smart websites, which allows them to generate leads from their website. It's not just a standard website. It's going to include like a voice bot that literally will answer questions for people now and and pre qualify them before they even get to you. Another good thing about it is you get a lot of folks now. We can. We can set it up when somebody calls your office as well, and it'll separate telemarketers from getting through and things of that nature. So it's perfect, but, yeah, it allows companies, really, to automate their systems, because all companies now, everybody wants more time. And in business, you're constantly busy, like again, the grind you're constantly grinding, and so at the end of the day, we're just allowing business owners to get back their time.
Eric James 8:28
Okay, so here's the question before I move to the next guest, because I always want to make sure I give equal time to all my guests. You grow up with your father and your uncle and other folks always having a business, which is not the norm for some people of color, what did you learn from their businesses, and what did you learn from their failures that you've applied to your business?
Kevin Neal 8:50
Just keep trying. No matter what. I have plenty of businesses that didn't make it, that failed, but I never gave up. You just keep trying. Because again, it's a grind. You just have to keep going non stop. That's all you can do. And what will happen is, in business, sometimes the city and state will change the goal post on you. They'll make changes that your business has to adjust to. Some people don't want to make the adjustments, so they'll just give up. Okay?
Eric James 9:18
So tell people where they can find you. You
Kevin Neal 9:21
can reach me at my website is all in one business resources. So for short, just a, l, l, I, N, O, N, E, B r.com, that's all in 1b, r.com, you can reach me at or 702-850-2795
Eric James 9:39
give that to one more time on that. Phone number 702-850-2795, all right. Mr. Neil Weck to you, sir, because I got a few more questions I want to talk to you about, but I want to move to my next guest. Give him a little bit of time. He's the one that we got to watch out for. He's over here flexing, stretching out of his shirt. Pastor, Mr. Leroy long. Worth tell them something. Tell me something about you, sir, that folks don't know. Well, I'm originally from Belize in the Caribbean. That's what I'm talking about. We got vacation. I'm telling the brother knows where the beaches are. Good food. We about to hit that.
Leroy Longsworth 10:13
Yep, yeah, definitely. Some good food over there. And so I'm originally from there, and transplanted from there, moved with family in the West Coast, in California, where I went to school. When I came when I was 14 years old, Belize started becoming a kind of a more of a dangerous place, you know, a lot of gang activity and stuff like that. So, you know, to avoid all that. You know, I was set to school to go be with family, to put, you know, go to school and everything. And I ended up getting into coaching and bodybuilding. So it's always a dream. I always had this desire to, you know, because our older brother that I had that, you know, he got into it, and I kind of really looked up to him. So I wanted to, you know, kind of emulate his efforts and and kind of just build, build my body up. So just, you know, started there, lifting some weights. And, you know, I had a goal, this dream, to be able to compete. Even when I was in the Caribbean, I was a little boy, I don't know, I just always kind of saw myself, you know, at one point, just going on stage and, you know, winning a show. So I moved and as a teenager, just started putting my efforts and just, you know, working on that. It was back in the day when information was definitely not as easily attainable as it is today. So just a lot of trial and error, trying to figure out best ways to train and eat and all that, but stuck to the grind. And, you know, 10 years later, I competed for the first time, and really liked it. Spent 10 years, you know, going back and forth. You know, different contest went back to Belize in 2007 and competed in the Central American, you know, championships represented Belize, which was great. So my dad saw me compete that time. It was the only time he saw me compete. So I really enjoyed that. But what I really, truly enjoyed my passion, was just genuinely helping people. I just, I found that I'd really just enjoyed helping people like, you know, get in shape, you know, lose weight. I got really good at it because I just helped everybody for free initially, you know, and just kind of honed in on the craft doing it that way. Eventually ended up opening up my own gym for a few years there.
Eric James 12:16
Free is not a good business model. We can't be doing that freeze? Yeah, we got a judge a penny or $1 a dime. So now, of course, his radio, so you folks can't see, he does have, and I'm sure I'm not the first person say, got a little looks, a little bit like the rock Dwayne Rock Johnson kind of vibe, or going here, got the body, got the look about him. Now, I do know you owned your own gym. Is that correct one point? Yep.
Leroy Longsworth 12:43
So that's like I said. I just initially was just helping people for free, and then, you know, got really good at it, and then just decided, you know, I'm going to turn this into a business. So I opened up a gym, a training studio, and, you know, kind of catered to, you know, a lot of the moms and people that were trying to lose weight after having kids, and, you know, just pretty much anybody I could help. And we focused on just the client experience, just having a really good client experience, like a boutique experience, if you will.
