How To Create Wealth and Happiness with E. A. Csolkovits

00:00 In this episode of the Team Superdad podcast, I talk creating health, wealth and happiness with 64-year-old serial entrepreneur mentor and dad E.A. Solkovitz. Role theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Hey dads, welcome, welcome, welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. It's great to have you back here. If it's your first time, well, thanks for finding us. I don't know how, but I'd love to know actually. Probably search, probably, well, in fact, a referral.

00:44 That would be lovely to know. It'd be lovely to know that people are referring and recommending the podcast. And for our regular listeners, it's a real pleasure to have you back here with us. This is the midweek episode of the Team Superdad podcast, where we speak to someone, a specialist, an expert, someone who's been successful, has life experiences in an area of the F5. That is focus, fitness, finance, family, and fun. These are the five elements that run right through the Team Superdad community, through our Hero Academy program. In fact, everything we do is all about those five elements to creating the life that you desire so you can be the man you want and the dad your family needs.

01:27 And well, EA, he is no exception to this. The guy is an absolute, well, he's a beast, really. He's done so many things. He was a millionaire at the age of 23. First year of personal income exceeding a million was in 1989. He owns a thousand acre wildlife sanctuary. He's a commercial pilot, a black belt, a second degree black belt. He's advanced Paddy certified scuba diver. It's like the guy is just a machine, right? He's an author. Some of his companies, a couple of them in his bio, he had a team of over 33,000 members of staff.

02:10 And so, you know, he talks about health, wealth and happiness, which if you are a regular listener to the podcast, you will have seen that that is on our show notes. It's on our podcast artwork as our kind of tagline. And so it was great to meet him and connect with him and have him on the Team Superdad podcast. Now, he's got a free questionnaire that you can go and fill in and kind of get education, get lessons back from him and the Givers University team all about the difference between givers and takers, which

02:48 makes you snigger a little bit. It's like, Beavis and butthead, if we're going to talk about givers and takers, you wouldn't be your average bloke if that didn't make you laugh. But no, we're talking about the art of giving generously and or taking negatively in your everyday life. And so, you know, when I first set this up, I thought we were going to talk loads of tricks and strategies on business and stuff. But actually, when it all boiled down to it, what EA shared is that many of the businesses he started and been involved with, he didn't have a great deal of knowledge about before he got started in them.

03:25 But it's about who he's being, about the team that he creates, the people he puts around him that has really been part of that success. And he's a dad. He's a happily married man of something like 40 odd years. So we can all learn a lot from that. If this is of interest to you, and I hope it is, then please share it. Please subscribe to the podcast or to the any of the channels, the Team Superdad channels. The best way to get involved with those is if you go to teamsuperdad.com forward slash network. You can get the invite to our free group and through all the information that comes out through our different channels to the different members. If you're a dad looking for dad coaching, then that's available at the website. You can chat to me about that.

04:07 Whether it's about breakups, whether it's about parenting, whether it's about just really feeling happier in your life and taking control of the areas that are important to you, then we do that. I do that one-on-one or we do that in the Hero Academy. It really is great to have you listening. I know you're going to love this episode and I'll see you on the other side. EA, good to see you, sir. Thanks for joining us today. My pleasure, Johnny. Thank you for having me on your spectacular podcast. Really, thank you. Ah, well, I appreciate you saying that. I'll ask you again at the end. Okay, I'll say it too. I'll say it.

04:50 That's always the test. But listen, we are here at Team Superdad. We focus on something I call the F5, which is focused fitness. finance, family, and fun. And when we got introduced, it was instantly apparent to me the success you've had in all of those areas. And then seeing the bio which you sent over, I also saw some of the failures that you've had in those areas. And that's such a powerful thing to share today with the Team Superdad community. It's just as not just inspiration, but also education as a man with your level of experience

05:31 can bring to the table. Tell us, just on a practical level, are you a dad? Where are you at? How's life right now for you? Yes. I'm 65 years old. First 30 years was in the Chicagoland area, the greater area of Oakbrook, for those that might be familiar with the greater Chicagoland area. And then moved to Michigan 35 years ago, which is where I'm at now. And have three children that have grown up and are on their own and been married 40 plus years. 40 years. Well done, sir. Happy. I've already prepped this question, so I'm okay to ask it.

06:12 But they were happy. They are still our happy years, correct? Well, and there's the difference, you know, and we were talking before the show. You know, I set out in life that I wanted to be rich and happy, and I didn't realize I had it backwards. First, I've need to be, I need to be happy. You know, we're trained early on in life that, you know, we get an education, we meet someone, we get married, and then we live happily ever after. It's backwards. We're supposed to be happy first and learn how to be happy and live happy first. And then all those things will get added to us as a result of that. And I had to learn through my defeats that even though I still maintain my marriage and, you know, am doing great and happily married, I can share with you that, you know, there was many challenges along the way in my personal life and my defeats in my personal life

07:04 that caused me to reach that epiphany and understanding that I need to be happy. And how do I be happy? And then that caused us to start to teach people something that just is not taught anywhere today. Yeah, it's so true. I mean, there's a whole subject that I've heard at different courses and programs I've been involved with, but they talk about we get taught and encouraged to, when we have something, we can do something, which means we can be something. But exactly what you're saying is we can be happy, whatever our circumstances are, then we can do things and then we can have something.

07:45 Or another way I've heard it said is to be a millionaire, sorry, to have a million, million of anything, you've got to start being it, thinking it, doing things before you can actually achieve it. But there's no point waiting till you've got a million before you start being a million, it doesn't matter, a billion, sorry, a million acre farmer. You can't be a million acre farmer without starting with one acre. That's for sure. And what you say is right on the money. My business mentor shared with me. He said, you know, because I told him I wanted to be a millionaire, right? And earn a million dollars in a year. And he taught me how to do just that. And I can share with you, his words were profoundly accurate.

08:23 He said, let me tell you, you will find out that earning a million dollars will be one of the easiest things you've ever done. He said, the most difficult will be believing you're worth it. And I found that to be 100% accurate. Well, I know that from sales, you know, making sales calls, enrolling people into something, rather than some selling you something, I'm enrolling you into a vision I've got for your life with our products. Without believing that, there's no, the conversations is dead in the water before it even starts.

