Discover how Eric Rock's tale of transformation from a timid speaker to a community leader in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, can ignite your own journey of personal growth. In an honest exchange, Eric, a titan in the consignment business world, shares the pivotal moments that propelled his family enterprise to become the largest of its kind in America. His insights into the power of ambition, the essence of a supportive circle, and the transformative impact of conquering public speaking fears are not just motivational—they are blueprints for anyone ready to step into their potential.
Culture is the heartbeat of any successful venture, and this episode peels back the layers to reveal how authenticity and a shared value system can orchestrate a symphony of success. I reflect on the growth of my core team and our shared aspirations that could lead us to ring the bell of a public offering. This narrative is an exploration of the delicate dance between encouraging individual growth and fostering an unwavering company loyalty, all while charting a path through my own public speaking hurdles to become the leader my team needs.
The episode culminates with an exhilarating look at how acts of charity can open doors to unexpected and valuable connections. Through my ventures into philanthropy, I've encountered influencers like Erwin McManus and experienced firsthand how the art of giving can deepen relationships and personal development. As we peel back our layers and "bleed" publicly, Eric and I divulge the strength found in vulnerability and the transformative power of facing our fears head-on, setting the stage for a broader impact that extends far beyond our initial dreams.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
Discover how Eric Rock's tale of transformation from a timid speaker to a community leader in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, can ignite your own journey of personal growth. In an honest exchange, Eric, a titan in the consignment business world, shares the pivotal moments that propelled his family enterprise to become the largest of its kind in America. His insights into the power of ambition, the essence of a supportive circle, and the transformative impact of conquering public speaking fears are not just motivational—they are blueprints for anyone ready to step into their potential.
Culture is the heartbeat of any successful venture, and this episode peels back the layers to reveal how authenticity and a shared value system can orchestrate a symphony of success. I reflect on the growth of my core team and our shared aspirations that could lead us to ring the bell of a public offering. This narrative is an exploration of the delicate dance between encouraging individual growth and fostering an unwavering company loyalty, all while charting a path through my own public speaking hurdles to become the leader my team needs.
The episode culminates with an exhilarating look at how acts of charity can open doors to unexpected and valuable connections. Through my ventures into philanthropy, I've encountered influencers like Erwin McManus and experienced firsthand how the art of giving can deepen relationships and personal development. As we peel back our layers and "bleed" publicly, Eric and I divulge the strength found in vulnerability and the transformative power of facing our fears head-on, setting the stage for a broader impact that extends far beyond our initial dreams.
If you enjoyed this episode, please share it on social media and tag Ken Joslin.
Hey, what's up guys? Welcome to another episode of as the leader grows. I've got a brand new friend on today who blew my mind. When I was at Aspire a couple weeks ago in Atlanta with some good friends Tim Story, jeff Finster, sean, mike Kelly and I watched Eric Rock hop on stage. He did an entrepreneur panel. Chris Lee is a good friend of mine with some guys and I watched him hand my God, dan Fleissman, a check for $100,000 to donate to his toy drive. I didn't even tell you this off off air, eric, but I'm sitting there and I'm like I got to know this dude. I want, I want to know this guy, so anybody that can, that is that generous and operates and lives in that level of generosity. I need to know this guy. So, guys, eric Rock, eric dude, introduce yourself to our audience, tell us a little bit about where you're at and what you've got going on. My friend.
Speaker 2:Yeah well, thank you so much, ken. This work is so much fun, like they're. This is so cool. Stepping into the light is where I'm at right now, this chapter of my life. But to make a long story short, 39,.
Speaker 2:I'm from quarterly in Idaho. I actually grew up in Nevada. I've been up here about 13 years. We're in one of the most beautiful places in America. We have some of the best people in this community that exist, including Ed Milet and Tony Robbins. There's some winners out here but.
Speaker 2:But I kind of came up in the game of entrepreneurship in retail. We were growing a big box. Furniture stores turned into jewelry stores as well. Our family business now has the largest furniture and jewelry consignment stores in America, so it's been really fun to kind of press hard on that model. I learned a lot through retail, through entrepreneurship. It taught me everything and there's a lot of gifts there.
Speaker 2:This chapter in my life where people are starting to get to know me now is me stepping out into the light instead of leading from behind, just serving myself and my organization and the people that were in my world. It was Ed Milet that really challenged me to step out in the light, find my voice and really go after the biggest dragon in my life, which was in front of an audience. I was petrified of this concept. And you start getting around people that see value in you. They give you this almost like obscene self belief that like this bizarre thing is possible and that is contagious when you get validation from the right sources. So you know again, part of my big message is always get around the right people, get in the right room, and it's crazy to see what I'm doing with my life now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's crazy because in the bottom of my planner that I created a couple years ago it says get in rooms with people who think bigger than you do. That's the quote. That's on every page. It just encouraged you as well. My pastor, chris Hages pastor, is one of the largest churches in America here in Birmingham 27 campuses. About 100,000 people fell to speech class at LSU when he was a freshman and a sophomore and now he speaks in front of about 100,000 people a weekend. So so you're good. So you're good dude.
