Working For A Dream

You only get one life - but what if it isn't the one you were meant to live?

Three and a half years ago, Drewbie was working at an insurance agency in Toledo, Ohio, doing the normal Monday through Friday grind. With a lovely family, he was living the life most people would consider ideal. However, he wasn't happy, as he puts it, "I was out of shape, not making enough money and most importantly not being the best version of myself." Nothing would have changed for the better if he hadn't come to the realization and taken the necessary actions.

Drewbie Wilson is now the Vice President of Break Free Academy. One of the Apex Entourage program's top sales producers considers himself primarily a "servant leader." He is also the host of an incredible podcast show and the best-selling author of Crushing The Day, a book that demonstrates simple strategies to achieve success in business and life through service to others.

Patrick and Drewbie have a fascinating conversation in this episode of the Working For A Dream podcast, where your guest recounts his life's "crazy trajectory." When it comes to transforming people's lives, Drewbie believes that "there's simply nothing like it in the world." His philosophy of serving others with honesty and humility has propelled him to the peak of his profession. Listen to this motivating chat as you prepare to "crush your day before it crushes you!"

What You Will Learn:

• • How Drewbie's credo of helping people and creating value benefitted him in the long term.
  • What led him to start his journey with Break Free Academy.
  • Why helping others may be one of the most selfish acts one can commit.
  • What motivates Drewbie to put forth the effort required to grow every single day.
  • How to use memes in your marketing to drive massive engagement for your business.
  • And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"I know that the more people I help in becoming successful, the more successful I will be."

• Drewbie Wilson

How To Get Involved:

Find more about Drewbie through the Website, or you can connect with him on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook.

Look for his book Crushing The Day here, and to listen to his podcast click here.

Connect with Patrick on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.

At 48 years old, Kris Whitehead has been working for himself for 24 years. Having been bit by the entrepreneur bug in his teens, at 22, he was working for Radio Shack and doing well — but then he caught a glimpse of himself 10 years down the line.

"I saw the district managers working six days a week," Kris says. "They were making a couple of hundred thousand a year, which back then was a lot of money. But I didn't see me in their chair, driving all over the states they operated in for a cause that didn't make sense to me."

So, Kris did what a lot of "dumb**** entrepreneurs" do. He quit his job, and decided to get started in the remodeling trades. Today, he owns a multi-million dollar remodeling company, a coaching company, and a personal development company. He and his wife are investors, and Chris is also the director of Apex Executive Coaching, the No. 1 networking mastermind on the planet.

"We're living our dream life," he says, "and the beautiful part about it is that I'm 48 years old and more excited than I was when I was 24. I'm more focused, and I'm more fired up."

But Kris didn't get here without his share of trials and tribulations. Two years ago, coming from a place of deep fear that he calls "The Force of Average," he was frantic that the coronavirus pandemic was about to upend all of his hard work as an entrepreneur. He'd already lost one company during the 2008 recession, and he panicked at the thought of it happening again. So, he stopped eating, started overworking himself, and turned to the bottle to help him fall asleep after 18-hour work days. Long story short, this destructive window culminated for Kris with a DUI and a sit-down with his family that gave him a "sense of purpose" again.

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Kris talk about what it takes to build a foundation of purpose and integrity under you and how that will ladder into some major results, professionally and personally.

What You'll Learn:

• How Kris defines "The Force of Average," and how he came to realize it was controlling his life
• How Kris used small actions of integrity to regain mastery of his life and generate $1.4 million a month in sales during a pandemic
• What it looks like to live guided by an authentic sense of purpose
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"I started realizing that in order for me to be a leader on a macro level, I have to be a leader on the micro level where it's most important. I had to build that foundation."

— Kris Whitehead

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Kris:

LinkedIn

Instagram

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

The more movers and shakers you surround yourself with, the more likely you are to realize that most have one thing in common — at some point, they've lived a f***ed up life. That's according to Daniel Blue.

"Most winners had some kind of tragedy or adversity hit them, usually on more than one occasion," he says. "For me, I'm a product of my mistakes, and I happened to make countless mistakes in early childhood."

At 18, Daniel was addicted to Oxycontin, had gotten a woman pregnant, and dropped out of college. In need of some quick money, he turned to real estate sales — and in his first year made $95,000. By the following year, he was making six figures. The problem was that he had no clue how to be a responsible steward of this money.