09:02 So true, so true. And I found that to be exact, it was exactly the way he said it. And, you know, in retrospect, you know, because cliches are cliches because they're usually true, not always, but usually. And certainly hindsight is perfect vision in many ways. And because of the defeats in my life, I was able to learn while being mentored that there's a critical part today that is not being taught. And it represents two-thirds of our happiness and a big part of our life. And it simply is not being taught. I'm a self-improvement gig, Johnny, and I'm sure you are too. I like to improve myself an hour a day. And, you know, I mean, and every and the courses out there today talk about self-improvement, how important it is.

09:45 It is important. However, no one's teaching us about the other guy. What about if he's not doing it right? What do we do then? do then? And so we have sort of a tagline we use. It's called givers earn more because givers discern more. And I can share the following reference with your listeners. I'm going to ask them to think about this for a minute. Think about the fires in your life that you're stamping out. Think about the increased stress points in your life that interfere with your happiness quotient.

10:28 And I bet you dollars of donuts, there's a name attached to each one. And what happens is that no one's discerning the following today, Johnny, which I can share with you. I found to be critical. It was the reason I had these three major defeats was because I hadn't learned this. How to discern. So first of all, I want to say upfront, we love everybody. We love everybody as a foundation going forward in our conversation. We love everybody. So when we reference, and what we teach people is how to discern the difference between a person who we love

11:08 and their deeds, which we may not love. So we teach them how to separate those. So when I reference givers, I'm not referencing a person. I'm referencing the deeds. I'm labeling not the person, but the deeds of the person. When I reference taker, I'm referencing the deeds of that person, not the person themselves. So I don't want people to think, you know, we're labeling people because we're not. We love everybody. But we teach people how to discern. What are those things, Johnny? What are those things that when we see these specific kinds of deeds, not nebulous, innocuous deeds and just these broad swats people talk about, but specific things?

11:49 What are the things I should look for? And when I see these deeds, I may want to pull this person closer into my life as a part of my givers community I have around me. And if I see certain other deeds, specific deeds, when I see those, maybe I should consider respectfully distancing myself from those deeds before I become what we call unwilling collateral damage. And what happens is that these same things, Johnny, in our business life carry over in our family life because of the stress, because of the fires we're stomping out. The man comes home, asks the wife, how was your day? And he goes, man, I just had the worst day ever. Because all day long he was stomping out fires.

12:33 Why? No one taught him up front. What should he be discerning? Because there are ways where he doesn't have to be in that fire and stomping it out. But no one's teaching us how to discern. Got that. So, and by deeds, we're talking about things that people do. Exactly. Yeah. So just to kind of give some context to this, this is where you're at now. And it's part of the teaching that you do at the Givers University. I mean, we're talking about your career and your learning going back to

13:11 in Chicago, a millionaire by 23, 21, something like that. Oh, here we go. Yeah. You had a mentor, Sam Robbins. We'll talk about mentorships a bit later on. But I just want people to understand that what you're teaching us here today has been formulated on the basis of some sort of 48 years worth of work and success. You founded and ran organizations with tens of thousands of members of staff.

13:50 You've formulated a health and nutrition business, which is successfully run for over 45 years. Chairman of a House of Holland Jewelers at 21, hosted a talk radio show I've heard across the USA for five nights a week. You know, just it goes on and on, you know, the many thousands of people you've had work for you, the countless number of mentors, business advisors, peers that you've worked for of a very high level. And so when you're saying we, and we formulated this thing called the, you know, Givers University and what, you know, what it takes to be successful in life is about how much you give and how you relate to other people.

14:38 This comes from an incredibly deep basis of knowledge and experience. You're not just some dude that's come up with a random coaching program. program here. I really want people to realize that. And that's one of the things that I'm feel so privileged to have you on today. Because many dads will be having ideas about creating a business and they won't have found the guts quite yet to go and do it. Many people may have started a business and it might not be going quite as well as they want it to, or even they've got married and it's not going quite as well as they want it wanted to.

15:18 So, you know, a lot of what we're going to get stuck into here is, and what you've already started is about the inner dialogue and the outer actions that can lead to the kind of success that we all desire: the health, wealth, and the happiness. So, you know, what is a gift and what is a taker? You know, we've just started to sort of pre-see that as a second ago. Well, great question. And we discern them, the distinction, and we've proven statistically that 20% of the population are givers. They're wired as givers. Johnny, you put them in any situation. Doesn't matter what it is, family, business, social.

16:03 No matter what the situation is, in a short period of time, they will begin to figure out ways and they will begin giving to it, investing in it, helping it, and increasing it. They're givers. They're wired to do that. That's what they do. Conversely, on the other side of the Grand Canyon is what we call the takers. Remember, we're not labeling people. We're labeling the deeds of people. And 20% of the population are also takers. That means you put them in any situation. And within a short period of time, they will figure a way of taking from it spiritually, mentally, monetarily, financially, emotionally.

16:43 And it's those parts that cause challenges and friction in life, in families, in business, in being a great father or not-so-great father. And what we do is we look at the symptoms and then we realize and we analyze what the cause is. As an example, if I had a cold right now, some of the symptoms would be my eyes would be itchy, my nose might be running. Those are symptoms. Everyone knows those symptoms can be a sign of having a cold. The cold is the cause. So, what we do is we look at the symptoms and we say, identify these symptoms that people are doing. And then from those, you can determine the causal of that person.

17:28 And then from that, you can discern: do I want them closer in my life? Or am I about ready to become unwilling collateral damage that will increase my stress level straight up? My productivity will go through the floor. And I'm going to carry that over and bring it home to my family and everyone else. So we teach people how to discern these things so that they can increase their productivity and increase their happiness because now they're discerning up front and they're not in that situation when it happens. Yeah. And I guess does a lot of unhelpful judgment fall into play when we're reacting to those kind of people?

18:13 Do we make poor decisions in those situations? You used the perfect word, Johnny. The perfect word. See, that's why you have such a great podcast. That's it. When you said the word reacting to those things, that's exactly right. Example. In the medical community, if someone's given a prescription or a drug or something, if they say they're reacting to the medication, that's negative, right? It's not working for them. If they're responding to the medication, it's working for them. It's helping them. So when you said the word reacting, you nailed it. You were like Robin Hood, you know, split the arrow with the arrow. Because that's exactly what happened. When people respond to instances because they haven't learned how to observe, increase their awareness level, and discern, they are automatically put in these reactionary instances.