Speaker 1:Well, talk to me a little bit about so you started man on a mission there in Corderlane, literally changing the culture and the landscape of the man in your city. But I want to, I want to rewind a little bit. Walk me through. Obviously, as an entrepreneur, you guys have the largest furniture and jewelry consignment stores in the country. Tell me some of them. Give me maybe two or three things. Eric, you learned in a. Let me say this Give me two or three times. You got your ass kicked, which makes you able to be able to do what you're doing right now at the level that you're doing it at.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's amazing question to ask, because the truth is the laws of compounding nature are tricky. There may be five years of hell that where it doesn't seem like you're really moving and it's because you're always pushing the boundaries of what's possible. Where you're at in your one, the feeling may be the same as that when you're five actually like. You may actually feel like, how are we going to pay tomorrow's bills? I remember thinking that for years praying for customers to come in the door. I remember having these bizarre ideas to try to drive clients in in these early years of like. Maybe we should run down the freeway, like in our underwear, with a big sign like it doesn't matter that the dumb shit. Like desperate for business to happen. And once you get in the game and it's your baby, you treat it like your baby. You care so much and I never experienced that type of love before. Entrepreneurship actually brought love into my life. It challenged me in ways I can't. I can't describe but the ratio between the numbers. The numbers just changed but the pressure is the same. If you're always pushing the boundaries of what's possible, it'll be years before the compounding effect shows green. It'll never feel green.
Speaker 2:I remember thinking why do the, even when we were doing good? Why do the P&Ls look so good? Where the fuck's the money? Like you don't realize it's so trapped in in tomorrow's decisions inside the business. And it was years of believing in something and keep pushing. And what's funny is like then you fast forward a decade and all of a sudden it looks pretty like. But you didn't see all the years when, like no one believed in you, there was no one thinking this is going to work, kind of like even the people you're closest to I feel like kind of beneath the surface are like I hope that guy fails. Like you feel that everywhere, like no one's in your battle with you and you don't feel very supported. They say entrepreneurship is a very lonely path. So when you ask me what I learned, what are the dark days? Look like man. That is years. We slept. My wife slept on a blow up mattress in the first year of starting our business. We put you know what little we had into the concept of starting something from nothing and what I realized is as a kid it was sports. That was my dream and I think a lot of people. As time goes on, maybe their dream gets hard to define and clarity is very important.
Speaker 2:Yes, I jumped in entrepreneurship. It really became obsessive nature about turning nothing into something and having my name on the bottom line. Like this, shit fails. It's on me. That kind of pressures what makes guys like me thrive. I love it. I do so under pressure and I was. You know.
Speaker 2:We just had a on our podcast yesterday and on my show man on a Mission. We just had a guy named Mark Rippin on. He was a two Super Bowl winning quarterback. He was the Super Bowl. He lost a son. It was a great interview.
Speaker 2:But you think about guys that have performed at the highest levels and I love sports as a metaphor. It's in the pressure when it matters most. It's bottom. It's bottom of the ninth. You know it's the fourth quarter and there's a minute on the clock and you're down by three. You know and you're in the 50 yard line. It's those minutes when you can slow down time and you get very fucking clear and your ability to see the field. And again, that is the same thing in business. When the pressure's on, how do you perform? And I had to learn how to be calm in the storm.
Speaker 2:I had to learn how to be a leader and put my leadership hat on. When we were failing miserably, when our business was dying inside, I had to show up every day and inspire my staff. I had to really teach, like, the art of great customer service when it mattered most, like, and you had to believe that this was all going to compound into something that we can all like, thrive on in the future. And I had to develop a dream so big that everyone else's could fit inside ours, or I'm never going to keep great people and I had to teach the good. I was Like, here's the one thing about entrepreneurship and I'll end here because I could do this all day.
Speaker 2:Ken, if I'm going to be preaching all this shit especially if I go on social media now, because now I'm a personal brand if I'm going to go on preach this shit, well, I can't try to caret my employees along. I can't get them, you know, believing in something. Enough that's just good for me and not good for them. Like I have to sell them on the real dream of what you can do with your life, and that means I may lose them. They may go on to pursue their greatest passion or their dreams. They may turn this thing into a business, and that's tricky. You see a lot of entrepreneurs and the way they lead is terrible. It's wretched. I want to inspire these motherfuckers to think so big and if they want to fit inside my dream, I'll take you with me. But we got to grow together. There's got to be like.
