Transcript of Becoming a Capital King: Brad Blazar’s Blueprint to Scale Any Business Fast

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Check Gemini's website for more details on rates and fees. So many people come on a shark tank, and they're brilliant people, PhDs, engineers, and then they leave without a deal. Why is that? They haven't convinced a shark they could execute. There was a young kid that showed up. He said, I'm just getting started in real estate. He hadn't raised any money. Fast forward three years, he's got almost $90 million in real estate. Wow. Mastered the craft of attracting a community of people, started learning how to underwrite. He's creating that legacy. I just value relationships more than money because I know the money is easy to get. They're like, Yeah, we've been very successful, Brad. We have a real estate company with about $500 million in real estate, and we need your relationships. We want to get to $2 billion.

Hey, guys, and welcome back to the LevelUp podcast. My name is Paul Alex, and we have another One of the phenomenal guests here. He goes by the name of Brad Blazer. Yeah, such a great name. But he has helped raise over $2 billion in capital, guys, but it didn't start with a silver spoon. Brad actually went from building an oil company at the age of 23. Imagine I'm not even doing that, guys. He's teaching thousands on how to use other people's money, OPM, to scale real estate and business deals. He's also the founder of Capital School, a nighted entrepreneur and a mind behind the art of beliefology. We'll talk about that. I love that. Where mindset meets millions. So if you guys are ready to raise big money, rewire your beliefs and become the person's investor's trust, this one's for you. So let's level up with Brad Blazer. Welcome to the show, brother.

It's great to be here, buddy.

It's a pleasure. Dude, it's been a long time coming, man. So, Brad, this podcast is based on self-help and also people's come-up story, man. Oh, I love it. So how did it start for you, man, before you got into raising capital or helping people with this Let's just say when I was 23, I did not know any better.

I was a cocky, confident little kid that always wanted success, really didn't know where to find it or how to get it. But I think growing up, what really planted that seed for me is I had a very rich, wealthy uncle, like Kiyosaki talks about in the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Yeah, that was my uncle Henry. He had been orphan. And so growing up, he didn't have parents, but a path to success and built a very, very successful multimillion dollar business. And certainly I realized, okay, this guy's life is very different than our life with my parents. I always wanted that like the Rolls-Royce, the show for a couple of houses and everything. When I was in college studying to be an architect, I actually got sidetracked and ended up working in the oil and gas business, just part-time for a small little oil company, getting on the phone, pitching investors. Here I was working maybe 12 to hours a week between classes and after school, and I was already making six figures. I'm like, Holy cow, if I'm making this money just working 12 to 15 hours a week, what could I theoretically do if I just did this full-time?

Without telling my parents, who like most parents, grimped and saved their entire life to put me through school, I just quit showing up, doubled down, went to work in the oil and gas industry, really learned the business. Then I went to work for another small company, only to find out that that second company were just a bunch of They were raising money. They weren't even drilling the wells. I basically organized all the investors, and we collectively came together and filed a class action lawsuit, which we prevailed in. But all these investors had never met me because I'm doing most of the stuff on the telephone at that point. And so they looked at me and they go, Brad, what are you going to do now? I had no idea, but I saw this huge opportunity with a bunch of investor couple, and I said, why not? I just printed up some letterhead, got an office, very nice, and started raising Over the course of about a decade, just built a pretty nice-size small little oil company. And it was really just investing in myself and not really questioning or asking whether I could or couldn't.

I just did it.

I love that concept that you have where you took an idea, you saw that it was working, and you doubled down, man. You were like, I got to go all in.

You got to.

Who taught you that? Was it your parents? Did you have a mentor when you were growing up? Where do you think you got that from? Because for most people, they're very indecisive.

It wasn't really having a mentor. It was really just looking at the whole self-help industry, listening to Zig Zigler, really reading books about success. Obviously, I'd say that My uncle was probably somewhat of a mentor, even though he wasn't coaching me. He was someone I definitely looked up to and really looked at the way he carried himself, some of the things he did. But it was really just one of those things where you have to be intentional and really be focused on your goals and what you want. And I think one of the big struggles that a lot of people have is they all have their dreams, they all have their wants, but they aren't intentional and they don't pursue them. And so as Tim Grover, who, of course, coach people like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, says, You think the price to pay for success is big? Wait till you get the bill for a regret. And that hit me because you will get to a point later in life when you realize that you don't have the same choices that you do when you're much younger. Because when you're younger, you can take those risks.

When you're much older and you got a wife and you got a family and you got all the obligations, it's much more difficult to do that. So the message is take the chance, invest in yourself.

Let's talk about personal beliefs. So what personal beliefs did you have to destroy to start closing those seven-figure deals, man? Because for everybody, especially in this podcast, man, that's our number one thing that people want to know is how can I become better every day?

I think really, for me, like I said, I was just this cocky little confident kid at 23. As I've matured and I've grown, there's a couple of things. The one thing that I've learned is you can't listen to the noise. You don't really want to think about what other people care about you and about what it is you're doing. Just show up, do what you do, and prove to people that you can become a success. When I wrote my first book, which is the one over here, The Wings of Eagles, Learning to Soar in Life, I came up with this concept, and we actually trademarked it, and it's called The Art of Beliefology. The Art of Beliefology is basically like this philosophy that says, in order to create the lifestyle that you want to live, you initially have to create the habits that will support that. Basically, understanding that our habits are what lead long term success. It's showing up and doing the things that you don't want to do every day. Let's face it, most people don't work out every day. You should, I choose to. But it's the incremental effort that compounds over time that gives you the dramatic results.