"I didn't grow up with a bunch of money. I grew up with a single mom after my dad moved to Mexico when I was 12. We lived in a hotel, and there was a year in high school where I lived with one of my friends because we didn't have our own place. So, I didn't see a lot of money transactions and investing and financial literacy."

As an addict and new dad, Daniel was over drafting his bank account, doing his taxes poorly and stuck with "s*** credit." Then, in his mid-20s, after getting clean from Oxycontin, he decided to change his financial habits, too. Exposed to entrepreneurs who introduced him to new ways of approaching investing, Daniel was able to turn a new leaf financially — and ultimately save and invest enough to, at 29, start his own financial literacy company.

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Daniel talk about how to improve your cash flow with self-directed 401k's and investments, as well as the path that brought Daniel to making financial literacy his mission.

What You'll Learn:

• Why self-directed retirement accounts are key for entrepreneurs in particular (and why traditional financial advisors won't tell you about them)
• The two different types of "come ups" Daniel has seen, and why only one is sustainable
• The steps Daniel took in order to comfortably sacrifice his salary and start a company
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"You have to make sure your purpose cup is being filled. Being in a funk happens when you're going about your day without having your purpose cup and your passion cup filled."

— Daniel Blue

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Daniel:

LinkedIn

Quest Education

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

To say Jose Sanchez has already lived multiple lives in his short time spent on this planet is putting it mildly.

There's the chapter when he moved to Texas from Mexico at age 7, where he later fell in with the wrong crowd and spent most of his adolescence "just trying not to overdose every day." There's the chapter where he, unbeknownst to him, went to "visit" family in Alaska and discovered he'd been tricked into moving there, with $50 to his name.

There's the chapter — a couple chapters, really — where he continued to hurdle through life aimlessly while getting his "PhD in washing dishes." The chapter where he left to work in the Alaskan oil fields, later giving that $120K job up to go make nothing as a college student who, at that time, was barely literate. There's the time he got into car sales, really dedicated himself to it, and wound up landing within the top 10% of sales people in the country. And most recently, there's the time he gave that all up to return to Texas and start his own business. Which, coincidentally, hadn't been his plan at all.

"I got comfortable selling cars because you're making six figures," Jose says. "You've got a good thing going, and you're like, this is it. I'm gonna be here for the next 30 years, and I'm gonna get a 401k and not have to learn anything else."

At the start of 2020, though, Jose's path took a major turn, again. In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Jose tells Patrick about the unexpected events that led him to start his own company running ads for businesses, and how — with some bumps along the way — he ultimately turned that into a six-figure venture, even in the midst of a pandemic.

What You'll Learn:

• How Jose went from washing dishes without knowing his ABCs at 25 to dedicating himself to self-development
• How he went from being $8K in the hole monthly for his business — during which time he was losing hair and living off tuna sandwiches — to making $100,000 a month
• The role a fateful Tony Robbins seminar plays in his story
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"If you want to make money, there's two things you've got to do. You've got to put a plan together. And you've got to take massive action no matter what obstacles are in front of you, because that's the only recipe that's going to get you there."

— Jose Sanchez

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

When Dominick Nusdeu first discovered Brazilian jiu-jitsu in 1993 — the same year the UFC began — he'd never seen anything like it.

A teenager whose mother wouldn't allow him to play "aggressive" sports like football and hockey, he saw in jiu-jitsu an outlet for physical combat. But he saw something else, too. Even then, he recognized it was a sport about problem-solving — about identifying the problems you have, solving those problems, and then creating more problems for your opponent. (There's a reason jiu-jitsu often gets compared to chess.) In short, Dominick was hooked.

Since then, he's "never missed a day of training," unless he was seriously injured. At a minimum, he's on the mat five days a week. And, with 23 years of experience and a black belt to his name, Dominick not only continues training himself but also serves as a BJJ mentor to others, including "Working For a Dream" host Patrick.

Since 2019, Patrick has looked to jiu-jitsu as an outlet for further sharpening his entrepreneurial instincts. As a sport, it's challenging. And it translates incredibly well to everyday life. The lessons he picks up in BJJ training sessions, he says, often directly correlate to the problems he encounters as a business owner. But until he met Dominick, he didn't realize how well BJJ could be harnessed to help solve those problems.

