Transcript of $147 Million Exit Gone Wrong: Eric Cline Reveals How He Lost Everything and Rebuilt His Life

We jumped into the timeshare exit space. First company we ever started, built it up to where I had over 150 W2 employees in my office. We were doing 34 million a year. We were netting 12 on that. My wife and I own 67% of the business. That's 8 million a year. Now, my dear friend, Don, he goes, Have you ever thought about selling this thing? No clue what he was talking. I didn't know you could sell it. And then we started getting offers. We had offers from 147 million to 92 million. I'm like, How the hell did we build something? I I want to get closer to God. It's always been something that has been very confusing to me without any shadow of a doubt. A guy like me without something out there looking over me doesn't make it at this table.

Hey, guys, and welcome back to the Level Up podcast. This is Paul Alex, and today we have another phenomenal guest. He goes by the name of Eric Klein, guys. Eric Klein is with me. He went from Hitting Rock Bomb to Building and Selling Multimillion Dollar Businesses, Guys. Yes, it's about to be another one. And he's trained thousands in real estate sales in mindset. And he's the founder of Run It Remote and the Refused to Lose Brand. Guys, we're going to dig deep into his story. He has a phenomenal story, dude. I've been following him for quite a while. He's part of Andy Elliott's Brotherhood. I mean, that's our connect right there. And I can't wait to tell you guys more about Eric. Eric, welcome to the show, brother.

Thank you. Appreciate you for having us out here.

Thanks for coming out like right in early, dude.

Yeah, from Fort Lauderdale, the Miami traffic is insane. It's on another level, dude.

Dude, when I first moved here, like two years ago, man, I come from California. So I was like, there's no way it can be LA traffic. And dude, it's horrible.

It's comparable.

Yeah, bro. It is actually way worse. I'm like, Jesus Christ, right? And I ended up buying a home like 30 minutes away in the sticks, bro, because I want to land, right? I didn't want to be in brickle. And dude, hour and a half traffic down. Yeah. But it is what it is. It's great, dude. Eric, let's dive deep into what you currently do right now. Let the public know. What is it that you do right now?

Awesome. I am in the real estate space, primarily the wholesale I do real estate acquisitions. I do flip homes. I do have rental properties. I don't talk a lot about that part of it because my partners handle all that. Then I have a call center, run it remote out of Pakistan, which is, I'd probably say, the biggest company I have right now. We have over 500 employees in that office, 15,000 square feet. We service the real estate industry, home services, and a couple of hard money lenders and an insurance guy. We offer VA services. It's that company here over the next 12, 24 months. We're really getting focused on growing and scaling that out.

Okay. Is that a business that you've been in for quite a while now?

I have had that company for just over two years. Two years?

Yeah. Okay. When did you start your entrepreneurial journey?

I was a year and a half out of treatment. Went into treatment at 28 years old, so I was 30. I'm 44, so I've been in I've been writing my own check for 14 years. I love that, dude.

Yeah. That's admirable, dude. I'm in the game myself for a little bit over five years, and I still wake up and I tell my wife, dude, I'm just like, Dude, it's such a blessing to be able to work for yourself. And it goes by fast, bro.

Super fast.

It goes by super fast. And I tell people this all the time. It's just like the next five years will be here next year. So when you're talking about, dude, next 24, 48 months, I'm No one's going to fly by, bro.

And I've been through it, man. In the 14 years, I've had some really high highs, and I've gotten kicked in the nuts hard with With 2019, the very first company I ever started. In 2019, after having it for about seven-ish years, we were getting ready to go through a pretty sizable exit, over 100 million. And ended up losing it all, literally overnight. Going from the halfway house to that, obviously, there's a lot to the story we can talk about, but it's like, I made the decision, me and my wife, the end of 2011, going into 2012, no, the end of 2011, we made the decision we were going to be an entrepreneur. And everyone in our family, at least a A good portion of them thought we were nuts. My wife was eight months pregnant. I had our daughter, which was nine. We had maybe 10, 11,000, 12,000 bucks in the bank, rent a home in a fourth bedroom in a basement. We were like, You know what? Let's go give this thing a shot. A lot of us go through the self-doubt, the people close to us just trying to protect us. We ended up saying, Yeah, And dude, it has been a hell of a run.

When I say it's been amazing, just building a life by design.

Yeah.

By design. Not a lot of people can bet on themselves the way some of us do and build a life where you get to do what you want with who you want, when you want. And it's just, man, I'm 44, and it keeps getting better. Yeah. Yeah.

Is It keeps getting better. Dude, it's very unique you say that because I get asked. You came in the office, you see a bunch of young guys in here, and I'm like the senior citizen here, dude. I'm 37. And I don't feel like I'm the senior citizen, right? I actually feel like I'll perform them in gym and just mindset and then coming in here early, dude, at 5: 00 AM, and I'm just like, yeah, the energy, right? So when you see that, I can relate to that so much because as I get older, dude, I get wiser. Of course. And I start reflecting back to when we were younger, dude, and we start thinking about, damn, if I would have just pivoted just a little bit more, we would have been a little bit more farther, right? Of course. So before Right before you got into the entrepreneurial journey with your wife, how long have you been married now?