Speaker 2:So many people are afraid to make somebody else rich first and it's what actually stops them from becoming the greatest self. And what I was able to tap into is people helped me grow because of how I led and they weren't afraid to make quote unquote me rich. The truth is that never really happens that way. It may appear that way. When someone becomes so valuable that you can't live without them and that's the right person that you're doing that to they will take you with them. My loyalty to so many people over the years has been so profound that I would do anything for them. But what they got out of that relationship forget money. That's weak. We're not even after money, we're after value.
Speaker 2:Come on, they got something rare. They got the insight to a mind that was learning things in real time and was giving it away as fast as I got it. I give it away as fast as I got it, I give it away, and I developed a culture around me that served the shit out of me, and I did this organically. That's what's crazy. I was like I just had the gut instinct to think this way and I believed in something in real time, as I was learning it, that I was giving away, but I didn't know if this was right or wrong. Turns out it was right, and now it turns out I have a framework that I can teach with, and this has been literally one of the greatest joys of my life. Now is actually finding out what I'm meant to do. What I meant to do is not just be an entrepreneur. What I meant to do is help change the world. I'm here to inspire, motivate, push and really hold a mirror to people's faces, and I love this work.
Speaker 1:now, yeah, my first big opportunity you and I have never really had this conversation. We really had conversation was before we started the podcast. Today, you know, 20 plus years ago, I step off the biggest stage ever about eight, nine thousand people and I had to speak behind John Maxwell, which I've done three times now. John opens my conference every year in Atlanta in March. He'll open my conference again. And I tell him every year John, I'm not speaking behind you because you suck all the air out of the room. Every time, I have to get up there behind you. And so I get done.
Speaker 1:My mentor speaks behind me and then she goes hey, do you want to go lunch tomorrow? And I said, great, so we go to lunch. And she asked me this question. She goes Ken, do you want to be significant or do you want to be successful? It's the most important question you'll ever have to ask. You'll ever have to ask and then answer yourself, because it's exactly what you talked about. And out of that has come this 20 year journey, which really is fueled a lot by that conversation. And my favorite zigzag quote if you're helping up people, get what they want. Eventually you'll get what you want. That's it, which is.
Speaker 1:You know, my main talk I give around the country is great leaders want something for people, not from people, and which is exactly how you live.
Speaker 1:Obviously, you've walked this journey. You felt in your heart that this was the right way to do for people. You even mentioned in there about like when you because this is the hard part as a leader, and, I think, a lot of leaders and business owners I think we miss this sometimes. And I heard Andy Stanley, who passers in North Point Atlanta is one of the largest churches in the country and at a catalyst, probably 15 years ago, 20 years ago, under 40 leadership conference I was under 40 back then he did a message and he talked and he called it open-handed leadership and he's like you don't own anybody in your organization, and you mentioned it just a minute ago and I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you dealt with this, because when you pour into people, you said just a minute ago, eric, you said they may even want to go start their own business. Walk me through some of that, because, boy, those are some what I think are man rubber meets the road self-conversations that you have to have when you're dealing with situations like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll be honest, man. The real feeling when you have talent in front of you and again, what entrepreneurs should be doing is they should be building talent, elevating it and getting it to where it deserves to be in life, and whatever happens should happen. But a lot of times you almost feel like you might be trying to, like it feels this way this message might be walking my best talent right out the fucking door. That is a tricky thing to battle as an entrepreneur, because I don't want to trap this guy. I don't want to keep dangling carrots to keep him stuck on this if that's not what he's meant to do. And what I've realized is this I've almost and this is true I had to experiment, especially in the early days. I have enough just raw data, without making this a science experiment, to know that you actually keep telling around longer by doing it this way. So, besides the fact of it's right or wrong, this is how you should live. This is God's way, whatever. Forget all that, for right now, just think about. Let me tell entrepreneurs this If you want to keep your best talent around and keep them from jumping to the next carrot, that's bigger than what you can offer pour into them, like you just said. Like give them the self-belief, build that self-belief that these guys are animals and they can do anything they want with their life. Does not matter. Man, woman, exploit the greatness in who they can become. It is such a wonderful way to lead but you end up not talking them out the door. It doesn't work the way you think it would. Maybe here or there it's going to go. You probably lost them anyway. Regardless, you're going to keep people around longer when you operate this way much longer in case.
Speaker 2:I had the same core group of guys for 10 years. Like we've all grown together, we've all learned together, we built culture together. Like we have to take this thing to a publicly traded level for the fullness of what they deserve to be exploited. But they believe that's possible.