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Dominick talk about why it is that jiu-jitsu translates well to business, as well as their individual journeys with the sport.

What You'll Learn:

• How Dominick's career in exercise physiology, motor control, and motor learning intersects with his work as a BJJ professor
• Why he considers the belt system in jiu-jitsu "quite arbitrary"
• The No. 1 mistake those new to the sport make, and how its lessons carry over to entrepreneurship
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"People ask, 'How do I get better?' Just show up. No matter your attributes or your ability to learn, if you show up enough, you will improve."

— Dominick Nusdeu

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Dominick:

Facebook

Instagram

LinkedIn

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Before becoming a serial entrepreneur, Billy Batt worked in the oil fields, and before that, he was a teen runaway. Having left home at 13, Billy learned his way around the streets at a young age, sleeping outside in the Canadian winter and eventually joining a gang. He was selling, and doing, his share of drugs and losing friends to crack jail and violence. But after one too many near-death experiences in the same two-week window, he decided to give it all up.

"I literally threw my phone in the water and left," he recalls. "I didn't tell anybody I was leaving except for one person… I picked my brother up and we drove west, and I never looked back."

From there, Billy landed in the oil fields and found himself "back at the bottom." He was working 97 days straight at a time for 12 to 16 hours a day, making $15 an hour.

"You do stuff in the streets and you think you're mentally tough and you think you're physically tough, and then you go to the oil field," he says. "Those guys put what you think you know to work… I thought, there's gotta to be more to life than this."

After eight years of pipe fitting and welding, running crews of 100 to 150 men in northwestern Canada, he'd had enough. He left the oil fields — and became a marketer. Three years ago, he started his own business doing marketing for contractors and never looked back. He doesn't need to. The day before this episode was recorded, Billy's lead generation and marketing agency, Chrome Leads, pulled in five figures in a single business day — far from a rare occurrence.

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Billy talk about how Billy's earlier lives prepared him for entrepreneurship and his best marketing advice today, including his approach to a strong multi-channel referrals system.

What You'll Learn:

• How Billy helps clients make upwards of $50,000 a month from Instagram DMs alone
• Why it's a "sh** business model" to buy leads and why you should be building out an organic referrals system instead
• The tech platform that's helped him to delegate and knowledge share with his team
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"You're not going to love every minute of entrepreneurship. I've taken losses. It's almost cost me everything. And still, you have to stay focused."

— Billy Batt

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Billy:

New World Marketing Order Podcast

Chrome Leads

Facebook

LinkedIn

Instagram

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Growing up, Tony Whatley was told, as many of us are, that time equals money. The first person in his family to go to college, it took him seven years to get his degree because of the number of jobs he was working and the time that went into them. Tony worked full-time in construction and at chemical refineries, went to school at night, and waited tables on the weekends. It was, in short, a grind.

"I had this 24/7 hustle and grind life for seven years," he says. "I was broke, sleep-deprived, in a bad relationship, stressed out, had gray hair."

Even after he graduated from college and got his first mechanical engineering job, still he believed that working overtime and picking up extra restaurant shifts was the only way to keep growing his capital and advancing in life. Then, he discovered ways to make money by building websites — and the communities that went with them — online. That's when he realized that money and time didn't necessarily have to go hand-in-hand.

"When you wake up and check your PayPal account, and you've made thousands of dollars while you were sleeping… I realized that 'money is time' is all bull****," he recalls.

At that point, while still working full-time, Tony began to pour more and more of himself into building his side businesses, ultimately selling his first for millions. In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Tony talk about what it took for him to turn a hobby into a true business, what commonly stops others from doing the same, and how he approaches mentoring others today.

What You'll Learn:

• What Tony's response is when people tell him they're "too busy to start a business"
• How a near-death experience ultimately pushed him into mentoring
• Why it's key to "learn as you go" with entrepreneurship, rather than telling yourself it's possible to sufficiently prepare beforehand
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"When you're starting a business, if you treat it like a hobby, you should only expect hobby results."

— Tony Whatley

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Tony:

365 Driven

365 Driven podcast

LinkedIn

Instagram

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

One thing that life in the Special Forces and life as an entrepreneur have in common? Neither one is particularly comfortable — and that's a good thing, according to Jeff Smith, a man who's experienced both.

"If you're not challenging yourself, if you're not doing hard things, if you're not recognizing a level of discipline that makes you internally proud, I think you're not in a great place," Jeff says. "And I believe that for everyone. I just don't think most people recognize it or have ever been challenged with having to go there."

As a coach, in addition to being the co-owner of a gym and 68 rental properties with his wife, that's what Jeff helps people do: go there. He starts by helping clients reassess the narratives they've told themselves and instead opening them up to "the entire story."

"A lot of the time, we have the tendency to feel sorry for ourselves and make excuses, like, 'Oh, this is why this is happening to me,'" he says. "My job is to snap you out of that s*** and be like, well, it doesn't matter why it's happening. How and where do we go from here?"

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Jeff tells Patrick what he's learned going from the military to corporate life to entrepreneurship, as well as the ways he engenders empowered authenticity for his clients today.

What You'll Learn:

• How Jeff helps clients pinpoint what they're facing, what they're telling themselves, what the real story is and how to work their way out of it
• How his time in the military helped him learn to recognize his emotions without being dictated by them
• Why it's so important to create abundance in your network and in your communities
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

"If you start building wins, you will climb out of any situation. There's no situation that doesn't have a resolution."

— Jeff Smith

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Jeff:

The Tactical Empire

Instagram

Connect with Patrick:

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

In 2018, Erick Sanchez had less than $500 to his name — and decided to sink $200 of that into a ticket to a Mastermind entrepreneurial event. “My financials were not really at their best,” he says. “But I made the decision that I was going to change my life. And I wanted to surround myself with people that are up there and to elevate my life, my mind, and energy.”

Three years later, and Erick, at the age of 27, is a six-figure earner and the owner of the solar energy business. He’s “in the process right now,” he adds, of becoming a multi-millionaire: “I know that by the age of 30 if God allows me, I’ll be a multi-millionaire multiple times.” 

Jumping from flat broke to successful CEO in such a short window may seem unlikely, but it isn’t Erick’s first time overcoming significant adversity. At the age of 15, he was brought to the U.S. by his mother from their native El Salvador to help him escape a life that was headed in the wrong direction, fast.

“My life at the time was completely lost,” he says. “I was lost in the streets, doing things I wasn’t supposed to be doing. That’s when my mom decided to bring me to the United States because she was afraid I would get killed.”

Making the journey by bus and foot — the latter portion of which involved being chased by helicopters — Erick entered the U.S. without documentation and understanding English. Since then, he’s been manifesting one dream after the other, from obtaining a driver’s license and a green card to owning his own company. But it hasn’t happened without hurdles.

In this episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick and Erick talk about the choice to change your fortune and how he’s now helping others do the same.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why being a little selfish can help foster selflessness, and why Erick believes in filling your own cup first
• How Erick taught himself financial literacy and learned to set boundaries that helped him grow his net income (and not just spend it)
• How he’s turned himself into an opportunity for others outside the U.S. who are growing up similarly to the way he did
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

“I'm a firm believer in the Five Year Rule. If you stick with something for at least five years, no matter what, once you get to that fifth year, you're going to start to see results.”

— Erick Sanchez

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Erick:

Instagram

LinkedIn

Connect with Patrick: 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram

Sometimes, powerful reminders come to us in seemingly innocuous ways. 

In this special solo episode of the Working For a Dream Podcast, Patrick reflects on two lessons while taking his wife’s van to the car wash. Within these reflections, he thought back to his lowest point nearly a decade ago, and he shares an email he found that exemplifies this period.

“The main f***ing reason I had to write that type of email was that my mindset was broken,” he says. “I was broke — broke financially, broke mentally. It took about ten more years for me to wake the f*** up.” 

He also shares a vital lesson someone working at the car wash that day showed him and invites us to consider the question: Are you doing the right thing in life, regardless of who’s looking?

What You’ll Learn:

• The mindset that was led Patrick to live paycheck to paycheck for 15 years
• How he came to realize “no one is going to come to save my company or my marriage or my family” and learned accountability
• The profound lesson Patrick took away from a simple exchange at the car wash
• And much more!

Favorite Quote:

“How you do one thing is how you do everything.”

— Patrick Bolanos

How to Get Involved:

Connect with Patrick: 

LinkedIn

Facebook

Instagram