We have been together 16 years, and we have been married will be 14 years, man.

Phenomenal, dude. Phenomenal. Most people think a year is a long time.

She's my day one. She was with me before any amount of success, even a small level of it. Three days before I was walking out of a treatment center, they would load us up in busses and bring us to outside meetings. And it was literally three days. I was getting ready to get out. I got put on a plane from Chicago to Fort Lauderd I was in a treatment center for 60 days. And three days before, she walks into this meeting, and she walked through the door, and she had this light around her. No bullshit. It's like, You got kids, right? Yeah. Okay. You can't explain the love of a kid until you have a kid. So I couldn't explain what I saw unless you were there and you saw it with me. She walked through this door and she had a light, an aura around her, and she came straight up to me. And this was three days. I was broke, broken, helpless, hopeless, homeless, like literally everything. And she walks up, sits down, and we have a conversation. I have $8 to my name, not knowing if I'm going to go back to Chicago or am I going to go into a halfway house.

How old were you?

I was 28. 28? 28 years old, from 13 to 28, heavily addicted to drugs and alcohol. Crack cocaine was the one that brought me to my knees. Smoked crack for six years of that 13. It was rough. It was rough, man. My journey has not been luck. It's been hard work. And not giving up and showing up every single day and just putting in the fucking work, dude. Yeah. She comes up to me. We have a conversation, and she's been with me ever since. So I get let out of a treatment center. The first date we ever go on, she comes and picks me up. I have no license. My license is revoked in two states. By the time I was 22, 23 years old, I had four DUIs, driving on suspended. I was a train wreck. And she saw something in me. And I always say it's like she was the one person that would look at me and say, You know what? There's more to your story. I believe in you. And it was the first person that consistently told me that they believed in me. Because I didn't believe in myself. I'd let so many people down, all my family members.

The one that really mattered was I let myself down for years. And when she just continuously said, I believe in you. I believe in you. You can do this. You can do this. It's like she brainwashed me to believe that... Well, I know she really believed in me, but then it was like, damn, maybe if she believes in me, I'll start believing in myself. Yeah, dude, it's been phenomenal.

She's You're a needle mover, dude. I'm a big believer in words. They're so powerful. The words, what we see, who are around, our environment. When you say life by design, the first time I ever heard that was when I was in Arizona with around Andy's crew and all that. I'm such a big believer in saying that, dude. Of course. Life by design because we have control of our life. We do. Coming from different backgrounds, meeting a ton of different entrepreneurs and just business owners and just people in general, dude, everybody has their seasons, right? And I think it's the experiences that you've gone through that's made you the man you are today, brother. Because if you didn't go through all those seasons, the heartache, the issues with the addiction. You probably wouldn't have been able to push that addicting attitude towards your work and your purpose. Now you have kids, you have a beautiful wife. You're living the life by design, brother. That's a powerful thing, dude. It is. Because I lost myself in the sauce when I was even back in law enforcement, dude. It was a toxic mentality. You're dealing with toxic people all the time.

And I'm not talking about the people I'm arresting. I'm talking about my coworkers, bro. Sure. You're living that life and shit, sleeping three hours. And I was a single guy, and I was dealing with women. And I was just lost in the sauce myself, dude. Where it got to the point where I ended up getting a DUI. I ended up going ahead and drinking, blacked out drinking, getting a bar fight and shit. And dude, it's just like, where am I? I lost myself, man. So at the end of the day, I'm a big believer. I'm a big believer in that, dude. Everybody has an addiction. You just don't know what your addiction is. Most people think when you call yourself an addict, it's usually with something bad, like drugs or alcohol. But you could be addicted You could be addicted to sex. You could be addicted to what feels good. You could be addicted to work. You could be addicted to so many other things. It's just being able to control that addiction to the right thing.

Yeah, for sure. I've been addicted to everything. When I say I'm an addict, I'm an addict through and through. But it's where do I focus my energy to make sure whatever I am going to be addicted to, it's not going to kill me. It's not going to hurt my family. It's not going to ruin my relationships. I've been addicted to drugs, alcohol, porn, women, you name it. I've been addicted to all of it. Going and buying clothes, dude, there's been There's been times where I'll leave a mall after dropping $20, $30,000 on a shopping spree. I see it, brother. We're in Miami. And I leave there like, I just left the dope house. So I've been addicted to everything. But now, I don't want to say I'm addicted to it, but I am on a... I'm now on this journey, dude. I'm 44 years old. I have cracked the code to where as long as I don't put drugs or alcohol in my system. Correct. I will never go broke again a day in my life. I've cracked the code. I understand enough about business scaling, building teams, systems, to So where I'm going to be okay as long as I don't put the sauce in my body again.