19:05 And because of that, they lose it. And when we discern and we observe and we're in our awareness level, first of all, most people don't even have that because it's not being taught. You know, our lives are so fast today, Johnny. Businesses coming and closing and opening faster than ever before. Products coming and going and being antiquated faster than ever before. So what do we have left? Our relationships. And no one's teaching us how to discern who do you want to have close to you so that your happiness level and productivity and your family life and all those things go up.

19:42 And who do you maybe want to consider? begin to respectfully, not nasty or being rude or insensitive, but just maybe not being available? And how what are the things, specific things you look for? So that maybe, just maybe, you may want to consider respectfully distancing yourself from them so you don't become that collateral damage and stomping out fires all day and not doing anything else. Yeah. And just for people that want to get an idea of this for their own life, like practically speaking, rather than wait till the end of the podcast, I'd like to put this up up front.

20:20 You've got a questionnaire that people can go and get for like a personalized sort of results that people can go and get for free, correct? Yeah, absolutely. It's actually a seven-question quiz. Simple, fast, less than five minutes to do. And the name of the quiz is called, What is your Givers and Takers Awareness IQ? And the seven questions, I mean, they're simple, easy, fast. Actually, a lot of people, I mean, sort of find a chuckle here and there in it. But what it does is it looks at a person's ability to observe and be aware and the beginnings of discernment. And then there's an actual assessment. There's different assessments based on what the answers are to their seven questions.

21:03 And they're multiple choice. They just click, click, click and select the answer that's sort of best for them. And then from that, they get an actual assessment. It's all free. We want them to do it because we're givers. That's what we do. And then also, we give them some things that are really valuable user tools in the next few days after. You know, there's, as an example, and I have three major defeats, and each one caused me to write a book. And that's how they came about. And the first book, we talk about what's called the Givers 25 Dues. What are the things that givers do, the things they do, their deeds, that we should be watching for? And what are those 25 things? And we give it, right? We'll give it right to your listeners. And it's a great checklist.

21:47 And they look at it and say, wow, this is, they immediately start saying, you know, I never thought about looking at that before. And I can use this right now as a part of my discernment with people I meet. One sec. Not yet. Tell Jay Go to. Okay. We'll come and bake a cake in a second. My daughter wants to bake a cake. So I said, so I said to her, Yes, we can bake a cake. And what was your address again? I'm over. I mean, what could we do? I'm over, buddy. We were just talking about Team Superdad. So I can. I can't exactly tell my daughter to go away.

22:30 Can I know? Of course, of course. That's great. Sorry, yeah. So the first, the first thing that's given, it's giversuniversity.info. That's what they call it. GiversUniversity. It's plural. www.giversuniversity.info. And when they go there, they're actually on the first page. They're on the first quiz. They're on the first question already. So it's that fast. They go right through it. And then we want to give them real nuggets as a benefit from your podcast, Johnny, that applicable things, not just this nebulous, innocuous talk that sometimes they hear or in trainings and stuff. What do I do now that I heard all this? And as my business mentor says, you know, you learned all that, but you hope the window stays closed because the second window stays open, the breeze comes through and blows it all away because there's nothing tangible there.

23:16 So we want to give, this is something you can use. It's a checklist. Look for these do's and it'll help guide you with that discernment. Yeah. So there's the link for people there in the live. And if you're listening on the podcast, then the link is in the show notes. It's absolutely totally free. I've just filled it in the other day, so I'm just starting to get my info coming through. And we love to share that sort of stuff at Team Super Dad. You know, it's, you know, flipping, EA hasn't paid to be on here. You know, this is literally a great guy who I'm really keen to have on the Team Super Dad podcast to be of value to our listeners and viewers.

23:57 So, yeah, so what you just mentioned, leaving that dangling tantalizingly in front of us for a man who's had as much success as you have. Oh, so you're from Chicago. Well, you started your story in Chicago. I call it my second city, my second home, because of how much family I've got there and how much time I've spent there. But my uncle Pat, he's got like a fabulous Baker Boys story. His family, he's from Ireland, so he's first generation Ireland. Boat over to New York, piece of paper, which he took to some vicar of the church. Give this to Uncle, give this to Father Mike, and he'll tell you what to do, you know. So gives it to Father Mike.

24:36 Father Mike sends him off somewhere else, you know, doesn't like it. Okay. take this piece of paper, give it to Father Thomas, and he'll, you know, and a couple of those trips, and he ended up in Chicago. Um, so and he'd, I mean, he's he's probably got his, he's died now, but um, my family, my uncle Paddy, Paddy O'Connor, he was an alderman in the 40th War, but you haven't lived in Chicago for 30 years, but you'd have been right around the same sort of age. You might have played American football against some of my uncles and stuff when you were when you were a kid. So I love, I love your accent. It's uh, it's reminding me of my family in Chicago. But um, yeah, these these failures, failures can, oh, I've got so many questions actually, I need to need to get a hold of my uh, my thoughts really.

25:21 So I'll come back to something you about givers university.info in a second. But these failures you alluded to moments ago, many people will not start a business because they're scared of failing. They'll have an idea that's in their mind. They've been thinking about it for years. They're unhappy doing their job. That unhappiness they're taking home, which is affecting their marriage. I found the festering idea that you're not acting on will hurt you far more than the possible failure that will come about not doing it. And you've been as successful as you have, but you talk about these three seismic failures.

26:00 Tell us about those and share some of the lessons that you've learned from those failings. And when you say seismic, I almost feel like they're being diminished. They were that big. I mean, I mean, at the time, they felt like, you know, whoa. And really, start just to digress on that thought. You know, I was raised. My father was a milkman in Chicago. He had a distributorship for a dairy. It was called Twin Oaks. And it was his own little, you know, one-man operation. And back in those days, Johnny, they had a box outside the house and milk came in glass containers. And the people put the money in the box. And everyone knew there was money in the box. No one touched it.

