Lessons - Mentors Will Change Everything | Eric Spofford - CEO of Spofford Enterprises

In this lessons episode, discover how to launch a successful business quickly and authentically. Learn the value of building a personal brand, finding the right mentors, and prioritizing lived experience over theory. Explore why internal growth is as vital as external success, and how aligning your vision with your actions can create meaningful results. When you exited your business, I noticed how fast you were able to build an infrastructure after support coaching mentoring, which I thought was interesting because a lot of guys do this, but a lot of guys have been doing it for like 10, 15 plus years. I think I even saw one of your Instagram videos about how when you started, it was like a couple of months ago. It was not long ago. It's ago, I had the idea. Yeah, I know. And I know you have like a really good circle of other people that you're in your network, and that's probably a good lesson as well. It had done this before and whatnot, probably learned some lessons from those guys as well. But you spun this up so quick. So what? What the fuck in under? No, but like in a good way, not in like a, not in like a, not in like it hasn't worked out. It's like it's worked on one. It's worked out exceptionally because I follow this now, and I follow what you're building, and I saw the, you know, we'll try and keep this evergreen as we can, but like I saw you just it last week in Miami, and like the caliber of people, because I know some of the guys that pay to go to these things, and they're not, they're not stupid people that are not that are coming out to this. So I mean, it's just impressive how quick you build this out. So I'm trying to understand how you built this business so quickly versus a lot of people that struggle starting something from scraps three months, and what you've achieved in three months is not normal. So there's a lot of lessons and experience there that allowed you to do this. But what do you think that was? Execution. A lot of people spend a lot of time frozen. Yeah, and spend a lot of time thinking about it. I get in there. I just start throwing punches. Like I'm going to learn Kung Fu in the middle of this fight. Like I'm going to learn, you know what I mean? And so I got the idea that this sort of happened. I was talking to my good friend, Wes Watson, and he was driving me crazy for two months. He was like, bro, you got to do coaching. You got to teach business. You got to teach entrepreneurship. This is your soul of genius. So many people benefit from this. I'm like, Wes, shut the fuck up. Look, I'm like, what am I an online coach? Like, what are you talking about? You know, and then I got like, I would be laying there thinking about it. I'd be like, you know what? Maybe he's right. Maybe it would be cool to build a community. And then I start to get this vision of like my entire journey from day one by myself to nine figure exit. And I'm like, what if I built something that was tailored to everything that would have been beneficial to me along this journey? Yeah. And then I got excited about it. And then I remember I called him back. I was like, all right, teach me how to do this. Yeah. And he told me what he does. And then I spun it to what I thought it would be. And then I just got on my Instagram story. I was like, hey, I'm going to take on a couple of people to coach them for business and entrepreneurship. And if you're interested and you followed me, just shoot me at DM. Yeah. And I had a guy that was helping me with sales in the next two days. We did like a hundred grand. You know, two feet. And that was the proof of concept. Yeah. It was that it was right then where I was like, okay, this could work. Were you building out your brand before that? You're building it up? Yeah. Yeah. Because no, no, there was nothing. Oh, no, I wasn't trying to monetize it at all. I was just building a personal brand and, you know, attention as a commodity. Yeah. I said, it's a reason I got this podcast. That's the only thing. It's why we do it, Pat. And then as soon as dad happened, I was like, all right, all in. And then we just set things up and just went, went for it. I think it's because, you know, when you say like, you had a nine figure exit, there's a lot of people to do this. They don't build businesses to that size. Yeah. So there's a there's a there's a ceiling on the advice you can get from somebody that's only achieved certain things. Yeah. Right. They've only dealt with so many problems. They haven't dealt with a nine figure exit to a private equity or a family out. Those are the things that not a lot of people deal with because it's a rarity. It's a beautiful thing to do, but not many people get to that level. So I think that's, you know, what I'm alluding to is more people that have done it before. Those are the people that should be teaching. There's a lot of bullshit. And in those moments of consideration in the beginning of like, should I do this? Should I not do this? I of course went on and I was like, well, who else is doing it? There's a lot in, but like, but a lot of it's bullshit. There's a lot of bullshit. Look at their stuff. And I'm like, what, what have you actually done? Yeah. And a lot of these coaches are just that. They're coaches like professional coaches, professional coaches. You know what I mean? It's like the business teacher at the college who's never actually operated a business and makes 60 grand a year. What the fuck am I going to learn from you? Yeah. You know, like you read it out of the book. You heard on a podcast that you regurgitating a lot of information. He's never lived it. It's like a lived experience. You don't have the resume homeboy. You know what I mean? You don't have the lived experience to qualify you to be this. And so for that reason, I was like, you know, it'll be a little fun to come in and disrupt the space a little bit. If you watch my content, sometimes I get a little froggy on there. That's not calling people. That's specifically what I'm like, come on, man. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, I know too many fix. There are a lot of face out there. So yeah, and I think that that's like when you, okay, let's just talk to people that are listening to this that are trying to find people to learn from. So you have a good group. How do you, how do you, as a professional, who's operated at really high levels? How do you sort of gauge whether or not you want to learn from somebody to take them on as a mentor? Like, how do you, what's your litmus test for your education inflow? In my coaching program? No, in your life. In your life. Like when you're looking to learn from somebody, oh, what I'm looking at. Yeah, yeah, if that's so like, I go for results. Yeah, I learn from people in specific niches on, do you have what I want? That's my question. Have you achieved the result that I'm looking to achieve and do you have what I want? Like, I'm a fitness guy. So I learn about fitness and I want to work out. And like, Wes Watson is jacked. He wants us this. He's for jacked. He said, yeah, I'm like, that's my guy. You know what I mean? So when I look at business, my business mentors today are billion dollar dudes. You know what I mean? I have a small handful of them that I sit with and spend a dinner on the Instagram and their older cats and nobody really knows those are the best kind. So that's guys, you know, and they're so out of touch. They don't know that they're in charge of a huge money. If that conversation, yeah, I get it for free. You know, but those, they've achieved the results. And that's what I think the guys, I don't care if you sign up for my shit or not. But just please, whatever it is that you're looking to get coached or mentored on, make sure that the person that you're listening to or that you sign up with actually has had that experience and had the results. Like you wouldn't go get a fucking fat personal trainer. No, you're not going to do that. You're like, you're a fat piece of shit. Well, like, why am I going to listen to you? It's the same thing in business, you know? It's the same or any area of life, right? It's too, I see. I think that social, social is great for a lot of things, but it allows a lot of people who are full of shit, but just good marketers to sell shit. The people that don't know any better. No, don't. Which is, I think that's horrible, but that's the reality. So I'm like, I'm trying to, you know, part of this is hopefully, I've interviewed a lot of people, but hopefully a lot of the people aren't genuine. But I tried my best. But the point is you find good people that have actually done it before, and then you like pull out the ideas from them. And that's really, I mean, that's how you learn. And it's not to be, it could be a mastermind, whatever could be a podcast. But I think it is, I love that. It's like you find somebody that's literally done the exact thing or as close as possible to what you're trying to accomplish. When you work with all these entrepreneurs, you said one of the main issues they have is basically removing themself as the linchpin and the key, the key man in the business. What are some other major things that some of these people are running into? Some big problems. The ones that you see repeat again and again and again. And it doesn't have to be business. Let's think about other things. It could be raising money. It could be having a good relationship because they're putting too much effort or energy in, like, that shit happens a lot too. Yeah, we're all crazy. Yeah, I know that back to the coach thing, like, you don't want relationship advice from me. You know what I mean? Like, I'll teach you how to blow your business up. But like, I haven't been married in a successful marriage for 10 years or something like that's the guy you want. And so, um, you know, the mistakes that we all make outside of key man, I don't know, you know, ignoring the personal development side of this. I think a lot of people are chasing, yeah, yeah, let's unpack it. I think a lot of people are chasing success in the wealth for the wrong reasons. And they think that the right amount of money, the right amount of material possessions, the right amount of status, attention, or whatever the achievement is, is going to fix a problem that they have that in all reality, it won't. You know, I think that a lot of people chase wealth and success to fill a hole in their spirit, whatever that means for them. And the mistake that I see happen over and over again is sometimes people catch it in their lifetime. And they get the money or they get the whatever it is that they thought would fix it and they're like, fuck, this isn't as cool as I thought it was. This isn't everything I made it out to be. And so a lot of people ignore the fundamental truth that our internal condition, our happiness, our satisfaction, our serenity, our peace, our wholeness, is not tied like the money can make you happy. You know, I'd rather be fucking rich than poor. Yeah. One of those guys, like I've been poor, shit homeless with my money for food and I've been fucking rich on my private jet flying to my yacht in the Bahamas. I much rather fucking the yacht in the Bahamas. But if you can't buy your way out of your responsibility to do the internal work, a lot of people get lost in this game, they get lost in this process and ignore and evade their responsibility to do the internal work that's necessary for all of us. No one can escape that. Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this conversation, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.