Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Eric, welcome aboard to the show. So happy to have you here today.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: Thank you, Harry. Happy to be here.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: The on the Razor's Edge is the name of your book.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: What made you write it?
[00:00:15] Speaker B: You know, I've been meaning to write a book for a long time.
I have so many anecdotes from my days at the art of shaving. So many people tell me, you should write a book, you know, but I never really had the time to do it. And I also didn't want to just tell a story. I didn't want it to be a storybook. I want it to be a business book that really added value to the reader. And believe it or not, I started meditating 18 months ago, and within two months, the creativity just started to overwhelm my brain, and I started writing for 30 days. I wrote the book. I couldn't stop. It was just flowing with ideas, and it was like, you know, I knew what I needed to say at that point. It took me six or eight months to refine it, but it took me 30 days to write it. So part of it is explainable, part of it I can't explain, but, you know, you gotta wait for the right moment. And it was all about the lessons for me. I mean, the story is kind of fun, but the lessons is what really to share.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: I think the truth of the matter is that you've been writing your book for 20 years, and really what you did is you quieted your mind and let it flow.
[00:01:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the inspiration was the missing piece. But, yeah, I've been writing it my whole life. I actually think about writing my.
My life as a book. When I think about the future, I say, oh, yeah, that would be a good next chapter to put in.
I actually look at it like that.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: I love that analogy. That's absolutely beautiful. You said you were missing the inspiration. What ultimately was the inspiration?
[00:02:13] Speaker B: I think ultimately the inspiration came from my passion for helping entrepreneurs. Well, first my passion for helping others and then really honing that to the cause that I care most about, which are entrepreneurs. Having been in the trenches and having been able to survive miraculously. Right.
I feel.
I feel a lot of empathy for entrepreneurs that are struggling out there. And if I can do anything to help that whole generation of upcoming entrepreneurs makes me feel really good.
[00:02:57] Speaker A: There's, you know, historically, you know, half of the businesses in America were mom and pops. It was exactly that. It was half of our economy.
In. In some way, there seems to be both a flourishing and a decline of the mom and pops and entrepreneurs. In general, what would be your message to the 18, 20 year old who's considering his or her next steps or first steps, I should say, in their career?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Well, so many things I'm entrenched in entrepreneur, so I see so many mom and pop starting and so many people starting business. I think there's half a million new businesses started in the United States every year, which is incredible.
One thing I would tell young, I mean, if they're 18 or 20, I would tell them really to learn. You know, the best way to learn is probably working in a great company that aspires to what you want.
I think I recently heard a famous actor say recently that the first part of your life you learn, the second part you earn and the third part you return.
So I would say first of all, don't think it's going to take two and a half weeks to succeed. Right. It's like a lot of. I know my kids think it's easier than it actually is and it takes a lot longer than people believe when they actually, it may be a good thing that you don't believe it's going to be that hard and that long because you may give up before you start. By the time you realize how difficult it is to climb the mountain, you're already at first or second base camp and you can't, it's too, it's, you're too far along to go back, so you have to just make it through the rest of the trek.
But it takes 20 years. You know, it takes a good 10 years to succeed in your business. And if you really want to take it far, I mean, you're talking about 20 years.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Business plans, the joys of sunk cost. Right?
You know, there's, let me ask you this, you have kids, do you want them to be entrepreneurs?
[00:05:27] Speaker B: I think one of them will definitely be an entrepreneur. I can see the signs already.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: What are the signs?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Well, he's an entrepreneur.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: It is what it is.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: He wanted something I wasn't willing to buy for him and he got the money in one month. You know, he hustled.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: Oh, wow. What, how did he, what did he want? How did he get it?
[00:05:51] Speaker B: He gave, he gave lessons, DJ lessons to one guy. He videographed a baseball player and edited a video for him. He sold an old PC. You know, he hustled, he got the money.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: I love that.
[00:06:08] Speaker B: And also I asked him, I said, you know, it's great when you come out of college to work for someone not your own family and not start your business right away. And you said, dad, I'll never work for anyone in my life. I said, okay, do your thing. I'm never going to be the one being, you know, discouraging here.
That was kind of cool. And my youngest son, it's a little too soon, you know, he says he wants to be a professional moneymaker. I think that's the sign of the times we live in, right? I said, because that's not a profession.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: I went to University of Chicago as an engineer. So I was surrounded by basically professional moneymakers, so to speak. All the finance guys and I had this one occasion where we were talking, like, how much we make, right? And the guy's response almost broke me. It's like, oh, I forgot how little engineers make. So maybe, you know, maybe it's absolutely horrible. Finance guys can be, you know, rough around the edges. But I say that I went to University of Chicago to, you know, to basically get to know the enemy, so to speak.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: That's wonderful. Great school.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: I wanted to ask you, so, you know, as your. With your. With your son, right, who wants to be an entrepreneur. The writing's on the wall there, right? There's no confusion. What are the things that you want to teach him? Let's say the core. Core elements of what you believe to be part of your success?
What is that that you want to pass on to him for his success?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Oh, you know, there's the obvious ones.
My parenting philosophy is a little different. I think a lot of.
A lot of what we teach our kids is what they see us do more than what we tell them.
And, you know, I think.
I think what I'm trying to teach my kids, and hopefully, you know, I wrote my book for my kids as well, by the way. That was the first reason I wanted to start writing the book in the first place a long time ago. But after five pages, I kind of gave it up because I think I would like them to know where their mom and dad came from, right? From very humble beginnings. And we didn't have the privileged life that they had.
But, you know, for me, it's about.
I trust them, that they're going to find their way. Life is going to teach them everything I haven't taught them.
And, you know, for me is, you know, I set the bar low instead of high, right? I feel that if they're healthy, happy, and out of jail, I'm 90%, you know, a good parent, you know, safe, healthy, and, you know, out of prison. That's where I start. And then from there, you know, you know, if it's you know, hard work, being honest.
You know, I teach, for example, I teach my oldest, who's a rule breaker. I teach them to, I said, break every rule.
Every rule, you see, break it, no problem. Just never break the law. Always make sure you're, you're doing that.
Those are some of the things I try to impart on him, I think. My wife and I have brought up our kids in an atmosphere that reflects our philosophy of health.
We eat very organic foods and we try to have a very healthy lifestyle where we exercise, we meditate, we eat healthy foods, we work, we try to help others in our career. Right now we're in a stage in our career, fortunately, where we're able to return and help those in needs.
And, you know, it takes time to succeed, right? He wants to be a billionaire by 21 like all the kids these days. And that's called ambition. But may God help him get there at 21. But, you know, he's gonna, he's gonna learn maybe that it takes a little bit more effort than that.
Look, we teach our kids every day just by what comes out of our mouth, how we put ourselves out into the world, what we do, how we treat each other, how we treat them. You know, I don't have a very strong strategy around, you know, being the mentor of the kids. They know it all at this point anyways.
And I'm losing my credibility, you know, every day.
But, you know, I try to keep them safe. I try to keep, give him good values, healthy, stay in school. I think school for me, you know, I don't think they're very academic. My kids are not going to be, you know, Yale or Harvard material or even, you know, Chicago University.
But I believe, you know, an education is important. I think being in that system and being, I think university at least or school teaches you to show up, be a responsible member of society, and hopefully learn a lot of things along the way.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: You talk about, and this is one that's incredibly close to my heart, you talk about the gist or the, the essence of something and why that's so important for business and life.
I coined it the gist. I think you called it essence, or putting things in their most simplistic way. What does that mean? Why is that important?
[00:12:05] Speaker B: Well, I call it essential because my wife and I have a philosophy to use a lot of essential oils in our products that come from nature. And essential oils are basically the distillation, the essence. You know, take 1,000 roses and you make one liter of rose essential oil. And it's worth $12,000 a liter. So for me, that's my whole life to look at everything from its essence. We tend to complicate everything. You know, for example, in business, I believe that I have a thousand things to do to start my business, but the only one that matters is sales and marketing. You know, you know, make some products, sell them, make more products, sell them the rest, figure out how to make it happen, but stay focused on what really matters. What really matters is, you know, having incredible products and getting them into the hands of consumers, and, you know, the rest will work itself out.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: That boiling down of the stuff into its essence. Does that apply to personal life, family as well?
[00:13:17] Speaker B: 100%.
Our philosophy of our company is less is so much more.
And that's how I try to live my life.
And it seems to be more and more natural as I get older.
We're materialistic things. Even though I enjoy materialistic comforts, it's not as important in my mind as they used to be.
And, you know, it's about being happy inside. You know, I'll tell you, when I made that realization, I was extremely blessed. At the age of 40 years old, I had achieved all of my dreams. Financial, family, I had two beautiful kids, great marriage, live in a beautiful place, and, you know, money in the bank. But I was miserable.
And that's when I realized that all these things were not the answer that I was believing it was. So, you know, I spent a lot of the rest of that journey focused on my spiritual and emotional state. What's inside matters most is another saying, you know, that we have in our company because we focus so much on ingredients, less on packaging. So, you know, and as an entrepreneur, your businesses are an extension of who you are, right? Yes. It's not like you're working for a company you created that it came out of you. It's your baby. It's your DNA. Your baby doesn't look like, hopefully doesn't look like somebody else. It looks like you and your wife.
So that's. That's how I try to lead my life. As you know, I try to keep things to their essence.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: You know, when I was in Uchicago, I asked this simple question to almost everyone. I said, what amount of money? What number is enough money?
And There were really two answers. One is, this is the amount. Sometimes it was 100, sometimes it was 200,000. There were different numbers per year.
But most of the answers, believe it or not, over, I would say 85 to 90% of the answers was there Is no number.
But you said that there was a change, right, Relatively late in life. How do you define happy? And what did you change in your lifestyle after you came to that realization of what happiness means for you?
[00:15:57] Speaker B: I mean, I'm not going to say money is that important. That would be hypocritical, especially when you have financial freedom. I think it's a beautiful gift, but it is financial freedom. It's not the. It's not the money I care about. It's the freedom that it provides for me.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: The.
If you saw that the gambler.
[00:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, your money is a relative turn. I. I think financial freedom as it's defined is that your passive return on your investments support your lifestyle. And I know people that have a lower lifestyle, a higher lifestyle, whatever that is. But for me, the journey to happiness was, you know, where I'm lending more and more now, because it is a long journey, is to really like yourself, to really be okay with yourself and to start feeling comfortable in your skin and to shed a lot of these things that are holding you back and that you've been taught all the recordings and, you know, I had the means to use a lot of tools at my disposal, you know, from therapist to hypnosis to trainers to massage therapists to, you know, you name it.
But learning, learning, learning, learning and expanding my thoughts brought me to a place where I started to really understand why I felt bad inside and started to really resolve all these issues.
And what you're left with is yourself.
And, you know, it's a good place to be. Hopefully you like yourself and, you know, I'm starting to like all aspects of who I am. It's also accepting we're very hard on ourselves. We would never treat others the way we treat ourselves, ever. That would be considered anything from abusive to illegal in most cases.
But yet, you know, we're so hard on ourselves, you know, and it's. It's a practice. It's a practice, you know, fake it till you make it. I believe in that. And just be nice to yourself. Just be nice, you know. You know, you have to start really take care of yourself.
Take, you know, being good to yourself. Being selfish was the first thing I realized in that journey, that selfishness. You know, the analogy I use is the airplane analogy, which is, you know, you have to put your oxygen mask on before you put the one on your child, because if you don't have oxygen, you cannot help the child. So I learned that in my personal life. I learned that just being there for everyone, taking Care of everyone and being miserable in the process is not helping anyone. You have to take care of yourself, your health, you have to take time to go to the gym. Sometimes I take time to take a trip, to be by myself, to go to the beach, whatever happiness, you know, joy is for you.
And then I'm a better person to be around for my kids, for my wife, for my friends.
So it's a journey. It's a journey. And I had help from therapists and other professionals, books.
It's a journey.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: There's two things that I take away. One is that truly in service of others, we do need to have our shit together first.
And this is something that I learned about myself. It's something that a while back I told my wife, I'm like, you're doing everything for everybody else, but what are you doing for you?
And I was like, in order to show up in the best possible way. And she's all obviously about family and kids, which is wonderful. But I said, in order to do a good job there, you actually need to take of yourself, care of yourself first. So I think that's, that's tremendous and I really appreciate that insight.
The other aspect, you talk about learning, but really what you're saying is self awareness and that journey of knowing what you don't know or being open to the fact that you have so much more to learn. I argue it's a superpower.
[00:20:48] Speaker B: One that you can acquired, right?
It may be there, but you have to tap into it, right?
[00:20:54] Speaker A: That's non trivial. Tell me more.
[00:20:59] Speaker B: Well, we all have that capacity of self awareness, but we've been conditioned, right?
And it's very hard to rewire that brain of ours. And I'm still doing it. I'm still realizing how I've been brought up and how that affects me every day and all my interactions, it's always there as a third member of my being.
But you, you, you nailed it. It's really all about self realization.
You know, what is it?
A problem is half resolved when it's real. You know, when you notice a problem, it's half resolved. I don't know how the saying goes, but you know, I have a lot of great people around me. And one of the things we try to do is to help each other with blind spots, you know, and the blind spots are things that other people see clearly but you don't because you're on the corner of that, of your eye there.
So I've been very fortunate to be involved, for example, in the entrepreneurial organization called EO and YPO where I have great, great peers that are always out looking for my best interest. And we grow together because we learn from each other's lessons and we, we put light on each other's blind spots in a caring way. So it's, it's a lot of different things. But I was fortunate that I was able to have financial freedom to be able to dedicate myself to that. A lot of people go through life just pursuing the dream on, you know, on the hamster wheel, right?
But I made a decision when I sold my business. First of all, my kids were born. You know, my first child was three months when I sold the business. And my second child was born three days after we, we left the business. We retired.
So I found myself with nothing to do. And I was wondering, what am I going to do for the rest of my life? And there's two babies in the other room, you know. And then I realized, hey, listen, it's funny how life works. My dad wasn't around and here I am. The universe is giving me a gift to be all in with these two guys.
So I dedicated my first dedicate. You know, I had three goals when I sold my business, when I sat down and I built my business plan, what I call the morning after.
You know, you wake up the morning after. And my goals were very simple. First, I want to, I want personal growth. I want to take care of myself. I want to be in the best mental, physical and spiritual health I've ever been in. The second one is I want to be there for my kids. I want to be all hands on parent with my kid in their formative years. And the third one is I want to manage my assets in a way that I don't have to worry about money for a long time.
So that's how I approach my days, health, kids, investments. And that's what I did for the first 10 years after selling the business.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: Here's a thing that kind of hit me in the stomach hard.
My wife, I've pushed her to have an incredible career. And at one stage that included extensive travel, right? Weeks a month.
And the first time that she basically took off on this, you know, week long travel, I was afraid, I'll tell you, I was afraid.
I didn't know what I had to do. I didn't know if I could make it through that week.
And when she came back, I realized something fundamental and I have goosebumps just by sharing this. I realized that that week that she wasn't there was the first time I was actually a dad.
And I say this and it's funny how your body reacts to memories. I say this because I feel like until that moment I didn't really get to experience being a dad. I was like this, you know, backup player, right? And the first time it was me and there was nobody else. I connected with my kids at a level that I had never done before. And today I feel like her travel career, she. She still travels quite extensively. I feel like every time she goes is a gift for me and the kids to get to know each other. We obviously are counting the minutes until she comes back because the kids and myself, we love her to death. But it's something that I feel that many, many fathers specifically don't necessarily get to experience and they're afraid of it.
So I love the hands on aspect of what you said in regards to being with your kids. What is that manifested for you? What does that look like for you?
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Healing?
Oh, you know, I healed my past with my own father. You know, I made it right with my own kids. I didn't perpetuate the cycle in my family. And you know, I don't want, I don't want to say negative things about my father. He was a good man, passed away recently.
He was not a bad person, but he was not equipped emotionally. He came from a different world, literally, and a different time. And he was not emotionally available for me. And as a child, I didn't experience that always in a good way. I realized now that he did me a great service because he made me extremely self reliant and.
But it was healing for me to take care of my kids was a healing process of being, you know, a good father, if you will.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: I love that. That hits me quite hard since I have a similar background with my dad. I think that's incredibly important. I mean, this realization that sure, fixing the relationship, if you're still able to do that, that's great, but not repeating the sons of fathers. I think that's incredibly, incredibly important.
I deeply, deeply appreciate that point, Eric. Believe it or not, we're out of time. This has been so much fun and so touching that I completely lost track of time. There's only one question that I ask all my guests. Everything else is down the rabbit hole. And it's a difficult question, a personal one.
If you had to go back to 20 something year old Eric, what would you advise him?
[00:28:05] Speaker B: I think, I mean, the obvious one. For me, I was always obsessed with my future, you know, and sometimes at the, at the, at the cost of the present. Right.
The destination. There's no destination. There's only one destination. Right.
You graduate from Earth.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: You're done with the lessons.
So I think I would just tell my 20 something year old not to worry as much and to enjoy the ride, to enjoy the journey and to be as present as you can in the moment and not always be thinking about one day and tomorrow and all that thing. But I'm a planner, so, you know, that could have maybe cramped my style if I had done that.
But that's, I think, I think that's the lesson, you know.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Eric, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I appreciate you.
[00:29:03] Speaker B: Thank you very much, Eric.