And what happens with a lot of people is they'll get started in something. That's why we have New Year's resolutions. People fall off the bus after a couple of weeks. They give up because they don't see the change. The change doesn't take place until sometimes many months or many years later. And so The art of beliefology says, get the habits. The habits over 20, 30 days will then foster a new belief system in you. Then that obviously translates to the outer person and the person that you ultimately become. It's really cool because I was coaching this guy, and it was interesting. Every time we got on Zoom, he never turned on his camera. He wanted to be a coach, and he was always frustrated. How come nobody's hired me to coach him? Finally, one day, he turned his camera, he was 480 pounds. I said, Jason. The problem is you can't take care of yourself, let alone how are you going to coach other people. And so I trained him over the course of three months to work out every day, to go to the fitness center. And literally in the span of about 90 days, he lost close to 100 pounds.

Now the dude's about 220, looks great. He actually now is a fitness coach. I love that. But what happened over the time is the habits of running and working out created in his mind the belief that he was an athlete. That created his outer identity, and that's ultimately the person he became. Pretty cool.

What do you think? What traits make someone successful in life?

That's a really great question. I think there's probably a couple of traits or a couple of qualities. I think one is consistency. I think that's probably the most important. You look at any successful person, it's the consistency. I think the other also is going long in the same direction, finding something that you're really good at and then just continuing to do that. With a lot of friends that obviously have reached certain levels of success, you ask them, what allowed you to reach that pinnacle of success or what allowed you to do that? It all comes down really to just, number one, being passionate about what you do so that when you show up and you do it, it almost doesn't feel like work. I love what I do. It doesn't even feel like work to me. But I think the other is just an attitude of I'm not going to give up. As an entrepreneur, you know Obviously, you're an entrepreneur. There are ups and downs. There are days where you're stressed and like, oh, my God, bank account's down, cash is not coming in, and you're freaking out. You got payroll, you got rent.

But if you just show up every day, it seems to work its way out I think that's one of the big cues is just show up, be consistent, and don't give up on your goals and your dreams.

Was there ever an incident where you almost gave up, man?

Oh, yeah.

In your career, early stages in your 20s, where you were like, This might be it. I might go into entrepreneurship. What would be a good story to resonate with the audience?

I think really there were times early in my career where market was down, and so my bank accounts down or my retirement accounts down. You're looking at all these things going on? The thing really that kept me so focused was really the end game. It's the delayed or the deferred gratification of knowing what we were building, why we were doing what we were doing. I think that's a big problem that a lot of kids have is they want the Rolex, they want the fancy car, they want what they see, when in reality, none of that shit's important to you. I drive a nice vehicle, but I waited and worked hard to get what I drive today. But you have to reinvest back in yourself. You have to hire a coach or a mentor because I think the advantage of working with mentors and coaches is what they're able to do is give you the blueprint that they used and take what could be months, and in some cases, years, and turn it into days. I tell people, Basically, what you are paying me for is my knowledge. My knowledge is what's going to build your future.

How do you think it looks in your business to have a guy that's raised $2 billion? Has the Rolodex, has the blueprint, knows how to do that. A lot of people don't understand that. They go off to college, they get a job, and then they wonder in their 50s or 60s, why they don't have what other people have that are half their age. It's because the kids that were half their age decided to invest in coaching and mentoring.

And that leads to my next question. So right now, we have anywhere Between 25-year-olds all the way up to above 55-year-olds. That's my demographic. You probably have some people that are like, Man, I think I'm going to go back to college. I think I'm going to go back to school. Okay? Let's go back to what you know now compared to what you knew in your 20s. If you were to do it all over again, would you do anything different?

I think that having a college education is important, but I don't really know that a college education leads to long term financial success. I think really what it does, it teaches you how to cope with people. I think it teaches you how to be analytical. It teaches you how to relate with others. What I really admire are the kids that are in college that have already figured out to a degree what it is they want to do to create that wealth. While you're in school, you're investing in real estate. Makes sense. Or when you're in school, you're investing basically in ATMs. It's not necessarily that it's the side hustle. It's just that you've already figured out what that vehicle is that might potentially work for you. I see a lot of people in real estate, and I tell them, Look, there are ways to make real estate where you don't need a lot of money. You can become a wholesaler. Find the deals, and then sell the deal to an investor and walk away with 10, 15, $20,000. I've got friends that are literally making millions a year just wholesaling. Because I've got a team of people now, and they've actually perfected that business model.

So I think that there is definitely an importance to college, but don't look at going to school as the key to long term success.

I love that. I love that. So let's go ahead and switch it up to capital raising. What is the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs make when trying to raise money for their business?

Oh, boy. I call it premature presentation. The problem most new people have when they try to raise capital is they've got a deal, they've got a project, they need to raise capital. There's usually a deadline looming on the horizon, the closing date or whatever. They meet somebody that is potentially an investor, and they start talking about the deal way too early in the relationship. Raising capital comes down to building trust and building a relationship. If you're pitching, for For example, if I was telling you about my deal or I was telling you about this great opportunity, when I finish pitching you or talking about it more out of respect for me, and just because it's the natural thing to do, you're going to say something very similar to Yeah, it sounds pretty exciting, Brad. Can you send me some information so I can take a closer look at it? Well, that's what everybody says. Now we send them everything, and then they give you every excuse not to invest. Really, what's happening is the person is communicating Without essentially saying it, we just met. We only went out for one or two dates, and here you're asking me to walk down the aisle.

