Breaking the Cycle: One Teen’s Transformation into an Addiction Expert with Ray Lozano
Have you ever wondered how family dynamics shape our personal development and life choices? In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with Ray Lozano, a seasoned public speaker with over 34 years of experience inspiring youth, parents, and professionals across North America. Ray shares his powerful journey from growing up in a family plagued by addiction to becoming a passionate advocate for drug prevention and personal growth.
We explore Ray’s fascinating origin story, including a pivotal moment at age five that set the course for his life’s work. Ray candidly discusses the impact of his family’s struggles with substance abuse and how these experiences fueled his mission to educate and empower others.
Key Takeaways:
- The profound influence of childhood experiences on our life trajectory
- How personal tragedy can be transformed into a powerful force for positive change
- The importance of understanding the “why” behind addictive behaviors
- Strategies for effective communication with youth about drugs and alcohol
Turning Pain into Purpose
Ray reveals how he channeled his family’s challenges into a career dedicated to helping others. We discuss:
- The unique approach Ray takes in his presentations to connect with young audiences
- The power of storytelling in creating lasting impact
- How Ray’s personal experiences inform his work and message
Breaking the Cycle of Addiction
Discover Ray’s insights on:
- Recognizing early signs of addiction in yourself and others
- The importance of creating a “safe” environment for children and teens
- How to approach difficult conversations about substance abuse with compassion and understanding
This conversation is packed with valuable wisdom for parents, educators, and anyone interested in personal development and addiction prevention. Whether you’re seeking to understand your own family dynamics or looking for ways to positively influence the young people in your life, you’ll find actionable advice and inspiration in Ray’s story.
Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a fresh perspective on the impact of family experiences and the power of personal transformation. Tune in now and start giving a heck about creating positive change in your life and the lives of those around you!
Connect with Ray Lozano:
Website: https://raylozano.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raylozanospeaker/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@raylozanospeaks
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/preventionplus_you/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@justsayray
Connect with Dwight Heck:
Website: https://giveaheck.com (Free Book Offer)
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/give.a.heck
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwight.heck
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Giveaheck
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@giveaheck
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/dwight-raymond-heck-65a90150/
TikTok:https://www.tiktok.com/@giveaheck
X: https://x.com/give_a_heck
Chapter Summaries:
00:00:02
Introduction to Ray Lozano: Seasoned Public Speaker on Drug Prevention
Ray Lozano, a public speaker with 34 years of experience, specializes in drug prevention, communication strategies, and personal growth. He delivers over 400 presentations annually, focusing on inspiring youth, parents, and professionals across North America through humor, humility, and science-backed insights.
00:01:37
Ray’s Life Journey and Family Background
Ray shares his earliest childhood memory of witnessing his older brother’s sentencing for drug smuggling. He describes growing up in a family deeply affected by substance abuse, which sparked his curiosity about why people use drugs and alcohol.
00:04:50
Ray’s Origin Story and Passion for Drug Education
Ray recounts his first memory at age 5, witnessing his brother’s sentencing for drug smuggling. This experience, coupled with growing up in a family affected by substance abuse, ignited his passion for understanding and educating others about drugs and alcohol.
Full Unedited Transcript:
[00:00:02 – 00:01:37]
Good day and welcome to Give A Heck on today’s show. I welcome Ray Lozano. Ray is a seasoned public speaker with over 34 years of experiencing, inspiring youth, parents, professionals across North America. Delivering over 400 presentations annually, Ray has mastered the art of connecting with audiences through a unique blend of humor, humility and science backed insights. Specializing in drug prevention, communication strategies and personal growth, Ray equips people with the tools they need to create meaningful change in their lives and communities. A true advocate for building bridges between generations, Ray has developed groundbreaking parent training that helps rebuild relationships with teens, especially those in recovery. In addition, Ray has authored Addicted to Learning, a compassionate exploration of addiction’s impact, blending understanding with actionable strategies for healing. Beyond speaking, Ray runs a six week class designed to train aspiring speakers to effectively engage with junior high and high school audiences. With a 92% return rate at schools and a track record of transforming lives, Ray is driven by a profound sense of purpose to inspire others to give a heck and make a lasting difference. I’d like to welcome you to the show, Ray. Thanks so much for agreeing to come on and share with us.
[00:01:37 – 00:01:37]
Oh my gosh.
[00:01:37 – 00:01:39]
Tell me your life journey.
[00:01:39 – 00:01:46]
Yeah, yeah. I am so excited about this. I just am looking forward to this conversation and just. Yeah. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
[00:01:46 – 00:02:19]
Oh, you’re welcome. And thank you as well. Because when you know, it works both ways. Time is infinite, but for us it’s finite. So when you decide to invest time and just to apply for the show, to put that effort in and then to show up like, thank you. That investment of your time is something you can never get back. And hopefully though that investment in your time gives you something back, mentally, physically, emotionally. It could be all of them. Maybe you get a good belly laugh. I don’t know.
[00:02:19 – 00:02:20]
Yeah, yeah.
[00:02:21 – 00:02:28]
Right. Life is too short to, to. To not, you know, stop and smell the roses like they say. Right.
[00:02:28 – 00:02:29]
Yeah.
[00:02:29 – 00:02:51]
And build some great relationships. Like I was telling you before we hit record, I’ve created some great relationships with people around the planet. People from Europe, Australia, us, Canada. I’ve interviewed people. It’s been, it’s been fantastic. Fantastic. Right. It’s just. And I’ve got lifelong friends out of it. It’s fantastic. Some of them I’ve never met yet. Ray.
[00:02:51 – 00:02:52]
Yeah.
[00:02:52 – 00:02:53]
Like face to face.
[00:02:53 – 00:03:01]
That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. I imagine the people you run into and the conversations and stories you’ve had, just. Yeah. You’re a great guest at a dinner. Dinner. Yeah.
[00:03:01 – 00:03:27]
Just. Oh my goodness. I’ve had some very impactful Conversations before, during, and after podcast and. And just realizing how really unique we are. But we just. We’re like a seed that gets no water and it never germinates, it never grows. Right. Nobody’s fertilizing us, nobody’s pulling the weeds.
[00:03:27 – 00:03:28]
Right.
[00:03:28 – 00:03:34]
Taking away the negativity or the things that. That. That energy, vampire vibe we talked about, right?
[00:03:34 – 00:03:35]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Without a doubt.
[00:03:36 – 00:03:56]
So there is definitely a huge problem today that we can address, starting with our youth. And you had asked me a question. Why? What intrigued me the most? Well, your youth connection really intrigued me. Right. Obviously, I seen your picture and your handsome face kind of helped, too. But, you know, I really like where.
[00:03:56 – 00:03:57]
You came from, but.
[00:03:57 – 00:04:50]
Yeah, me either. Right. I don’t know. Five kids, five grandkids. I don’t know. I come from somewhere. But again, thank you so much for investing your time, Ray. One of the things that I did mention to you and my listeners, that if you’re a new listener, you’re going to understand why after you listen to this episode. I really appreciate when people share their actual origin story, not from high school on. I’m talking what do you remember about your childhood that maybe impacted you, that you never really give a thought to, that helped you continue to climb and be able to get through adversities? Maybe you had no adversities. Maybe everything was sunshine and, you know, roses. I don’t know. But most people, it isn’t. Can you do me a favor, Ray, and share with my listeners and people watching your origin story from your earliest recollections to where you are?
[00:04:50 – 00:16:45]
Yeah, man, I. That I love this question because I thought about this quite a bit. Like, why do I have this passion for youth and why do I have this passion learning drug and alcohol information? And, you know, there’s a part in our life where we’re just going through life like age 1 to about age 4 or 5. So my story starts literally the day my brain turns on. And I think about this. I’m five years old. I am. I remember being hot. I remember being tired. I remember being super crabby. And I’m laying on this floor and I have a little suit. And I actually have a picture from that day where I’m wearing this little suit and these fancy little shoes, and I’m trying to take my shoes off while I’m laying on the floor. And the whole time I’m laying on my floor, I’m looking up at my mom and I think, this is why my brain turned on. I look up at my mom and she’s crying super hard, just crying hard. She looks down at me and I remember her telling me to put my shoes on. Like there was a sense of urgency. And Even at age 5, I felt like, wow, what’s going on? You know, I’m taking my shoes off, what’s the problem here? And I remember my mom jamming my shoes on my feet real quick and then tying them way too tight, grabbing me by my shirt and then lifting me up and I’m like yanked out of the verge of taking a nap. And she holds my little hand and we go walking all the way down this big, huge room. And to me, when I look back on it, it feels like it was like an auditorium, but I don’t think it was that big. We get to the front of the room and the whole time we’re walking my mom is crying and she keeps saying these words in English and in Spanish. She keeps saying, you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. He’s a good boy, he’s a good boy, He’s a good boy. And we got to the front of this room and I realized there’s a little fence, little wooden fence in the front of this room. So I put my little arms on this fence and I’m looking up at my mom and I’m starting to panic now because she’s crying harder and she keeps saying, you’re wrong. He’s a good boy, he’s a good boy, he’s a good boy. And so when I stopped for a moment and I turned and I looked in the direction my mom was looking, I see my oldest brother there. Now I’m the baby of the family. Between me and my sister, there’s a seven year difference between me and my brother is 14 years. And between me and the brother that I’m looking at is 17 years. So when I’m five, I’m looking at my 22 year old brother. And my 22 year old brother has on an orange jumpsuit, handcuffs, chains that go around his ankles. He’s wearing some tennis shoes and the back of his orange jumpsuit said county of San Diego. Now, I didn’t know this at age 5, but my mom’s filled me in with all the details and what my brother started to do. We lived in San Diego, which is right on the border of Tijuana, right there. My brother would walk across the border starting right out of high school. At age 18, he’d walk across the border into Tijuana. He would purchase heroin and then he would find Someplace on his body or in his body to walk that heroin back across the border. And a lot of it was for personal use. But he was still smuggling drugs in the United States. After a period of time, about a year and a half or so, they finally identified him because he had crossed the border so many times that he got busted. And when he got busted, he had three balls of heroin in his stomach. Now, what that is, I don’t know. Hopefully none of your listeners are, you know. You know, deep into drug smuggling, but they usually take heroin, and you stuff it into a condom, and then you tie it up real tight, and you swallow it, and you walk it back across the border and get it out of your system, you know? So he had three balls of heroin in his stomach. He walked it back across the border. He got busted, they got the heroin out. And now he’s standing in front of a judge, and a judge is holding up this Ziploc bag says evidence across it, three balls of heroin in it. And my mom’s pleading with the judge, you know, he’s a good boy. You’re wrong. He’s a good boy. He’s a good boy. He’s a good boy. Well, I remember looking at my brother, and even though he was in an orange jumpsuit, I had this sense of, like, that’s my brother. He’s cool. You know what I mean? Just this admiration for him, because I didn’t know what was going on. And so I remember the judge sentenced my brother to a federal penitentiary. My mom’s crying really hard, and I don’t know if it was because I was in the courtroom or mom was there. I don’t know where my dad was that day. The judge talked to the sheriff, and I remember all this commotion. And the sheriff spun my brother around to look at mom and his. What we call in the Mexican community, his machismo, his manhood, his pride, just melted away. And he started to cry. He’s going away for a long time. And the sheriff moved him towards mom, unclipped his handcuffs, and he put his handcuffs around mom and he hugged her. And I remember looking at my mom’s mouth when that happened, and all she was saying is, I love you. I love you. I love you. And I looked at my brother, and all I could hear him saying was, I’m sorry. And those words are, like, burnt into my head, where all he was doing was apologizing. Then the sheriff grabbed him off mom and, like, pushed him down on me. And I remember my brother falling to his knees and wooden fence between us. And he took those handcuffs and he put them around me and he hugged me and he gave me a kiss on my cheek. And he actually saved my life that day. My brother whispered in my ear, he said, little brother, don’t do drugs. Drugs are bad. Don’t do drugs. And the sheriff picked him back up and off my brother goes to federal penitentiary. And that is my very first memory as a kid growing up. And I did not know what don’t do drugs meant. I didn’t understand any of that. But I remember my older brother told me something that it just. I mean, that was like the first thing. That’s a very recording my brain has of stuff. And so as I started to get older, I started to realize how deep our family was into drugs. I had a dad who drank, and my dad was the classic angry alcoholic. So he would come home from work. We lived in a farming community. And Friday night, him and his buddies would sit on some buckets outside and they’d barbecue and they would drink beer on a Friday night. And between 6:00 and 10:00, everybody’s laughing, having a good time. You know, 10:00, the beer bottle gets thrown, the car keys, the fight starts. And my mom’s out there screaming, stopping a fight. My other brother was 14 years older than me, was a drinker and a fighter as well. So the police in our little small agricultural community knew him pretty well. So he was always in and out of jail. My dad would have to go down and pull him out. My sister, and I’ve talked to her about this. My sister probably did drugs this morning and she has. Yeah, if I’m gonna find my sister. She lives occasionally in New Mexico. I know, I visited her. Well, she lived under a bridge one time, and I visited her when she lived in a storage unit and even a doghouse and the end of a horse trailer and all that. And I. This is in part of the book that I wrote. And my sister, super compassionate, loves everybody. Anytime she’s in jail, she becomes the helper in prison, if she’s in a nursing home, she like takes over. And she just has this sense of nurturing, which is pretty amazing in the midst of her drug use. And my mom and I don’t know if you’ve ever seen this. My mom was the embarrassed alcoholic. So my mom would get drunk, but she would always try to act like she wasn’t drunk. So that’s what I grew up in. And so the day my life changed, the day that I Decided I wanted to do or know something. It’s about four years after my brother was sentenced. I’m about nine years old at this point. My sister is 16. My mom is sitting here. I remember having a little blanket around me. I’m sitting here, my dad’s here, my sister’s here. And we are sitting on the curb in front of our house. All the neighbors are out, police lights are flashing. And what happened is my other brother went across the border, came back, and he had brought drugs into the house, and so they had followed him. So we’re sitting on the curb as my other brother, I believe, was getting arrested. But the police were going through the house searching for drugs. And something inside my head on that curb clicked. And it said, why do people do drugs? I had no clue. I never saw anything good come from it. I’d see my dad laughing, but then fighting. I saw my mom stumbling around. I saw my sister who started to use drugs at that point. And I just saw all this bad stuff and occurred to me, why do people do drugs? And it just started this thing inside my head at age 9, like, I wanted to know, why is my dad a really good guy? He drinks and then he fights. It’s like this whole personality change, right? Why is my mom this super nice lady, Man, I saw my mom make sandwiches for all the workers one time. I saw my mom give ladies rides. I saw my mom buy groceries for people. But then when she drank, she thought it was okay to yell or even hit us. You know, where does that come from? So at age 9, I became this inquisitive kid, asking everybody. And I would ask our priest, why does my dad do that? Oh, it’s because of alcohol. I’m like, yeah, I know that. I can see that. But what happens? I asked law enforcement, as you know, when they came to our school and did their drug presentation, like, why does my dad fight when he drinks? Oh, it’s because of alcohol. And I never could get an answer for that. And so I had to discover the reason why my dad fought when he drank. Why does my mom yell when she drinks? Why did my sister have her teeth falling out of her mouth, but yet she continued to use meth? Why did my brother think it was okay to smuggle heroin in the United States? And I had to have answers for all that. My brain would not let any of that go. And so once I discovered, oh, my dad fights when he drinks because there’s this wall inside his head called inhibitions, that alcohol has a tendency to bring down so that’s where the personality changes. Oh, my mom yells when she drinks because she loses the perspective and does not have the ability to tell what’s going to happen in the future. So she’s reacting right now. Oh, my sister is looking for this pleasure part, this reward inside her brain. So even though her teeth are falling out, the reward that her brain says meth is going to give me outweighs the loss of her teeth. So that’s where it started. It started at age 5, watching my brother go to prison, and then it really increased at age 9, answering, wanting to answer all those questions. And so my whole career is built on those two events. And so it has been a wonderful opportunity to explain to kids this is why this happens when you drink. This is why you want to stay away from electronic cigarettes. Because here’s what takes place and it’s not years stuff down the road. You know, law enforcement does a good job what they do, but they have a tendency to talk to junior high kids. If you smoke weed, you won’t get into a good college. Junior high kids like, I don’t care about that. That’s so far down the road, I can’t even think about that. So when I’m talking about alcohol, when I’m talking about vaping, when I’m talking about marijuana, I’m talking about, this is what’s going to happen as soon as you’re done drinking that beer. Here’s what’s going to happen as soon as you drink that drink. So it all started. That’s, that’s my original story, man. And that’s how it all started, is right there with just being curious about drugs and alcohol.
[00:16:45 – 00:18:46]
Well, and your brother, I, I, I could visualize all of that. And obviously doing what you do, you become, you’re a great storyteller and your tonality. And Obviously those watching YouTube are going to get a different experience than those listening to, which is you’re, they’re still going to enjoy it. But you could see that in your face. I could visualize you being at that little fence and your brother putting his arms around you and saying, don’t do drugs. Learned behavior is so powerful. But he did you, he gave you a gift, right, that made you hang on. And it may sound terrible, but by your sister going through what she’s going through, your other brother smuggling as well, it constantly reaffirmed that little statement that your older brother said to you, right? Don’t do drugs. Because you weren’t, you seen what the consequence was for your brother going to jail. And you seen how your dad reacted, your mom reacted, you. And obviously you’ve culminated all this as an adult and been able to analyze, look at it. But I talk to people all the time. What is your monster? What’s your, what’s your health monster? Your money monster? Your physical monster was yours. Did your parents ever do anything with you? Like, did you go camping? Did you go on holidays? Did you go to the local park? Did you go, you know, fishing? Did you, did you do anything with your parents? No. Weekends, mom and dad were drinking, mom and dad were smoking. Mom and dad were angry all the time. And you may disagree, but addictions are so much more than alcohol and drugs. People are addicted to sex because they’re miserable, because they learned behavior. They’ve seen their parents cheat on one another, and then they became the same because they didn’t know how to break that, that connection to drugs and alcohol. And so they picked their own thing.
[00:18:46 – 00:18:47]
Oh, yeah, yeah.
[00:18:47 – 00:18:59]
Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe it’s all of it. Maybe it’s sex, drugs and alcohol. Who knows? Maybe. Maybe they’re addicted just to being angry all the time. Or like you said, mom, she became that embarrassed drunk.
[00:18:59 – 00:18:59]
Yeah.
[00:18:59 – 00:19:03]
You know what I mean? There’s so many things that we can attach to those addictions.
[00:19:04 – 00:20:35]
Yeah, we all have it. We do. And it has to go back to the reward system inside our brain. Because when I look at my sister, when my sister can’t get the drug that she needs, I watch these things that she goes through. She gets depressed, she gets upset, she doesn’t know where her life is going, all that kind of stuff. And so when I talk to parents about addiction, we always had the idea that addiction ruins our lives, that it’s, you know, going to make us wreck our car or ruin our family. I’ll be honest with you. I do 400 presentations a year because I am addicted to this. If I don’t have presentations for a month, I go through all the same things my sister does. I feel depressed, I feel a little bit anxious. I’m like, when is my next speaking engagement going to come up? And it all goes back to that reward system inside our brain. Some addictions, working out, that kind of stuff, they actually benefit us. But I’m even, you know, maybe safe to say you probably love doing these podcasts, right? I mean, and you’ll wake up at 2 o’clock in the morning, and if you had to do a podcast at 3:00 in the morning with an interesting, you know, guest, it’s not a burden to you because it goes inside your brain and it hits that reward system and it says, Dwight, you know, you’re, you’re somebody, Dwight. This is the direction you want to go, Dwight, you want to get this out there. So, yeah, we all have it. And I talk to parents about that quite a bit. Like your kids. How do you get your kids addicted to you as a parent? Just use all those elements inside their head that we’re designed to do. And so, yeah, definitely what you’re saying about that is we all have that addiction. We all have something that we kind of run to.
[00:20:36 – 00:20:46]
Yeah, of course. And you know, you mentioned being addicted to the parent. Well, positive reinforcement. They come and talk to you, you actually listen.
[00:20:46 – 00:20:47]
Right.
[00:20:47 – 00:22:50]
You don’t dismiss them. They come to you with their challenges. Can you put your character building moment that you’re going through, mom or dad right now at that point on the shelf and focus on the child? And they’re hurt. Yeah, right. But the problem is, is most parents don’t have the, the emotional iq. They don’t have the emotional strength to distance themselves temporarily from their check, their moment, their character building moment. They’re going through and, and realize that their child’s more important than them, right? Yes, they’re important, but the child is at such a weakened state in their life that they need you to support them. That’s how they become addicted to you. Because they know they can come to you and listen. You’ll listen to them. They’ll know that when they need you just to listen and not give advice, you know how to do that. And when you give advice, you’re going to do it in a kind way. You’re not going to be I told you so kind of attitude. Well, you know, you should know better. You being a parent is a lot of work for those listening or watching. You got to put effort into it. Being a friend is a lot of work. Being a son, being a daughter, being whatever life is in session. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. You got to put some effort into it. You got to work at it. And the better, better person you are, the more people will be addicted to wanting to be around you. And I think that’s great. I call that, I teach on a 7030 principle about how to, how to get the toxicity and the bad associations out of your life and have those people that you’re talking about being addicted to, they can’t wait to hear your next podcast. They can’t wait to see you on stage again. They can’t wait to just meet up with you and have a coffee or run into you at an event and. And you walk into the room and you can see these people that are addicted to you. I like how you put that. Addicted to you personally. And their eyes light up and all of a sudden they’re scurrying over to you because you give off energy and they want to take it. They’re an energy vampire, but in a good way, because you can feel their appreciation.
[00:22:51 – 00:22:51]
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
[00:22:51 – 00:23:16]
Feel their love. Guess what, parents, you can have that too. And your kids can be addicted to you. Are they 100% can always agree with you? Heck no. That doesn’t work. Life. Life isn’t that simple. Yeah, you got to earn. And those people that say, do what I say, not what I do. How many. That phrase drives me crazy. They’re cussing and swearing, yet they give their kids trouble for swearing.
[00:23:16 – 00:24:30]
Yeah, I talked. Yeah, I talked to parents about that. How that really sort short circuits their brain. Because our brain is always trying to. When I’m talking to parents, your brain’s always trying to complete this loop and figure things out. So imagine you’re walking down the street and you trip over something. What do most people do? They turn around and look to see what they tripped over, Right? That’s your brain trying to close the loop. If I were to look at you and go, hey, Dwight, right? You’re gonna go, knock, knock, right? You’re gonna do the shaving hair. Because your brain wants to close that loop. So when a parent tells their child, clean your room. And the parent. And the child goes, why? And the parent goes, because I’m the dad, that’s why. What they have just done inside that child’s head is they’ve short circuited it. Because when a child asks why, they’re not challenging our authority. And it took me a little bit to learn this with my own kids, what happens is the brain is trying to go, why do I need to clean my room? And I saw this with my mom when I brought home this. I don’t know if you remember back in the day, there was a Farrah Fawcett poster. Probably most people in the room won’t know what I’m talking about.
[00:24:30 – 00:24:33]
She’s in that bathing suit and her hair is flowing back.
[00:24:33 – 00:24:38]
Yeah, it was a chilly day when she. Photo.
[00:24:38 – 00:24:40]
Yes, I. I do remember it.
[00:24:40 – 00:26:11]
Yeah. How can I. How could you not? I brought that poster home from a record store and I put it up on the wall and I was proud of that poster right and so I came home the next day from school ready to spend my afternoon with Farrah Fawcett. And it was rolled up on my bed. It wasn’t crumpled up. It was rolled up. And I’m like, okay, here we go. Put it back up on my wall, you know? And next day, I came home, it was rolled up. And I think we did that for a number of days, you know? And I finally came home, and I did the thing every kid does. Mom, what are you doing? This is my room. I paid for that with my money. Why are you taking it down? And instead of my mom fighting me on that, I remember her going, you know, this was down the road. I was in high school at this point. I remember her going, son, I don’t like that poster. Because I don’t want you to think of women like that. Like, what are you talking about, Mom? And she goes, this person is more than just a per. A poster or a sexy girl. This is a person that you’re looking at. And it taught me this whole lesson. And my mom was trying to get across to me not to look at her just as a sex symbol, even though that’s, you know, what the poster was about, but that there’s a human being behind that. And it really changed my life in. In. Or changed the way I thought about things, you know, in that situation, as opposed to my mom going, we’re just not going to put that up. She, like, explained it to my brain, like, why it’s important. And I made a decision like, okay, that makes sense to me, you know, and my mom did that pretty well.
[00:26:11 – 00:26:12]
And I’m gonna dismiss you.
[00:26:13 – 00:26:15]
Right, right. Didn’t dismiss me.
[00:26:15 – 00:26:42]
Being dismissive of people is really difficult. I know there was times in my kids, especially being a single dad, would come home and there’s more than one, and, you know, and I’d have to check myself out and say to me, know what? Right now, at this moment, what you’re saying to me, I know, is really important. Is it so important that it can’t wait for an hour? I’m just the middle of something and obviously knowing, oh, okay, anything I’m doing is not as important.
[00:26:43 – 00:26:43]
Right?
[00:26:43 – 00:27:41]
And just be honest with them. Oh, sure, dad. You know, call me down, whatever. We can chat about it later. And then don’t forget about it, though. Parent or adult figure, friend, guardian, can be that way with adults. I’ll tell adults out, right? You know what? I’m just not in the right. I use these words. I’m not in the right headspace. At this moment, to have this conversation. Something that we can, we can put this. Is there something we can put to bed with this later? Well, tomorrow. Yeah, right. Be empathy and understanding that people aren’t at the right place just because you are is a talent. Knowing when I’m starting to talk to somebody and I look at their body language, Ray. And I listen to their tonality or I watch how they stand because I practice being a person that studies human nature, I’ll sometimes say, you know what? Maybe this isn’t the right great time for me, us to have this conversation. You look distracted.
[00:27:42 – 00:27:42]
Right.
[00:27:42 – 00:27:51]
And sometimes if it’s. And what I’m talking to them about isn’t that urgent, I’ll flip it back and I’ll say them, is there any way I can support you? You need somebody to talk to.
[00:27:52 – 00:27:53]
That’s. Man, you got it.
[00:27:53 – 00:27:56]
Yeah, but it takes work, dude.
[00:27:56 – 00:27:58]
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It takes a lot of work.
[00:27:58 – 00:28:15]
It takes a lot of work to care about somebody besides yourself. Yeah. You have to care for yourself first. You got to work on your own love tank and you got to fill your, your, your desires and needs and, and learn so that you can be better for others.
[00:28:15 – 00:28:15]
Yeah.
[00:28:15 – 00:28:27]
And if, and if you’re having that character building moment, it’s okay to time yourself out either. Or being the starter of it or the person that’s supposed to be receiving it, you’re doing that person a favor.
[00:28:27 – 00:28:27]
Yeah.
[00:28:28 – 00:28:30]
You’re also letting them know you have boundaries.
[00:28:30 – 00:33:08]
I love all the stuff you’re saying. Yeah, I agree with that. And I. That’s the stuff I try to get across to parents so often. You know, there’s, there’s one story I tell parents all the time. I’m like, if you want your kids addicted to you as a family, you have to create that environment. So I have a room of parents in the room. You know, some of them have little kids, some have older kids. And I’ll ask them straight out, how many of you remember playing the game tag? Right? And I see parents raise their hand. I’m like, not, not the one on your app, but the one where you actually went out and got, you know, sweaty and you were out in the sunshine and they’re like, oh yeah, yeah, I remember that. And I said, well, let me walk you through the game of tag. I said, you know, and, and I want you to take yourself back there. I said, how did it work? Probably one kid in the neighborhood had a big tree, right. And there’d be five or six kids and you would pick the kid that was going to be the, you know, the person that was going to tag other people. Now, I was a little bit overweight. No, I was a lot overweight. And I, like, ran in slow motion, you know. But we had one kid in our neighborhood, Chad, and Chad was lightning fast, so he would always be the first kid to, you know, tag people. So I tell him, all right, put yourself back in that spot, right? You got Chad. He’s got his hands up against the tree. He’s counting from one to ten. Everybody takes off. You all run and hide, right? You all have your hiding spot. Then when Chad gets to the, you know, to number 10, he’ll holler, ready or not, here I come. And so then me as a little overweight kid, I would hide in this bush, and I would watch Chad, you know, start flushing out kids and tagging kids and, you know, and hitting other kids. And in my brain, when I could picture Chad was far enough away, I would pop out of that bush, and I would take off running. And I asked parents, how many of you can feel that? How many of you are there with me? And parents are like, oh, yeah, I remember. And I’m like, yeah, I ran in slow motion. So I’m running. Chad sees me now. He is running towards me, and he’s twice as fast as me. So I am running as hard as I possibly can to get to that tree. And I tell him, just picture that. Here comes Chad. I’m running in slow motion. Chad reaches his hand out to tag me. Somehow, I miss it. And I put my hand on that tree, and I ask parents, what do I yell? Every parent in the room gets it right. They all holler the word safe. I’m like, yes, I put my hand on that tree, and I holler the word safe. Safe. I said, as soon as I hollered that word safe and I have my hand on that tree, I said, it’s not just a word. There’s a chemical reaction that takes place inside my head. And it said, this is where I belong. This is safe for me. I am okay here. Everything is going to be all right. And then I look at parents, and I said, that’s what your kids have to have. Your kids have to come home from school, put their hand on the house and go, safe. I belong here. I’m okay here. This is where I belong. This is where I’m going to be okay? And I said, if your kid can’t come home and put his hand on the house and stay safe, I said, you’re Never going to own that kid. You’re never going to have that kid addicted to them. Because we always protect what makes us feel safe. My sister completely. And my sister constantly goes to the same drug dealer. And I’ve talked to her about this over and over again. And she goes to this one guy in this town, and she purchases drugs from this guy on a regular basis. And I’ve asked her, why do you go to that guy? And she says, because I trust him. And she gives me the same thing. I feel safe around this guy. I don’t feel like this guy’s going to poison me. I don’t feel like this guy is going to try to rip me off. So my sister has that same thing. So, parents, if you’re listening and you don’t have a house where your child can come home and go safe, right. Then know this. They’re going to go out and find it, because our brain has to have it. They’re going to go to a neighbor’s house, they’re going to go to some other place, and if you don’t have that, you’ve lost it. And that’s one of the big things that I get across, the parents, is you got to make your house safe. And I can explain how to do all that, because parents automatically think, oh, does that mean I let the kid get away with whatever they want to do? I’m like, no, not at all. But you have rules in your house that make sense to a kid. You have rules that, that when you put a rule out there, a kid doesn’t have to go, why do we have that rule? They understand why that’s there. And if a kid has that, they’ll protect it left and right and back to communication.
[00:33:08 – 00:33:09]
Solid communication.
[00:33:09 – 00:33:10]
Yeah.
[00:33:10 – 00:33:35]
And. And communicating at a level that’s, you know, something they can understand based on their age, age appropriate conversation. So many parents have inappropriate conversations. And, and, and I know it even happens with my adult kids. I’m not gonna say which ones. And that’s their life. They need to. They need to do whatever they’re gonna do.
[00:33:35 – 00:33:35]
Right?
[00:33:35 – 00:34:25]
Right. And I look back at myself when I reflect back on my life and think to myself, did I communicate better with the oldest versus the youngest? Of course I matured. I got better because I wanted to. And then there’s people that say, well, they’re. They were all treated the same. Right. And they didn’t feel that safe thing you talk about. Then all of a sudden, you have runaways. Oh, yeah. I had a daughter that I. That did that A few times. And, and it wasn’t necessarily so. Now you also dynamics and chemistry with kids with amount of divorced families. I was divorced. Right. And all of a sudden now one parent gives them what they want because they don’t have that attachment to that child. So by giving them everything they want and having no rules, they run to them and they think they’ve won.
[00:34:25 – 00:34:25]
Right.
[00:34:26 – 00:34:34]
Reality they’ve lost. Because now anything I’ve put into place to help them to feel safe, to put that hand on that tree is now gone.
[00:34:34 – 00:34:34]
Right.
[00:34:34 – 00:35:05]
And. And I don’t know what the youth you talked about, but ones that doesn’t mean necessarily that a mom and dad did or get her, that their kids are going to be better. Because sometimes now all you have that drunk dad, dismissive mom, whatever. Not dismissive, but, you know, more relaxed mom. Right. She’s alcoholic like you went through. Or you could have a divorce family where one parent is, is got rules, they’re consistent and the other one’s just desperate because they have no connection to their kids.
[00:35:05 – 00:35:06]
Right.
[00:35:06 – 00:35:18]
And I use this and I share with you because now five adult kids ranging from 38 down to 25. Right. Every one of them communicates with me and still to this day asks for support and advice.
[00:35:18 – 00:35:19]
Huge.
[00:35:19 – 00:35:23]
And only one of the five communicates with her mother.
[00:35:23 – 00:35:23]
Yeah.
[00:35:23 – 00:35:47]
Why? Yeah, yeah, I know the answer. But you know, people are saying, well, you know the lesson. I sure have had people communicate with me. Well, you know, we get it. But why would they still be with you? Because people want consistency. They want rules. We’re not against rules. Like you said, we want rules that make sense.
[00:35:47 – 00:35:48]
Right, Right.
[00:35:48 – 00:36:09]
And if, and if it’s. And if that rule and your kid isn’t challenging and they ask about it, hey, mom, hey, dad, why about this? Just sit them down and say, hey, you need to clean your room. Because it’s a form of cleanliness. There can be bugs, there can be this and that, and it just, you know, you come into a room and it’s clean, you’re going to feel better about yourself. How would we try that out?
[00:36:10 – 00:36:10]
Yeah.
[00:36:10 – 00:36:20]
And if it doesn’t work, let’s see if we can work together. It’s communication. Was I perfect at it, Ray? Absolutely not. I just kept on getting better.
[00:36:20 – 00:36:21]
I’ll tell you what, if you got.
[00:36:21 – 00:36:23]
Different from my oldest to the youngest.
[00:36:23 – 00:36:23]
Yeah.
[00:36:23 – 00:36:25]
It was different parenting. It just was.
[00:36:25 – 00:38:24]
Yeah. If you have kids that are still talking to you at this age, you’re a winner. You did a lot of things right. Because I see so many Parents whose kids don’t talk to them anymore. And they’re shocked. And they’re like, you know, why is that happening? I’m like, let me spend some time with you, and I’ll probably tell you why. But, you know, going back to what you’re talking about, rules and kids talking to you, because I talk to parents as well. And so normally, like, let’s say I did a program in San Francisco. I asked all the parents, I said, how many of you gone to cross the Golden Gate Bridge? And every parent’s like, yeah, yep, I’ve gone, you know, across that bridge a bunch of times. And I said, let me ask you this. Let’s say that they took the guardrails down on the bridge, right? So there’s no guardrails now, so you could just easily walk off the side. I said, would you feel safe on that bridge? And parents immediately say, no, no, I would not feel safe on that bridge at all. And I asked them, well, how many times have you hit those guardrails and it’s kept you from going over the side? And they’re like, never. I’m like, but you’re saying if they weren’t there, then you’re going to feel unsafe, right? And they’re like, yep. And I said, that’s what rules are. You set these rules in boundary and say, this is the area that you can drive in. I says, you’ll have some kids that’ll run into those rules over and over again, and you’ll have other kids that’ll just go. But the thing that those guardrails do is is they keep you. They help you to have that feeling of, I’m safe, I’m okay. And that’s why that guardrails there. So when you’re talking about rules, you have one parent that has guardrails up the kids may never hit, and you have another parent who says, I’m going to take these guardrails down. And at first it’s like, for the kid, it’s like, I love it. No guardrails. But then somewhere along the line, it hits them and they’re like, ah, you know what? I. I do need rules. I do need those boundaries. And, you know, that’s. That’s where that comes in. And that analogy backfires.
[00:38:24 – 00:38:25]
It backfires on people.
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Yeah.
[00:38:26 – 00:38:28]
Yeah, I love that analogy. I’m gonna steal that.
[00:38:28 – 00:38:31]
Done. It’s yours, buddy. It’s yours.
[00:38:31 – 00:38:44]
Like I tell people, when you find out a great idea, you tell the first person, you tell it to a group, you give that Person credit. The second time you say an associate of mine or friend. The third time, you own it.
[00:38:44 – 00:38:44]
You own it.
[00:38:45 – 00:38:52]
Yeah, I’ve said that a million times to people. I’ll say, I’m gonna steal that. Good. And here’s how you steal it. And then they laugh, right? Because.
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Yeah.
[00:38:53 – 00:39:01]
What is life? Life isn’t always serious. You gotta have a chuckle, you gotta have a belly laugh. You gotta have that warm, fuzzy sensation. Right, Right.
[00:39:01 – 00:39:56]
I do drug and alcohol presentations in front of teachers. And I start off the. Some of them, I start off and I come out, like, really stern and I say, listen, you’re going to see a lot of slides right here. And if I find out six months down the road that you have stolen all of my slides and are using them, I’m going to be so happy. I’m going to be. And I said, steal. And I said, because it’s not about me getting this information across. The important thing is that you’re able to explain why a kid shouldn’t use an electronic cigarette. And if my slide is going to help you do that, then steal my slide. And I, we put them on our website. We like. If you want our slide show, you take it. Yeah, we’ll develop new stuff. We’ll keep coming up with new stuff. But exactly what you’re saying right there, man, if you have a good idea, if my analogy of that bridge helps you to explain to a parent and make them a better parent, you own it. Yeah.
[00:39:56 – 00:40:26]
Yeah. Well, at the end of the day, though, you know, it’s unfortunate, but I had people tell me when I used to, you know, I had people I’d communicate with about my sadness and my heartbreak because even though I had legal custody, one daughter would go back to their mom and they weren’t supposed to, but going to court and fighting all the time doesn’t correct anything. So I just let them have to trip skin their knee and decide, I’ve been here for a month, there’s no food in the fridge all the time.
[00:40:26 – 00:40:27]
Right.
[00:40:27 – 00:40:44]
I can’t always get to my extracurricular stuff. Who’s the person coming here to get me even? And they love me enough to show through actions, right. That they’re going to still pick me up and take me, even though I’m making a poor choice of being back with that parent that doesn’t have the guardrails.
[00:40:44 – 00:40:46]
Yeah, Right. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:40:46 – 00:41:35]
And time went by and, yeah, all five kids communicate with me at different levels. I have some of my others. Two of my. Two of my five kids, I Talk to. Every day, they communicate with me, whether it’s a simple text or. Or it’s. One of my kids flew out to Seattle today to see one of my other daughters that is a travel nurse. She’s working in Seattle right now. Canadian working in Seattle. Flew out with two of my grandkids. Right. I got up earlier than I normally would get up because they asked one of my adult sons to take, like, my only adult son, part of me to take them to. To the airport. And I want to come. Why, Dad? I just want to see them off. It’s Willie’s eight. It’s William’s first time in a flight, and I just want to do that. I want to be there. I want to give him hugs. Yeah, right.
[00:41:35 – 00:41:35]
Yeah.
[00:41:35 – 00:41:39]
And they want me to be there. My daughter was excited I was coming, right?
[00:41:39 – 00:41:40]
So.
[00:41:40 – 00:41:40]
Right.
[00:41:40 – 00:41:45]
Yeah. Yes. You’re a winner, dude. You are a winner, man. You did a bunch of stuff right.
[00:41:45 – 00:41:47]
But it takes effort.
[00:41:48 – 00:41:48]
Oh, yeah.
[00:41:48 – 00:42:05]
It takes. It takes course correction. It takes reflection. And one thing it takes is always having gratefulness for the fact that I even have that. When there’s so many parents said, don’t. Oh, yeah, you’re right. They don’t. They wish. Or people go, oh, I wish I had what you have.
[00:42:05 – 00:42:05]
Yeah.
[00:42:05 – 00:42:08]
Well, it must be nice. It must have been so easy.
[00:42:10 – 00:42:10]
Yeah.
[00:42:11 – 00:42:30]
I went through the school of hard knocks as a parent. I did bad. I made mistakes. I apologized with sincerity, and I worked on me continually. I. I asked for forgiveness for things that I did that I wouldn’t have done for the fifth kid, that I did to the first kid. Not to say abusive things, but you know what I mean, Just parenting things.
[00:42:30 – 00:42:31]
Right.
[00:42:31 – 00:42:38]
Oh, you’re right. Such and such. I. I’m sorry that I, you know, I was a young, young parent. There was no parent book.
[00:42:38 – 00:42:39]
No.
[00:42:39 – 00:42:40]
No what to do.
[00:42:40 – 00:42:40]
Yeah.
[00:42:40 – 00:42:48]
I was trying my best. And then advice I was getting from other people that weren’t the greatest parents. Wasn’t a, you know, I didn’t know.
[00:42:48 – 00:42:48]
Yeah.
[00:42:48 – 00:42:49]
I’m sorry.
[00:42:49 – 00:42:54]
Comes with a manual. Except for kids, you buy a washing machine, manual dishwasher, manual stove.
[00:42:54 – 00:42:57]
Yeah. There’s even a glossary at the back you can look up.
[00:42:58 – 00:43:02]
But they just hand you another person. Like, here, this is yours. Go home.
[00:43:03 – 00:44:16]
Oh, my gosh. You know, all we can do, brother, is just, you know, give it for me. I’m Christian faith bearing. I give it up to God and I say, what is your will for me? I’m grateful for you allowing me to wake up today. I’m grateful for today, getting to talk to Ray earlier. What a great conversation. Please continue to bless me with people that were. We have the synergy, the energy, you know, being grateful is so important. But anyway, I, I digress. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. But what a great conversation. Yeah, it’s a great conversation. So one of the things, there’s lots of stuff that I want to talk to you about. So let’s, let’s keep on moving forward. So Ray, so many people live in a campton life, right? We’ve talked about that. You’ve brought up the proverbial hamster wheel. Unable to move forward, they’re stuck in a rut. We already talked about this. But just to reaffirm going to work, go home, then get paid and repeat. Right. They just, they’re living for the weekends. They’re, they’re living. They can’t wait till Friday comes around. Look at all the posts today that’ll probably be on social media. It’s Friday and what are they doing? They come home and they hit their addiction.
[00:44:16 – 00:44:16]
Yeah.
[00:44:16 – 00:44:57]
Alcohol, drugs, maybe both. Maybe they’re, maybe they’re out, you know, away from their family because they’ve worked hard. Daddy deserves this or mommy deserves this. They make excuses. The other parent does a significant other while, while that person goes out and parties or goes and does their sports. Spent. I’ve had a hard week. I deserve to do all this stuff. Constantly making excuses for being on that hamster wheel. You know, I’ve worked with people for going on 23 years to get unstuck and live a purposeful intent for life. Was there any one person in your life that drove you to have this tenacious attitude that you’ve developed and that never die attitude?
[00:44:58 – 00:47:11]
You know what? It was my dad. And so probably and I got stories of, you know, him stopping drinking and stuff like that. But once I started to get into high school, they were getting older and they kind of changed their lifestyle. And my dad had that real show up for work kind of attitude. And my dad was a rancher in the Imperial Valley and he took over this one guy’s ranch and the guy was really diverse and he had sugar beets, cotton, hay, but all of it was like okay quality. So my dad presented this idea to him way back in like gosh, the late 70s. He said, let’s grow one crop on your field. We’re just going to do hay and we’re going to make it the best hay that you know other racetracks and you know, other farmers are going to want to have for their feet. And this farmer took a chance on my dad. He said, all right, let’s just focus on one thing, hay. And my dad became one of the top hay growers in the Imperial Valley. We were selling hay to, you know, some of the racetracks, Belmont and Santa Anita and stuff like that, because it was such high quality. And I saw my dad go through this, and I think it really helped me to have, like, a single focus, like, focus on that one thing and get that right. And then after my dad got the whole, hey, correct and was just making money hand over fist with that, then he started to branch out in some other things. But I really think my lesson of focusing on drugs and alcohol came from my dad and just that. That single focus. Like, I wanted to be the guy that schools are looking for when it comes to drugs and alcohol. I don’t want to be a speaker on bullying. I don’t want to talk about goal setting. I don’t want to talk about. I want to be the speaker that the schools are looking for, just like my dad was when it came to hay. And I think that’s. Yeah, I think that’s who really drilled it in me is that single focus. And, you know, I’ve seen some movies where they talk about that as well, Just having that single focus. And then once you get that down, then you can move into some other areas. And that’s. I. I would attribute it totally to my dad.
[00:47:11 – 00:47:56]
What a powerful story. I know myself in regards to my father. Very successful business owner, Grew up and like, now I’m in a city of 1.5 million people. I grew up in a community of like 12,000 farming community and didn’t realize all the lessons. I don’t know how long it took you to realize that, but the lessons that I learned from my dad and the pride and the customer service skills and just the different things that he. That I learned from him didn’t realize till I was in my later 20s, early 30s. But, you know, was my dad perfect? Absolutely not. Right. Great man. I learned a lot from him. He had his flaws. We all. We all can have our flaws, especially if we don’t know how to identify them and work on. On erasing them.
[00:47:56 – 00:47:56]
Right.
[00:47:56 – 00:48:00]
But, you know, I learned a lot from my dad, too. So thank you for sharing that story.
[00:48:00 – 00:48:01]
Yeah.
[00:48:01 – 00:48:11]
You know, especially with the adversity of your dad being heavy into alcohol and stuff, there was still a light. There was still something that helped you grow, and that’s. That’s amazing.
[00:48:12 – 00:48:59]
Yeah, that’s part of my book. What I talk about sometimes. We, you know, just. They got a drug problem, there’s, there’s nothing they can give me that’s going to help me out. But yeah, I don’t see it like that. You know, my sister, like I said, if I were to call my sister right now, more than likely she would be intoxicated or pretty high and stuff like that. But I still learn lessons from my sister. I still try to glean what, you know, she can give me because she’s a human being, you know, she deserves my respect. Has she done some crazy stuff? Totally. She, you know, gone out there and you know, destroyed a big. Yeah, yeah, she has. But she’s still a human being. And the bottom line, and that’s one of the things that I really wanted to get across in my book. Just, you know, I had to draw the line with my sister. Like you can’t step over that line. But I still have love and compassion for her, so.
[00:48:59 – 00:49:55]
Well, good for you. You know, and that’s, that’s a similar thing. I’m totally different to my two, there’s three of us, two older sisters. I’m the youngest. Just like there’s differences between my oldest child to my youngest female male. There’s, there’s commonalities or similarities and they, even the ones that are the, the most challenging for me as an adult to adult parent them, it’s, it’s sometimes shocking the things that they can say and I’ll go, yeah, that’s a light bulb moment for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it does happen. So I appreciate that. Yeah. So, yeah, next thing I want to discuss with you is. So I was reading about the fact that, you know, you unsuccessfully tried twice to launch your dream business and your third time around, you know, it panned out and it was the ticket you were looking for.
[00:49:56 – 00:49:56]
Right.
[00:49:56 – 00:50:16]
But through these challenges, what did you experience in all aspects, all aspects of your life? Because it’s not just business. Did. What do these challenges teach you that set the course of running your third attempt, your successful business today? What did you learn through that to those character building journey moments in your journey?
[00:50:16 – 00:53:10]
Yeah. Ah, you know, I learned as I’m thinking about it, I can’t do everything. I, I can’t. And I thought that I could. Now when I first started my business, I thought I gotta talk to every sponsor that calls me. I have to answer every email personally, I have to make sure that I send out the con. And so I tried to do everything So I was a speaker. I was the marketer. I was the contract person. I was the email person. And the reason why my business had started off really well, and it took off, but then it hit this point where it was too much for me. So when people were calling me, it was taking me too long to get back to them, because I would either be on the road speaking, or I’d have some other contracts. So by the time I got back to them, they had made a decision. So that was the very first time my business took off. And then it crashed. And I thought, man, I wonder what happened? And so I brought my wife on board a little bit, and she kind of helped out. So the first year went about five years and then crashed. The second year probably went about seven years or eight years, and then it crashed. And I thought, why is that happening? So I started to read books and started to really look into this, and I realized that I am no good at contracts. I am no good at, you know, detailed work. I’m big picture guy. And so I hired an administrative assistant who loves connecting and saying, okay, he can be here this day, but he can’t be here this day. And she, like, Rubik cubes all the calendar together. And, you know, it was so funny because every time I would give her stuff, I’m like, I’m sorry. Here’s some stuff for the calendar. Like, I love it. So she is, like, meticulous on that. She doesn’t want to speak to kids. She’s awful. You know, I would never put her on stage, but, boy, I will never take her off my calendar to the point where I don’t even touch my calendar. If I put something on my calendar, she gets upset with me, you know, because I mess it up. So that’s, you know, what I had to learn is that I can’t do it all, that I have to have individuals who are great at that kind of stuff come in and assist me with that. And once I learned that lesson, it has, you know, really flourished to the place where I’m at now. So that’s my big thing. Even when it comes to, you know, parenting, you can’t do it all. And you got to get some advice from people and you got to, you know, reach out and, you know, and. And see the things that you’re weak at. You know, we always want to hire to our weakness. If you’re no good at spelling, hire somebody that’s great at spelling. If you’re no good at contracts, hire somebody that’s great at contracts. If you have trouble communicating with the kids, find somebody who is and kind of glean from them. So, yeah, that, that was the big lesson that I learned.
[00:53:10 – 00:53:31]
Well, yeah, because at the end of the day, accepting our strengths and giving up our weaknesses is. Doesn’t make us weak. It makes us intelligent, it makes us smart. Because now we can take that energy from that weakness that we were wasting on that weakness and excel and use that for bettering other people’s lives, starting with ourselves by admitting that.
[00:53:31 – 00:53:32]
Right, right, right.
[00:53:32 – 00:54:12]
So I. I’d say that’s. That’s a very good lesson for all of us to learn that are watching or listening. You know, it’s tough, right. When I was struggling with my kids and I didn’t know how to deal with some of the trauma they were dealing with because of divorce and going through living with both parents to living with just me, I. I sought out professionals, I sought out mentorship and coaching. And I also learned how many people think they know what I’m going through in the family and friends that really don’t and that their advice isn’t worth. Like my dad would say, their advice isn’t worth a hill of beans. Right.
[00:54:13 – 00:54:15]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:54:15 – 00:54:20]
Some of the things that we go through. So that’s a great message. Right. You can’t do everything.
[00:54:20 – 00:54:33]
Well, now you got YouTube if you need to, you know, see how to communicate with your kids if, you know. Yeah. And there’s so many times I’ve looked at YouTube to try to get some answers on some stuff, you know, and me too. Yeah.
[00:54:33 – 00:54:35]
Now you can use AI.
[00:54:35 – 00:54:37]
Yeah, AI, totally. Right, right.
[00:54:37 – 00:55:04]
You can use. You can utilize so many different aspects to increase your, your emotional and a mental iq. Right. To make things better. So we talked about, you know, your, Your dad and how has influence. Was there anybody else along your journey that when you talked about mentorship that mentored you, that, that their ear, when they spoke, you were like, I gotta listen to that.
[00:55:04 – 00:55:04]
Yeah.
[00:55:05 – 00:55:21]
They might be able to help me. Maybe there’s a tidbit of knowledge that can make me be a better, you know, communicator, storyteller person. Was there any one person besides your dad, like a mentor? Maybe. Maybe it wasn’t even somebody you met. Maybe it was somebody you listened to or a book you read.
[00:55:21 – 00:58:27]
Yeah, there was one gentleman and a little bit of a famous guy, Michael Pritchard. And Michael Pritchard, he used to brag all the time, oh, yeah, I had dinner with George Lucas. I’m like, okay, yeah, I had, you know, Dinner with and he would go off on all this stuff and I’d always kind of take it like, okay, sure, sure. And then one day he invited me over to his house and he’s like, oh, there’s my photo album. And I open it up and there he is having dinner with George Lucas. And there he is, you know, on stage with Robin Williams and all this kind of stuff. And he really like put his arm around me when I was looking for, you know, some mentorship on speaking and getting out there. Michael Pritchard was a pretty well known speaker back in the day. He really came alongside me and reinforced in a different aspect some of the stuff that my dad had taught me. So my dad taught me have that single focus. When I started speaking, I thought, wow, I’m going to talk on a whole bunch of topics. You know, I’m going to cover this whole stuff because I’ll get so much work because I’m talking on all these different topics. And I did that for a number of years. And then Michael Pritchard saw me speak and for some reason we just hit it off really well. And he came up and I remember one piece of advice that I have given my speakers over and over again. Michael Pritchard said, when you start putting your presentation together, you want to focus on a certain group of people. And the example that he used, he says, you want to speak to people who have blue skin, six teeth and they live in a trailer park. And he says, if you can niche your speech where that’s the only group that you can talk to, he says, you will make so much money speaking. And I thought to myself, how could that possibly be? He says, because there’s going to be people that work with blue skinned people that have six teeth, that live in trailer park who are going to look for the professional and the expert in that area. So he says, niche your material. So I niched my material where all I do is talk to junior high and high school kids. That’s it. Every now and then I’ll speak to law enforcement or you know, some non profit groups. But that is the area that I niched and he really mentored me in that gave me that piece of information and it has, you know, really been valuable throughout my life. And I, I remember that example. And so he came alongside and then in time, once my brother got out of prison, he really changed his life in prison. When he went to prison, he realized, Manny, he can’t hang with those kind of guys. He doesn’t have that kind of gang Mentality. He’s just a low level drug user, you know, bringing stuff over. He turned his life around quite a bit and started working with people that had addictions and stuff. And he was a, a real strong mentor to me as well. So both of those, Michael Pritchard and my brother Henry were, you know, big, you know, markers in my life. Huge. You know, helped me to excel, helped me to think, helped me to really focus on what I was doing.
[00:58:27 – 00:58:29]
That’s fantastic.
[00:58:29 – 00:58:29]
Yeah.
[00:58:29 – 00:58:49]
Would. What do you do currently in your life to stay on an intentional, purposeful journey in your life? Like, what do you do for you? What are some of your secrets? What do you do for you, Ray? What do you. I’m not talking about going out for supper. I’m talking about what do you do for your own personal development?
[00:58:50 – 00:59:26]
Well, my own personal development. And I see I’ve created this job where there, there is zero burden for me. I, I just, you know, if I want to go out to eat at a fancy dinner, I’m probably in some city somewhere. So that is taken care of. You know, I love staying in hotels, I love flying. And I know it’s going to sound crazy, but I really enjoy reading about drugs and alcohol. That is like a relaxing thing for me. And you know, your passion, though, that makes sense. Yeah.
[00:59:26 – 00:59:30]
Eating, your passion is, is a purposeful intent for life.
[00:59:30 – 00:59:42]
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And it always adds to. And so when people say, you know, like, what is your hobby or what do you do for you? Man, my whole life is a hobby. You know, I mean, just this week.
[00:59:42 – 00:59:45]
I read that about you. You don’t even feel like you have a job, right?
[00:59:45 – 01:02:49]
No, I, since 1990, I, you know, I hear people talk about, oh, I gotta go to work. I’m like, okay, you know, I, I just can’t. And I hate saying that because I know there’s people right now that are on the complete opposite side of that. But since 1990, I have not felt like I’ve worked a day in my life. I, I haven’t. And so this week alone, we had 18 presentations. We were staying in a beautiful Airbnb, we went out to eat afterwards. And just. It just, yeah, it sounds so weird to me, but I, you know, I don’t want to work with wood. I don’t want to, you know, I love going to the gym in the morning. I love riding my motorcycle, but I love going to the airport and I love talking to kids and those conversations that I have. And I think the big reward for me or the thing that like, energizes me all the time. I give you this as an example. This is, I think, what empowers me. Yesterday we were speaking and I bring my daughter who does a presentation with me. So she was talking about alcohol, and we were talking about how, you know, alcohol causes people to do stuff that they would not normally do. Presentation’s over. My daughter’s 28 years old, and this high school girl comes up to her and you could tell she’s been crying. And she comes up to my daughter and I’m just kind of standing off to the side, and she goes, my dad is really insulting when he drinks and makes me feel really bad. She goes, is that really my dad or is that the alcohol? And my daughter was able to explain, well, this is why your dad does that, because. And she talks about the inhibitions inside the head and all those kind of things. And she says, how is your dad when he’s not drinking? Because he’s a really nice guy. Same kind of stuff I saw with my dad, you know. And so my daughter was able to comfort her. So when she goes home and the next time her dad is telling her insulting stuff, there’s now a check inside this young lady’s head that goes, this isn’t my dad. This is alcohol. This isn’t my dad treating me like this. This is something that alcohol is making them do. So I’m not going to take it as personal as I used to. And that is my reward right there. That is the thing that, that I get so much pleasure from that, and I get so much reward from that. That. And that’s been a constant in my life. And just the other day I got a random private message on Tick Tock. And it’s a high school kid. He goes, I love playing baseball, but I’m having trouble breathing when I run. Is that from the electronic cigarette? I’m like, yeah, that’s definitely from it. And he goes, how do I quit? So I’m working with him over Tick Tock on how to quit using his vape. That. I know it sounds good. That’s my reward, man, that, that’s why I do this. And I just, it’s just my passion and that’s, that’s what I do for me is, is that it’s.
[01:02:49 – 01:03:32]
You don’t have to know it all. You can feel it and I can see it. For those that aren’t, they’re listening on, you know, your earbuds or whatever, and you’re, you’re working out or you’re driving in your vehicle. If you get a chance, go to YouTube, watch this, go to some of the places. If you can see what I can see, the. The excitement and the joy, and raise eyes. It would just. It’ll completely make the conversation that much better. Not that it’s not good the way it is, but when you can see somebody and you can visualize the excitement, the passion you have and that you’re not. You’re. You’re. You’re unapologetic about the fact that you like reading about drugs and alcohol.
[01:03:32 – 01:03:33]
Yeah, That’s.
[01:03:33 – 01:03:57]
That’s fueling your passion to help more people. It’s like me reading about financial stuff, reading about. Right. Come on. Why do I do that? Because I have a passion. Why do I read it? Why do I do personal development? To get into the minds of helping people with their monsters, their money monsters, their health monsters. I do so much more than financial planning because that’s my passion.
[01:03:57 – 01:03:57]
Yeah.
[01:03:57 – 01:04:02]
I want to help them so they’re stable enough so that they don’t destroy their lives financially.
[01:04:02 – 01:04:02]
Yeah.
[01:04:02 – 01:04:22]
I want to help them with all these things about how to deal with associations or how to deal with negativity or how to time themselves out or, you know, all these things are my passion. So. Yeah, I like the fact never be. Never apologize for the fact of doing what makes you smile inside and outside.
[01:04:22 – 01:04:35]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that’s. That’s what is. Thanks, man. You really helped me with that because every now and then I get that question, like, what do you do for you as a hobby? I’m like, read about drugs, you know, I love it. Yeah, I’m looking at my shelf right there.
[01:04:35 – 01:05:11]
I get that all the time, though. What do you do? Well, I like hiking when the weather’s nice. I really enjoy that. One of my favorite things is having a great conversation with a person over. Over a meal, over a car. It doesn’t even have to be a coffee. Just getting to know that person and getting to just climb inside of their skin. It may sound creepy, but to feel you and your passion, to feel your energy, and I’m not physically saying do that. I’m saying, like, just empathize with them. Like, relate with them. And even if you don’t relate. Understand?
[01:05:11 – 01:05:12]
Yes. Yeah.
[01:05:12 – 01:05:24]
Understand what they’re saying. You don’t have to relate. You can pick up on the energy. You can understand. You don’t have to always have an answer. You don’t always have to have an opinion.
[01:05:25 – 01:05:25]
Right.
[01:05:25 – 01:05:29]
You can just be somebody that enjoys Ray’s passion. Like.
[01:05:29 – 01:05:30]
Yeah, yeah.
[01:05:30 – 01:05:32]
Yeah. You don’t have to understand it or explain it away.
[01:05:32 – 01:05:35]
Thanks. Yeah, you’re so right. Yeah.
[01:05:35 – 01:05:52]
Just enjoy your life, man. Like brother, do like I say to people all the time, you do you and I’ll do me. And if they’re sitting in judgment of what I say, I have no problems looking at somebody and saying, now I’m very kind, never being an asshole about it. That sounds like a U issue, Ray.
[01:05:53 – 01:05:54]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
[01:05:55 – 01:06:16]
That doesn’t. They try to project and make their. You know, you need to believe this. You can’t believe that. You need to believe in Trump, you know, you need to believe in Biden. No, you need to believe in Poly. You need to believe in Trudeau or whatever. You know what I mean? You need to believe that vaping is good. You need to believe vaping is bad. We know the truth.
[01:06:16 – 01:06:17]
Yeah, but at the end of the.
[01:06:17 – 01:06:25]
Day, you know, you do you, I’ll do me. And at the end of the day, your opinion is your reality.
[01:06:25 – 01:06:25]
Yeah.
[01:06:26 – 01:06:27]
I cannot. Right?
[01:06:27 – 01:06:27]
Yeah.
[01:06:27 – 01:06:32]
At the end of the day, your reality is only going to be changed by working on you.
[01:06:32 – 01:06:33]
So true.
[01:06:33 – 01:06:35]
Listening to somebody that’s smarter than you.
[01:06:35 – 01:06:35]
Yeah.
[01:06:35 – 01:07:26]
Doesn’t mean that they’re intelligent, more intelligent intellectually than you, but they got more skin in the game, more time in the game, they got more ex. Mistakes that we made into life lessons to make them a better individual to continue to drive forward in their passion. So if they don’t do, they don’t go out and quad, and they don’t go out and canoe, and they don’t go out and do all this stuff, and they say they only have a couple hobbies, and one of them is. Is personal development, which is one of mine. Continue to develop myself. And the other one’s hiking. Guess what? I’ve had so many group hikes where I’ve flown down to. I have a group of friends and we’ve met up 2023, we met up in Portugal, we hiked 2021, we met up in Mexico, we hiked 2020, we met up in Utah and went hiking. You know what? You can have some great conversations with people when you’re out and your cell free.
[01:07:26 – 01:07:29]
Yeah. Around the campfire. Those are the best, aren’t they?
[01:07:29 – 01:07:49]
Oh, I love campfires. But people say to me, well, I mean, like a real hobby. What? Yeah, your definition of real hobby. Me going out and playing beer league baseball or hockey, where people are after they’re done playing their. Their beer league at 11 o’clock at night or whatever. And they’re pounding back beers. That’s them. They can do them.
[01:07:49 – 01:07:50]
Right.
[01:07:50 – 01:07:54]
That’s not me. Quit defining who I need to be by what you believe I should be.
[01:07:55 – 01:07:56]
Right? Yeah.
[01:07:56 – 01:07:56]
Right?
[01:07:56 – 01:08:38]
Yeah, yeah. And I understand what you’re saying, because I think what happens is people are doing all of this stuff that they hate doing, and they want to do this because they love it. But for us, it’s like, I’m doing all of this stuff that I love to do. So every now and then I do something that I don’t, you know, maybe I don’t love as much. But yeah, I’ll end up doing that kind of stuff. But yeah, I, I mean, there’s, I wake up every day, I don’t have an alarm. I set my own schedule, and there’s very rarely do I wake up and like, ah, I got to do this. I, you know, I designed my job. I made it the way I wanted to make it. And you know what I’m not good at? What I’m not good at, I send off to my other employees like, you knock this out and I’ll take care of the big picture.
[01:08:38 – 01:08:50]
Wow. Yeah. You’ve got your life roadmap, and you know what’s going to be there, and you know what things you’re going to put in the legend of your map. And that legend of the map might be your assistant dealing with your calendar.
[01:08:50 – 01:08:51]
Right? Right.
[01:08:51 – 01:09:03]
You know, you can have a little legend over here. This is how this map of my life’s going to run, right? Oh, here’s a pit stop. I have to talk to her now. I’m back from the road. Oh, this is a pit stop at the airport. I’m flying to help somebody. Right?
[01:09:03 – 01:09:04]
Yeah.
[01:09:04 – 01:09:15]
Your life map is your life map. And, and if it makes you smile more than it makes you sad, if it makes it so you can look in the mirror and you like and you’re proud of yourself, that’s even better.
[01:09:16 – 01:09:16]
Yeah, right.
[01:09:17 – 01:09:51]
And they’re going to have days that maybe you question yourself. Maybe you. I don’t know. Once in a while. I do have imposter syndrome. Like, why would anybody want to be on my show? How would anybody want me to help with finance? Why would anybody want me to coach them on, you know, how to, how to increase their, their positive associations and get rid of the negative ones? Even if it’s family based, just stuff like that. It’s just like, you know what? This is who I am. I’m the ultimate genuine me. You’re gonna like me. You’re not gonna like me. You’re gonna want to be part of my tribe. You’re gonna want to run away from my tribe. And the ones that run away, they’ve done me a favor.
[01:09:51 – 01:09:52]
Right, right.
[01:09:52 – 01:10:02]
You know, like, sometimes I get a friend of mine that says to me all the time, you know, he says, sometimes you just got to let the trash take itself out.
[01:10:02 – 01:10:05]
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. That same exact thing. Yeah. Right.
[01:10:05 – 01:10:20]
You gotta let the garbage take itself out. And, and, and, and at the end of the day, they’re gonna live on the hamster wheel of their life and they’re gonna hit retirement. They’re gonna hate retirement. They’re gonna die young because they got nothing. They’re not beating this G giant computer.
[01:10:20 – 01:10:20]
Right.
[01:10:20 – 01:10:31]
Does not to know the difference between the truth and a lie, you need to feed your brain or you’re going to become stagnant. You just do. And that can done through conversations, books, podcasts.
[01:10:31 – 01:10:32]
Right.
[01:10:32 – 01:10:33]
Documentaries.
[01:10:33 – 01:10:33]
Yeah.
[01:10:33 – 01:10:42]
My favorite of all those, what we’re doing right now. Yeah, I love this conversation. Yeah, yeah, conversation. Because we can learn and grow together.
[01:10:42 – 01:10:43]
Yeah, right.
[01:10:43 – 01:11:05]
And it doesn’t have to end. It can go on even past this podcast. It all depends what people want. So, you know, what a great conversation. What would you give for advice to somebody that’s an entrepreneur on how to have their work and life purpose intertwined better?
[01:11:06 – 01:12:27]
You know, every now and then I talk to kids about this and you know, we talk a little bit about a business or, you know, that kind of stuff, and I tell the kids, what’s your candy? And so what is that one candy you could eat all the time? Like if it was in front of you, that’s the candy you would eat. Right. And so I think for entrepreneurs, and you got to figure out what your candy is. What’s the thing that if you have to get up at 2:00 in the morning to do, you’re okay with that. And so my advice for entrepreneurs is to take a moment before you start whatever you’re going to start and think about that aspect. When I sat down and thought about this job, I thought, do I want to go to the airport at 4:30 in the morning? Yes, I want to do that. Do I want to get stuck in, you know, an airport? Like, nah, not really. But it’s kind of that 80, 20. I love 80% of this, so it’s easy for me to put up with the 20% because I’ve seen some entrepreneurs that have built a business that becomes like a burden around their neck, and it’s something that they struggle with and something that they don’t enjoy doing. And so I think if you’re a young entrepreneur, sit down and think of all the aspects of what you’re going to be doing before you start it and then move forward from there. Because this is the candy that I have to eat every day, and I love it.
[01:12:27 – 01:12:40]
You know, how do high school kids respond to that type of a presentation conversation? Do you ever have that? Like, I know you talk about drugs and alcohol. How do. How is the overall response from those kids?
[01:12:40 – 01:15:38]
Great? We talk about it because we talk about it in light of drugs and alcohol. So one of the things that we talk about is a thing called loss of potential. People that look like they’re going to be amazing end up doing drugs and alcohol, and they do nothing with their life. And so we talk about. I’ll give you an example. We just recently did a TV interview in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And it seems like every time we do a presentation or a type of interview like that, they always ask this question, what is the worst thing for middle school students when it comes to drugs and alcohol? And I always feel like they want us to say death, because death is terrible. You know, I’m not going to try to downplay that, but a kid is going to use an electronic cigarette 40 or 50 or 60 years before he gets to that place of death, and then that end part is just going to be awful. But they’re not going to think about that. But I always say this thing called loss of potential. If this is the very worst thing, which is death, right underneath it is my sister living a life of nothing, absolutely nothing, not leaving a mark on anybody. Not having your legacy. No legacy, Right. And so the thing is, I talk about that with students, and I say, I tell them this. This is something you’re not going to understand in 8th grade or even in high school. But all of you have a special talent, skill, or ability. Something’s been given to every single one of you that you have to nurture it and take care of it. So then we do this whole example with kids. I’ll ask them, you know, yesterday we had like 300 kids in the room. And. And I said, you know, just by round of applause, how many of you great at sports? Probably out of the 300 kids, we had, like, you know, 260 kids or 220 kids that clap, like, yeah, I love playing sports. And I said, well, think about this. Whatever sport you’re thinking about, and you’re good at. There’s somebody out there right now playing that sport, making great money. There’s somebody sitting at home right now who lost that ability because of drugs and alcohol. How many of you are great at playing a musical instrument? There’s somebody making great money doing that. There’s somebody that has lost that ability. So I let them know, you need to protect that thing that is going to help you go through life. And so that’s the response that we get from kids is like, oh, it is important for me not to do drugs. Not for the aspect of just not doing drugs, but because it’s going to help me have a better life doing the things that I love to do. And when we explain that to kids and when we talk about that, it makes more sense to them as opposed to don’t do drugs because it’s going to mess up your lungs. Kids don’t care about their lungs, but they want to have this life that has left a mark. And you see that with, you know, with high school students, then they give them an opportunity to put their name in the parking lot with spray paint or if they’re.
[01:15:38 – 01:16:12]
Well, that’s a great, great way to share, though, when you’re talking about this person has this talent, making lots of money. You’ve lost your potential because of drugs and alcohol. How do you explain, though? Sorry. Because then we’re running out of time here. I wanted to ask you about the vaping more specifically, too. How do you explain that when you just finished saying that the kids don’t care about their lungs? How do you work in the conversation of vaping? Like, you can show. Look at. Like in Canada, they have to put on cigarette packs, the picture of cancerous lungs and all this other stuff to try. They’ve. They’ve proven it doesn’t help, right?
[01:16:12 – 01:16:13]
Oh, yeah, it doesn’t. Yeah.
[01:16:13 – 01:16:19]
So. So how do you. How do you impact somebody that’s a heavy vapor in high school or junior high even?
[01:16:20 – 01:16:20]
Right.
[01:16:20 – 01:16:24]
And. And they’re not just vaping cigarette.
[01:16:24 – 01:16:25]
Right, Right.
[01:16:25 – 01:16:26]
Nicotine.
[01:16:26 – 01:16:27]
Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah.
[01:16:27 – 01:16:29]
They could be vaping whatever.
[01:16:29 – 01:20:25]
Right. It needs to hit home. It needs to be personal, and it needs to be right now. Right. So if I talk about their lungs, they can’t see their lungs. You know, they can’t. If I talk about not getting into college, they can’t see that. So the biggest impact that we have on students is to kind of pull that veil away when it comes to addiction. So we will do this whole presentation that’s 45 minutes long and it’s all based in humor. And if I had time, I would explain why we do that. But if I go and there’s two types of presentations. There is the testimonial. Hey, kids, I did drugs and alcohol. I ruined my life. You don’t do that, right? Kids don’t care about that. Then you get the fear based ones. Hey, kids, if you smoke weed, you’re never going to get into college, right? Kids don’t care about that. So ours is based on right now, what is happening right now. So at the end of our presentation, this is where we have the biggest impact is we give kids six questions. And I say, if you answer yes to one of these questions, you’re pointed in the right direction for an addiction. If you answer yes to two or all six of them, what that means is when you get ready to quit, it’s going to be really difficult. More than likely you have an addiction. And I see kids like, whoa, is this guy going to like demonstrate that I have an addiction? So our six questions are, if you know anybody that’s ever vaped or smoked in class, teacher turns their back or walks out of the room, they pull out their electronic cigarette, they use it, they blow the smoke behind them or they blow it in their shirt. I said, that’s a sign of an addiction. And instantly I see kids like, I thought that was just funny. But that’s a sign of addiction. Number two, if you see somebody going in and out of the bathroom, because this is relevant, this is happening to them right now. If you see somebody going in and out of the bathroom in between every class using their electronic cigarette, that’s a huge sign of an addiction. And you see kids like, oh my gosh, that’s me. Or they’re like, I’ve seen you do that a whole bunch, right? If you’ve ever lied or done something illegal to get an electronic cigarette. Now, if you’ve ever gone to a website and said, you know, are you over the age of 18 and you’re not? And you hit yes. And then you have that item sent to a friend’s house and you pick it up, I said, you just lied about that. Or if you purchased it off somebody that shouldn’t be selling it, like your older brother or sister, I said, that’s illegal. And so when we do these six questions, there’s three more. But when we do these six questions, it instantly hits home with kids. This is the biggest impact we have because it means it’s right now, kids are like, I’ve done that I think that I act that way. And so all of a sudden, when we reinforce it at the end, like this is happening to you right now, then kids are like, oh, my gosh, that makes sense what all the other information is saying. So that’s one of the things I don’t ever see speakers do or mistakes that speakers make is they talk way down in the future. So let’s say we had a room full, and this will be my example real quick. Let’s say we had a room full of kids right now that were listening to us speak. We had 16 year olds up to like 54 year olds, right? And I said, all right, thank you so much for being at this workshop. Hey, just a piece of advice. When you leave this and you’re driving out of the parking lot and you start heading down the road underneath the tree, there’s this cop that likes to hide underneath that tree right there. Just be cautious. He likes to hand out tickets, right? Every adult over the age of 21 is going to go, wow, that’s good. I’m going to drive slow past that tree just because there’s a cop there. But the problem is you’re going to get 16 and 17 year olds that think different and they’re going to go, I don’t really know if there’s a cop there. I got to test that out, right? You see that with little kids, hey, don’t touch that knife. What do they do? They touch that knife. Hey, don’t put that in your mouth. They instantly put that in their mouth, right?
[01:20:25 – 01:20:26]
Because don’t talk like this.
[01:20:26 – 01:20:27]
What was that?
[01:20:28 – 01:20:29]
Don’t talk like this.
[01:20:29 – 01:21:29]
Yeah, yeah. It’s because their brain thinks different. So what happens is everybody’s giving that cop under the tree piece of advice when a lot of times kids are going to go, I got to test that out. I see this with speakers all the time. Boy, if you drink alcohol and you mix it with marijuana, it’s going to be terrible. You’re going to have this experience where your body and it’s. I see so many drug speakers that are actually an encouragement to try different things, you know, boy, they’re making this new vape and it’s got this really intense mango flavor. Who wants to smoke a mango flavor? Mango is just, you know, and you see kids in the audience like, whoa, mango. You know, and I’ve even seen, you know, speakers give out drug recipes. So we have to understand that kids think different and they think the here and now. If you’re doing financial stuff, kids don’t Want to know about a 401k? You know, I mean, that’s too far down the road. And so they want to know about, you know, how do I save money right now or how do I make money right now?
[01:21:29 – 01:22:22]
I want to get. I want to get. I want to get. I want to get my. That skateboard I’ve seen at the local store. I want to buy the newest. This T shirt. Or I want to be able to go to my friends to the water park. I want to be able to do this and do that. And how am I going to do it? Mom and Dad? I have to figure things out. So, you know, like I tell people, as an entrepreneur, I started when I was 12. How can you start being an entrepreneur at 12? I had a paper route. Yeah, I had to collect money. I had to get up and go out in the rain here. Snow, sleep, didn’t matter. I had to have doors slammed on my face because people couldn’t afford to pay their bill. And I give them too many months because I was kind. I had to learn boundaries. I had to learn. They’re going like, what, you’re 12? Well, yeah. My dad said I got to give you a roof over your head, food and love. The rest up to you.
[01:22:22 – 01:22:24]
Rest is up to you. Yeah, yeah.
[01:22:24 – 01:22:32]
You want something? Rest is up to you. You want those comic books that you like collecting? You know, Marvel or Richie Rich? Remember the Richie Rich curve?
[01:22:32 – 01:22:33]
Oh, gosh, I remember Richie Rich.
[01:22:33 – 01:22:38]
Yeah, right. Yeah. I got a. I got a box in my garage of a few hundred.
[01:22:38 – 01:22:39]
Diving into a swimming pool of coins.
[01:22:40 – 01:22:42]
Yeah, yeah.
[01:22:42 – 01:22:43]
So you know what?
[01:22:43 – 01:23:25]
At the end of the day, it. Whatever, you gotta. You gotta start young. Some of you didn’t, but it’s never too late to give a heck. I don’t care what age you are. Old dog, new tricks. That saying is so dumb in my opinion. But anyway, yeah. So let’s talk about your book. You wrote it just this last year. I released it just this last year. Addicted to learning, comprehending chaos, your everyday family events. I myself wrote a book and found it very cathartic. It helped me realize things about myself, both good and bad. You know, pat myself in the back, kicked myself in the butt. It was one of those situations. What was writing the book like for you? What did it do for you?
[01:23:25 – 01:25:36]
I brought back memories I hadn’t thought about in a long time. And it helped me to connect pieces together and to understand stuff. There’s a story in the book about my mom, and my mom would tell this tragic story of her after, you know, going through all these traumatic things and, you know, being there when her mom died in the backseat of a car and just how awful was. And my mom would tell these horrendous. This one horrendous story that just. You just. It rips you up apart, but she would always end the story. And I talk about this in the book. My dad got to the place where he did really well farming, and my mom had, like, a new car every two years. And so she would tell me this horrendous story about her mom dying. Then she goes, and now I. Now here I am driving my brand new Lincoln, you know, and it always ended with this, like, positive thing at the end. And I started to realize, man, the strength that my mom had, the intelligence that my dad had. My sister, even though she did drugs, there’s this deep cord that runs through her of compassion and wanting to take care of people. And my other brother who smuggled drugs in the United States, there’s a part of him that just wants to. To help people understand, you know, their addiction. And my other brother, who was a drinker and a fighter, how he, you know, as I was writing this book and writing stories about him, he. He wants to be known as the good advice guy. He wants to be somebody who. Who, Who. Who you could come to. And he has this opportunity to kind of ask questions and figure out the best route for you. And he’s done that for me, you know, over and over again. So it gave me a deeper understanding of my family. It gave me a more compassionate feel for them, and it helped me to understand all of these crazy things. Got me to your podcast today. You know what I mean? It helped me to have this conversation with you, and I can’t dismiss all of that stuff, because that’s the fabric. Those are the threads that made me who I am. So I am here because of my family.
[01:25:36 – 01:26:11]
That is so unique. The perspective of being able to look past the chaos of what your family went through, to be able to see their unique threads again, through all the chaos. You can still talk about your sister, your brother, your mom. You dealt with alcoholism and the drug usage from family and. And sitting out on that curb. I remember you talking about that at a very young age. And, wow, you were. You know, if the book hasn’t done it, I’ll do it. I’ll pat you on the back because you have a unique gift.
[01:26:12 – 01:26:12]
Thank you.
[01:26:12 – 01:26:29]
Yes, that gift may have always been there, but you are strong and you’ve nurtured it. And you continue to nurture and you continue to look for the best in people and. And. And use storytelling and analogies to make them connect at their. At the level that they’re at. To listen to.
[01:26:29 – 01:26:30]
Right.
[01:26:30 – 01:26:31]
To learn from.
[01:26:31 – 01:26:31]
Right.
[01:26:32 – 01:27:22]
So good for you. You know, Congratulations. Absolutely. You know, so that’s. So that would be a standout thing that you talked about with, you know, you’re talking about your mom. Right. From your book. Like, I. I can’t even begin to tell people what my book did for me. Right. It just. It totally was a pivoting thing. It started out just like my. My book’s like my podcast. Origin story. Teaching, learning. What did I learn? There’s stuff in there about a little bit about faith, there’s a little bit about finance, there’s a little bit about me to paperboy, There’s a little bit about, you know, just. And then ending where I started my podcast and then released a book in 2021. It’s just, you know, people don’t realize, even those out there, that you. You don’t think you could ever write a book, just journal.
[01:27:22 – 01:27:23]
Yeah.
[01:27:23 – 01:27:30]
Write it down. What’s your hand or typing what. Your brain interprets it differently.
[01:27:30 – 01:27:30]
Yeah.
[01:27:30 – 01:27:51]
And learn to. When you write, this is my advice to people. Never send that text right away, that email right away, never leave that voicemail right away when you’re upset, whatever. Learn that everything in your life isn’t meant to be said right away. It’s better to be thought of an idiot than open your mouth and remove all doubt.
[01:27:51 – 01:27:52]
Yeah. Right.
[01:27:52 – 01:28:02]
It’s. There’s. It’s better for people to just realize that. Journal it, write it down, percolate on it, wait a few hours, read it again.
[01:28:02 – 01:28:03]
Oh, gosh. Yeah.
[01:28:03 – 01:28:08]
Wait till the next. Wait till the next day. You know how many times I’ve just needed to vent and then I delete it.
[01:28:08 – 01:28:10]
Yeah. Yeah.
[01:28:10 – 01:28:19]
Because really, what I think to myself, if what I’m about to say going to serve that person, or is it just going to feed my ego?
[01:28:19 – 01:28:20]
Right. Yeah.
[01:28:20 – 01:28:43]
And ego can be good or bad. Right. But most people have bad ego. So am I just saying that snaggy thing or that keyboard warrior thing? Like, my podcast the week before last was just me doing a solo podcast all about keyboard warriors. Right. 40 minutes of me talking about my experiences and why people need to think before they open their mouth. Right.
[01:28:43 – 01:28:44]
Yeah. Yeah.
[01:28:44 – 01:28:55]
Would you say. Would you say that if you’re saying negative stuff to yourself, would you say that to your friend, your family member, your colleague, your client? No. So why do that to yourself?
[01:28:56 – 01:28:56]
Yeah.
[01:28:56 – 01:29:25]
If you’re an uplifting purpose, people, person for everybody else, but you’re a facade with yourself, why aren’t you? Why aren’t you? You know what? I challenge you as, as the host of this podcast. When you go to bed tonight, think about, did I do one thing today to make somebody else have an aha moment to feel right good about themselves, to smile, to give them enough energy to make it through their lousy shift at the convenience store.
[01:29:25 – 01:29:25]
Right.
[01:29:25 – 01:29:41]
Clothing store, grocery store. What difference are you doing? What legacy are you living? What legacy you’re going to leave behind? Are you going to be like Ray’s sister or some of my family members that are just waiting to retire and then die?
[01:29:42 – 01:29:43]
Right, right. Yeah.
[01:29:43 – 01:29:46]
Like life has so much more than that doesn’t.
[01:29:46 – 01:29:54]
Much more. Yeah. I know there’s people want to get to the end in their original packaging, but I want to be tore up and have a legacy of people behind.
[01:29:54 – 01:29:56]
Skin, knees, couple scars.
[01:29:56 – 01:29:57]
Right? Yeah.
[01:29:58 – 01:29:59]
No hair left.
[01:30:01 – 01:30:03]
Well, mine’s moving up, so. Yeah.
[01:30:03 – 01:30:05]
Yeah, well, mine’s done a little bit more than that.
[01:30:05 – 01:30:06]
I got a little bit.
[01:30:06 – 01:30:34]
Not much. Right. Whatever. It just like I tell people, I joke around, they’ll say, where what happened? Like my unbelievable. My 5 year old granddaughter said this week, papa, where’s your hair gone? I think you need hair. You’d be so much more handsome. She’s five, eh. And I’m just like, whatever, I just teased her and. But other people will say that to me that are adults. What? Must suck not to have your hair. I said no. I got a warm back now.
[01:30:34 – 01:30:35]
Yeah.
[01:30:38 – 01:30:54]
It just fell back and right now I got a comfortable back. But anyway, I digress. The last thing I’m gonna ask you is, Ray, if you had to give our listeners one last closing message, what would you tell them regards to giving a heck and never giving up?
[01:30:54 – 01:31:55]
Giving a heck. Ah, one last message. I think I would want to tell people not to be afraid. Not to be afraid. I, you know, have family members that are stuck in this terrible spot because they’re afraid of moving forward. And as an entrepreneur I have had to tackle things that just scare me and I realized, ah, they’re not as bad as I thought. And so if you’re, you know, speaking directly to them, if you’re afraid to start that business or you’re, you’re gonna get stuck in that spot. But it’s the person. We live in Las Vegas, so we go and play cards every now and then and it always feels like the people that are willing to push all in are the ones that get the biggest reward. And so that’s my advice is just in life, just sometimes push it all in, see where it goes, you know, and you could recover or you could double up and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, don’t be afraid. That would be my, My closing remark.
[01:31:55 – 01:32:35]
What a great analogy. I love that. Because I like poker. I haven’t played in years. Well, I played in a tournament monthly at a cousin, one of my girl, at his house. And you know what? We didn’t spend a lot of money, but I looked forward to it. I did it for a decade and I had a tragedy happen where I lost one of my grandkids and I quit playing poker. And I haven’t, except for the odd time on video, like video poker on a phone when I’ve been bored and I’m sitting in an office, which doesn’t happen very much because I got emails I can do while I’m sitting waiting. I got this. I got this. But yeah, I like poker. It really challenges you to study human behavior.
[01:32:35 – 01:33:00]
That’s it. I was gonna say that. You beat me, too, because there’s that saying, you know, you don’t play the cards, you play the person. And I know when I go play, you know, I can tell there’s people I can push around, there’s people I can’t push around. And it doesn’t matter what cards I have, a lot of times that I’ll be able to play, you know, and yeah, that’s what it is. It’s playing that person. It’s being able to, you know, look at human beings and see how they react.
[01:33:00 – 01:33:07]
And if it’s playing at a table of 10 people or poker and there’s somebody there that’s already five beers in, you’re not even at break yet.
[01:33:08 – 01:33:08]
Yeah.
[01:33:08 – 01:33:14]
Such an easy read. And they wonder why they’re always the 10th person or their first person out. Right? You know?
[01:33:14 – 01:33:15]
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:33:15 – 01:33:18]
You can learn so much about people. Addictions affect everything.
[01:33:18 – 01:33:19]
Oh, yeah.
[01:33:19 – 01:33:27]
So our time is almost up. Can you do me a favor and tell the listeners what’s the best way they can reach you?
[01:33:27 – 01:34:08]
The best way to reach me is just going to go to my website, which is Ray R A Y Lozano, L O Z A N O. And just go to the contact page. And so, you know, I have some stuff on Instagram, I put some stuff on TikTok, but the best way is just through my website or if they can’t, you know, find Me that way. If you just go to Google, I know we don’t use that so much anymore, but if you type in, you know, youth speaker, drug, youth speaker, I pop up. I’m one of the first guys that pops up on there after the advertisements and all that kind of stuff. Or just put Ray Lozano into Google. I’m not the guitar player. I am the speaker, which is right underneath the guitar player.
[01:34:08 – 01:34:13]
I smile because I typed in your name when I was yesterday and I Googled it. What? This isn’t him.
[01:34:13 – 01:34:14]
Yeah.
[01:34:14 – 01:34:17]
So I put in your name. I put in your name and put author. Then you came up.
[01:34:17 – 01:34:18]
Oh, yeah.
[01:34:18 – 01:34:29]
Yes, it come up. I was surprised. I was like, oh, cool. And then I went to Amazon and I’m looking at it and oh, yeah, I do a lot of research because I want to know who I’m communicating with.
[01:34:29 – 01:34:29]
Yeah.
[01:34:29 – 01:35:09]
But yes. And for those new to the show, go to GiveAheck.com, click podcast at the top. You’ll see Ray’s face. You’ll see all the abbreviated show. Pardon me. You’ll have the full show, unedited show notes there. You’ll have all the links to all the social media and how to get a hold of ray. And yeah, one stop shop. Just go to giveaheck.com and you can, you know, find out everything you need so you don’t have to stop your car, pull over to the side of the road and write down what Ray was saying. You don’t have to remember how to spell his name even. Just go to give.com right. And it’ll all be there. Any last words before I wrap up the show?
[01:35:09 – 01:35:19]
No. This has been fantastic. I can’t believe how fast that time went. I feel like we’ve only been talking a half an hour, but, yeah, you’re. Yeah. Excellent, man. I love being on here today.
[01:35:19 – 01:35:35]
Well, I appreciate you, too. I loved having you on because your wealth, information, such a great storyteller. You really know how to use analogies properly to make people have that thought process where they pause before they react.
[01:35:35 – 01:35:36]
Right.
[01:35:36 – 01:35:43]
Reacting is right. Pause. Think before you open your mouth or type it out.
[01:35:43 – 01:35:52]
Hopefully this podcast might get me some. An opportunity to come to Canada and speak because I think you may have a vaping problem up there with kids as well.
[01:35:52 – 01:35:56]
Oh, it’s everywhere in the world. Yeah. When I was in Europe, I’ve seen it everywhere.
[01:35:56 – 01:35:56]
Oh, gosh.
[01:35:56 – 01:36:18]
But yeah. So I appreciate that. I’m gonna wrap up the show now. Thanks again, Ray. We’ll talk to you soon. So, audience, thanks so much to Ray for being on Give a Hack. I appreciate your time and your talents and sharing some of your experiences so that others too can learn. It is never too late to give a heck.