It's always like what I say, brother. If you were to lose everything again, and I give you 60 days, you'd be able to come out probably for a million dollars already.

I guarantee it. Yeah. Yeah, I guarantee it. I've proven it time and time again now.

And I see it. I see it through your socials. I see it when I talk to you. I see the level of confidence that you have. It's the aura, dude. And you have the life experience. First thing I talk to, when I talk to business owners, I talk to another person who says they're going to do something, man. It's just you can tell, okay, what have you been through? What's your life experience? You've been through the shits. Have you built a business? Have you lost it again? Have you been sued? Have you done this? And you've been through it all, dude. So I know that you can easily lose it and then build it again. So you built up a phenomenal company up to... You're about to exit 100 million in 2019. And then what ends up happening, dude, that you're about to lose it all or you do lose it all. What's next in my chapter, dude?

Dude, it was... So So I went from working in a call center, learn how to sell stuff over the phone. And I realized you can sell just about anything over the phone. You really can. And I got really good at it. So my wife and I went, and any business we've ever had, someone's actually just brought the idea to us. I didn't think of them. It's not like I've thought of all these amazing business models. I love that, dude. Yeah. Someone was like, Hey, there's this really cool business I'm like, Who's in that industry? Let me hear some recordings. How much money are they making? Cool. I can go do that. Every business I've ever had, I knew a guy that knew a guy that said, Hey, you'd probably be really good at this. And I was like, All right, I'm going to go do it. So we jumped into the timeshare exit space, was in that industry for 10 years, built it up to where I had... In Fort Lauderdale, I had over 150 W2 employees in my office. Over 100 of them were on the phones. We were doing just north of 34 million a year.

We're netting 12 on that. My wife and I own 67 % of the business. That's eight million a year. That was at the peak of it, right? Right when we were getting sued. So my wife and I went to go buy a home in Fort Lauderdale in the Seven Isles. We were getting ready to get a loan for the house, for a mortgage, seven million bucks. And it's crazy. I just went by that house yesterday, dude. That things were 15 million now.

Crazy how inflation works.

What in the heck? Florida, man. Florida, brother. If I would have held on to that one. So we went to go get a mortgage, and the banker which is now my dear friend, Don. He was like, Brother, what do you do for work? And I'm like, I own a time share exit company. Didn't think anything of it. First company we ever started, having a blast, thinking Like, Life is amazing, which it was. And he goes, Have you ever thought about selling this thing? I was like, I had no clue what he was talking. I didn't know you could sell a business. I really did it. I was that naive to it. I had no clue business is sold.

I love hearing stories like this, but also from a perspective of somebody who just takes imperfect action. You're like, Dude, you're like me. People are like, Dude, how did you figure out how to build this and this and this? I was just like, Dude, I just did it.

I just moved. That's it. Some directions were good, some directions were wrong, but I just kept moving. You live and learn.

Yes. You live and learn. You take it as a lesson, right?

Yeah, a lesson every time. I love it. So he says, Hey, let me look at your model. He looked at it, brought an M&A guy in. They looked at it and they're like, Holy smokes, you guys got a cash cow on your hands. Super profitable. They started talking EBITDA and all this stuff. And I was like, What is even going on? They had private equity firms We were buying in, we were going out to dinner, and me and my wife, literally, were like, How the hell did we get at these tables? Is this real? Are they messing with us? The whole time, we almost didn't believe what was going on. And then we started getting offers in. And the very first offer that came in, the M&A company took the five best offers. They flew them in. They looked at our facility in Fort Lauderdale. So we had offers from 147 million to 92 million for 100 % of the business. And again, I'm like, how the hell did we build something like this? How did we get here? Like, literally, pension ourselves So we structured the company, set up all these trust, and got all the paperwork ready.

It took about six months to get everything ready to sell.

And Eric, let me ask you this question. And this is just from me to you, brother, just as... Because you've been in the game longer than me, dude. And with me, I'm such a student of the game, no matter where I'm at in life. And my question is, who do you even go to when you're at that stage, dude? They're offering you 147 million, and you got to learn how to structure it. Or where did you even get advice? Do you have a mentor at that time?

Don. My good friend Don Weir, which is out of Fort Lauderdale. Shout out, Don. Yeah, he owns a well All financial company. He manages people money. A lot of athletes he manages. Got it. And very, very big entrepreneurs. But he was helping us. He put us in contact with a law firm that could structure trust, because when you get all that money, you need to be protected. I don't know anything. I can't talk about it today because I had people doing it for us because I didn't get it. But lawyers were structuring the trusts. They set up certain accounts for asset protection and all this stuff. Because literally, for us, I went from the crack house to a call center to saying I was going to be an entrepreneur. And seven years later, which it went like that, we're talking about a massive exit. And there was a wise man once told me, his name is Jordan Zimmerman. The first billionaire I ever knew. Zimmerman Advertisement. He's right off, I think, '95. You can see his building. He was like, Eric, he goes, Things can come to an end. Just be cautious on the way you spend money.