Eric James 13:12
Now I can see that customer service or that client experiences was useful in your current line of mine. How, but how does one go from being a gym owner into the mortgage industry? So was always in the mortgage industry.
Leroy Longsworth 13:26
I got into the mortgage industry after I competed in my first contest a really good friend of mine that actually was my workout buddy. He said, Hey, if you did that, you could probably do this. And he brought me into the mortgage business and showed me, you know, he was really good at it, and showed me, you know, how to present myself, and how to go after business and all these, all these things. So I did that back in 2000 end of 2002 and stuck with it, and ended up, you know, just that was my main thing. And while I was doing that, then later on, ended up opening up the gym. The crash of 2020 is what not the crash, but, you know, the pandemic in 2020 right before that. And you know, just had this feeling, you know, maybe it's time to kind of, you know, just kind of get away from that and leave. And that's right about the time when in California that all the gyms got shut down. You know, you have to do the distancing. And, you know, I had to have all the equipment outside, so a lot of my competitors didn't make it. So I kind of was a blessing in disguise, because I closed that gym right at the right perfect time, and then put all my efforts into the mortgage business and moved to Nevada.
Eric James 14:28
Timing is everything in business. Sometimes you hit the right note and sometimes you don't. I'm a firm believer in the past. I used to say you have to reinvent yourself every 10 years. Now, with AI and technology, I'm shortening that down. If you're not reinventing yourself every three to five years, and that doesn't mean you change industries, but if you're not re tweaking and re thinking what you're doing and how you're doing it on a wholesale level, then you're going to be left behind, because things are moving faster and faster and faster. So good for you. You made the right move at the right time. Made it to Vegas, and from from what I know about you, sir, you're very successful in your industry. I love the new hook line that you came up with, Leroy Lenz. I think it has a nice hook, a nice catch to it. I think that's something people can remember Leroy, Leroy lens, tell them where they can find you, and they can reach out to you at Sure, so you can reach me at leroy.longsworth@ccm.com
Leroy Longsworth 15:28
that's my email, and phone number is 925-980-4236,
Eric James 15:35
and I'm gonna come back to you too as well, sir, because I want to talk to you about that, that four year old little boy that you got, you got there as an older father myself, praise you, because I can't get up with I don't got the energy for the toddlers no more. That kid be like watching TV by himself. Like, where's the kid at home? No any other room. I need a nap. All right, I'm gonna move to my third guest. Come back to you. Gentlemen, Mr. Hernandez, how are you doing today? Sir, very good. Thank you for having me. You know your wife says you normally sleep in on a Sunday morning, and I had to get you out of bed to get on this radio show. She said she had to roll you over and push you out of bed. But I'm glad you were able to make it. Tell people. I'm gonna ask you a little bit about your business, because I know you're originally from. You were born in Chicago, but you lived most of your life in Mexico and then here in the States. What I'd like to know is, what was the what was the major environmental shifts that you had to adjust to as a youth or as an adult moving from country to country. Now, I'm born and raised here in Las Vegas. I've moved around briefly, but nothing major. That has to be a very unique when I say transition to go from one place or one country one set of laws or rules or other things, because Chicago in itself is a country on its own. What was that like transitioning as a youth?
Hugo Hernandez 17:00
Well, one of the first things is the language. I didn't know any English when I came here in 2002 and the culture as well, very different. You know, you get when you come, when you come to this country, you have to do what you see, you know and but about the business that I had to do, it's I knew how to well since I was 14, and how to well since I was 14. So when I came here to the States, I was 17 years old, and I didn't get accepted at school, so I had to go to a adult school to get my GED and all that and but I started walking right away. I just decided to go for the trade of welding, and that's what I've been doing since 2002
Eric James 17:59
now, my understanding is your father is either in the co owner of the business or in the business, or was a welder as well. Is that correct? He actually runs the shop. Okay, yeah. Now, how does that work? Because I couldn't even work with somebody I was dating, let alone my parent or friend who makes decisions around there. Does dad pull the dad card and be like, No, we're gonna do it this way, because I'm your I'm your pops. Or how do you find that balance of family, separating family and business without it causing conflict? You know, at the at the Christmas table, yeah, it's hard.
Hugo Hernandez 18:37
Yeah, it's it's very hard, because I always respect him as my father, right? But we, I think we're pretty good at separating family from business, but when it comes to make decisions about how to do a job, or, you know, design and that kind of stuff, it's when it gets really tricky of who makes the decisions, because he has a lot of experience. He's been doing this since 1985 I believe, you know. And so when I try to jump on the car in a and I say something like, we need to do it this way, but he has a different, different vision of the job, how we need to start doing it, or how it needs to be the product needs to be done. So that's when we get in conflict.
Eric James 19:29
Okay, yeah, fair enough. Okay, so tell me for you. You were shop foreman for a couple years, and then how do you go from shop foreman to me, and it's old expression, how do you have the stones to say, hey, I can do this as an owner, because I did it. I worked for agents before I became my own. Became the boss, and there was a big learning curve that had just, you know, when I worked for somebody, things were set up, and so then my staff would come to me. Like, Well, where do you want this at Eric and I was like, I don't know. That was already set up at my old office. You have to start making additional there's a learning curve, a jump from working for to owning. How did you make that transition? Or what was it that it that you believed in yourself enough to bet on yourself, that you said I can make this happen?
Hugo Hernandez 20:19
Well, the first thing that I thought when I was shop foreman, it's the well, I know how to do the job. I know how to pretty much everything of what we do. But when I started the business, it's like, I hit a solid wall about stuff like payroll taxes and all that
Eric James 20:38
exactly we say just because you can bake a cake doesn't mean you can run a bakery. Those are two different things,
Hugo Hernandez 20:45
yeah, and it's just just learning in the process. You need to educate yourself about that being an owner and all the stuff that comes with it responsibility, because it's very different than being shop for me.
Eric James 21:02
Was there a point that it clicked for you, or you knew, Okay, I got this. I I can do this. I mean, like you said, you made, you made the decision making. The decision is one thing, actually being good enough, or knowing you're going to survive, because a lot of businesses don't you. Anybody can start a business that does and businesses fail all the time. Was there a moment that you knew, Okay, I got this,
Hugo Hernandez 21:27
that moment came, I would say, about year and a half to two years after we started, because it was really tough the first about two years, very, very tough. And all of a sudden something came to to us, a person that came to like a salesperson came to us, and they he offered his services to, you know, bid commercial, bid residential, and all of that. And from that guy, we learned a lot. We learned a lot, but when we learned from him, or what we learned from him, it's that what we are right now doing or implementing in the shop, and that's how this business took off.
Eric James 22:13
Okay, so the how I know Hugo is and I'm giving my Yelp or my Google review here online, on the show I he actually did work at my home. I had the my front, front wall, the whole brick wall, and design redone. I acted as my own contractor. I had the design done. I sent it out to about 25 different shops and allowed them to bid on the work. And out of all the 25 companies, Hugo's company was the one that I contracted with. Did the work, did a fantastic job. I can't complain at all, attention to detail, the customer service and on time, workmanship, all his crew, all his team, any the attention to detail was impeccable. So I wanted to give you props. And reason why I brought him on the show today is to tell him because I was impressed with what he had done. And I think that's the biggest Yelp review, or the Google review I can give you. Tell people where they can find you, sir,
Hugo Hernandez 23:20
yes, our phone number is 702-913-4085, and our email address is contact at art, dash in Dash, iron.com, give
Eric James 23:33
it to them one more time, because I'm one of those people that get halfway through and I missed the letter and I'm trying to write it down, repeat it One more time.
Hugo Hernandez 23:40
Sure the email is contact at art, dash, in Dash, ion.com, and the phone number is 702-913-4085,
Eric James 23:51
okay, so you got to make me at least one promise today, though, the next time you come back on the show, you bring your guitar and play something for us. Oh, for sure. What can you play, or what, what? Uh, what's your strength on the guitar? What kind of guitar you
Hugo Hernandez 24:04
use it? Gretch does want to use the Japanese rich, that's the one I have. And, yeah, I like to jam.
Eric James 24:11
I have no idea what that is, but I'm gonna assume that it's a good guitar, the way he said, way he looked. He's like, Oh, that's, that's the one there. That's, that's, that's the almost cursed. We're on the radio, but that's the jam right there. All right, gentlemen, Mr. Neil, we can come back. We got a few minutes left in the show, because the time goes by so fast when I do this show, Mr. Neil, tell me the one thing that sets you apart from other folks now again, your background, your hip hop, your business failures. I mean, you've been through a lot, you know, your pops and your uncle passing away when you're young, people trying to shank you at school. I mean, all that builds character, character that builds toughness, that maybe a lot of people don't have to come to business. So when you bet on yourself and said, I'm going. Do this business. How does all that come together in your resilience?
