There are three skills to success every single high school needs to start injecting into their curriculum: sales, networking, and public speaking. In this episode, Brian Covey’s guest emphasizes that if you can master these three skills, no matter what you do, you’ll be successful in life. Jeff Lopes is a bestselling author and founder of 7 & 8 Figure Corps. Join in the conversation as Jeff and Brian also chat about balancing family life, health, and business. Unpack the knowledge you need to succeed in life right here in this episode. Listen now!
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3 Skills To Success With Jeff Lopes
I’m super excited to have my friend, Jeff Lopes. I was on his show. He’s going to bring the value and the heat. Not only is he an amazing dad but he’s a best-selling author. He’s got his own podcast. He’s built two successful companies. He has done a lot of things. I’m curious as we spend some time, you will probably read some things in your own life and your business that you can either learn or grow from. That’s what our show is all about. You guys know this, as I believe in always learning and growing from others, I have tried to surround myself with some amazing people. Jeff is one of those that I have been learning from and gotten to engage with. We are excited to have him on the show. Without further ado, Jeff, my friend, welcome.
I’m excited to be here, Brian. I appreciate you and this platform. It’s going to be a fun conversation.
On our flip-flop roles when I was on your show, I always appreciate people. For those out there that have a podcast, you know how the preparation that most people don’t see, it’s like the athletes off the field that no one ever sees the hours and the time you put in. Not just with your setup and technology but preparing for your guests and making sure that it’s eventful. I want to know this as we kick-off, what made you decide to do the podcast and get into that part of it? There are still a lot of energy around this that people are either doing it or want to do it.
For anybody wanting to do it, heads up, there are a lot of work involved. It’s a long-term game. It’s not a short-term game. I was reading some stats. Out of the 1.8 million podcasts, they are saying about close to 60% of them are inactive at the moment. People start the whole motion and they don’t understand the long-term effect of it. When I started the podcast, I had two mindsets with it. I didn’t care about monetizing. It was all about building a self-brand and networking. I thought there’s no way to net worth with so many big entrepreneurs. If you give them a platform, you engage in the platform and build a platform big enough that you could give them an audience, then all of a sudden, you have that automatic connection. I used it for two purposes. It has done its job. It’s a network with individuals like you, tons of incredible entrepreneurs and incredible people. You never know who you are going to meet and someone’s story to sit down and talk to them. The real-life comes about. You build these incredible networks you are going to have lifetime friendships with.
When you build a relationship, their network becomes your network, and you start growing. Click To TweetThat’s what I’ve got into. One to add value, I recognize to add some people in my life that were highly successful. They had a lot of value to add in certain areas of expertise. I’m like, “Wouldn’t it be cool if you could sit in on that kind of conversation?” I enjoy those at masterminds. I love what you said too, is I didn’t get in mind for monetization. I’m not looking to be a Joe Rogan or somebody that goes in and makes a ton of cash but the relationships and the by-product, it happens. If you vibe with somebody, there’s going to be an opportunity that you go out, whether you speak, read a book together, you bring value in the marketplace and your primary job, it happens. Jeff, I’m curious, because you have built this network. I noticed we cross-pollinate a lot. We’ve got a lot of the same people. We are connected. Who’s probably the person that you have connected up with that you feel maybe had the most impact on your life and why?
There has been a handful of incredible entrepreneurs I have met. Some I’m mentoring myself and some I have been mentored by. On a personal level, Bryan Ward. He has become a close friend of mine. We seem to talk almost every day or every other day. It’s not even the business side. It’s more of this individual, the person, the father, the man he is. When you are networking with so many people and you meet all these incredible entrepreneurs from the globe and you are constantly networking, there are a close amount of a few that you are going to keep close to you. Bryan is one of those guys. Once you get to know him, he is the type of person you will have a lifetime friendship with. For people that know him, he’s a host of Dad Up Podcast. Incredible podcast for fathers as well.
We were texting and Bryan’s going to be one of our future guests. I was on his show. It couldn’t have played in better to it. We share the same piece. For all the dads or moms out there, there are synergies to this. Being a parent now is so different. I love how you have leaned in. I call it this movement and culture right now of dads rising back up to be dads and who they were called to be and then this relationship to raise our kids differently because the noise has never been greater politically and everything else going on. How do you stay in tune? I see you with your son all the time, which by the way, if you are not following Jeff, you’ve got to follow him. If nothing else, your son inspires me and the stories you put out there. How do you stay connected and you’re running businesses, doing the podcast and you’ve got all these things? Where does that rhythm come for you to stay present in the things that matter with your family?
Classify which are your non-negotiables in your life. You find out what are your non-negotiables, what are your important things in your life and then you master your schedule. It sounds that simple but that’s what it is. It’s essentially mastering your schedule, figuring out your non-negotiables, plugging into your schedule. I do my schedule once a month. When I’m looking at my schedule, I automatically place my family schedule first, my health as well in there, mentally, spiritually, physically and then everything else slots in. If it doesn’t have time to slot in, I will slot it in next month. I understand how time is a currency. I focus on spending quality time with my kids. Through that, it adds a sense of this understanding of wealth as freedom. Don’t get me wrong. I realize I need to put in a lot of hours to be successful as an entrepreneur.
I realized for me to put these hours in, I had to sacrifice stuff. I’m up at 4:30 every morning. On most days, I don’t want to get up at 4:30. For those entrepreneurs that are like, “I’m up at 4:30 and I love it.” I run my eyes and some days’ question, “Why am I doing this?” I understand that sacrificing myself to be up at 4:30 every morning allows me to be home from 3:00 to 7:00 or 4:00 to 7:00 every single night and spend time and have dinner with my family. You balance sacrifices. I hear a lot of entrepreneurs always use a word like, “There was no such thing as balance work and family life.” They hate the word balance. I hear this all the time, Gary Vee and all these massive entrepreneurs, there is a balance. You could have a balance. In my book, I say the word balance consistently because you could have a balance. I’m a true believer that there is a way to balance it. You just have to understand what your non-negotiables are and what are your point things in your life.
I love that you do monthly. I do a weekly. On Sunday nights has been my thing. Slows down a little bit. I’m with the family. Many times, I will plan with them there and talk to my wife about, “Here are the things I have going on. What’s going on with the family this week?” I recognize I may not be the best listener sometimes when all these things are coming in. You were like, “Let me recap. What do we have this week? Where do I need to be?” A lot of times, it is some intention and finding what works for you. There was a period in my life that had the 4:30 worked. It was that season and it worked for me. This season, that’s not exactly where I’m at. What I have found though is once you commit to something, you need to go all-in on it and make it work for you.
I have heard people even share this about workouts is, “I used to consistently be the early 5:00 AM, 6:00 AM workout person.” With my surgery, kids going to school, now I’m fitting that workout in at different times of the day but it is scheduled. It’s not like, “Let me hope that it happens now.” I look at my schedule and I’m like, “10:00 to 11:00.” That’s going to be my time. I’m going to go work out. I’m going to go do whatever it is. For your fitness, I see you doing this. This could be background there but I see you working out with your son, which is cool because this is something that resonates with me, is now that my kids are getting older, I can go walk with them, play soccer with them. Do you find that that’s cool for you? You are getting your fitness and your health but you are doing stuff now with the family together.
You know the whole story where we went through a lot of situations with my son physically, mentally with him and through the years, building him up. I have always known there will be a point where, physically, he would be at a certain level that we could train together. It happened. He was at that level. Like you, I was working out in the morning. When the pandemic hit, schedule, things change. You have to adapt. I adapted and I thought, “I could build a quality time with my son and same time train.” He’s my training partner. My now thirteen-year-old son, I work out five days a week together. It works for us right now, is spending quality time.
We were both benefiting from it. As a family, holistically, we are active. We try to do something outdoors, especially for our children. In Toronto, Canada, we were under lockdown. Our kids are stuck in front of homeschool in front of a computer all day. When we get home hour and a half minimal is outdoors every day, we grab the kids, take them out with their things and we go for a hike or a bike ride. This is steadily every night we do this. On Sundays, it’s a long one. We literally will make it a day trip and go for his ice cream. We like hitting small little towns, try different little shops, ice cream shop and then we will go for a good 1 or 1.5-hour walk with the dog. We make it holistically, so from such a young age fitness has been such a huge part of their life.
There’s a point where my fourteen-year-old daughter works out six days a week. She’s into yoga. She’s a fitness fanatic. It’s because we instilled this from a young age. A lot of parents don’t do that. They get their kids. They allow them to sit in a room. They were gaming all day long. Now they were homeschooled and gaming every night. They were on the computer 24/7. We don’t allow it. It’s not by choice. Our kids don’t want to play video games. We have instilled fitness, lifestyle and activity from a young age. We get home and they were ready to go. They were like, “Let’s go outside.” Play basketball, whether it is, we are outdoor doing something. As a family, it’s so much more beneficial for us all mentally, spiritually, being able to communicate and get out of our home and do something that’s going to bring up our energy levels as well.
I think about the days because you remember we’ve got the same age daughters at fourteen. In 10 or 20 years, what are the things that we are going to be able to do together? I recognize there won’t be all these things that we are doing now, walking, hikes, exercise, going somewhere and kayaking. There’s something in that connection of fitness. It doesn’t mean you have to go out and do some super-intense workout. Our middle son loves to hike. You take him on a bike ride or a hike and he’s in his world. As we look at parenting later in life, that’s where coming back to these things, you are almost planting seeds for later. Do things with them later.