Because, again, dope house, penthouse, making millions. When you make millions, you start spending like you're making millions. And I never had anybody around me that talked about finances. Not that my parents, they didn't have a ton of money. They weren't dead broke.

But you were at a different level, dude. Different level.

Different level. Way different level.

Yeah, and they can't give you advice. They can't. And that's what I tell about my parents. They're immigrants. They come from Peru, Mexico. They work very hard. They live their version of the American dream. At the end of the day, I'm the first bloodline breaker, brother. Yeah, man.

You know what I'm saying? For sure. Yeah, me too. And so we structured everything. We ended up going... The The deal we ended up going with 147, they dropped out. They thought there were going to be some lawsuits coming down the pipe, and they were like, We don't think this is an industry we want to be in. So we were selling 51% of the company. We were retained in 49 %. We were selling 51 % for 54 million. I had to stay on for two years, and then we were going to do a second sale after the two years. So it would ultimately have been a nine-figure exit. That's why I always say nine-figure exit. The first one was for 54 million, but I was still going to own almost 50 % of the company, which it was a cash cow at the time. And they did all their due diligence. Paperwork was all done We were waiting to close the deal. We ended up getting, which I can't name the two timeshare developers just because of my settlement. But two of the largest timeshare developers in the world publicly traded multi-billion dollar companies. We know they got a hold of our book when we sent it out to all the private equity firms, and they knew we were going to be exiting.

They ended up suing us, my companies personally, and then me and my wife personally. So they sued our companies, and then me and my wife. And we got some poor advice from a lawyer, paid them $150,000. As soon as the first lawsuit came, we panicked. We didn't know what to do. So we started literally just googling bankruptcy attorneys because we were told by someone, if you file a Chapter 11 on the company, no one else can sue you because we got one lawsuit. Thirty days later, we got another lawsuit, and we're like, Holy shit. This is scary. We literally panicked.

Was it the first time you were getting sued? Ever.

At this level.

At that level, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I've been sued by employees.

You're like, I could take care of that, but not at this level.

No, dude. It was scary. They were bringing in... I mean, dude, I was on the channel 5 news in Orlando. The two developers were trying to make a big scene out of.

Oh, so you were on the news for the lawsuit?

Dude, there was a lawyer with boards behind them with all my companies talking about me and my wife, and we're taking down the timeshare exit, Kings of the industry, and we won't settle for them breaking or interfering with our contracts. It was bad.

Damn, brother. It sounds like they were trying to take you down. It was like a Riko case or something with the feds. Yeah.

And we didn't do anything wrong, but they were making They were making a statement with us. Right. So we will go and stroke a $150,000 check to a bankruptcy attorney. He files a Chapter 11. Our attorneys that were fighting the case for us, they're like, You made a big I'm not going to make a mistake doing that. They put a trustee. They appointed a trustee to the company. I had to stand in front of 140, 150 employees in my cafeteria. And with a stroke of a conversation, I had to let them all And it happened literally overnight. And I went... We fought that lawsuit for two and a half years. A lot of people are like, Well, what did you do wrong? I didn't do anything wrong. I could sue you right now, and you would have to fight me. You'd have to defend yourself against my claims. A hundred %. That's how it works. That's how it works.

And it drains you.

And it drains you, dude. It drained our bank account. It drained our revenue stream because of that shut off overnight. Of course. It was It was robbing me of our family. My family was being dragged through the mud. Me and my wife were on the verge of getting a divorce. I was either day, seconds, minutes away from going and using drugs again. Didn't know what to do. I was lost. I was lost. I was panicking. In the last 30 days, and that was a two and a half year lawsuit, couldn't start another business up. My legal bill for 30 days at the end was a half a million bucks for a month. Wow. And I told my wife, I'm like, They're going to get the money, whether they get it in the lawsuit or we settle. They're getting the money. I said, so let's just settle this shit. And we made the decision I told her, I said, Let's settle it if we got to go back to zero. And this is where I was like, All right, it's time to go do this again. Build another company.

And Eric, this is now two years later, so from-2021. Okay. So right after COVID, basically.

Yeah. We settled. It cost us, it was either six or seven million, which is a shot in the nut. And no income stream. I told my wife, and that's where I found the wholesale real estate industry. And I didn't ever look at it as real estate. I looked at it at the model. Real estate just so happens to be the conversation piece of the lead. But I was looking at the actual model of it. The service? Yeah. I told my wife, I said, Give us a year and a half. Let's settle this. Let's get 100% of our attention back. And I said, Give me a year and a half. I'll get all this shit back for us. And I literally put the blinders on, dude, and I went to war for a year and a half.