Speaker 2:So often people think, oh, do I need to be the guy that invents it or do I need to be the guy that starts it? Do I need to be a founder? No, most of the game of winning is getting near someone else that has so much trajectory that your alignment of your skills and values with theirs, you guys, can rise together far greater than you could have by yourself. And that's not true in all cases, but the point is is there's a million different ways of skin a cat. There's 1,000 ways to win and just being valuable alone and exploiting that is good enough. But if you get around someone that could carry you with them, I want to be the guy that carries. But part of that carry message is also challenging them to figure out what their purpose was, what they're meant to do with their life, and that is a scary thing to tell a guy that's the most loyal employee or the one that you are.
Speaker 1:They're helping the revenue, they're helping you grow your business. They're helping your dream be fulfilled. And here you are having the conversation that potentially can move them and walk them out the door 100%.
Speaker 2:But I'm here to tell you and I promise you you'll keep them longer. Do not manipulate them, do not lie to them. Give them everything you got. This is how great cultures are born. This is how we lead. I challenge a lot of people to do this too. Walt Disney was a guy that I look at as like a hero. I just love Walt Disney. I'm such a fan of that guy. Now Disney the company has gone in direction that that's a different conversation. But let's just talk about 1950s, walt Disney.
Speaker 2:There's a show and I stumbled upon it and then I dove in because I just loved it. It's called Imagineering. It's like I think there's two or three seasons. It's on Disney+, but it takes you through the entire story, chapter by chapter, of Walt Disney, going back to back early in the days when he was just an animator, when he was creating the Mickey character. So it starts there and it is so detailed.
Speaker 2:That guy had so much footage raw footage of his life. But what I? If you have eyes to see, there's a million lessons that are so unique about how to build a strong brand and a massive culture, how to get people believing in the impossible things that banks would never believe in. Nobody's gonna believe in this guy's head Nobody. He had to get people to believe and then they had to build it. He goes.
Speaker 2:You know, I realized people that don't have eyes to see. I can't go show them. I can't go get them to believe. I have to show them. I have to build it first, and he had to get all these talented people to do things he couldn't do. He had it up here, but he didn't have the wherewithal to do it here. I had to tangibly build the thing. It's amazing to see how he built Disney. The whole idea, the whole concept of it was mind blowing and there's a million lessons. But it really circulates around one thing culture. If you don't have culture around you, then likely you don't have demand. If you don't have culture, likely then you're leaving so many chips on the table. There's so many people out there that are banging their head against the wall because they don't understand brand, they don't understand culture, and this is one of the things that I've learned and I've adopted as I've grown, and it's really great now to get out in the light and be able to serve a lot of people with this message instead of just my own people.
Speaker 1:Eric, tell me a couple of things you talk about culture. It's huge. I talk, I teach on it a lot. Tell me a couple of things that you've learned over the past five, 10 years in building this business about culture. Maybe even a hard decision you had to make because of the culture you knew that God had put in your heart for you to create and build in your company.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the things that I think is really important is you have to be the thing you preach. First of all, if people don't believe in you, if you did and your message has a lot of holes in it because someone's spidey senses aren't dealing you, they may not like you necessarily Some people if you push them really hard or you challenge them, like there's so many different temperaments but the bottom line is is you have to be the message, you have to live that way and you have. It has to be your identity, and so I don't preach anything that I don't do myself. First and foremost, I am the culture. I live and die this way. I have a set of rules that I live and die by. I bleed in every room I walk into. It's one of my rules. I bleed in every room I walk into. I wear this shit on my wrist. I just have reminders constantly. They keep my emotions in check. They keep me having that winning attitude. Even when I feel tired or lazy, I can catapult myself into a flow state in seconds because I built rules around this. So, first and foremost, I am the message I live this fucking way Like and I'm purely authentic. That's the other piece. You cannot be fake. You have to be authentic. And that's tricky Cause once there's a camera there, people change. Once there's an audience there, people freeze up. And for me that was my biggest fear the audience. I was so scared of public speaking. I have a crazy story about one time I did a public speech. It was my first shot at it. I knew this was a dragon. I was likely going to need to slay in life. I was going to have to become a public speaker at some point because that's what the great ones all do, like it doesn't even matter. You have to be able to communicate at a large scale, and that is so scary.
Speaker 2:I finally got a rare chance to speak in front of a large audience at the Bellagio in Las Vegas about six years ago, and I overprepared for it because I was so nervous. I was so nervous, ken, I can't even tell you how it fucked me up. But even the pressure of that type of dragon was something every person should need in their life. Every person needs that kind of pressure to see what you're really made of. So I overprepared and I wrote the speech word for word. It literally was an hour and 20 minute speech. It was really good too, but it was word for word, not from the heart, because it can't be from the heart If you write it all out, script it all out and then you read it word for word. Well, thank God, when I got there there was a podium. I put that speech on the podium and I thought I might see the paragraph absorb it. Go to the audience. I was so nervous, ken.