What I like to explain to people is you got to slow down to speed up. Spend two or three meetups with that person, whether it's in person, whether it's on the phone, whether it's on Zoom, really build the relationship first and then present the opportunity. You'll know when the right time is. I think that's really the biggest mistake that most new people make is they just pitch way too early in the relationship, and as a result, they shove their toe and they never raise capital.

So your strategy ties into the long game, nurturing the relationship. Absolutely. It's big.

Absolutely.

What would you say About this. For someone brand new, maybe they just got their LLC. How would you coach them to raise their first $50,000?

I think there's a couple of ways that you go about raising 50 or even a half a million, whatever size you need. There's power and proximity. I always tell people, if you're not networking, if you're not going to these events to meet investors or to sit down with family offices and connect in person, you're missing a huge opportunity. A lot of people choose to raise money initially with family and friends. Personally, I've never done it, probably never will. The reason is I I know having been a business owner and just witnessing so much, sometimes bad things happen to really good people. There are events that will take place throughout your life that you have absolutely no control over. And so a great example is COVID. Look at what COVID did to so many businesses just globally. And so if you had to invest in one of those businesses that were adversely affected, is the business owner to blame? No. That was an unforeseen event that affected the outcome of that industry or that particular business. I just value relationships more than money because I know the money is easy to get. The way to get your first 50 or your first $100,000 is start to build a network.

Lead with value first. I always tell people, if you're going to go and approach somebody that has a lot of money, the way to approach them is ask for their opinion first. Say, Hey, I'm thinking about doing something, and I really value your opinion, Paul. And so you bounce You get the idea off that person. You listen to what they say, and what that does is it gets buy-in. Now the person has an interest. They're contributing. And then you continue to build a relationship, and then eventually you ask that person if they would have an interest in moving forward because now they've actually contributed to the idea, and there's more buy-in to actually do that with you.

Always lead with value. That makes a lot of sense. For example, let's say if you have somebody who's brand new, they're building a wholesale company, What would be a couple of steps? Let's say the first three steps in order to find a networking event or to get investors to start growing their business. What would you recommend?

Well, in any city, there are always going to be investor meetups. If you go to Google and you just Google investor clubs here in Miami, there's literally hundreds. They're meeting to talk about real estate. They're meeting to talk about crypto. They're meeting to talk about the stock market. Just become Come aware of the local investor meetups that are in your community and just start attending them. If I'm over here in real estate as a real estate entrepreneur, and there's a group over here meeting every month to talk about the stock market or talking about crypto, Do I really care? No. Because everybody at that event, by definition, is an investor. Once they learn what I'm doing, if they understand the importance of diversification, some of them are going to raise their hand and say, Hey, what you're saying really resonates with me. Can we grab breakfast or can we meet for lunch? Sure. You start networking and you start finding out and identifying who's got money, who the investors are locally, and you start building your network and you start building your community of followers that way. That's how I actually started when I was in my 20s.

I started going to meetups in Austin, Texas, which is where my oil company was based, and just started meeting people. Now, granted, they were much older than me, but I had built my network and I could show them, Hey, I've got a team. I've got a securities I've got an accounting firm. I got a geologist. I got the whole team together. What they were really investing in is not me as a solopreneur. They saw this kid that had built and assembled a team that could execute on the strategy. That is a key word in any business. When we had Kevin Harrington from Shark Tank as a keynote at the event we did a couple of years ago, he basically said, Look, so many people come on a shark tank, and they're brilliant people, PhDs, engineers, and then they leave without a deal. Why is that? One word, they haven't convinced us sharks they could execute. Wow. That's the key.

That's a gem right there, man. So do you think that when people are looking to buy into, let's say, a six, seven-figure, even an eight-figure deal, man, that it is the person behind the vehicle, or is it the actual vehicle?

Oh, it's definitely the person behind the vehicle. It's definitely the ability to show others that you are not, as Mark Cuban would say, a entrepreneur, and I love that word so much. I think the problem with so many people is they vacillate an indecision. It's like they're on the fence and they start doing something without a system or without a plan or structure. The biggest problem so many people have is, I call it randomness in motion. You're doing all these things, but they're not moving you in the direction you're trying to go because you don't understand that you're presenting too prematurely in the relationship with that person. You don't even have your investor relations set up, or you don't even have a pitch deck. You're going through all of these motions, and you're frustrated as hell. You're like, a little gerble on a little wheel in a cage going around and around around because you have this randomness in motion. It's sitting down and saying, Okay, I'm here at point A. I'm trying to get over there to point B. Between point A and Point B is this vast unknown. And one thing I actually learned from one of the business coaches that I work with is don't go to Google and say, how do I do this?

Google will tell you, ask the question, Who can show me how to get this done. Somebody out there, I guarantee, has done it. For example, if I wanted to go out and buy a bunch of ATMs, you're the dude that I would hire tomorrow to show me that business model because you've done it. And so It's asking the who, not the how.