Eric, what made you decide to make the conscious decision to go ahead and just focus on that model, specifically? Was it because of the skillset that you already had with the call centers? You were like, Dude, I'm good at this. I'm the best. I'm just going to double down.

Someone like you, a guy I knew, said, Dude, there's this wholesale real estate industry. It's just like what you were doing, except distressed timeshare owners. Now it's distressed homeowners. So he goes, You would crush this industry. And I was like, Cool. Send me a couple of recordings. Let me hear the pitch. He sent me three recordings. I listened to two of them, called Shil up, and I said, Let's go run it up in this I said, We'll dominate it.

And that makes sense, dude, because in 2021, I remember it was starting to blow up on social media. Yes. So I could see probably one of your friends. I saw Ryan Panade, an example, out of Vegas, right? Big wholesale, wholesale real estate guy. And they're talking about TikTok, Instagram, and all that stuff. I'm pretty sure it was because people were talking about it and they were like, Dude, wholesale. Why not, right? Yeah. And you got in at the right time.

Got in. And Immediately hit the ground spreading. First year, 2. 6 million. Next year, 3. Something. Next year, 3. Something. Ended up going to a lot of conferences and masterminds. And I saw in Within the industry, a lot of the coaches, gurus, influencers, whatever you want to call them. I was sitting in the crowd, and I was there for a very specific reason. One, I wanted to see how they were teaching it because I had my own way of doing it. And I saw a massive opportunity for me in this space. Never once did I ever talk about being a coach. Never. But after now 14 years of having a lot of success as an entrepreneur, made tens of millions, lost tens of millions, made it again, I was like, I can come into this industry and teach virtual sales at a level I don't think anyone in this space can match. A hundred % over the phone. If you're going to go door to door and walk in their house, I'm not teaching you how to do that. But if you want to do this over the phone, I don't think there's anybody better in the space to teach you how to implement a sales process virtually.

That'll get you the results I can get you. So I started that. I started up run it remote. I knew leads were what drove the business in this industry.

So from a beginner's point of view, because the LevelUp, it's a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs, 9 to 5, and they're looking for opportunities. Cool. So from the perspective of a beginner, break down what is run it Essentially, what's the concept? Wholesaling? Yeah. From a beginner's point of view, run it up. The concept that you're doing is essentially you're getting a virtual call center. How's the setup for a beginner? Got it.

So it services the wholesale industry, which is leads. So what Run It remote does is you hire our cold callers to go and generate motivated seller leads for you. So you can be at home. You can be at wherever you want. It's virtual. They're going to send you homeowners that have gotten a phone call. They spent 3-5 minutes on the phone with a call out of the blue, and they've answered very specific questions. Do you want to sell your home? Yes. Six months or less? Yes. What is your motivation? They're going to give us their motivation. They're going to give us their timeline. They're going to tell us everything, three bed, two bath, 1,500 square feet, 1,980 build. And here's the reason I want to sell. So we qualify the lead for you. Then we send it to you. You got to go and convert that lead to a contract. So that's what run it remote is. Is we are a cold calling VA company that does lead gen for companies.

Let me ask you a question, Eric. I've been using a call center for the past five years. I use it actually for two different companies. I used it for ATMs, for automated teller machines for quite a for quite a long time. And we did that. We did Bitcoin teller machines, which is big right now. And then two and a half years ago, now we do it for credit card processing. Got it. I've been using the same call center, man, but I've been curious, right? Because obviously, I always want to bring everything in the house. Of course. Do you teach this concept for different industries? Is it similar or is it just specifically wholesaling?

So we can go into any industry. Okay. I run it remote as a company that ultimately we are going to build to exit. It is a cash cow. We control 100% of it. Right now, we have a 15. To answer your question, yes, we can help. But we have a 15,000-square-foot facility in Pakistan right now. We're building out another 15,000 square feet. And a lot of our talent is coming directly. Our team is coming directly out of college, and they are teaching English now over in Pakistan in the universities. In the universities, it's the primary language that they're holding their studies with and all that stuff. Within our office in Pakistan, we have four full-time English teachers because that's the first thing someone asks is, How's the English? Our English is really good. I was shocked when my partner, Sean, Sean Serani, out of Atlanta, 22 years old, one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs at his age I've ever met. He was our ties to Pakistan. His father, born and raised in Pakistan. Sean's born and raised here in the US. But his dad still spends six months out of the year there. So that's how we were able to get to Pakistan, open a brick and mortar office, and build up the team that we have.

It makes sense. We dumped 150, 160,000 just in the rehab of our building. And over there, that's a lot of money. That is. To rehab in Pakistan. So we have a beautiful facility. Our goal is to ultimately pivot into other industries. So with what you are talking about, dude, me, you, and Sean just need to jump on a call, honestly, and just test pilot what you want to do and take it from there. Dude, let's do it. Yeah, yeah. No, I'm serious. What was the question No.

But no, the question-For a beginner. For a beginner's point of view, which you explained it. You explained the concept, which is good? Because I know there's going to be people watching this, and there's going to be a lot of business owners are going to be like, Dude, can you do it for my industry? Because there's so many different industries, dude, that can use a virtual call center. Oh, God. I had interviewed someone else earlier this year. I think it was John C. Right, Melio? I think it was John C. But she was beginning to start doing this, and she successfully did it through another, I guess, an affiliate hub that would essentially be able to allow you to create virtual call centers, but they owned everything.

We do an affiliate model.

Yeah. So that's where the exit is more than likely going to come from, right? Yeah. Is that. Yeah. So that makes sense, dude. That's good. So let's get into more purpose-driven point of view from your life, brother. So what's your why right now, man? I mean, you've gone through it all, brother. You've built a $100 million company. You've about to exit. You got sued. You made the money back. Now you're building another venture. We were just talking about your beautiful home. You're about to wrap up here in the next couple of months. You got the family, dude. You've been married for so long. You're living what I like to call the New American dream, life by design, brother. So what is your why What is your purpose?

I only ever wanted to be... In the beginning, man, I just wanted to feel part of a family. I was an outside I had her in my own family growing up for many, many years. A lot of people are like, Oh, that's such a low-level surface. Why? Well, when you grew up the way I grew up and you had the internal demons you fought as long as I did, it's It's not a surface level. I want to build the most amazing family and give my family the experiences, not spoil them, my kids, to where they don't understand hard work ethic and all that shit, right? Because I think you can go to an extreme. But dude, I want to show my family that no matter what the hell you go through in My 13-year-old son is right outside the door here. And dude, he's been overweight most of his life. And this is answering the why, right? My son's 13 years old. He's been overweight most of his life. And I can get in front of... I've helped thousands of people. I really have. Change their life and get financial freedom and break the 9: 00 to 5: 00 and motivate them to want to just go light life on fire.

And my own son, I was failing to do that with. He was 11 years old, 211, 12, 13, 14, 15 pounds. He was obese. And when I look at the pictures, it almost brings me to tears because that's a direct reflection of me as his father, the one that's supposed to be leading the pack. And mom, you know what I mean? I I believe as parents, we failed him. We came out to Arizona, and he met Andy Elliott for the first time. Andy said something to him that triggered him, and he's never been the same since. And he was wearing Elliott shirts for the longest time. And This closet was full of Elliott shirts, and I had my own brand. I had my own shirts. And it was one of those things I was like, aha moment. I was like, Wait a minute, dude. Why don't you wearing my name? My son, which I'm grateful. I tell It's a story to Andy all the time. I'm like, Brother, I love you, but I don't want my son wearing your shirts more than mine. Yeah. Come on. Internally, it was eating me alive because I'm like a complete stranger to Ky 60 days ago, and now he idolizes this guy.

So I'm like, Where did I go wrong to where my shirts aren't filling his closet? So it's like, All right, I got to I got to process how I'm fathering my son, how I'm leading my son. And now today, dude, when I tell you me and Ky are up at 4: 00 in the morning, Monday through Friday, together, going to the gym. He wears my shirt all the time. It literally gives me goosebumps because without Andy, without having that fire, watching another man lead his family the way I was not leading my family, there's levels to this shit, dude. Just when you think you are doing it right. And it's not the comparison game, but you're like, damn, bro, I thought I was doing okay. No, I'm not.

You know what that is? You're inspired, bro. Yes, I was inspired. And there's nothing wrong with that. No. That just shows what type of human being you are, dude. You're a servant leader. You're leading by example now. You're like, dude, I thought I was doing it good. But this guy, man, he's at another level. So at the end of the day, that's inspiring.

Let's unlock the chamber. Yeah. Let's go. That's how you grow. Yeah, That's the only way to grow. 100 %. Yeah. So I want to be an amazing leader, one to my family, first and foremost. I want to get closer to God. It's always been something that has been very confusing to me, even though without any shadow of a doubt, for me to be sitting here talking to you with everything that I've been through, and we've only heard a small fraction of it, a guy I, like me without something out there looking over me doesn't make it at this table. It doesn't. I know there's a bigger purpose for me. I attract the misfits, the underdogs, the counted outs, the black sheep, any race, it doesn't matter because I'm very open and vulnerable with my story. So I attract them all. You're real. I'm real. I have nothing to hide, like literally zero. And And my goal is to help the 28-year-old Eric. Whether you're male or female, I want to be the one that can be... I want to be their Shaila, where she said, I believe in you. And that's all it took was one person to say it multiple times, I believe in you.