I always tell parents, even when I’m coaching dads, is, “Set a physical goal that you and your child could do together as a team. That gives you a 6-month or a 3-month window to train or set or prepare. It’s almost like you guys are forcing yourself into this relationship where you have to be together, grow and learn together.” We were doing it every year with my daughter. My daughter loves mountain climbing. I’m interested in hiking up mountains. We were picking different spots and going to different mountains. Every year we were picking the summer trip and we do a mountain hike together.
Her name’s Sierra, which means mountain top. Eventually, we wanted to do the Sierra Mountains when she turned eighteen. That’s a long-term goal for us. When COVID hit, that changed. Every year we hit up, pick a mountain and try to set it as a little trip. Me and her, that’s our thing. We will climb the mountain together, have that venture. My son, now we’re doing the marathons. We are going to set a marathon every year. We set little physical goals that you guys are forced to train, spend the time and then accomplish together and have these memories built-in that memory bank that one day we were not here, they were always going to remember that stuff.
It’s such a cool goal to have. You were trying to do something similar where we tap into the competitive side. We’ve got the Peloton. My daughter and I are like, “You are going to ride. We are going to track how many rides you do. I’m going to ride with you.” It’s a fun competition. It’s one of those times where I hope I don’t win that she beats me. Let’s shift gears because this is an interesting topic that I know with your background and with me being in the mortgage. You had TrueBlue Homes you built this company. I was in housing now. It might be different in Canada than States. It’s crazy, the inventory and multiple offers. People can’t seem to get offers accepted because there are so many people that want the limited inventory that’s there. I would love to get your take on that company because that’s an interesting side of you is we were getting to know each other. You have built these companies but in housing and all these different things, how did you get into that? Was that something you wanted to do earlier in life? What was the backstory to that one?
Grab a simple book. The book is the cheapest and fastest way to educate yourself. Click To TweetThe company is called TrueBlue Homes. It is started off as a necessity. That’s the way my mind worked. I had built all these companies. We hit eight figures by then. We were doing extremely well, great company. The problem is I always had that mindset where, “If something were to happen to me, get sick, get cancer, hit by a car, 3 months, 4 months, will this company be sustainable without me over the long haul?” You are always hoping it will be but you always had that mindset where, “If something were to happen to me, what do my children truly have?” Especially with my son’s history, I didn’t know his future.
His future is altered and changed and he’s on the path to having an incredible future but we didn’t know his future with all the medical issues he was having. I wanted to have something sustainable. I started off with that company. I wanted something that’s sustainable, that would grow over the years’ value-wise. There’s nothing more sustainable than real estate if you buy it at the right price and then something that will bring passive income. All my real estate is either commercial or vacation rentals. I built them into separate businesses where they are bringing all this passive income. Everything I have done, even for my vacation rentals if it was a studio apartment, I would buy two of them.
If it was a two-floor loft, that would be two of them. Both kids would have their own. That’s what I have done through the process. I know you are a mortgage guy. I don’t believe in the mortgage. I pay everything upfront. I bootstrapped it where I said, “For four years, I was going to save.” First one bought it. I would do the same thing for the next twelve months through my main company, save, bring in the rental income and buy the second one. We have been doing that now for years. We have cumulated nine properties in nine years through that. The goal is to be doing that every single year for one property because now everything starts adding. It becomes easier. It is a long play.
The goal is to have twenty properties by the time twenty years have passed. It’s a long play but it becomes easier every year. 2020, the world went to crap. The government said, “No short-term accommodations. You are allowed the rent.” We have to find some loopholes. It slowed down in 2021, but I said, “I still need a piece of property.” I have never done this before but I went across Canada to British Columbia and I picked up a pre-sale condo by the water. It’s something I can invest. Don’t worry about it for four years. In four years, I will deal with it. In my head, I still pick up a piece of property that year. I keep my goal constantly rolling in the right direction.
Being in the mortgage business but I’m also one of those real estate investors as well. There’s a time and place for the mortgage but I love how you said this, you did save up to pay cash and you started the process. Sometimes people think, “One, I’ve got to do that and have all cash.” Some people think, “I need no money down.” There’s probably a balance in there. Find what works for you and your risk tolerance. Especially in our sport as I call it in the mortgage, our job is to help educate people, to get the right type of debt if they are going to take a mortgage out on their home. The other stat was close to almost 40% of all homes in the United States now are free and clear. It’s never going to make the news or be something incredibly sexy there. I think about people if they want to build this wealth. You went into real estate. We have a lot of our readers that want to get into real estate. Let’s talk about once you’ve got through those first couple properties. Were you looking for cashflow then to put in the next or are you looking to continue to pay cash? What was your strategy?
I have always been the cash mindset. For every single real estate deal that I have ever done, I have never involved a real estate agent. I have always knocked on doors and found the deals myself. I find a lot of people are always looking where the populated areas are. I try to forecast where the next movement is going to be. I try to look in those areas and at something that we could upgrade ourselves so we are buying at a lower cost, upgraded it, sit on it. We have four properties in a place called the Blue Mountains. It’s a four-season resort area with skiing, summer biking. It’s constantly building with this beautiful, incredible village with about 40 restaurants, 60 boutique shops, completely incredible place.
When I purchased there, everybody was purchasing in the village and I say, “I’m going to purchase next door to the village.” Which is a four-minute drive from the village. These were 34-year-old condos that were built pre-village. I already knew one thing that they are grandfathered into the city. I did my research knowing that if the village automatically decided to change any rules or regulations, we would be grandfathered in and we wouldn’t be part of that. I did that on purpose. I focused on buying them. They are all for profits. They are since then. The village has taken over all the rentals. Now they are taking anywhere from 47% to 40% of the rental fees. Mines, I still rent them myself. I deal with everything myself through our company.
We don’t have to stress about that. We are grandfathered in. We have full control of everything. We can do our own rentals. Being able to sit down and look at all the options. Buy smart. We have probably had a 500% increase in value on those four properties in the last several years. Overnight, you are sitting there, like, “How does this happen financially?” It does happen. I bought 16 acres of land in a place called Muskoka. It’s forestry and water. It’s a beautiful area in Northern Ontario. I saw an opportunity. I bought 16 acres for pennies on the dollar off somebody that needed to get rid of the land. I sat on it. I started building little cabins on it. We built up six cabins on it. Since COVID, no one is traveling, everybody wants to stay local and camp, the property has gone up about 700% to 800%. You look at opportunities. These opportunities are there.
The issue is people are always looking in the busy markets thinking, “This area is so hot. I’ve got to jump on here.” When you are doing that, all of a sudden, it becomes a bidding war and the market is not changing. What I do is I look at an area that I forecast is going to take off. I purchase and knock on doors. I don’t deal with real estate agents. I will spend a weekend knocking on doors and seeing who wants to sell in that area and then I will find something. Opportunities come in. We have Kijiji, which is forming your Craigslist. I look at people there and they list properties on that stuff. You would be surprised what stuff you could find.
I love that you committed to a strategy, which a lot of people follow this trend and are like, “Everybody’s buying over here. I’m going to go there. Everybody’s doing this.” If you spend a little extra effort and time, you might find the right investment. It might not look super sexy. You are buying land or twenty-plus-year-old properties. You’ve got to do your homework to know where to invest. I have often found, for many of us, taking the talents and skills we have, especially as entrepreneurs, you can then apply it into this and do a little bit of homework. I’m always curious because we see all this entrepreneur movement and all this stuff here, if you were going to rate some of the top skills that have played out for you or that you think other successful entrepreneurs need to have going forward, what are those?
It’s something I preach all the time. There are three skills I feel like every single high school needs to start implying into their curriculum it’s, sales, networking and public speaking. If you can master these three skills, no matter what you do, you will be successful in life. That could be a 9:00 to 5:00 job. You can move up to this eventually, the president or CEO. You need to master those three skills. You need to be able to sit in front of a group of people and comfortably relate your message, which is public speaking. You need to be able to sell yourself whether you’re selling yourself to a relationship, a car dealer or your employees, you are constantly selling your message.
Entrepreneur Dad: 7 Keys to a Successful Business and a Happy Family Life
If you can master how to sell something, you are never going to succeed. The last is networking. You could sit there all day long and tell me how much money you have in your bank and then have no networks to utilize that money. Networking is so important because many of you open up your network and you open up with the internet, we could network anything. I network with 12 to 15 new people every single week. I have it marked on my calendar. That might be a copy of friendship but I know what that person does and how I could help them or how they could help me. If you build that relationship, their network becomes your network and you start growing. It’s like LinkedIn, you start growing. Before you know it, you have thousands of people, that with one phone call, could change your path. Networking is so powerful as well.
In my twenty-year career and I go back to even sports, I’m glad I had some mentors early in my life that taught me some of those skills and I joke a lot of time sport, it was like basic level networking. If you weren’t liked by your team, you wouldn’t get past the ball. They wouldn’t hang out with you after the games. You need to learn how to do that. Sales, sometimes you’ve got to sell yourself to the coach to make sure you are there. In business, those are overlooked. You coach a lot of people in this. I have watched you navigate through all three of those. You engage, add value and you affirm other people. You have this cool style and vibe that I pick up on. You can tell if people are real or not because you are watching them. You were like, “How do they interact with other people?” Let’s go a little bit older than our kids. Those kids that are juniors, seniors in high school, where should they start to learn those three skills to get better if it’s not taught in their school?
When I and you grew up it was a different world. Nowadays, you could go on YouTube, type in whatever you were looking for and you have a free education. For a younger generation not to learn something is because they don’t want to or they don’t take the time to understand how to. Grab a simple book. The book is the cheapest, fastest way to educate yourself. You have to look at a book. My mindset with the book is you are taking everything good that somebody’s done in 15 or 20 years, not the bad, usually the good. You are skipping all the struggles they had. You are going to take those for $20 and 1 or 2 weeks of your life, you are taking all that twenty years of knowledge from somebody else.
You might want to take one thing out of that book but that one thing to change and alter your path drastically was having that mindset of being open to utilizing everything we have around us from books to YouTube to the internet. I’m a strong believer in studying people. Find people that you want to be or to achieve. What are they doing right? Study them. See the way they talk and act, who they hang out with, the way they present themselves, how present, vulnerable and authentic they are. If one thing I could teach myself and I wish I taught myself a lot earlier is to be yourself, be authentic. Screw trying to impress people.
When you are going through the stage of 19, 20, 21 and 22, you go through that mindset of, “I’ve got to impress somebody.” You are always trying to sell yourself. You don’t. As long as you love yourself and you believe in yourself, things come. Things will work out. Stop trying to impress people. We live in the age of social media where everybody is constantly trying to impress themselves. They are always looking for that light or that comment to generate that euphoria, that good feeling, which you don’t need. The minute you understand that is nothing to do with that to add value, serve and do as best you can to help others and be authentic about it, it will somehow work its way out. It always does.
I struggled with that too, growing up. Even in business, trying to climb the corporate ladder in my first company. You wake up one day and you were like, “Who am I?” It’s almost like you want to get that little dopamine hit and you were like, “I need people to accept and affirm. What great wisdom.” What I have found is the sooner and the more real I’ve got, “This is who I am. This is what I do. These are the things I like. Don’t lie. This is what I stand for. This is what I don’t stand for.” You have that dividing line. It’s like, “This is my tribe. These are the people that are with me.” You know if they are with you. It’s when you get clear on who you are and your point. You are not doing it because of likes. It’s like, “I’m going to add value. I’m going to put this out there.” The more you do it, the more you are going to have some people that don’t agree. I had a great mentor tell me, “As soon as you can create some of that divisiveness, that will feel strange at first if you are going to have people for you and against you, the ones that are against you or maybe your point of view, or they have things that they value differently. It’s not personal.” When you can shift to that, it was a paradigm shift.
You hit your peak when you could literally flow and not care who's hanging on anymore. Click To TweetSomebody says something to me and it resonated with me. It’s sometimes hard for people to understand or gasp. As much as you try to understand and grasp that there are good people in this world, everybody is going to be your cheerleader until you do better than them. As sad as it is, once you start doing well, you are going to realize who’s on your boat and ready for that cruise with you. It’s okay if there are only 1, 2 or 10 people. You don’t need those thousand. Get there, be proud of who you are. When you turn around, whoever is still there, those are the right people that will be there for you. Have that mindset.
It might have been Gary Vee. One of them said something similar to that where the people that aren’t playing on the same level that you either want to be at or you are at are probably ones that will give you the most negative criticism there. People that are playing at a higher level are not paying attention.
You realize quickly is the higher you get and the quicker those people start showing their true colors and you are able to cut them out of your life. It’s like a balloon. You are going to be able to get higher because you don’t have that dead weight holding you down all the time, that negativity, resentment holding you down. All of a sudden, you start flowing the balloon and everything starts coming together. When you hit your peak, you could flow and not care who’s hanging on anymore.
I don’t know if you saw this or found this to be true but I probably connected up with the group, including yourself and all of these people. If I were to group them, the most influential people in my life in a long time was a season of growth that we were pushed and catapulted into. Yet more than half of them, I have never met in person. I’ve got to meet a couple. We would never have thought that would be happening. We would meet these people that are so influential. Let’s say they have a network of 3 or 4 people. I’m now connected with 4 or 5 people who are connected to 4 or 5 people. I realized that quickly was I didn’t understand the true power of that association. I have read about it, studied it and tried to put myself in their situations when you start putting yourself around that one person, who then can be the catalyst. I don’t know if you experienced that.
2020 showed how small the world is. Second, it forced people to pivot. The ones that truly pivoted are the ones that are setting that bar at the next level. You could see that small group. Somehow, they were all connected. I know who you are talking about. The ones that are faking it will be dropped off because you will see which ones are faking it quickly. It has been an incredible year of networking with incredible individuals.
Oftentimes, we think about it, “Let’s get on this big stage. Let’s get this massive podcast launched over here.” We are thinking big, which is great. Have dreams and goals. In 2020, I reached out to certain people that I didn’t know, but it was an act of faith. I was like, “I’m going to reach out to this one person.” That one person turns out like we are connected and vibe. You don’t know who that one person could be. One thing I learned is being yourself, adding value and connecting with them. Now on social, you can find out a lot about people and if you vibe or not. If you do, you could be one person away.
Let’s shift gears again. You have done so many things here. Let’s jump into the writing of the book and coaching. There are some overlap there of how you are sharing your experiences and how you shifted into that. You are building businesses and you have this ability clearly that you can create companies and make money. That’s one area. Shifting into coaching. For people out there that are either being coached or want to be a coach, what have been some of the lessons you have learned as your business, in that arena, started to expand and you are starting to now grow this out a bit?
I have been an entrepreneur for several years. Coaching is always something I had that mindset of doing but I always had that mindset where I want it to be able to say, “I’m going to coach you. I created A, B, C, D, E. I have created this much wealth.” I wanted to build myself out. I’m 44, probably in my late 40s, early 50 when I was going to start coaching. I’ve got to the point where I was like, “There are a lot of people asking for my advice and my help.” I ended up in three years taking 64 entrepreneurs under my wing. I never charged a penny.
Why I did that, it was more, one, helping. Second, serving but also building a proof of concept and also building on testimonials. I could build these networks where people are going to do a video testimonial and say, “I worked and I not worked.” I could tweak out the good and bad from it. I spent about three years doing that. My goal was going to do that for another couple of years and still run my businesses and then the pandemic hit. One thing I have been passionate about for the last several years and with my son is fatherhood and parenting. I have studied, learned and sucked in as much mentoring as possible. I embraced that whole aspect of my life.
All of a sudden, I sat there and was like, “Maybe it is the right time. Pandemic hit, I had a little bit more free time. Let me see if I could dive into the coaching.” It came to a realization as I started networking with other entrepreneurs, there was a huge separation from fatherhood and business. It felt like they were struggling to keep that “balance” going. I started interviewing young entrepreneurs. This is the best part. I was getting these successful entrepreneurs on my podcast. Huge social media followings, great young entrepreneurs with great businesses. They all have the same story. They had to prove their dad wrong. It was this battle to show their dad that they could do it.
I was like, “These guys have all struggled with their dads.” At the end of the podcast, they would all ask me, “Jeff, how are you so successful? What issues you have with your dad?” I’m like, “I had a great childhood. I had the most amazing child. I had no issues.” There are some gaps there. That’s when I started honing in and saying, “I need to figure out a way to create and be able to help as many entrepreneurial dads as possible.” It took six months to build this platform. The Mans Purpose was built. The whole idea of this is to be able to help thousands of men scale up businesses to become millionaires, at the same time, to learn how to be good dads. That was my skill. Essentially, it was a platform for entrepreneurial dads.
That’s where that all led into over a good 6to 7-month period of building it. Through the process, talking about the book, I thought, “You need to add some value there.” That’s when I took pen to paper, started writing my story and writing lessons I have learned into a book. It all came together. I’m goal-driven. When I said something, it’s done. I set myself in April 2021. I set these hefty goals. I said, “In twelve months, I want to have over 100 podcasts. I want to have a certain amount of downloads. I want to have a number one selling book, get certified as an NLP life coach and build a platform. I want to get my original businesses back to where they were.” I set all these massive goals and I was able to crush them all in twelve months because I’m goal-oriented and I’m specific, “This is what I’ve got to do and let’s get it done.” I’m a strong believer. You see successful people and you see people that are not successful. We all have 24 hours in a day. There’s no reason why I’m doing it and somebody else is not doing it. They need the tools to learn how to get there. If they are driven, they need the tools. That’s why Mans Purpose is to build all these tools in place to help these entrepreneurs.
As you go through that, you can tell the passion you have for it. For the readers, think about where your passion is. A lot of times, that’s where you are going to want to spend energy and effort. You went through this. You didn’t just sign up and said, “I’m a coach now. I’m going to start coaching you.” With the number of skills and expertise required, you went and put yourself out there to learn.
I read something, I know he’s precise with saying this, is Ed Mylett. An incredible individual that’s exceeded well past most people’s expectations. He’s created incredible wealth for himself. He said something, “If you hire a coach and more than 5% of their business is all from the coaching business, then you are hiring the wrong coach.” His mindset is, if you are going to hire somebody for coaching, they should better have other businesses or other stuff they have built or done to back up their coaching ability. You were not just hiring a coach as a full-time coach. That was one thing I took and understood from afar. I realized you have to be able to build knowledge, awareness and skills to be able to pass them on. You don’t just go there and be like, “I’m going to be your coach.” You ended up coaching guys who were more successful than you. It never works out properly.
I’m part of Arete Syndicate with Andy and Ed. It’s a great group there. That’s stuck with me because I always had this rub of like, “I have worked with coaches and a lot of them and there are different ones, different seasons. I’ve got some mentors over here.” That stuck with me as well because I’m doing something similar where I mentor. I call it more mentor but it could be called coaching where I’m doing it for free. People come into my life and I felt like we connected on that level and I’m helping. To put myself out there as a coach and to go into that lane when we are running a successful team over here, I’m like, “It’s not.” Everybody that’s thinking about becoming a coach, I hope you understand what went into this. That’s such a great piece is all the energy and effort you are doing but you are still simultaneously running these businesses.
The lessons I’m learning running a business and growing a massive team are life lessons to coach someone. If I’ve got out of the game that I’m in now, leading our team at loanDepot and in the mortgage, I’m losing life lessons over here. It can only be run through this cycle in housing now. I have been through enough of these. This is a season that there are going to be a lot of lessons learned. That’s how we then can transfer. What is something that you are either hearing or working on yourself? I’m always curious about this. As things are shifting a bit, people are getting back out. I know you are locked down but what are you looking at or hearing that people are trying to work on that may be an obstacle for them or that next opportunity that’s coming up as you envision it?
One thing that people have to work on a steady basis is understanding a simple word like a pivot. Pivot is such a strong word. People that haven’t pivoted are the ones who have all struggled. It’s something I have mastered over the years but it’s something I’m constantly working on, is studying every field I’m in, studying the market at a 6to 12-month pace ahead of us and trying to understand how to master that. That’s something I and everybody struggle with. It’s sometimes hard to tone in but if we could learn how to understand and be ready ahead of time for each pivot, your business will succeed. If you look Canada-wide, we hit the 11,000 mom-and-pop restaurants that have all locked their doors.
If you hire a coach and more than 5% of their business is all from the coaching business, then you're hiring the wrong coach. Click To TweetI have talked to quite a few mom-and-pop restaurants. They were having record years because they pivoted towards online ordering, SkipTheDishes, Uber Eats, working their local neighborhood and doing free deliveries. All of a sudden now, people are home, they were getting more orders than they have ever had before. They were getting lunch orders that they never had before because they learn how to pivot. Something simple like pivoting and understanding how to pivot and understanding how to read the market in whatever industry you were in, look at the history and the trends. History repeats itself. It doesn’t matter where you are. Learn how to understand those lessons from the ones before you that have suffered from it and then study them and not make those mistakes yourself. A lot of people start a business and they were like, “Go.” I started a business and I’m like, “Go. What did that guy do? That was wrong. Next. Go.” Learn from other people’s mistakes. Don’t make them your mistakes.
That is how we learn and grow. It was part of why I even started the show. The last event I did in-person in 2020 in Texas. I remember talking about, “What’s the number one skill that you think people are going to need?” Little did I know, in a month, we are going to be shut down. I talked about adaptability. Pivoting, the same kind of deal. The people that adapt quickly see an opportunity and don’t wait around, don’t spend forever thinking about it, don’t wait for the business to go completely under, willing to take that risk and pivot, adapt could be the skill that you learned. I do think it’s much like a muscle that when you start to use it and it starts to become second nature, where it’s like, “That road is closed. We are going to go this way.” I’m not going to sit there and analyze it, look things up, do all this. Sometimes in life, you need to move quickly and adjust to that and pivot to the opportunity. It will not wait for you.
The easiest lesson to learn, this is something you hear all the time and is something that you have to keep saying and repeating over and over because I feel like people do not seem to understand it. It’s the question everybody seems to ask. When I get people joining the Mans Purpose or asking for coaching, they always come to me like, “Jeff, I have these great ideas. I was thinking of starting in six months.” The simplest answer to every question when somebody comes to you and they have a great idea or a great concept, want to pivot, change or alter, now is the day. Stop waiting for tomorrow. There is no tomorrow. All we have is time as a currency. Every day we pass is one day farther away from our goal.
If you’ve got something to do, you start it now. Start the ball rolling. Stop wasting time. The individuals that had that mindset where, “I’m going to start it now and not going to waste time on it,” are the ones that get to the next level a lot faster. Once you get to the top, it’s easy to kick those peoples on the top of the head that try to climb that up with you. With that mindset, you’ve got to be out the gate. Do not wait to be last at the party. You’ve got to go and see the opportunity and go for it. If you have something in your head, do it now. Start the wheels in motion. If you don’t know how to start it, find somebody that has done it and ask questions.
There are a whole bunch of people who have come to me in the last little while. One individual, I had a long conversation with can’t afford to coach. I had to see the potential in this guy. I messaged him after we started talking. He called me, we started talking, wanted to hire me. He’s like, “Jeff, I’m going through a situation right now. I can’t afford this.” I’m like, “I see the potential in you. I’m going to coach you. I’m not going to charge you.” He messaged me back and he was like, “When did we start to go?” “We start it after our phone call. We are starting now.” Have that mindset. Go with the flow. I have never been the type of the way for anything. I have always had that mindset. I’m going to tell you a little story about my sixteenth birthday. This is how my mind was even at sixteen. I’m sure it was the same in the US, before you get your license, you would have to do the written driver’s license, which we called the 365. Back then you would do that, and you are allowed to go for your license the next day.
You didn’t have to wait six months. I was obsessed with Superman. On my sixteenth birthday, I told my friends I was going to get a Superman tattoo. My friends told me I was crazy. I and my buddies skipped high school, skipped the afternoon, jumped on the public transit, drove to Downtown Toronto. I’ve got a tattoo. I did my 365 and I went to look at my first car. I took my dad’s car the next day. I’ve got my license three days later and bought my first car in six days. It was a mindset. People always wait. I always had to be the one that’s, “Go, go, go.” I always had that mindset and I still have it. Don’t wait for things to happen for you and don’t expect people to do things for you. Get it going. Along the way, you are going to find incredible people that will help you in your journey but you’ve got to start the process by yourself.
If you are tense about anything, start now. This is what I love about these conversations, are they always take shape and things come out like that that anyone can apply no matter where you are. That’s what I enjoy. Jeff, it has been awesome. I know people are going to want to follow you. Get more information about where you are. Where can they follow you the best to connect up with you to know you more and engage along in your journey?
We are on all the platforms. We are most of the time on Instagram, @JeffLopes. If you are an entrepreneurial dad, I have created this incredible platform. It’s not even about the money. It’s about building a community. We are charging 47 CAD which is $35 a month. You get coached once a week. We hold your accountability with an OnTrack program. We have you on a reflective journey. You are getting $700, $800 worth of coaching a month for $35 a month. It’s not about the money. It’s building this massive community that everybody’s helping each other and growing together. You can check our Mans Purpose program at JeffreyLopes.com. Brian, I appreciate you and this platform. It has been another incredible conversation. I can’t wait for the border to open so I can eventually come meet you in person.
Until then though, I’m going to be following along, cheering you on. This has been another great episode. I can’t wait to share more. If you’ve got value out of this, make sure you like, subscribe over on Apple iTunes, give us a rating, all the review stuff. I don’t ask for that a lot but I will ask because I feel like we are going to be leveling up a lot this 2021 as well and sharing value. We want to make an impact. Let us know how we are doing with that, guests that you want to have. Always remember, we are all on a journey somewhere in our life. There’s an area we know we feel that tug that we need to learn and grow. As Jeff shared, act now, don’t wait. Make sure you take action and that’s going to lead you to your next successful endeavor. Thank you, Jeff. We will catch you at the next show.
Thank you.
Important Links:
- Jeff Lopes
- Podcast – Jeff Knows Inc.
- Dad Up Podcast
- Show – Dad Up Podcast past episode
- TrueBlue Homes
- Blue Mountains – Facebook
- Mans Purpose
- Arete Syndicate
- @JeffLopes – Instagram
- Apple – The Brian Covey Show
About Jeff Lopes
Jeff Lopes is a proud father of two, a husband, and a entrepreneur for the past 25 years. Jeff has founded numerous companies from inception to 7 & 8 figure Corporations. Included in these is TrueBlue Homes, a portfolio of vacation rentals properties across the Northern parts of Ontario, Canada and Kimurawear a boxing / martial arts equipment brand that was founded in early 2006 out of his own basement. Jeff is currently a host of a top-rated entrepreneurial podcast Jeff Knows Inc.
Over the past four years he has coached countless entrepreneurs in balancing the obstacles of fatherhood and entrepreneurship, and achieving a higher levels of success in both area. As Fitness Leadership College Graduate and certified NLP Master & Life Coach. As a Best Selling Author, Jeff has taken all his experiences to create Mans Purpose the fastest growing community of Entrepreneur Dads on the planet.