I love that. You talk a lot about building trust before pitching a deal. Number one, what does that look like in real-time? But then also, number two, let's say, based on the example you gave us, you Google, if you guys are in Miami for our beginner entrepreneurs here that are starting a business and you guys are looking for investors for your company or for whatever vehicle that you guys are in, how does that What would that look like? What would you do when you go into that network event? How would you approach? Do you go ahead and more try to build value towards what they're talking about, or do you start talking about your idea? How would that look like?

So One of the cool things is, having done this for so long, almost 30 years, 2 billion is a big number, I've got all of this knowledge. And what I tell people is I have the unique ability to take what's up here and codify it and create key concepts. The reason that is so important is that people can grasp a whole of a concept. In our coaching model, I have these what I call building blocks. One of them is actually called the trust sequence. It is a six-step process on literally how we build trust in other people. I love that. This actually came out of a book that I read many years ago called The Trust Economy, written by a psychologist that understood as we develop relationships, there is something that takes place first in the mind. The very first thing that I talk about in Raising Capital in this six-step process is perception. A potential investor's perception is going to create their reality. And so if you were trying to pitch me on a deal or an investment, the second we meet and shake hands, I'm sizing you up, whether you like it or not.

I'm in my mind creating a perception of you, how you dress, how you shake hands, the quality of your marketing materials. Then I'm going to go to Google and I'm going to take a look at your website. So everything I see is that outer perception creates the appearance. And so as we move through perception, I like it, you look successful, we get to phase number two, which is temptation. By asking great questions and being a great listener, we will actually uncover what will move that person forward to ultimately invest. Because every investor has a need for their money to do something. Correct. As I'm starting to talk to you, I might ask certain questions like, Paul, what's important to you or better yet, what are you trying to do with your investment capital today? You might say something to me like, I've got two kids that I'm going to be putting through college in the next four in six years. I'm going to pick up on that. Or you might be a doctor that's making a lot of money, and you might say, Brad, my biggest problem as a surgeon is I make a lot of money, so taxes are my biggest issue.

I'm going to pick up on that. Now, a couple of meetings later, when I'm pitching the opportunity, I'm selling the benefits and I'm tying it directly to your need. Can you see how the appreciation of this real estate, Paul, is going to help you put those kids through school in a couple of years?

It's huge, man. You're hooking them in.

Now you're nodding. You're hooking them in.

Yeah, see that, dude.

I love that, dude. I love that. It becomes so easy to really get people to invest if you uncover the temptation, because money will always change hands when problems are solved. I learned that from Grant. That's amazing. Money It will always exchange hands when problems are solved. So find out what the problem is, what they're trying to do with their capital, and then offer the solution to that, right? And then as we work through temptation, we get to step number three, which is connection. You're going to start connecting with people, and then we get to validation. That's the most important thing in raising conflict. You need to validate that the person trusts you enough to move forward to the next step before you actually pitch.

Brad, is this part of your Is it a beefology framework?

Not really, but it is to some degree, because if you don't believe it yourself and you don't utilize it, you're going to struggle in raising capital. You really have to be very, very confident in what it is you're doing. You've got to realize that whatever that deal is, whether it's real estate, whether it's buying a business, whether it's something like raising capital for a movie, you've got to be so convicted on that as an opportunity, because if you're not convicted on what you're trying to get people to invest in, why in the world would they invest? Yeah, absolutely.

They have to be a believer.

You have to be a believer. So it comes back to the beliefology. You bet.

I love that, man. So let's talk about beliefology. You created something powerful called the Art of Beliefology. Number one, what is it? And how can someone use it to rewrite their story?

So beliefology, like we alluded to earlier, is really a philosophy or a framework. And it really comes down to Three things: habits, which over time support beliefs, beliefs then create a new identity. And so it works in any area of life. I think the biggest problem that a lot of people have is they don't have clearly defined habits, they don't have rituals, they don't have things that they do that are moving them to success. If you talk to or you look at very successful people, they'll tell you, Oh, yeah, my day starts exactly the same every day. It doesn't matter where I If I'm traveling, there's a fitness center at the hotel or whatever, and it's your daily routine. But that's what contributes to their long term success. So the habits, and here's where a lot of people fall off the bus, studies have been done that show how long do you need to do something before it becomes a habitual ritual in your life.

And how long is that?

They say it's 21 days. 21 days. Now, I believe it's actually a little bit longer because if you studied what Frizzell has done with 75 hard. 75 hard is 75 days. But it's probably somewhere between that, right? The challenge is most people start something with good intentions, but then they fall off the bus. That pattern gets disrupted and they go back to their former self. But if you do something consistently for, let's just say 30 days, maybe, eventually it starts to become a habitual ritual in your daily life. And so by doing that, whatever it is daily that creates that habitual ritual, that starts to foster and create a new belief system. And then that belief system starts to contribute to the outer identity. And so getting back to the story of that young kid, Jason, who I coach, here's a 480-pound guy. As I was coaching and mentoring him, I kept reminding him of the importance of positive affirmations. Looking at yourself in the morning and saying things to yourself to inspire and motivate you. He admitted to me one day, he couldn't think of anything to say because he hated himself for getting to that point in life.