I believe in you. I want to be that person for people. I'm going to be okay in my life. I've hit a point where we're going to... Eric drug is going to be okay. Again, as long as I don't put the drugs and alcohol in my system. There's a lot of me's out there where I can relate to everything. When somebody says something, I'm like, Man, you think you're alone, but you're not. I've been in your shoes before. Much, much worse. And when I can go and tell them my story and then just give them a little glimpse of hope and then just say, I believe in you. Dude, not everyone's going to get it, but the ones that are out there where the pain is great enough and they've hit their bottom and they're ready to change, it would be super selfish of me to not go and get as many of those people as I can and bring them with.

No, absolutely, man. And you never know who's life is going to change. And that's why it's super important to tell your story to the public, man. Leveraging digital marketing, leveraging social media, and just tell them the real, dude. This is very inspiring, man. I love it. I love the fact that you took extreme ownership, bro. You saw your son, he He was overweight at a certain time. He was wearing another man's last name. And you're like, what the hell is going on here, dude? I'm successful. I'm a good father. And then you're like, you know what? I'm going to suck it up, dude. I'm going to make it happen. I'm going to leave my son, right? And it's the same thing, dude. In 2024, it was best financial year for me. I ran three different companies, and then everything came crashing down. Happened. Everything, dude. Got $200,000 taken away from a CRO of mine, one of them. The other one almost burned down another company. And then in the meantime, I got married, found the love of my life, my best friend, my rock. And dude, I'm over about 245 pounds. So I was about 45 pounds overweight, bro.

No shit.

Oh, yeah. How long ago? This was earlier this year, bro. Wow. Yeah, it's insane. So we actually have another mutual friend. He goes by Planet Mike. Yeah. So I know that guy for almost four years now. I met him in San Diego when I was living in a penthouse over there, and I met him in an elevator. And I I remember I had a $400,000 day. I was on the phones, and he's just like, Dude, you got some aura inside of you. I'm just like, Bro, I'm just like... I didn't know living by design. I don't know how to put it like that, but I was just like, Dude, I'm just living life. I'm happy, right? I'm going to control of my life. And he's just like, Dude, we got to be friends. So ever since I met him there, he's always been like, Dude, you got to optimize your health. It wasn't until earlier this year, dude, where it was just the pinnacle of depression for me. It was the top. Bro, I've been in some deep ass depression. I've gone to rehab myself, dude. I've gone through all this bullshit myself. And I tell the It's still the real, the ups and downs, because every new level, there's a new devil, brother.

When it comes to this entrepreneurship game, it's not meant for everybody. It's meant for people that are able to hold the most pain. But then also they're able to see through all the bullshit and continue. Because it's going to be hard regardless. Yes. When it comes down to it, the mutual friend, dude, he had told me about you. He had told me about you before I even met you. And then I started following you. And then the second time, I heard about you was through Tommy Provich, which is Andy Elliott's guy. And he was like, You got to meet this guy Eric. He's on fire. He's one of Andy's best mentees right now. I was just like, really? And then I met you last time in Arizona, dude, and that's how we clicked. It's It's meant to be, bro. It's meant to be, man. It's meant for you to be here, tell four million listeners on a monthly basis to your story, because it's very inspiring, dude. It's just people need to hear this shit.

It's real, right?

So in your opinion, what makes someone successful in your space, dude, in wholesaling in general? Because I got a few mentees that are in wholesaling right now, and they're building some nice-size companies, but not at your level. Yeah, awesome. What makes somebody successful in your space?

Really good question. From My understanding, I don't have any facts to back this up. 95 % of people that try to jump in the space, there's a 95 % fallout rate of people that try to get in and give up before they get their first deal. That's high, right? That's a high fallout rate. So I believe they think they're jumping into the real estate game. They're not. It is 100% lead gen in sales. And then obviously, you have to know how to underwrite the deal in order for the numbers to make sense on the lead in order to assign it and make any money. I would say for anybody that's getting in, it is a contact sport. The deals don't find us, we find them. You cannot get around the money making activities that are going to give you success in the industry. That's picking up a phone, making hundreds of freaking dials, and getting hours upon hours of talk time on the phones. They believe you can skip that and get consistent deals. It does not happen. And trust me, I've had thousands of people, thousands, pay to understand how to play this game.

And the common denominator around all of them that have success and the ones that do not is the ones that have success, they immediately get to work just picking up a phone, taking a script that I I give them, reading the script, calling as many homeowners as they can, and just making offers. And then the ones that don't have success, they'll do it for a little bit, and then they just stop. Or they'll make 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 offers, and they have not heard a yes yet. And they're like, That was bullshit. This don't work. Wow. It's a contact sport. Momentum is built. It's not given to you. So you got to build momentum. So if you're going to get in, just understand it is real. It's as real as rain. But you have to do the work in order to get the results. That's with any industry, though. You were overweight. If you would have told me that, I never would have thought you've been overweight. Oh, yeah. But you put in the work. Oh, yeah. It's like I didn't get in this seat. I didn't skip the hard work.