Speaker 2:My whole prefrontal cortex shut down. My mouth got so dry that my tongue could barely leave the top of my mouth. Here's this audience at the Bellagio, and I mustered through it in the most painful fucking way and I read the whole thing. I got a standing ovation. Actually, it was really good, it was powerful. I had a whole slide show behind me that was on point with my message. But I know I was not meant to do this. In that moment I thought I'm not meant to do this and I never did it again. For fucking six years I avoided the thing that was going to get me the most out of what I wanted with my life before I die. I felt like I failed at it, even though it looked like I might have done good. I felt it and I never went near it again. So let me ask you a question. Let me suffer there.
Speaker 1:What story were you telling yourself that night when you went back to your room here?
Speaker 2:That the people that do this are meant to do it. They were born with this gift. Biggest lie I've ever learned, by the way. Like that was a lie that I was telling. That's the story. You just asked me that. I'm telling myself that because I didn't come out and kill it on day one.
Speaker 2:Speak from the heart. Move around the stage, have all this fucking energy, move the crowd, pull Sally out of the stands and put her on stage. What do you say, sally? How do you feel right now? Like what all the shit that I do now? I've been doing that. I've been on a stage camp. I mean, I think I'm jumping forward in my story a little bit, but I've been on some sort of stage every single week since June of this year, actually since May. I have not missed one week where I've been speaking in front of an audience. I actually built my own fucking stage. When people ask man, I have so much, so many lessons in my own story that I now can teach. But the thing that scared me most that I avoided forever, the second, I got around the right person.
Speaker 1:Okay, that was. My next question Was who did you have with you in Vegas, at the Bellagio, or somebody? I talk a lot about three spheres of influence community circle corner, Like my corner, are five guys that are world changers. If I have an issue that goes on in my life health, I pick up the phone. I call Gary Brecca. If I've got an issue, Randy Garnes getting a phone call, Brian Covey's getting a phone call. Did you have anybody around you then when you did this Bellagio to be able to go? Eric, it's okay.
Speaker 2:No, you know the one guy that gave me the opportunity. He saw a lot of talent in me. He saw how I led behind the scenes and he did his best to try to pull me in the line. He gave me a rare opportunity. I actually he thought so highly of me that he gave me the keynote slot and again he thought I killed it. I was dying inside because I knew that if that fucking piece of paper was in there I would have gone blank. I could not have done it unless I could read word for word. And I was able to read, look up, read. But the point is that was miserable for me. But he was kind of the one guy and so what's crazy is, somehow I knew that at one day I was gonna have to slay this drag and I was gonna have to go fight it. And that was my first attempt at it and it was so bad that I wrote it off as like okay, now at least I've tried that, I've been there, done that. It's not for me, I'm going away. Like for six years I did. I continued to build my business, worked for me behind the scenes, I played in. I called the safety bubble, like that is a safety bubble for me, because it wasn't my biggest dragon, like I may have thought it was at certain points, but now I know what my biggest dragon is.
Speaker 2:The thing I feared most was a stage. I love talking about the arena, the arena of life. It's great metaphor. Sports is a great metaphor for so many great things in entrepreneurship, actually in life in itself health, all of it. You wanna be the person in the arena. My favorite quote, the man in the arena quote. It's so telling. You don't wanna be a guy on the sidelines just squawking, talking shit. You wanna be in the ring, the guy with the gloves on, getting punched at and giving punches back. You wanna be in that batter's box in those hot moments like these sports metaphors are so great in life. That actual stage most people have one and they avoid it their whole lives and they die with regret and like what's crazy is I got there, slayed the dragon by all outward appearances. You think, okay, there's one, where's the next one? Instead, I ran away. It was the single most defeating moment of my life having that great opportunity and then feeling like I failed miserably.
Speaker 1:So what was the you said you set for six years?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I just get-.
Speaker 1:What was the next opportunity where you were like the door opened and you were like, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay. So here's how quickly shit can change. So six years goes by and there's one guy that I was never big on social media. I really didn't understand personal brand, even though I was building a great brand in our companies. I didn't attach myself to its own thing. But I finally kind of bit on social media and somehow I kind of convinced myself that I was always proud of myself.
Speaker 2:Can't I be in old school Like, oh, I don't need this shit? But I realized businesses can't thrive in today's modern society. Everyone's hooked on. I go to restaurants, husband and wife staring at their phones. I'm like fuck you. I guess and I love that I wasn't that type of guy. I remind him I'm my grandpa, I'm my dad, like I prodded myself on being like people that I admire and everyone's stuck in their phone. I thought it was garbage.
Speaker 2:And so here I am, like kind of changing my own ideology a little bit around this subject. I realized that well, fuck you, if I want to play, I have to use it as a tool. So I really do to start my story. Believe in this. You want to use this stuff as a weapon to achieve your dreams. You don't want to be a consumer that just sucks in shit all day and that's what most people do and it will never change. It will always be this way. But there are a few select few, very small percentage of people that will actually use this as a weapon and I decided in that moment I need to be a creator, not a consumer, and in that moment my life changed. Everything started changing when I started seeing the world a little bit differently and I really embracing technology as something. We've shattered records in our business since I really took on this approach. We mastered the market. I would collab with the biggest name some of the most beautiful homes in America, $30 million homes, $40 million homes and we would exploit that in unique ways through social media. Again, I built commercials around it for TV. It didn't carry the weight that this phone did, so I learned that in the business and I said, wow, I need to really adopt this.
Speaker 2:The first guy that broke through somehow broke through in the algorithm to me was Ed Milet, and I did. I started believing my the thing. Personal development was kind of hocus pocus. It's like a big scam right. This was just me knowing that I was on the front lines fighting in business and seeing all these guys, like you know, in social media and I'm like fuck man, that's bullshit, like I just didn't buy it. But Ed Milette did break through and he lived in my community. He's got a house right near me in this community 30 million dollar home. He's the real deal. And Ed was the first guy that really got my mind open like hey, this shit he's doing and preaching is the same way that I live my life. Maybe I can't help people.
Speaker 2:You kind of start thinking about what it could be, how could you do it? And there was one random opportunity to donate for books for Ed's charity bed. It was actually the charity piece that moved me. I was like, all right, I'm going to do it. I always gave a charity. I love charity In our local community.
Speaker 2:Charity has been a gateway to some of the most valuable relationships I've ever had. So let me be the one to tell you it's a gateway. But you do it Not for that. You do it for good. But inadvertently charities brought me so many cool places because it skips the line. I now am valuable to someone else who has a huge infrastructure because I committed, I bought, I was a sponsor at his event, I would buy a gold table or a platinum table? I would. I was always that guy writing checks. I could barely afford, by the way, for so many years, but anyway. So charity guys, like, all right, cool, it's going to charity, I'll buy a thousand books or whatever it was. It was a lot of books. I don't even remember the number, and what it would end up happening was. I got invited to go see Ed. I thought it was going to be like a group of 20 of us. No, I was fucking like a thousand people at this event.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was there, I was there. I was there. Yeah, I was at his book. I was at his book launch in Raleigh with Randy. I think I bought 500 books or 250 or whatever it was, and then we went out to the, we went out to the hotel yeah, I was with. Yeah, I was with Carlos.
Speaker 2:You might remember me. Yeah, this is crazy. If you were there, you might remember me. So Erwin McManus was speaking on stage. This is, this is a true story.
Speaker 1:What you don't know is I have a call. My next call is with Erwin after this. Yeah, he's telling me about closest friends. We're actually doing so, Kim and Erwin, in my event coordinator for my conference. We're actually doing a fundraiser for Kim's Malawi thing.
Speaker 2:So I've got a call with Erwin and them next yeah.
Speaker 2:I've been chatting with Erwin back and forth. He's going to be on the podcast, can't? I'd love to have you on ours, but you may remember this. So so anyway, I have these rules. I live and die by these rules. One of the rules is to bleed in every room I walk into, and the other rule is rule is and I adopted this rule at a funeral is to stand up and say something.
Speaker 2:It's just a simple rule, but it's a trigger for me. I wanted to say so. I'll give you that quick backstory. It's two seconds. I wanted to say something on my grandpa's funeral, but I was so nervous to get up and say something. I'm from all these people that I never did and it haunted me. I wanted to do so bad. I wanted it to be perfect. How came my mouth? Give him the right tribute? But I was so afraid of people thought that I sat there like nervous and I didn't say anything, and it crushed me. I don't know why I couldn't get up to say something. So at a funeral, I adopted this rule. From now on, if there's ever an opportunity to stand up and say something, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to raise my hand. It's going to be catabalic, I'm going to move and I just like I had to build this. This is not, this is. I had to build this shit, I had to create all the standards. And so every other funeral I've always said something and I pour my fucking heart out because they the standup and say something collides with the bleed rule and it just says bruh, and don't give a fuck with people thing. It changes me, it changes my energy in a second when I tell myself that I live and die by my rules.
Speaker 2:So here I am, at this book thing and Erugman says we're going to ask, we're going to ask, have three questions from the audience. And I, boom, I raise my hand. Sure enough, I'm the first hand. You saw, he picks me. There was two girls and me. There's three of us and I decided to tell, to say something very bloody and vulnerable. I talked about death and my obsessive about death ever since my grandma had passed away and everyone had a beautiful answer. But I was one of the three and I stood up and I said I'm in his Eric Rock, I'm from Cordenland, idaho, and what's crazy is, in that moment I didn't realize. But Ed, it clicked with Ed and Ed came, found me. He goes hey, I'm from Cordenland, like we should know each other. And it was just cool, like the stand up and say something skit me past the thousand people in seconds. And then the fact that I had something raw and bloody to say tears were coming down my eyes when I asked the question Can? This is not why we do this, but I'm here to be the ambassador of this message.
Speaker 2:When you do shit like this, it's amazing how you impact people and how they come to you. You draw energy around you. As long as you don't waste the moment. That's where bleeding helps me. I know what that means. We are going to get really deep and vulnerable. Jesse Lee, that's where I first met her. She came up crying to me and hugged me. She goes I felt every word of what you said about your grandma, about death, and she became one of my best friends. We literally were from there. We were like glue and I love Jesse Lee with all my, with all my heart. But that moment of stand up and say something Look how it served me. I have played this rule out a thousand times over and over, and it's always bloody, it's always raw, it's always quick, it's instinctual.
Speaker 1:Does it? Does it? Do you feel the same way? Do you have that apprehension or that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, every time. Yeah, I keep thinking is this ever going to go away? This butterfly feeling, it's a. For me it's. It's butterflies that don't feel good, but the second I start it's flips. The adrenaline that's coursing through my body actually becomes a superpower and it fast forwards me up. It actually makes me clear, sharper, funnier, wittier. My prefrontal cortex actually comes alive once I just start, and I learned this from a speech coach named I do, and I paired it with some information that Ed gave me about breathing, heart rate variability, all this stuff.
Speaker 2:But now I have all these tools and resources to know why I'm so afraid. It's actually ancestral. It's built into our biology while we're afraid to speak in front of the masses. In the cave mandates you could be stoned to death from the barbarians. They could kill you in a second if you said something they didn't like. So it's built into our DNA while we're afraid, and once I knew that it was like a superpower just to know it, because now I had an advantage over most people that don't do this type of work. I can elevate myself so fast just by knowing the laws of how all this shit works.
Speaker 1:That's so good. So, man, that's a lot, dude. We probably need part two and part three of this you could do that, that's okay.
Speaker 1:So talk to me. That's a lot, but I want to get to the man on the mission, Like when in your heart, Eric, did you like? Okay, I've got to take this out of my business. I'm making an impact on my team. The business is exceeding. We're making money. My people on my team are thriving in their lives in ways they've never been at before. What was the thing for you that went? I got to take this to the men in my community. You want to know the truth.
Speaker 2:You want to know the truth, shoot. So when you write like a quarter of a million dollar check to someone, you move fast. My buddy, dan Martell. He said it's so good and I've adopted this phrase as my own. So, dan, if you're watching, I was just texting him this morning. We may be going to Africa together, but I texted him. I said, listen, this is, this is mine now I'm going to use this everywhere I go. It's so fucking good.
Speaker 2:But he says the transformation starts at the transaction and what I've realized is so many people in life never write checks. They don't. I wrote checks when I didn't have money to write checks. I fuck money. He's just bullshit. I don't even look, I don't even care about money. It just comes to you when you're valuable, when you're resourceful, when you have pressure. Money always comes to me when there's a shit ton of pressure on me and when you spend big money on mentorship, like that's just another example of a transaction that forced me to. I realized, if I'm going to work with that in my let and I'm going to go big and coaching with someone that essentially I believed, deep down somewhere in my soul I started to believe that maybe, just maybe, I could do something more impactful with my life, like on a larger scale. Maybe I need to get in your head. And what I did is I went from zero to Edmai Lat, which is a big jump, and again I wrote the check.
Speaker 2:And the transaction of Edmai Lat was a game changer because I said one thing. I said, well, if I'm going to spend all this money, then I better fucking murder the old Eric Rock. I have to destroy that person. He can never come back. I don't need the ROI to be in money. I could care less. I don't care A lot of money just to piss away for, you know, six meters, yeah. So I need the ROI to be in a visible, seeable, different air rock. You have to not be able to recognize them. And I was already with my health. I have high standards there. I've had a six pack.
Speaker 2:My whole life, like my visible air rock, had nothing to do with physical looks, appearance, nothing. It had to be in a new attitude, a new energy, and I had to be visibly doing something that the world could see. I couldn't be changing behind the scenes quietly. I needed to change so fucking loud. And again this made me confront my biggest dragons. Am I worthy? Am I valuable? Would anyone come to me? It? Does my voice even matter? And I had to build systems and processes around, confronting my biggest dragon every week. That was the camera and that was an audience, a big audience, a stage. I had to confront these dragons.
Speaker 2:So what I do? I built a whole business around it. I literally created an LLC that was meant to build this as a real business and it's the only thing I could think to do. But at the end of the day, I took a lot of the tools. Ed gave me a lot of the pressure of me spending all that money knowing that I needed to do something. Now, you just don't waste money. People that write checks move mountains, I promise you. Like everyone's so afraid to write the check, it's because they don't believe in themselves. They don't trust that they're gonna figure out. I knew, with pressure, I will perform and I did. I fucking performed.
Speaker 2:I listened very intently with Ed, I came up with a blueprint, a literal blueprint, for how I was gonna do it. I went out, hired my first guy, hired the team, hired the content people. I built the whole structure in and then I said, well, I need a podcast. What if we did a little mastermind in quarterline every Thursday? Would people come? How would I do it? Can I charge them? Would this be able to pay all the bills? I don't need to make money off this, just pay the bills and I'm happy as fuck. I could care less about making money off this shit. But it'd be nice to know this is sustainable, because if it's sustainable it will grow, and if it grows it'll be more impactful.
Speaker 2:You have to build a blueprint in life and it's so hard to build a blueprint if you're trying to do it on the free, like no offense. It's not possible. Like fuck you. It's not possible. You have to be willing to write checks and so many people are so afraid to write checks. And it doesn't matter how much money you have. If you're resourceful enough, you can raise money in two seconds. People don't know the power that they have. You just look around you.
Speaker 1:I love what you said just a minute ago. You said people don't write it because they don't believe they can do it or they don't believe they're worthy of it. This is so funny because it takes me back to gosh, I don't know, probably March of last year, april, I get a call. I'm eating tacos on 280 here in Birmingham at the best taco truck in America. My phone rings. It's Irwin and Irwin and I'm like what's up? Irwin, he goes hey, I'm doing this. I'm thinking about starting this mastermind business. Mastermind, you've already done it. You're successful doing it. What do you think? Okay? I said well, how much does it cost? He said $35,000. I said great, I'm in.
Speaker 1:I said, as Kim McManus jumps on my call, on my Zoom call right here, I said you're going to have to hang loose when we finish this podcast so I can get Kim and Irwin in here with you. This will be great. I said send me an invoice. I'm in. Irwin goes can? I wasn't asking you to sign up, I just wanted to know, did you think I could get this done? And I said listen, dude, if you're putting something together and it's 35 grand, I'm in. You tell Elisa to send me the invoice and I'm in. So actually that's kind of how Irwin and I kind of started really really getting close. I've known Irwin for 20 years because I passed her for 15 and he's oh, they're great, but anyway, we got to get started real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the best validation things ever my man on the mission coaching group in Coeur d'Alene. That's a mastermind. Every week, every Thursday, we just had the biggest pastor in Coeur d'Alene. He's amazing Guys, like a legend. He came and had a meeting with me and he says I want to learn from you, eric, and I want to sign up for your mastermind. Can I join? We have a closed group right now. We're going to open up some spots, but it was such an honor and a validation to have a pastor that I greatly look up to. Awesome. He wants to join my mastermind to learn from me. What the fuck? And you see how authentic I am. I don't try to be someone, I'm not. He loves it all. He wants more of this shit and I'm like I'll give it to you, baby. Let's go.
Speaker 1:I love it, dude.
Speaker 2:It's really cool, man, you don't?
Speaker 2:know, what you've been. How long have you been doing the man on the mission. We started this in May, june, like right at the end of May. We started this and I built my own stage, we mastermind one of the most beautiful locations in America. Like I went big, everything I did is top quality. We're on one of the most beautiful locations in America, at a location it's very hard to get Like they don't just give it out every Thursday, like this is like iconic, where there's a floating green on the lake, like literally glass walls that disappear. So it's one of these inspiring environments that we're constantly around. We do it on yachts, we do it on a lot of times. If that location is, everyone wants to walk it in.
Speaker 2:But I just how I operate. I have high standards. Let's make this beautiful. That came down to my old furniture days. How do we make something that's ugly Look sexy? That concept is how I look at everything in life and I'm a good brand or period. I'm good at what I do. But this is turned into something I could have never imagined and now I know what I meant to do with my life. This is how I'm going to die. This is a new identity. This is the game. I love it.
Speaker 1:Eric Rock. Guys, this is amazing. I've got Erwin, kim and Ashley sitting in my. As you're listening to this podcast, you're like, is this a podcast or we just only kind of zoom conversation? Guys, listen, thanks for joining us again, eric Rock. Best place to connect with you, eric, can find out more about what you're going up, what you got going on Social is a good spot because it's got all my links in my bio.
Speaker 2:So on Instagram, eric Rock, lol, eric with a K E-R-I-K Rock, lol. Or go to my website, eric Rock, is it? Yeahcom Eric Rockcom.
Speaker 1:Love it, guys. Thanks for joining us on another episode of as the leader grows. As always, and as this is added value, do a couple of things. Hit that subscribe button, leave us a five star view, snap a screenshot on Instagram. Share it, tag me, eric. We'll put that in front of our audience as well. Again, thanks for joining us on as the leader grows. See you next week. See you, ken. Bye.