26:42 They just knew that was for the milkman. And the milk went in and the money came out. And he had his own little route, his own little distributorship. So I knew you could have your own business, but he was a milkman. This is small stuff. And so therefore, I was brought up with that kind of mentality. That was the environment I had, the environment of a milkman's son. And then I really got up and I really started to succeed in life when I became a janitor. That was my next step up. That was the biggest. I mean, I went for broke. I'm going to go for the next big rung up there in life. And I'm going from milkman's son to janitor. On the way up. That's right. But you know what? I didn't mind Johnny because business was always picking up.

27:26 What? Anyway, so the so the uh so here I was as a you know son of a milkman and and then I became a janitor and worked for a janitorial service in Addison, Illinois, which you're probably familiar with, right? A suburb of Chicago. Yeah, that's where the janitorial service was. And at 16 years old, I was able to be bonded, so you know, insured. And one of the homes we cleaned was of June Martino. And June Martino has the third, had the third most controlling stock in McDonald's. And well, she's passed on now, but I realize that.

28:07 Does she have old money? She just bought in early or what happened? I'm going to share the story because of how I got it. And so what happened with June was, you know, I was in there every week cleaning her house. And, you know, she seemed really nice and comfortable. She didn't seem like she was some kind of alien or superhero or real uppity or anything. She actually seemed really approachable, you know. But, you know, I thought, man, this is June Martinos. You know, she's Ray Kroc's personal secretary. In the movie, The Founder with Michael Keaton, you see him talk to his secretary, June. That's her. I mean, that's not really her. That's an actress, but that's June Martino. That's the lady that I'm talking about that I cleaned her house. And so, and she saw me every week because I was in there cleaning. So she knew who I was because every week.

28:48 And so one day she was in an extra good mood, Johnny. And I thought, oh man, this is my chance. I'm going to do it. And I just took up every bit of courage I had because this is June Martino and I'm approaching her and I'm a snot no 16 year old. And I said, June, can I ask you a question? And she goes, well, sure. You know, and knew who I was. And she sort of looked at me to the side. And I said, could you tell me about it? And she said, about what? And I said, McDonald's, how it all happened. I'm not kidding. Johnny, she put her arm around me, brought me in the kitchen, and the entire day told me the entire story from beginning to end. And she told me about the time. And it's actually referenced, the movie with Michael Keaton, very much Hollywoodized.

29:32 And, you know, so there were. were events, and it is based on certain events that did happen, but a lot of it was just made up in the movie. Here I am. I'm hearing it from the person, the lady that was there, right? And she told me about, and they reference it in the movie of a time where Michael Keaton, as the founder is Ray Kroc, realizes they're running out of money because he doesn't have enough percentage coming in off the franchises, right? And he has to call the brothers. That's a true story. That part did happen. And she said, Ray couldn't afford to pay me. So we made a deal that he would take my bill collector phone calls, keep the donors away from me, and in exchange, he would pay me in company stock in a worthless company because it was worthless.

30:15 It wasn't worth anything. And I thought, so I asked her, I said, June, I'm a janitor. I mean, I get paid on Friday. And if I don't get my check on Friday, I'm not showing Saturday. I'm not going to be there. I need that check on paycheck to paycheck. Why did you do it? And I could tell, Johnny, I asked her a question. Here's this little 16-year-old. I had just asked her a question no one had ever asked her before. And there was this vacant look as she stared at me. And I could tell she left. Mentally, she was gone because I had asked her a question to make her dig deep and didn't realize even what I'd done. And the answer she gave made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. Not only what she said, but the way she said it.

30:57 When I asked her, why did you do it? You know, why director's company getting worthless stock and not making money, not getting paid? Her answer to that question was, because I believed in Ray. And I thought, and my first instant thought, Johnny, was, I got to find me a Ray Kroc. I've got to find a Ray Kroc that I could believe in, that could mentor me, that could teach me, because I'm a burnt-out janitor, son. And at 16 years old, I'm already burnt out as a janitor. And my big time of the week is getting free songs in a jukebox, cleaning out bowling alleys at two in the morning.

31:35 That's my fun. So I need to find me a Ray Kroc. And it wasn't two or three months later, I found my Ray Kroc. Wow. And that was the Sam, Sam, Sam Robbins, yeah. Robbins. Yep, exactly. So it was, you know, in the world we live in today, the idea of getting a mentor, finding a mentor. It seems nowadays that people put it as a job title and not as something philanthropic they do for a young 16-year-old they believe in but it's still possible just you think it's still possible to inspire uh someone with more experience than than you to

32:16 to be your mentor to to be that accountability to be that advisor well it's one of the things you're doing with your great podcast you really are doing that i mean you you really have you know i could label your podcast as a mentor podcast um and and you know i mean there's not enough people teaching dads how to even be dads today you know they everyone's role is all goofed up and all blurred and you don't know who's what and doing anything and it's getting faster and faster and because it's getting faster and faster that's working against the the mentor mentory relationship uh and and people actually doing that that's one of the great things i think your podcast is

32:56 bringing to people to make it stop take a look and don't lose sight of the things that are so important when we get caught up with all these fast things of life yeah and i you know i appreciate you saying that thank you um and that's why we have the f5 focus fitness finance family and fun is that they're not individual pieces that you can pick and choose from you know if we're going to achieve happiness in our life and some people might say we don't need money to be happy we covered that bit already but i think it's jim rohn said uh money's not everything but it's right up there with breathing

33:36 you know my dad says to me you know son whatever's whatever's going on make sure you're having fun and uh and and and that's that's an attitude as well and that that's a way of being but people do get lost in all in all this right now working so hard to create happiness failing to realize that their wife is falling out of love with them and the kids don't even know them you know that's that's not happiness way too much today way too much today yeah yeah but um but the idea that we can have it all i get really frustrated when people say well that's ridiculous you can't have it all um because i think that's just as much an attitude and you used the word vibration earlier on in the show um saying

34:16 like well if you if you keep thinking that well then you're blooming well going to create that um we actually become our own self-fulfilling prophecies you know because of those things like you just said you know they uh and when people people talk about, you know, failure, you know, I've had a failure in life. And my business mentor said, one of the first things when he heard me use that word, he said, relabel that word, give it a new definition. He said, because failures, there's an eternal feeling with it. He says, temporary, temporary defeat. He said, make it temporary, then build on it. And he gave me the following phrase, which I'll never forget.

34:52 He said, every adversity, every adversity carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. So if we want those seeds, don't be afraid of the temporary defeats because those temporary defeats bring those seeds with them. And those are the things we build on. Yeah, so true. I wouldn't be where I am today doing what I'm doing if I hadn't been through two businesses that have had moments of success but ultimately failed. A marriage that started amazingly but ended up in pain and heartbreak.

35:34 Even fitness, you know, you work hard and then you get injured. You know, what does that mean? You're never going to run again. You might just learn that you need to stretch properly at the end of it. And I know from the dads in the community and dads I've coached people, you know, we work with this idea of, oh, I want to start something, but I'm so worried it's going to fail. I feel that as well. I'm not here as some Jedi guru who doesn't have those feelings, but we have to push through them. We absolutely have to push through them. And as someone who's founded and run a multitude of successful businesses, how do you keep going? You had to learn this, right? You had to learn that failures are just a stepping stone to success.

36:19 But you had to learn that along the way. So what were some of the breakthroughs that you had in overcoming an Inverted Commons failure? Well, I can share with you my first defeat if you want, which was, you know, certainly seismic. And when I share this little clip with you informationally, I'm going to ask you, what are the odds of this happening? Because I know you're going to be astonished because I was as it was happening. Years ago, they had a thing on the desk when, you know, before voicemail was digitized, I had a, and you might have had one too. I don't know, but I, it was a machine that sat on a desk, and on the left side was a little cassette tape, and that was my outgoing message.

37:01 And on the right side was another little cassette tape, and that was for all my incoming messages. And when I left home, I would turn the thing on. And when I came home, if there were messages, the red light would be bleeping. And then I would play back my messages, right? A voice recorder, basically. It was an actual machine. It wasn't the classic answer phone. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And I owned while being mentored, separate from that, I owned a training company in the greater Chicagoland area and had a partner with 50% partners. And the company was doing very well. We were doing trainings for other companies, other firms. And I left home for about an hour and a half. I came home and my 60-minute messages was used up.

37:43 And I thought, oh my God, you know, because my machine was voice actuated. So that means as long as someone's talking, it'll keep recording. So some kids got a hold of it, you know, because the kids did that sometimes and they were just playing and left messages. Wow, was I in for an awakening? The gentleman that called when I had left home was my 50% business partner in his training company. And this was my business mentor. I was being mentored separately. And he was leaving a message. And back then, Johnny, when someone was calling you, while you were talking with someone else on the phone, you'd hear this little tone in the background. It went beep beep and let you know someone's calling you, even though you're talking to someone else on the phone.

38:24 Oh, like a call waiting, call waiting, yeah. Yeah, yeah, right. If you had call waiting, call conferencing, something like that. So I could hear when he was leaving me the message, the tone in the background that someone was calling him while he was leaving me this message on my voice machine. Well, when he answered the phone, he hit his receiver so fast and said hello, he put my machine on recording with him and this other person and recorded the whole conversation. That wait, wait, wait, that's that's the only part of it. A good idea. Conversation for 60 minutes. And what was weird was the conversation was almost exactly 60 minutes.

39:06 How much room I had on the tape. They talked about step by step what they were going to do to take me out of the picture and systemically take over the company. Wow. I have to tell you, it's something else, Johnny, when you hear it in their own words. words, it adds a new dimension than hearing a third party. I'm hearing their words as they're talking. So and I, man, you want to talk about an emotional roller coaster? I thought, oh, man, this is just, you know, this is craziness. I mean, I was so blindsided. There was nothing that told me this was happening or going to happen. And so it was full, full-blown, hit me from the side. I thought, man, what am I going to do?

39:49 And I listened to it again and I thought, man, I just, because the first thing was just disbelief. How could I even be hearing this? I'm hearing his own words, Johnny. You know, so there's no deniability or anything. So I thought, well, I've got to listen. What did my mentor teach me? One of the things he taught me was don't allow my emotions to rule my intellect. I should have emotions. That is gold. Not just the business. Relationships, parenting. Oh, that is, that is gold, sir. Say it again. Don't allow my emotions to rule my intellect.

40:29 Because when our intellect is controlling our emotions, we're in responsive mode. When our emotions are controlling our intellect, we're in reactionary mode. And we want to be responding, not reacting. So I thought, all right, so I'm thinking about my business mentor told me. And I thought, you know what? Clearly, this guy's not going to be my partner. I mean, he's already out the door and he's, you know, I don't even want to be in business with him. So after a sleepless night, I said, I met him the next day and I said, Jim, you have to buy me out. I said, we've got seven days. I'm going to do something to my business mentor. We need to reach an agreement. I'm leaving. You need to buy me out, which immediately ruined all of his plans. That was, I mean, that just stopped it all.

41:09 And it was true. I did want to do something else with my business partner. So it was accurate. And I just didn't expect right at that very moment. And I did get a couple of payments on the deal. And I thought each payment was a gift when I got it. You know, I really didn't expect it because I already knew what kind of person he was. And do you know, I never, ever, ever told him the recording happened. I never told him. And about a year later, maybe a little bit more, I saw him at an amusement park. And I knew it was him. I mean, I knew who it was. And he didn't see me, but because there was a little bit of distance, but I was clear it was him. And I had already heard that in one year's time, Johnny, he had filed for personal bankruptcy, bankrupted the company, had gotten divorced.

41:53 And when I was looking at him, he looked like he had aged 20 years. And yet in that next year, my income doubled. And I can share with you something that's having to do with takers. Takers carry with them their seeds of their own destruction. We call them the three D's of takers. Defeatism, disruption, and destruction. And when you have a taker in your life, you are about ready to become an unwilling accident, an unwilling participant in collateral damage in those three Ds if we don't discern. So I thought, Johnny, how am I going to stop? I don't want to be in this situation again. What was I missing?

42:36 I was missing something. What were the things I should have been looking for that I didn't notice? And that brought about the writing of the first book called The Giver's Mindset. There's actually three books. It's called Give to Be Great is the whole series, Give to Be Great. First book, Giver's Mindset. Second book, Giver's Lifestyle. Third book, Giver's Lifelong Learning. First book, each book ended up being written because of a major defeat in my life. And the book helped me learn because it didn't happen again. And a couple of those do in that book is the 25 dues that we're going to share with your listeners absolutely free when they do the quiz. They're going to get that download and they're going to get actually in checklist form. So it's going to be highly usable. But just to give you a couple of those little as a nugget, a couple nuggets for your listeners and for you.

43:22 This is important because the test is really great because it's practical. I do want people to, anyone who's been listening, thank you. You know, you're watching 40 Minutes In. There is practical stuff here. This is a nice conversation with me and EA, but this is practical, actionable information because the idea of how do you get success? How do you create success? It's as much about how you're being as what you're doing. And these things that EA is sharing with us are exactly that. It's how we're being in our business and in our relationship that makes the difference. Yeah. And when we reach it, thank you for saying that. And when we reach the point when we are no longer able to say, how do I do that?

44:03 Because the answer is self-evident, we're at the point. We're at the actionable thing because up until then, with so many things we hear today, and everyone's teaching self-improvement. And I mentioned, you know, I love it. I love self-improvement hour a day. And I know you do too, Johnny. And I'm sure many of your listeners listeners do. do. But we need to learn and teach our children also how to discern so that later on in their life, they don't become that unwilling collateral damage because they had a taker in their life. They didn't know what to look for. So here's a couple of those nuggets of the 25 dues that they'll get. One of the things that you can see with a taker, they are not willing to delay gratification to increase their returns.

44:48 They're always now, now, now, now. Pay me up front. You need to pay me before I go to work. I need to have everything now and I need it up front. And they're not able to delay their gratification in order to increase their returns. Think about the June Martino story. So she was a classic giver. Why? She delayed her gratification, not getting paid, right? And got paid in a worthless stock. But then she was worth more zeros than I had fingers and toes because she got increasing returns. Another one is one second. There's an important piece in there, I think, though, as well, that she didn't just make that decision on the fly.

45:29 Someone she didn't know, someone she didn't have faith in. There was a level of appreciation. There was a level of, you said it before about don't let the irrational thoughts don't let the irrational thoughts affect don't let the emotional thoughts dictate your actions yes don't let your emotion uh it literally control your thought process or your intellect so she did make that decision yeah but just deliberately based on what she knew of Ray what she'd seen of him in action she she didn't like go at it at a whim like oh I'm desperate for money I'll just she she was like a calculated decision for her still a risk but it was it was there was a level of emotion

46:14 emotional intelligence there where she she knew the she she felt that she knew the man and it when it was a worthwhile um a worthwhile risk to take exactly and so one of the things then is you know delay grat be willing to delay gratification to increase returns when you see someone who's not willing to delay their gratification now you're going to start discerning i'm seeing what they're doing here another one is that on the list of the 25 be willing to do the thing to get the thing now you think what does that mean be willing to do the thing to get the thing well the rest of the statement that we teach in the book is be willing to do the thing to get the thing or don't be willing to do the thing and get something else

46:59 that's the whole statement so a giver is willing to do what is necessary they're willing to and it's not about paying the price everyone told her pay you got to pay the price no you don't have to you can enjoy the price when you have the right mindset you can enjoy the price you don't have to pay it everything in life has a cost associated with it everything does there's nothing that doesn't there's no exceptions to that and everything we every thought we think has a cost has a result every action we do has a result and there's no exceptions so a giver is willing to do the thing to get the thing and a by contrast a taker is not they're not willing to do what is needed yet they say i wish i wish i wish and they play the victim card i never got this and and and actually it's not that way

47:48 a giver doesn't play the victim card so those are just even two of the morsels that are on the 25 checklist yeah yeah and i guess a statement like or a question like what's in it for me that will tell you straight away that that's that second point you just brought yeah exactly and and and with that we also write on your point uh johnny right on your point when when a person says well it's just business i start running from them right then because what they actually just said to me was i don't care what i have to do to take advantage of you yeah that's what they just said and and and that leads me to another point if i can if i may make it and that is as follows when you're a giver

48:25 people may take advantage of you but you are never diminished people may take advantage of you it's going to happen but you're never diminished because they did you'll get back what you gave maybe from another person maybe from another circumstance or another event in your life totally unrelated to the person that took advantage of you so when you're a giver people will take advantage of you expect it but you are never diminished because they did yeah that's like being true to your values i i believe this and i talk about this it's being true to your values and trusting that honoring those values will continue to attract people who share those same values towards you so rather rather than falling on your sword and deciding, okay, well, I've been treated

49:19 bad. I'm going to start to treat people bad. I can see what you just said there is accept it, clean it up the way that you feel is right and appropriate, but then move on, expecting good opportunities to come from that mess rather than it's the end of the world, nothing good's ever going to happen again. So I guess he's going back to the point earlier about when we fail, it's not a failure, it's just an opportunity. It's just the next opportunity coming our way. Exactly right. And if I can share my second major defeat with you, I'd love to.

50:01 I mean, so here I am, 1989. 1989. The thing is, someone says that date, right? I'm 47 now, right? So someone says that date. In my mind, it's kind of like, oh, yeah, I remember that. And then now, oh my gosh, that was 20. You know what gets me, Johnny? Is I hear on the radio and they say, we hope that you liked our visit with the classics on the radio here. And I'm going, I knew all the words of that song. That's not old. When did I become a classic? That's not old. Yeah. I know. That's a couple years ago. Yeah, exactly right. So I was 33 years old, 1989.

50:46 And that was the, and what I'm about ready to say, Johnny, is not to be braggadose to any of your listeners, but to simply edify how fast things can come into our life and also how fast they can leave. And that those things should not define us. So here I am, 1989, 33 years old. That's the first year in my life that after I paid personal income taxes, I had a million dollars left over in my pocket. That means, I mean, I mean, that's personal income, not business. Personal income at the end of the year, I paid my tax and still had a million dollars in cash left, right? So 33 years old. Net income. Yeah, yeah, net income. And

51:29 with that, I had two corporate aircraft. I became a commercial pilot because I wanted to fly myself. And I had a limo, my own limousine that I owned, a full-time valet that drove me around. And I'm 33 years old. I'm a snot-nosed kid. And I'm thinking I'm King Midas. You know, this is going to live forever. Everything I touch is going to turn to gold. Man, it could never get better than this. And it's going to go on forever. The president of that company was paying him a million dollars a year. His company car, we bought him as a company car, a Silver Spur Rolls-Royce. That was his company car. And then I learned something, Johnny. It's one word.

52:13 The word I learned is called greed. Whew, boy, did that one hit. As president of this company, Bob, a million dollars wasn't enough. Beside the fact that my mentor and I started this business, and it was just the two of us, literally just two of us in the beginning. And we built the whole thing, 20 offices, 20 countries. I mean, this is no small operation. And he feels in his own mind because everyone, you know, they justify the things they do. And so because of that justification, well, this should be mine. And a million isn't enough. I could be making 10 million. And by the way, a million back in 1989 is over 2 million today.

52:54 Yeah, it's well over 2 million. And he's thinking to himself that he could have a fleet of Rolls-Royces, not this. So he systemically, and because he was the president of the company, he was able to hide many, many things covertly and ultimately destroyed the company and me as collateral damage and just did awful, awful in an attempt to take over the company. It actually just destroyed because takers carry with them the seed of their own destruction. They always do. Not five, 10 or half a percent or once in a while, 100% of the time they carry with them the seed of their own destruction.

53:31 That's one of the three D's, the last one. So all those things, the planes, the limo, gone. They were gone. And I thought, man, how did this happen? And I just scratch in my head thinking, what did I miss? And then that's what caused me to write the second book, which is called The Giver's Lifestyle. And from that developed the 30 habits. What are the 30 habits that a giver does over and over again that we should be observing and seeing when they do it? And what are the 30 habits of taker?

54:11 So, in that book, we actually talk about the 60 habits. There's actually 30 and 30. And also, there's another checklist that goes through. These are the things when you see these specific things, when you see them doing it over and over again, these are the things that we should be watching. One of the things, I'll give, I'd love to share with your listeners a couple of those little nuggets, a couple of those little habits. The one thing that, the one habit that they have, every time a taker, one of the taker 30 habits, every time they're part of a group, they drain the group of the energy. You can tell they're the kind of person, Johnny, that brightens up a room when they leave it.

54:55 So, you know, and when you talk, I bet your listeners right now can think of someone that when they talk to them, when they talk to them, they go, Oh my God, what are we just talking about? And I don't even remember what it was, but all I know is I feel like I'm a sucked out orange. There's nothing left. I just like there's no juice left in me. They just drained me. And that's what, and they'll do it over and over again. That's what it, and that's one of the signs of a 30 habits of takers is that they eliminate or lower the rate of vibration of a person or a group. And you'll feel it all the time. By contrast, a giver does the opposite.

55:33 They're the battery you can hook up to. And when you hook your battery up to theirs, you feel the charge. Yeah. Yeah. And I, there's two things there for me. Habits, I love habits. I've worked on my habits and routines over the last five years. And when we get a real handle on our habits, we start to master our life in a way that we hadn't believed possible before. And you're sharing there a new dimension of when we start to master our habits, we really start to create our environment in a much more positive way.

56:14 There's like a different, there's like an extra level of habit that some people might not have considered there is our habits attract like-minded people in and that gives us our experience of life. Habits are so either so powerful or so destructive. And we go through and in the second book, and also at Givers University, we have online courses. We have 15, we have like 48, 15-minute courses, you know, lessons, if you will, that people can listen to going from the work. And one of the things we talk about is that when we, how to develop habits, how do we develop habits? How do we change those habits? And one of the first parts, Johnny, and you're so right with what you said, is one of the very first aspects is to discern the habit.

57:01 What's the thing? What's the thing? What's the 30 things I should be watching for? And when I see people do these things, these deeds, I may want to pull them in closer to me and have them be a part of my giver community. And when I see these other 30 things on a consistent basis, habit over and over again, I may want to begin respectfully distancing myself from these 30 habits. Another thing on those 30 lists, another nugget for your listeners, if you will. A quick way to quick reference is you will see takers very quickly make their word and keep it for short durations and change it fast.

57:40 In other words, a giver will treat their words when they give you a commitment. A giver will treat their word as though it's an oath. They will treat it as a full commitment. It's their bond. It's a vow. By contrast, a taker will say, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they will change their word very, very quickly to the point that you can no longer count on what they say. And when you see them doing it over and over again, when you see that part, you see them over and over again. You look on your checklist and say, yep, they change their word quickly. They give their word. They say, oh, yeah, yeah. But then it's almost like just to get a yes and leave. And then they change their word, never planning on living up to it anyway.

58:22 Here's the difference: takers can be counted. Givers can be counted on. Yeah, okay. Big difference. I mean, that's lots of words, right? Because that's when we think about the people in my life who I know I can count on and they stand out. The level of love and trust and faith and equally our commitment back to them is so much greater. And so I guess we can all ask ourselves,

59:02 how do people look at you? Are they looking looking at you as a giver or a taker? And I guess to answer that, you have to know, look in the mirror, first of all, and say, how do you relate to yourself? Boy, what a great point. And also, we mentioned in these same checklists, we say the first thing is these are great for a self-assessment. Am I doing these 25 do's? Am I doing these 30 habits? And here's another thing that's great. Someone can be in temporary taker mode. I have been, right? I know exactly what that is. So we teach them how to do what's called a data reset, D-A-T-A, declare and turnaround.

59:41 And we teach them how to do that data reset so that they can get back into full-blown givers mode, even though they're wired as a giver. But now, for some reason, whatever that reason is, they have found themselves into being temporary taker mode. So they can get back into giver's mode. And we teach them how to do that. And all this begins with that simple seven-question quiz. I mean, we'd love to be able to invest in people. And it's real simple, Johnny. Givers gain, takers lose. That's the way it works. Givers gain, takers lose. And we, and when, like, anyone who's listened, you know, we're coming up on the hour now.

1:00:20 I mean, we're going to be wrapping up in a second. But so, those people that have joined us all the way till the end, when you just take that final statement, givers win, takers lose, you can reprocess this whole last hour and look at the people in your life, look at the actions you've taken, look at the businesses you're involved. And when you're thinking, why do things always go wrong? And why aren't things working out for me? That doesn't mean that you're a taker. It could be worthwhile working out if you are. But yeah, I'm really present to something you said right at the top of the hour about allowing too many takers into our life. So now we've got a giver who is genuinely able and capable and deserving of success.

1:01:04 And it's not that they're failing, it's just that they've allowed too many takers into their world and didn't know how to discern up front. They didn't know. No one's teaching, what do I look for? And these things will impact every part of our life. You could, you could, it's tragic, right? But you could have a taker who's a business partner, a taker who's a wife, and a couple of close people, people who you consider your close circle of friends. If you, because of an emotional trauma or some sort of scar from your, your, your, you know, your early life, you inadvertently attracting takers into your world, you know, you've got some sort of victim mentality, then

1:01:46 your whole experience of life is being tainted, not because you're no good, but just simply because who you're letting in. And you brought up a great point because you said the, you know, the question where a person says, how come this keeps happening to me? Or, you know, how do I, you know, why do I always have these people in my life? They're right there. The question is part of the challenge. They're asking the wrong question. You see, our lives become self-fulfilling prophecies. Each one of our lives are. And so when we ask the wrong question, we get the wrong answer. So what happens when someone says, why do I keep having takers in my life? Our life now begins to answer the question and keeps delivering more takers when we should be asking a new question.

1:02:29 And a new question could be, you know what? Why does everything work out for me? Why am I so happy every day? Isn't this great? Now, the answer that, what isn't that a great answer to have? Why am I so happy every day? So when we begin to ask the right questions, we begin to get the right answers. The answers are always there. The questions are wrong. So when we ask the right question, we get the right answer and the self-fulfilling prophecy in our life. And guess what? We then learn that it's not about being rich and then happily and living happily ever after. It's about being happy and wealth and rich is a part of our wealth. And that happiness is a great part of our wealth. Yeah. Yeah.

1:03:12 And that's, I mean, that's a beautiful way to wrap this up. You know, people's internal dialogue is so powerful. And when we don't control it, people will happily say, oh, things are always going wrong for me and believe that's the case. But then if you said to that person, well, why don't you presume that all good things are always going to happen to you? And they'll go, as if that's true. They will believe the other. They'll think they're absurd, even though there's only really one or two words different in both statements. It's hilarious. We do a whole section on self-talk just because of what you said. What are the things we say?

1:03:50 What are the labels we put on things? And what are those conversations? And the thousands, thousands of self-talk we have with ourselves. with ourselves every day. Not every week. We literally talk to ourselves in our own mind and label every circumstance, event, person every day, thousands of these self-talks. And when we can discern these self-talks and say, you know, and by the way, there's nothing wrong with talking to yourself. It's when we say, huh? That's when you got a problem. When you go, what did I just say to myself? You know, but we teach just that thing, the importance of self-talk.

1:04:29 So I, you know, Johnny, I have to say, what a great mentoring show you have for dads, for families. And I love your five F's F's and how important those are in people's lives. And I hope people listen to this podcast and they share it with others so that others allow you into their lives as a mentor with them because I think your podcast is great, Johnny. Thank you so much for having me on it. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, it's just, it's just one part of the Team Superdad community and the Hero Academy framework. And we've got a whole coaching area inside of the Hero Academy. So we can talk, EA, about different ways you can, I mean, people can come to you and do all the stuff you've got available.

1:05:11 We're totally, you know, we're not trying to stop people doing that. You know, give us university.info that you can go and take EA's seven-question tests. I'll put that back up now. But equally, we'll have a chat after this and work out a way maybe of doing a half-day workshop or something inside of Team Superdad. Work out a good price for people and things like that. Team Superdad members, the friends, family, if you've got questions, put them in the comments. Come over to the Team Superdad group. That's teamsuperdad.com forward slash network. You can come in there and ask the questions. That's the whole point of the community. And really just take this conversation on.

1:05:54 Don't let this conversation end here. Oh, I'll tell you one thing. I did just hear from what you said there. You said, ask yourself. And that is so brilliant. Someone who thinks that they're a little bit of a negative person, anytime they're having a negative thought, to catch themselves and go, oh, what's a positive version of that thought? Or that's that self-speech you were just talking about. Reframe it and relabel it. Yeah. So EA, it's Friday here. I wish you a lovely weekend. The sun is shining. Spring is upon us. If you're listening live, that's certainly where we're at. And I wish you all the very best and your family and everything you're up to. A wonderful continued success.

1:06:35 Thank you, Johnny. And thank you for having me on your show. And to your listeners, I pray that they share your show with others because just the part of being a dad today is so important. And the way families have become so disseparated and disheveled. And for you to be able to really step up, which is what givers do and say, I'm going to do something about this. I want to bring information and help this with people. It's a wonderful thing. So thank you very much. And thanks for having me on the show. And I would submit to you and to your listeners, have your best, your best day ever. Awesome. Cheers, EJ. See you on the other side. Bye. Thank you.

1:07:18 What an epic chat. That was fabulous. I have, I mean, I've got to be honest, there are some podcast episodes that have never made it live. And that's because they just weren't quite as fun as I wanted them to be. But this was a great session. EA is a top bloke. And I loved the fact that he's from Chicago. So I felt really at home with that Chicago accent and all my family and friends out in Chicago. And listeners, obviously, if you're listening in Chicago, then it'd be great to connect with you. I hope you go and sign up for the giversuniversity.info stuff. I mean, say sign up for it. It's actually just a value add. You're going to get free stuff from them. And we spoke after the recording and we are going to be doing some mentoring, free sessions, some workshops inside of the Hero Academy over the next couple of months.

1:08:05 So come on over to teamsuperdad.com forward slash network and get involved there. And you can chat to me about joining the Hero Academy and taking part in the Power Code course. So that's it. Give us a review, share the podcast, and make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss another episode. In particular, the Friday slash weekend sessions where we do the wrap-up. Glenn and I or one of the other Team Superdad community members having a laugh, talking dad stuff, taking the piss out of each other and wrapping up our week, all the good bits and the bad bits. Thanks again. I'll see you on the next episode. Bye.

1:08:47 This has been Team Super Dad. Find us at teamsuperdad.com. Join the... the program and create the best life ever for you and your children. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad.