My first entrepreneurial venture was selling drugs. You’re more than welcome to get all high and mighty on me, but chances are you’ve bought your fair share too. As a young man without anyone in my life to give me business advice, I saw an opportunity to sell drugs to the people I worked with. They were all doing it and gonna buy it somewhere, it might as well be from me.

I started off investing $150 into the game. I flipped that $150 over and over again until I bought guns, got a car, paid rent in a nice apartment complex and more. I was by no means “rich” but at age 19, I had more than most of my friends. About two years into full time drug dealing I got caught by the cops (long story)

The police, as expected, took everything. They tool all my jewelry, guns, cash, drugs and left me with a $25,000 bail. So instead of having cash flow and assets, I had a massive debt and was stuck in the county jail. By the time I made it to state prison, I realized that drug dealing was not the path for me. I haven’t sold a drug since. 

While I was locked up, I read a lot of books. Not novels, but business books. I realized I had a great business sense, just no one to teach me about business. So I decided to educate myself. After all, I had all the time in the world to educate myself. 

After I was released, I got a job at a car wash. I learned everything there was about that car wash. From the machinery, to the soap mixing ratios, I knew it all. I ran the most efficient car wash location of the entire chain. After working there for two years, I got a job offer from one of the regular clients. She offered me a job in the mortgage industry. She promised to teach me the business. 

I had nothing to lose. I was only making $9/hour plus commission (which wasn’t much) and I figured jobs like that exist everywhere and I could always get another. Problem was, I had nothing. No savings. No cash flow. No income. And I was starting a commission only job. No draw. None of that shit. 

I didn’t like the idea of not having money or a certain income so I started hustling on day one. By day 5 I had a deal in my pipeline that ended up paying me over $6000 30 days later. I was hooked! It used to take me 2-3 months to earn $6000. Now I had done it in less than a month. I learned selling mortgages was easier than selling drugs. It paid better too.

The next month I made a little over $7000 in income. Since I had no debts or bills, I was able to take that money and invest in buying real estate. Flash forward 12 months and I owned 33 homes and made just shy of a million in gross income. I didn’t own the homes free and clear. I leveraged mortgages against them, so I got paid several times on each transaction.

I had come up. For the first time in my life I had money, cars, assets, rent houses, and equity partnerships in companies. I was earning so much money and buying so many toys that the local police thought I was selling drugs again and raided my house. Obviously they were wrong about the drugs, but they did find a gun. The Allen police arrested me for felon in possession of a firearm and turned my ass over to the ATF.

I ended up getting sentenced to 15 months in a Federal prison. That’s right I was moving out of the nice neighborhood and moving into FCI Seagoville. I had seen the “top” and been pushed back down to the bottom. But it gets worse…

Two days before I was set to turn myself in to FCI Seagoville, I got in an argument with my (then) wife. She pulled a slick one on me. Turns out she was banging the yard dude and they had a plan to clean me out. She had me picked up by the police and while I was waiting to make bail, she cleaned the house, the bank account and left me with a restraining order. Talk about rock bottom…

In less than 5 months I went from being a millionaire, to a broke dude serving fed time. I used the time to read books, work out, and get my game plan together for when I get released. I knew I was going to get back into the mortgage business. i even had a job lined up when I got out.

After the 15 months passed, I was released. I was so broke that I had to sleep at a half way house for 6 weeks to get my ducks in a row. The job I had lined up, fell through. The mortgage industry was crumbling. LOs where leaving the industry left and right. Some even committing suicide on the way out. 

I didn’t let that keep me from sticking to the plan though. I ended up getting a LO job with a large mortgage bank, and I put in work. Within 2-3 months I was the top producer. In 2009, when everyone was broke, I closed 183 loans and made multiple six figures. Fresh out of prison without a single excuse.

In a year, I had money in the bank, a home, 2 cars and living the high life again. Until March of 2010. The Dodd Frank Act was passed and I was no longer allowed to originate mortgages. “Dammit. Can I just get one f*cking break?” 

At least this time I wasn’t in prison, and I had a few dollars to my name. I invested those dollars on a “sure thing” and lost them all. No money. No Job. And the bills weren’t paying themselves. I did odd sales jobs and became a hired close for a few people when they needed me, but it was nothing steady. 

I turned to the internet to educate me. In prison I learned a lot from books, so I figured I’d learn a lot from watching videos about businesses etc. I had to make something work.

I was introduced to these guys Frank Kern and Kevin Nations. I took this $8,000 course from them (I had to hustle to get the cash for the program) and they lined me up with how I should run my online business. I decided I was going to teach Loan Officers how to close as many loans each month as I did. Sind I couldn’t compete, I’d collaborate with them. 

I had a business model that would now work, but I had almost no money for marketing. After paying Frank and Kevin, I was literally out of money. I remember sitting at Kevin’s house and AJ Roberts was teaching me how to run FB ads. He set my daily ad spend to $100/day and I was worried if my card would get declined. 

Once again, I’d be turning crumbs into bricks. By the time $25 of that $100 ad spend was spent, I’d made a $2500 sale. I scaled that ad up to $200/day until I could no longer take on clients. 

That was early 2012, and I’m still over here scaling daily. I’m still flipping bricks though. Last month I bought two homes to flip! 

The reason I shared my story with you is simple. It’s to remove any excuse for failure you have. My journey has been long and hard. I didn’t arrive here overnight, but I arrived none the less. I’ve lost so much shit in my life, that I know how to get it all back and quick. I’ve faced struggles that many people have nightmares about.

Whatever it is that you are letting stand in between you and your come up, it’s complete bullshit and you need to get over it. How do you get over it? Do the work! F*ck your excuses.

About a month ago, I wrapped up an 8 week course on the “killer mentality” it takes to get through hard times in order to prosper. The course is called “Own It Academy” I highly recommend you get a copy of it when it comes out. It’s life changing material folks. Also, if you want the detailed version of my journey, buy my book Hardcore Closer on Amazon.