I mean, imagine that, that you can't think of anything positive in your life as an affirmation to say to yourself. But after spending about a month getting him on a nutrition plan, getting him to start walking and then eventually jogging. He got to a point where finally, one day we were talking with Zoom. He said, You know how important you've been telling me that positive affirmations are in my life? And I said, Yeah. He said, Finally today, I was able to say something. I'm like, Here it comes. And I said, What was it for you today, Jason? He said, I looked in the mirror and I said, I'm becoming an athlete.

I love that.

And I started crying. Here's a dude that was 480 pounds that now is looking at himself after losing 100 that says, I'm becoming an athlete. And I said, I have no doubt that you're going to shed the next 100 pounds because now your belief system and who you are and your outer identity is you're an athlete. And what do they do? They show up every day, they work out, they eat nutritious. And like I said, now the guy's down at 200. He looks good. He's ripped. And he's living a great life. It's because the habits that I had started, which was the nutrition, the working out, we kept that up, created that belief that was the affirmation to create the outer appearance of that individual and who he is today.

He actually became the greater version of himself.

Exactly. Through the art of beliefology. We trademarked that.

I love that, man. I love that. That's straight up powerful. Can you share, and I know you already shared a transformation story, but do you have another transformation story that you could share with us that is close to your heart, man? This is the level up, so we care about folks. We care about our audience. We want to inspire them through storytelling. Someone, a transformation story from someone who applied your belief framework and actually changed their life.

We did an event, literally, right during COVID. I was amazed. We had close to 200 and some of people that flew in from all around the country. We had Sharon Lector there, if you know who she is. She worked very closely with Kiyosaki and the whole Rich Dad, Poor Dad. Just a phenomenal literary genius. We had, of course, Kevin Harrington there, some other phenomenal speakers. There was a young kid that showed up named Renado, and he said, I'm just getting started in real estate. You're on my coach. You're going to teach me how to attract and reach capital. The kid basically was just brand new, hadn't raised any money. Fast Fast forward three years, he's got almost $90 million in real estate. Wow. Mastered the craft of attracting a community of people, started learning how to underwrite. That was another coach that taught him how to evaluate deals, and then he matched that with the capital, which is, of course, what we taught him. And so that transformation in this young man's life of now not having to live the rat race of a 9: 00 to 5: 00, now being able to travel. He just had a kid, so now being a new proud parent, he's creating that legacy.

And one of the things that I tell people is that in the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Robert Kiyosaki talks about the relationship he had with his, quote, Rich uncle, where he learned those lessons about investing in tangible assets. But he said, Here's the key. The key to creating legacy wealth, and I'm talking about the difference between retiring with 3 million, 5 million. I'm talking about hundreds of millions. Oh, yeah. Is is mastering and understanding the OPM game. Understanding that there's money around you every day. It's just the ability to connect and talk with people. You can capitalize any venture you want to by learning how to raise helping them. Once you understand that, you start looking at people. I've got many of them as clients that I coach, that when they come to me, they're like, Yeah, we've been very successful, Brad. We have a real estate company with about $500 million in real estate. I'm What do you need me for? You've already got 500 million. You're wealthy. We want to get to 2 billion. We need your relationships. We need your knowledge. We need your network in order to grow from where we are to where we want to be.

But These aren't public companies. These are privately held businesses. You look at a guy down here in Miami, Ben Mala. Ben's worth a couple of hundred million dollars. It's all because he learned how to raise capital from investors to buy and put together this huge real estate portfolio that he has today. And so when you see that and you understand that, that's what keeps you going. That's what inspires you to start building relationships and start talking to people. And the reason that we launched our whole educational platform is when I retired after a very successful career and I wrote my first book, people started calling me. And as I was talking to them, I would always ask them one question. And I would say, Paul, if you weren't doing what it is you're doing today, what would That's what you want to be doing? People would always share that dream they had, Oh, I've always desired to start a restaurant, or I've always thought about being in business, or I've always thought about being in real estate like you. Why are you not doing that? You know what the answer was? 99. 9% of the time.

The money.

The money. They didn't have a limiting belief that they could or couldn't do it. It always just came down to the one thing, the money. Here I was as a guy that raised over $2 billion through my The efforts and the efforts of teams I built. I'm like, Man, I got a knowledge that can change a lot of people's lives. If I could teach you how to attract and raise capital, I become the catalyst to making your dream become a vision. Oh, yeah. That's how we launched our platform over four years ago. Now, we've blown to 28 countries around the world, and we've lost count to the thousands of people that we've helped. Some do, some don't. It all comes down to the commitment to show up and listen to the coach and apply the knowledge. We all know knowledge without action is meaningless, but we've literally built many, many, many multimillionaires.

I love that, man. It's very powerful what you're doing because you're doing it with purpose. You're doing it for fulfillment, dude. You're already retired. You're really well off. So what pushes someone who is ultra successful, like the people that you've been talking about during this podcast that have 500 million and they want to get to 2 billion. What is it that drives them, man?

You're going to love this.

Yeah, because a lot of people are going to be listening to this, and they're just struggling to start a business, a simple business that they want to get going. But the thing is, the money.

Yeah. My personal coach that I've known for many years, who's now become a personal friend, we've collaborated Coach Michael Burt, if you don't know Coach Burt out of Nashville, Tennessee, talks about something called prey Drive. Prey Drive, he heard a phrase a couple of years ago from a Navy SEAL who said, We as SEALs, have something that we call a prey He's like, Wow, I love that. What is it? He said, Well, if you think about the big cats, the lions, the tigers, or even your dogs, they see something with the eyes and they pursue it to its logical conclusion, i. E. The kill. He said, humans have a prey drive. You see something in your mind or you see something with your eyes. But the problem is for most people, the prey drive has not been activated. They don't pursue something. They start it and then they give up. So he said, The prey drive has to be activated either by an outside force, i. E. A coach or mentor, or it has to be from within. So the big question is, how do you self-motivate, which a lot of people don't do? And there's a couple of ways that you can do this.

One is just competition. Another is basically what he calls subtract. He works so hard because he's afraid if he doesn't, he will lose all of the things that are attributed to him that he's been able to accumulate in life. I won't be able to make the mortgage on this beautiful home. I might have to bond my Rolex, might have to give up the lease on that nice Maybach. Whatever it is, it's the subtraction by not hustling every day. I think that part of the goal is these people have this intrinsic drive to remember that the clock goes to zero every day. It doesn't matter what I did yesterday. I've had days where we've made hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tomorrow, the clock starts at zero. It's the showing up and it's the leveling up and the hustle. I think that's really the difference between the super successful people is they don't care what it is they have now. There's always something bigger. Oh, yeah. Always something to be chasing and pursuing. It's like Matthew McCona, as he said. I don't know if you ever saw it when he won the Academy Award. He thanked a bunch of people.

Then the very last thing he said is he said, I really want to thank the version of myself that I'm chasing every day when I look at myself in the mirror because I I want to show up every day and create a much better version of myself. If you've never heard that speech, Matthew McConaugh, when he accepted the Academy Award, one of the best speeches, I think, on self-development I've ever heard because he's chasing himself. He's not chasing Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise.

He's staying in his own lane, and he's chasing the greater version of himself. It connects with me, man, because it's the same thing. Right now, I'm expecting my first baby boy. Oh, wow. Congratulations. In the next three months. Thank And I'm already envisioning how his life is going to be, and I wanted to be better than I was when I was a kid, right? And I need to recreate myself again and again and again to get it to that level, man, because now I'm getting into fatherhood. So I love that. I resonate with you. So I like to call you a renaissance man, because you've been in multiple countries, man. You travel quite a bit. You train people in now over 28 countries, okay? It might be higher. We might be wrong here. You just got nighted, man. Okay? How do you see grounded while playing at that level?

You have to be really humble. Being nighted was obviously pretty cool. Here in the United States, of course, we don't recognize no like we do in other countries. It's not as important. But being nighted and brought into a royal order with others like Paul Abdul, Tony Braxton, Ray Parker Jr. It's pretty humbling because you're recognized at a level where you're brought in to a true royal order based on what they call meritorious honors, honors of merit. When I was approached and went through the selection process, the first thing I asked the guy that called me was like, Is this like Nights of Columbus? Is this like the Masonic Lodge that my grandfather was part of where I got to pay dues? He's like, No, this is like the real deal. You're being brought into an order that recognizes leaders at the very highest level. I'm like, All right. So we went through the process. But I think really, it's just to be humble with yourself and understand that you're always pushing, you're always setting the example, and you're always wanting more. It's really very humbling and magical. My daughter, who's now 14, this goes back a couple of years when she was much younger, we were just having a Daddy-Daughter Day, and I just asked her because I was curious.

She knows I'm an author. She knows about the books, and I just wanted to find out. I said, What do you tell your friends when they ask you what your daddy does for a living? And she just smiled, and she said, I don't know. My daddy's famous. I just stood there. This little 11-year-old girl at the time sees her daddy on TV, hears her daddy on the radio, sees me up on stages. And so for this little kid, she thinks her dad is like the rock, right? I'm famous. And so that was really, really a cool experience. I'm certainly not as famous as I'd like to be. Maybe after your show, I will become even more so. Oh, yeah. But it's really just that message of Not necessarily look at me, but it's like if you had told me five years ago that I'd be sharing stages with people like Floyd Mayweather, Brandon Dawson, Jesse Itzler on shows like yours or on dropping bombs with Bradley, I would have laughed at you. Yeah, right. Flying private jets. But it's the consistency, it's the showing up, and it's the relentless pursuit of always wanting to do something bigger.

When I told my wife a few years ago, I I was going to charter a private jet to fly from Houston to Miami, she looked at me like, You're crazy. And I was because I had no idea what it was going to cost. It was almost $35,000 plus. I could have gone first class for $1,800. But as I was sharing that story with you before we started recording, I ended up flying for free because we sold the other seats as a mastermind so that people could be with me and the other seven and eight-figure entrepreneurs, and so that they could all meet the people that were there at the event, the Brandon Dawson, the Bobby Castro, the Floyd Mayweather. For them, it was a cool experience. For many of these entrepreneurs, it's like, That's a no-brainer. Sure. We flew on a beautiful private jet round trip, made some great connections, and some wonderful, cool things have happened out of that. We collaborated, we stay in touch. I've invested with some of the people. But I think it's really just realizing that what you do as you start building is creating a legacy. I want to be remembered long after I leave this planet.

And so the big question is, what will I leave behind? Obviously, there'll be a bunch of books. There'll be a legacy. And more importantly, like you said earlier, Paul, I'll have something for my daughter to maybe step into. But I think for her, it's realizing that there's just so much more than, quote, just going to school and getting a job.

Absolutely. So would you say your why is your daughter?

It's really family. Yeah. I'll tell you a great story. This actually made me cry. And I've actually brought an entire The audiences of thousands of people to tears. I look out and like everybody's sobbing. But it is a true story. What really resonated with me when I started speaking from stage is I heard a guy speak, and he said, In the coaching business, we hear so much about your why. There's nothing more important in life, folks, than your why. And he said, I want to share a story. And so he told a story about his family, where on Christmas Eve, his wife's sister came over with family. And so they've got sister-in-law, brother-in-law, kids. And he went upstairs. In Texas, we have what we call the great room. We're in a great room. It's the big TV magic room, right? And so they're watching the Dallas Cowboys. And he said, My brother-in-law fell asleep on the couch next to me. And so here I am watching the game. He's snoring away. And all of a sudden, he leaps out of the couch like he'd seen a ghost. And I'm like, Are you okay? And he was sweating.

He's like, Yeah, I think so. And so Matt was his name. Matt Monero says, I was watching. He said, Can I share something personal with you, Matt? And he's like, Yeah, man, you're family. You're my brother-in-law. Sure. And he said, he put his head down. And then he looked up with a stare. I'll never forget. And he said, I wanted to let you know tonight that I was just diagnosed with cancer. Oh, no. Christmas Eve, mind you. Matt's like, oh, jeez. I mean, that's the worst thing I wanted to hear. Like, is it curable? Like, is it something like prostate? He said, no, Matt, it's pretty bad at stage four. They've given me about six months. Matt said, oh, jeez. What does Susie say? That's the wife downstairs in the kitchen. You want to take a guess at what the answer to that one was? He hadn't even told her yet. That's what he said. He said, Matt, I haven't even told. He's like, You haven't told your wife that you've got terminal cancer? What's wrong with you? And then he started to cry. He said, I'm 48. I don't have a will. I didn't plan for this.

I've got a family. Matt said, Let's time the man up. He literally took his brother-in-law downstairs on Christmas Eve, the man up, and tell his wife that he was dying of terminal cancer. And so, as you can imagine, every emotion that we can empathize with came out that night, hug and crying. Not knowing what the future was going to be. It wasn't even six months, three months later, there was a funeral, and they said their goodbye's. Now, here's the interesting part of the story. The next day after the funeral, Matt's wife, Cookie, came downstairs, and he could tell She had been crying. He said, What's wrong, honey? She said, I'm thinking about my sister. She's got a boy, family. She's got the house. She's probably going to have to go back to work, maybe get two jobs, go on welfare. They're not like us, meaning privileged people. He just was getting ready for work. He said, I know it's going to be a bitch, honey, but God works miracles. Things will work. That day, he called his sister-in-law to check in. She was crying. He said, I'd like to invite you guys over this weekend for some barbecue.

Let the play in the pool. They'll be out in the backyard. That weekend, they came over. At the end of the evening, as they were all hugging and saying goodbye, he opened up the lapel to his sports coat and handed her a Hallmark gift card. When she opened it, she broke down in tears and she said, I cannot take this from you. He said, Oh, yes, you can. And more importantly, you will, because on the insurance policy your husband never had. Inside that envelope, there was a check for $3 million made out for her to guarantee that she would never have to worry about a penny the rest of her life. Then, of course, he worked with her to invest it and create the income. People were bawling their brains out. I'm almost crying just telling the story. But he said, Folks, that is your why. Then he said, who here in the audience wants to be like Rich Uncle Matt? Who here in the audience, if you're a lady, wants to be like Rich Uncle Cookie, all the ladies. He said, folks, that's why you bust ass. It's to be the bedrock and the foundation for those that you love.

I was like, wow. To get back to your question about family, it's not just for my wife and my daughter, it's for my siblings. It's for my friends. It's for people that come to me that I really care about so that I can be that privileged person to say, Don't worry about it. We'll take care of it for you.

Dude, I- You're telling me that story. I'm thinking about my family. I'm thinking about my wife. I'm thinking about my sisters, my mom. I told one of my buddies this the other day. I was just like, Hey, I just moved to Puerto Rico about four months ago. But my next better version of myself, man, because I feel like the last seven years, I've just been growing rapidly. But then everybody around me, and that's what it's about. I have a big heart, man. Everybody I meet, I always want to provide so much value. So it's not only me growing, but it's them growing as well.

Absolutely.

Absolutely. For my siblings and for my mom, I've been able to retire my mom. I've been able to go ahead and take care and buy my older sister's first home. I've been able to transition my younger sister from being a registered nurse to now being a CEO of one of my portfolio companies. Now I want to go even deeper, man. I want to build an entire little community just for my family in Puerto Rico. Hey, people do that, man.

They do. You're like, gay, the community. You got mom over here and her a little hacienda, and you got over here.

That's the thing, man. I actually met an entrepreneur in Puerto Rico, in crypto, and that's what he did. He literally constructed his entire... A couple of homes for his family. I was like, Dude, that is the dream. I was like, Wow, did I wasn't even thinking about that last year. And I was just like, I need to do that. I need to make that happen. So that's a new goal for me to keep pushing me to build other great things. But, dude, I love that story, man.

That's powerful. It's very powerful.

Okay, so here's a deep question. If you lost everything today, what's the first thing you do to rebuild your empire from scratch?

Ai. That's the answer that everybody expects nowadays. But really, I'd probably go back and do what it is I've already done, realizing that investor capital is the catalyst to really build anything sizable. Yeah, you can go out, you can invest in real estate, you can flip houses. But to really scale and get where you want to be much faster, it's all just the OPM game. I'd figure out what business I'd want to be in, probably real estate or like we're doing data storage. I would just start raising capital and essentially just recreate what I've already done to get back where I am today because I realized that that is the quickest, fastest path to success. It's really just, I think, getting back to what we write about in the book, Winning at the Capital Game. When so many people that are in business realize that that is the one missing piece, they don't know how to raise capital. Well, that is one of the biggest things that any the entrepreneur needs access to. The problem is so many people will go to their bank and they'll get turned down because they have marginal credit, or they have a blemish past, or they don't have the track record or whatever it is they need.

Then they're over here, Oh, I'm going to go get an SBA loan. Well, that's a long, lengthy process. If you get an SBA loan, you might not realize that you're parting with Uncle Sam. If you choose to not pay that back or the business gets disrupted, you're personally liable. They can now take your home and your business assets. Investors don't have those same rights. They're accredited investors. They understand the risks of any investment. If the deal goes sideways or it doesn't work out quite the way planned, they might not be happy, but they can't physically come and take your assets. They can't physically do the same things that a bank can do. I've always believed that the knowledge of knowing how to attract and raise capital, to build, buy, and scale your business or just do something bigger in life is really the key. The answer to that question, I would just basically just replicate what I did. Might not get into oil and gas like I did earlier, probably just dive right into real estate, but that's what I would choose to do.

I love that, man. I love that. Then for everybody who's actually listening to this podcast or watching us on YouTube. Where can they find you?

They can find me pretty much anywhere on the internet. You just Google my name, Brad Blazar, B-L-A-Z-A-R. If you're going to find me, don't put any E's in there. It's all A's, Blazar. You'll see our website. You'll, of course, see me on Amazon with all of the books. We're coming out with book number 4 here, hopefully shortly. It's being edited and finalized. But just Google me, and you'll see podcast episodes. I've been on, you'll see, of course, the books, and just DM me. We're an open book. We got a big team of people, obviously, taking calls, talking to people about what we do, about our upcoming events that we host, live webinars, boot camps, things like that. We'll be in Salt Lake City next month, speaking at a huge event out there. I'm pretty easy to find if you start looking for me.

I love that. Then, since this is the level of podcast, what is a couple of actions or words of motivation that you want to give to the audience and leave off here?

Yeah. So a couple of great words of motivation. Number one is be consistent. Consistency is so important. I can't tell you. Number two, really be intentional. Know what you want and then pursue that with a tenacity and a perseverance where you're just not going to give up. I mean, yeah, there'll be days, like I said, and I'm sure like you in your background, where you're frustrated and you're wondering, why am I doing this? But just keep doing it, man. It's amazing how consistency and small incremental efforts just slowly compound. It's like getting a six-pack. You don't wake up and roll out of bed and have a six-pack. No, absolutely not. It's the consistency of a couple of months working at it that give you the results you're looking for and so on. I see people on the beach that are a little buff. I mean, I high five. I'm like, dude, I know what it took to get that, and I really complement them. The other thing I think also, like we've talked about on this episode, is really embrace your family, love on them, spend quality time with them. I find that so many fathers are absent parents.

You really got to have that balance in life, like in the movie, Jerry Maguire, the Kwan. There's actually a word that I heard. I forgot where I heard it, but I've shared it with so many people. And it really resonates with... It was actually Rock Thomas, who's actually a Canadian that used it first. It's the life that I want to live is one of a fithillionaire. Isn't that a great word?

Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. You want to be fulfilled. You want the wealth, you want the lifestyle, you want the friends. And so to all of you out there that are listening, strive to become a fithillionaire there and just live a balanced, happy life and just go out there and crush him.

There you go. And guys, that is the level up. I love it. Thank you for coming on the show, brother. I appreciate you. Wealth of knowledge. This is not going to be the last time that you hear from Brad, guys. And make sure to pick up one of his books, Winning at the Capital Game. We have On the Wings of Eagles. And then we also have Put Some Thrive in your Hive. Phenomenal books. You have your fourth book. Do you already know the name of the fourth book? We do.

Absolutely. What is it? The fourth book, basically. It's actually a spin off of this one right here, which is more a mindset. It's called The Blueprint for your Better Self.

I love that. I love that. People are going to go ahead and look at that. And guys, make sure to Google Brad. He is everywhere. I mean, he does a wealth of knowledge. He's been able to raise over $2 billion in capital investments, and he's been able to level up so many people throughout his career, guys. He's a great wealth of knowledge. Guys, we are currently ranked number one in the business category on Apple podcast. We're currently ranked number 15 on all categories. Get us up to next to Rogan, please. With that being said, there's going to be 3 million downloads on this episode, dude. When it comes out, it's going to be phenomenal. It's going to be good. With that being said, guys, leave a five-star review. Share this with someone that you care about, okay? You're why, right? At the end of the day, everybody starts from somewhere. And if we could do it, you guys could do it, too. This is Paul Alex with the Lovelle podcast. I'll catch you on the next one.