I I've been doing that for 15 years. Still today, from talking to you to go to the next podcast, I'm probably going to make a sales call because there's leads that are waiting to talk. I haven't gotten too good to pick up a phone. I love that. I'm still on the ground level. I stay in the trenches with my team. It's funny, you had said 2024, you had... It was like everything came crashing down. Yeah. Dude, 90 days ago for me, I made a really bad decision. Yeah. In in my business. And I always tell my team, When I make a decision, I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it with confidence, and then we're going to figure out whether or not it was the right one. But I need to make sure I got the team that's willing to back me. God forbid, because I'm human, if I made the wrong one, please, please just help me make it right. And I made a bad decision. In 90 days, net money to the bank, I lost over 300 grand in 90 days. And I pivoted real quick, corrected A lot of my team got up and walked out.

They were like, I don't know, dude. That wasn't too cool. So I'm rebuilding again, dude. It's constant. I love the game.

And it happens. And it happens. Do you have to be comfortable making those type of decisions, especially when you've been in the game for so long. I was talking to a friend of mine yesterday, and she's like, Dude, he's like, Poly. And he's a former police officer, and now he's a massive crypto investor, man. I mean, this guy, you give him 50 grand, he makes an additional 20 grand every single month. He just knows how to do it. He's very intelligent. I don't know shit about that. I don't know nothing. I invested 50,000 one time, BlockFi went down, and they were worth my money.

I can't even talk about it. I don't know nothing about it.

Yeah, but anyways, this guy, he's just like, Dude, can you imagine back when we were in PD, dude, that if you were to tell the old self that you could take 50 Gs and make 20 Gs within a 30-day span, would you believe yourself?

I was like, Fuck, no, dude. Never. No. Bullshit, scam, not happening.

Yeah, exactly. And that's what the majority of people see. Course. Until they experience it. So I love the fact that you're real, dude. I love the fact that you're saying thousands of people have tried to learn this, but the ones that do make it are the ones that are making contacts. That's it.

It's real. It's real. It's real. I love that.

So if you could leave one piece of advice for our listeners to level up their life, brother, in 2025 and beyond, what would it be?

Audit your circle. Audit your circle and see who you're hanging out with. Usually, Still, you are a product of your environment. And again, take it as sounding cliché or whatever. But if you're trying to do big things and you're the only one in your circle that's thinking like that, you're going to have a really, really hard time. I'm not saying, Cut them out, cut them off overnight. But, dude, if I look back 15 years ago, 14 years ago, outside of my life, there's not a single person in my life that was around then. All new people. So you really need to take a hard look at who you're hanging out with, where you're hanging out with them, and what you're doing when you're hanging out with them. And if none of it's productive, there's a really good chance you don't have a circle, you have a cage. And that cage, you'll stay caged up for as long as you can. And it could be the closest people to you in your immediate family. Again, I love my mother to death, literally. She's She's one of my biggest cheerleaders. She wasn't 15 years ago, but I've gained her respect.

Thank God. Because if there's one thing I wanted to do, it was just make sure she didn't have to worry about me. But if you're the only one in your circle that's aspiring to do big shit, you more than likely need to find a new group to start hanging out with. And dude, I'll say this, and I don't even know if you offer coaching, right? I do. Or Whatever it is. Okay. This is what I can say is pay to get around people. And when I say that, I mean that. Oh, well, Eric, it's a fake relationship. No, it's not. It weeds out all the bullshit. It weeds out all the bullshit. And you might not be able to stroke a big one in the beginning. Check. But get into a group, a mastermind of people that have paid the same price to play and start networking with them. Start getting new phone numbers. Get out of your comfort zone. All of my friends, all of my business partners have been met in those rooms. You and I met in a room. That was a fat check we shrugged. It is. To get in that room.

Over $100,000 to get in a room. Yes. And whether we ever do business together, we've exchanged numbers. Who knows where it leads 12 months from now? You never know. But it weeds out the bullshit. So audit your circle. It means everything Everything. If you are trying to have a breakthrough in life, and you're the only one out in your circle that's trying to have that breakthrough.

Absolutely, guys. And that's the level up. Eric, where can they find you?

Instagram, the Eric Klein. The and then Eric, E-R-I-C, and then C-L-I-N-E, the Eric Klein.

Youtube, LinkedIn, anything else? Yep.

Youtube is Eric Klein official.

Got it. And that's it, guys. That is the level up with Eric Klein. Guys, if you feel motivated from this podcast, make sure to share this with someone that you care about that's going to level up, not only in sales, but lead gen, wholesale real estate. Guys, there's so many things that we talked about, even limiting beliefs and mindset, right? At the end of the day, guys, we are number one in business right now because of you guys. We want to thank you guys to our four million listeners on a monthly basis. We are actually top eight right now in all categories as well. Let's keep it going, guys. That's the Love of Love with Paul Alex. We'll catch you on the next one.