Kevin Neal 25:04
You know, in Baltimore, I had a had an uncle who used to pick me up from school. He's the one who kept me out of trouble, and he took me around in different environments. And I realized that there were some beautiful areas in Baltimore. He had this model. He used to always teach me kill people with kindness, kill them with kindness. And that just grew on me. And at the end of the day, I just treat people the way I want to be treated. Okay.
Eric James 25:30
I mean, that's fair enough. Okay, so, Mr. Longsworth, four year old little boy, how do you balance family life? Youth running around and and working the long hours, because, you know, the grind is not a nine to five. You can't get up at 9am and take off at five and think you're going to be successful with the competition out there. How do you balance that out, and how do you make that work for you and your family?
Leroy Longsworth 25:53
That's a great question. So, and you're right, that is the, definitely the challenge. So after he was born, I really had to, kind of, one of those come to Jesus moments where you're like, Man, I really got to nail this. I want to knock this out of the park as a dad. So one of the things I do, I do two things. I get up with them in the morning time, every morning, I'm the one he sees. I wake up with them, I change them, get them ready for the day, you know, feed them all that, spend that quality time with them. You know, we start, I'm trying to teach them gratitude. So every morning, we do a little gratitude, little routine that we do, Hey, what are you grateful for today? Son, and he's getting better at, you know, at doing that. So that's my thing with him. Every morning, before I take off, I'm an early riser, so I get all my stuff done, and then when he's awake, it's all about him. And then twice a week, I pick him up from school and I take him to Jiu Jitsu, yeah? So, so he's just there, and, you know, it's our thing, and, you know, it's our little bonding time. I make sure during that time I'm not answering my phone, I'm driving. It's a 10 minute drive. So present. I'm present in the moment. Yeah, and that's something I used to fail with big time. You know, you just want to knock it out of park for for your clients. And you know, you're picking up the phone, you're picking up the phone, you're trying to put out fires, you're trying to make sure you're staying on top of things, but you know, you end up not being in the moment. And you know, it really compromises that, that experience they could have had right now.
Eric James 27:11
Kevin, you have a little, I don't know if it's Jiu Jitsu or martial arts background in history as well, correct? Yeah, martial arts for 15 years. Okay, see, so all I know, if somebody tried to jump me on the way out of this studio, they gonna catch, they gonna catch a beat down, because I got some, I got some rollers here with me today. Hugo, like you said, How'd you get into playing of the guitar? How does that bring you? Does that calm you bring you silence after a hard day of being out there because you're you're being the boss, but even with my own project, you had to be out there on your team. I can say I'm past those days where I want to be out in 110 degree heat. How do you balance that out? How do you go from a long day of being out there overseeing your guys and then coming home and trying to find that balance of filling out paperwork and dealing with all the rigors of being a business owner.
Hugo Hernandez 28:07
Yeah? So when, when I get home and you have, if I have the time to, you know, jam a little bit, I'll do it right away, because that takes my stress out.
Eric James 28:18
Do we have a band or fellas you play with Yeah?
Hugo Hernandez 28:21
Well, I pray at church, okay? I play at church, and that's where I started. I haven't played anywhere else. We play every Sunday, okay? And we practice every Friday.
Eric James 28:32
So faith keeps you strong, yes, all right, I can definitely respect that. All right. So gentlemen, we got about a minute left in the show. I want to thank each, each one of you guys for coming on today, hopefully I made it as at least painful as possible. Learned a little bit about each one of you. I respect everybody that comes on the show. Because, again, it's all business owners. It's all people in politics or politicians or entrepreneurs. So everybody has a shared commonality of that hashtag grind, because it is difficult to make it, and with the economy and tariffs or other things going on, you're always having to reinvent yourself and figure out how to get by and get through because your employees don't care that money's tight, or you haven't had a lot of jobs that week, or you haven't closed the loan that that month. They just want, they want their paycheck. So for you as the owners, nothing but respect to you gentlemen, and I want to tell you all thank you for coming on the show today. Hashtag the grind. Hashtag the grind. Hashtag the grind. Go get that. Thank you. Have a great day. Thanks for listening to the grind again. My name is Eric James. We hope that today's show was two parts entertaining with a dash of education. Feel free to reach out to me at my office at 702-836-0953 and remember to always stay on your grind. You.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai