Actually being successful or like moving out of our mom's basement or whatever, we put so much energy and time into the presentation of not looking like that's the situation instead of putting the energy and time into actually finding a solution to that issue. And so at that point it was like, okay, I've been putting a lot of time and effort trying to pretend things are good instead of actually trying to find solutions. And then that's when I started to do everything I needed to do to try to make money and just really, when I say embrace it's not necessarily like accept it for what it is, it's almost like, okay, this is real, I need to figure this out. Taking your surroundings, you take in the people around you, you see how they're making money and I just didn't like begging people for money. And so I respected the guys that were like figuring out hustles, right? And so for instance there was a Amoco right down the street from me and so I would go there and I would watch windshields and make money, just try to save up enough money to just be in a motel for the night. And I mean like the nastiest motel, but for me it was just taking in my environment, seeing how other people hustled, how I can do it better. Someone taught me how to play drums on buckets and things like that and so you know I just tried to do any type of hustle that I could. I just started to learn how others were moving and kind of adapted throughout. For me it's opening your mind and opening yourself to people. I think a lot of people, they are ignorant, they are like rejecting change. Travel, get out of your comfort zone, meet people from all different types of backgrounds. If you want to build a product or service or company that you want to build at scale and your friends are only the homies that you've been hanging out with since you know middle school, probably you need some more people. Get to know them, travel the world you know and even if you don't have the resources to travel. The internet, learn about different cultures, learn about different people. You're at that computer, you tell me what you want to do, I tell you this is how you search, this is how you find those resources. Now you got to actually go and learn. You have to be able to show people that there's other options and that's what Spreading Seas is all about. Showing people that they can actually do something different. There's one thing being homeless but there's another thing having everything taken away from you.
I was literally living out of my car and so even though I was homeless I was still trying to uphold the appearance of everything being okay. When that moment happened it was like whoa this is rock bottom because now all my clothes are gone. All the cool shoes, all the things that were material that you know I tried to fake it until I figured things out were gone now and not only that all the the elements so now rain and snow and all these things and get in the car so it was like mildewy and smelly and so I smelled right and so for me in that moment I understood that wow this is I thought things were bad but things are really really bad at this point and now I can't pretend anymore I just have to really embrace this. I think a lot of times when we're going through things we kind of try to figure out how we're going to finesse our way into people not knowing that things are things are wrong instead of just saying this is my life this is real now. You have like these brief moments of kind of peace until like the next accident happens right and that's just life in general you know it's never going to be complete smooth sailing. One of the things that I've noticed about a lot of people is that they let the hardships and the things that happen in their life failure stop them from like Aliyah said you know dust yourself off and try again right and for me I've just never let anything or anybody prevent me from achieving what I want to achieve and so I've always had this relentless mentality and if you say I can't do something if I fail if I you know mess up it just motivates me even more I just become even more hungry and so I've always just had this you know relentless mentality I don't take you know no for an answer I don't take failure or accept failure at all and it's just always been kind of in my heart to not give up. It's the rose that grew from concrete right it's like no matter how terrible a situation is no matter how bad it is there's still gonna be a rose that grows from that concrete and I feel like I was that right no matter what my situation was I was built for this. I was not going to let myself fail right then I had that mentality and I understand that now that I grew from that concrete I'm starting to plant my seeds and there's more roses growing.
What's so special about the internet now is really anything you want to do you can learn like if you want to learn how to code if you want to be a developer you want to build software you want to build apps you can literally go on YouTube and learn how to code and so what I would tell that person is what do you want to do tell me anything what do you want to do right now there's resources and there's things online that can help you build yourself into whatever that is so I think that that kid at the end of the day he has to have that kind of just I gotta make this happen right here's the thing no one can teach you that at the end of the day man you really gotta want it you gotta really want it and I think the problem is is now with social media before when I was growing up I didn't see all these examples of people having cool cars or doing cool all the time like right and now with social media I don't care if you're in like you know in the middle of nowhere you can log on to Instagram and see just this whole world of experiences and things the problem is it's like oh well these people have it so I should be able to have it and it's just like man you don't see the work that goes behind this man I started my first marketing job at 14 I'm 10 years into entrepreneurship it wasn't until the past few years where I started really getting recognition for it right and so people don't see all that it takes to even get to that point and that's the problem and so they think it's supposed to be this this overnight thing goes oh I started LLC give me money no that's not how it works this is a marathon this is not a sprint right you never know when that moment is gonna happen in your life where you're you find that passion or you figure it out the fun part is just trying a bunch of stuff like when you get to a point where you can just try a bunch of stuff it's like hey sit down make a list I'm interested in all these different things right okay I'm interested in these top five things now how can I do something that not only am I passionate about with one of these top five things but also make at least enough money to just get by a lot of times the thing that's stopping us from being the person that we truly want to be is ourselves that's usually ourselves and I think being able to identify mental health depression anxiety all these things that we're dealing with and say that we want to make a change and we humble ourselves to want to make that change is one of the biggest barriers that one can break through I'm going to launch a much more successful business when I do launch it and it's because I took the time to learn and I just think that people are in such a rush to have something especially money money is like oh I got to get more money but it's like if you launch something that's piss poor even at a point where I had accomplished so many things I almost did it right we're not perfect I'm not perfect you know I still fuck up all the time man earlier today like I was came here at the wrong time right so we we mess up constantly but it's it's identifying that and saying wait let me take a step back and let me do this the right way I am inspired by helping people if I can make money too damn that's cool too right but the thing that really gets me out of bed right now is my ability to help people I don't need any more money I don't need any more material things you know as well as I know that gets old right and you know it feels good temporarily but it doesn't really hold any weight or substance and so the thing that I feel like our legacy is how do we affect as many people as possible in the most genuine and impactful way right and for me that is what drives me today you
