Mit 0 Dollar in Kalifornien gestartet: Workshop-Case

0:00Unternehmer/Gast And I get it. And I think that the more visceral that we can make these stories, the better it is because I know that that's what would have resonated with me cuz I would have gone, that's an undeniable stack of proof that you were where you said you were. I'll tell you one that maybe will resonate with somebody in the audience. So I remember when I decided to move. So I moved to California to start a gym or get into fitness. And I got there and the guy who I said I was going to mentor under was like, "Where are you staying?"

0:29Alex And I was like, "I don't know. I just got here." And he's like, "What do you mean you don't know?" I was like, "I don't know. I just I just showed up." And so he went, he said I could sleep at his place that night. The next morning went to the gym and he got on a chair and said, "Hey, who here is going to house this kid?" And one guy came up to me. He was like, "I'll give you a room." So I rented one room in a house for 400 bucks a month. And then when I left that room to start sleeping at the gym, which was an hour away cuz I couldn't make the commute. So I save 400 bucks a month. I remember being actually kind of excited about it. I remember being like, man, this is going to be story. Yeah, this is going to be I'm going to be this is my rocky cut scene, right? But the thing is that the rocky cut scene lasts 30 seconds in the movie, but it can last 5 years in your life. And when I was sleeping on the gym floor, I'll give you a detail that that'll tell you that the un the stack of undeniable roof. um was that I my first gym was underneath of a parking garage and so there's these metal dividers in the ceiling and so cars would drive over this and it's a concrete box and so it sounded like a gunshot like and it would happen at all hours of the night and probably the most painful from an emotional perspective experience that I would have on a regular basis was that it was also abandoned enough parking lot that college kids my age would go up and party on the roof. And so like while they were partying literally above my head and making noise that would prevent me from sleeping, I would be down below in an inc in a dark warehouse in a city that I knew no one. Like I was from Baltimore. I drove across the country. I went to Huntington Beach. I literally knew no one and no one knew me. And [snorts] so I'm sleeping there and then I realized that I can't really sleep at night. And so I'm I'm taking basically I'm living on naps for the first 6 months of the gym.

2:11and like homeless people are sleeping in my parking lot and I have to like go out and tell them to like go away and then I get back lock the door and I go back on the astroturf which is where I slept with a blanket and a pillow and I I bring this up because like the visceral feeling that you go through when you're going through the mound of [ __ ] period or the [ __ ] eating what feels like a marathon is that it's it becomes a 30-second sound bite in my story.

2:40>> Yeah. But it was years. And so like even to the same degree of like, man, you're such a [clears throat] natural salesman. The first job I ever got offered out of college was a sales job. And I said, I'm not a salesman. I'm an academic. Gh. And then as soon as I opened my gym, I was like, oh [ __ ] how do I pay rent? And someone walked in the door and I was like, please give me money. Uh, I promise. And I I had no equipment in my gym cuz I I couldn't afford any. So it's an empty gym with just turf. And I was like, I promise you I will get you amazing results. And they were like, are you going to be here tomorrow? And I was like, I I sleep here. I have to be here.

3:10I promise I'll be here. Right? It's impossible for me to not be here. >> I can't live. I can't leave. Right? And so the early people took pity on me when they literally paid the f the first 29 members I signed up in the first two weeks before the gym opened was from pity. It wasn't from charisma. It was pure pity. I'll be real with you. And it was the exact amount that I needed to pay rent. And I remember the first month of rent that I paid with, this is actually wild. I only I only looked at this in retrospect. I made exactly $4,972 in my first month of my gym. My rent was $4,972.

3:43And I remember working like a dog to get that. I'd never made money in my life. Like I'd never like really asked anyone for money. And all of a sudden, I had come up $5,000 in a month. And then at the end of the month, I watched it go to zero. And then I was like, I have to do it again. And that was when like the reality of the situation of like there was no escape. There was no one who was going to come to save me. And there was I couldn't blame my dad. I couldn't blame my mom. I was the one who had chosen this life. But the alternative was that I had to go back to my father, a failure, and have him look in look me in the eyes and say, "I told you and come here. Come here. Don't worry about it. You know, I told you this this gym stuff, this fitness stuff, this starting your own business. It's it's for later.

4:21It's fine. Just go back. Hey, you you've got this you've got this great degree. You've got just go to the go to the business school to do the thing." And I knew exactly what had happened. But what would have happened after that is that for the rest of my life, he would have had absolute authority over everything that I did. And that felt like death. And so that was what I ran away from when I was in that moment. Like whenever I felt like my back was against the wall and I didn't know what to do. And it felt like the Instagram reels of like the motivation weren't going to get me through what I was going through because no one cared that I was sleeping alone.

4:48I'd let them know I'm sleeping on the floor. And a month later when you're still sleeping on the floor once, everyone's like don't care. Like great, you're pursuing your dream. Right. Right. Early days. [laughter] >> Yeah.