Dadpuzzles
Nurturing Success from the Seeds of Failure: Insights from Jordan's Life
Suppose you could turn a failing venture into a thriving empire? Imagine if the path to financial freedom was paved with the bricks of failure? Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of entrepreneurship with our remarkable guest, Jordan, a multi-laundry owner who has distilled the essence of resilience and tenacity into a podcast with over 500,000 downloads.
Ready to make your first move but paralyzed by the fear of failure? Jordan's account of purchasing his first laundromat, the palpable fear of failure, and the ultimate triumph is a testament to the power of courage and action. Our conversation delves into the art of balancing the scales of business and family life, and the sacrifices that often act as stepping stones to success. Listen in to learn how upfront investments can materialize into rewards later and get an insider's view of Jordan's podcasting journey and the euphoria of success that replaced the initial fear of failure.
What can social media platforms do for your brand? On the final leg of our discussion, Jordan reveals his strategies of using LinkedIn, YouTube, and Podcasts to expand his business footprint. Discover the importance of consistency, determination, and the power of a supportive network. So tune in, be inspired, and remember, the sweetest fruits of success often grow from the seeds of failure.
Suppose you could turn a failing venture into a thriving empire? Imagine if the path to financial freedom was paved with the bricks of failure? Join us as we navigate the choppy waters of entrepreneurship with our remarkable guest, Jordan, a multi-laundry owner who has distilled the essence of resilience and tenacity into a podcast with over 500,000 downloads.
Ready to make your first move but paralyzed by the fear of failure? Jordan's account of purchasing his first laundromat, the palpable fear of failure, and the ultimate triumph is a testament to the power of courage and action. Our conversation delves into the art of balancing the scales of business and family life, and the sacrifices that often act as stepping stones to success. Listen in to learn how upfront investments can materialize into rewards later and get an insider's view of Jordan's podcasting journey and the euphoria of success that replaced the initial fear of failure.
What can social media platforms do for your brand? On the final leg of our discussion, Jordan reveals his strategies of using LinkedIn, YouTube, and Podcasts to expand his business footprint. Discover the importance of consistency, determination, and the power of a supportive network. So tune in, be inspired, and remember, the sweetest fruits of success often grow from the seeds of failure.
Welcome to Dad Puzzles Everything Dad. If you're questioning yourself about dad functions, duties and life in general, you've come to the right place. Parenthood can be tough. Learning to juggle caring for your baby with your career and also keeping things fresh with your partner can be a struggle, but we're here to make things easier with helpful tips for making the most of your situation. Being a dad may seem like a puzzle, but it's one you can definitely solve. Now here's your host, Dr Suleiman Ijani.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, we have a remarkable guest joining us today on the Dad Puzzles podcast. Meet Jordan, a true entrepreneur and multi-laundry man owner who knows firsthand the success which often emerges from the crucible failure. He is on a mission to share the invaluable lessons he has learned along his journey to financial freedom, particularly within the landry mud industry. Jordan's story is a testament to resilience and tenacity from bleeding money in a business venture that seemed like a sure bet to becoming a host of the Landry Mud Resource Podcast, which has garnered over 100,000 downloads. He's a worth of knowledge and inspiration. As a fund co-founder specializing in acquiring Landry Mud and commercial real estate, jordan brings a unique perspective to the world of entrepreneurship and investment. He's a part-steror dedicated to transforming the reputation of the Landry Mud industry. Join us as we dive into Jordan's fascinating journey, uncovering the secrets of financial freedom, and explore the unexplained twists and turns that have shaped his path. Please welcome Jordan.
Speaker 3:Hey, thank you.
Speaker 2:Yes, sir. Thank you, my friend.
Speaker 3:Thank you, my friend. How are you? I'm doing excellent, excited to be here and chatting with you about being a dad and whatever else comes up.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you so much. We are really excited to have you on. Can you tell a little bit, just a little bit about yourself, Maybe, like you, you know you like that, you know about your background.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so I was. I'm in Southern California, orange County, california's, where I live now. I grew up here and I lived in the Bay Area of Southern California or Northern California for a little while also, but back down to Southern California and I was a pastor for almost 15 years and wound up buying a laundromat and that that did not go that well. One of the main drivers for doing that was because I had young kids at the time and, you know, was looking to just have more time to spend with them. But that first laundromat that we bought was it was not. The goal was to have money coming in and have more time to be with the family.
Speaker 3:Right, I ended up spending a whole lot of time at that laundromat and was losing money, so it didn't go well there. But, you know, eventually kind of turned around and able now to share a lot of lessons that I learned in my story and help other people get into the laundromat business, you know, the right way the first time and have been able to do a lot of that stuff along with my kids along the way too, and have and have shared kind of the ins and outs of what it's been like for us with the kids and they've you know they've come to clean the laundromats with me and they've you know, my son, we can talk about this later, if you want.
Speaker 2:He had a gumball sheen.
Speaker 3:Business in the laundromat Also did not go well for him, but you know they've they've enjoyed the journey too along the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, also, this is amazing, thank you. I think this is going to be beneficial to a lot of dads, because a lot of times with entrepreneurship, when you use, when you just jump in and think, oh yeah, it's going to work out great, and then boom, you have the surprises. So thank you for sharing that so that we can know. You know, how, you know, like, how is it? You know that failure is inevitable sometimes, and such you know and such things. So thank you, my friends. So so, given your journey, you know, which has been quite a roller coaster, so you know, can you share with the audience of how you, let's say, you know, like, you know, what kind of challenges did you face besides, let's say, not getting what you expected from it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean that, that first journey. So when we bought our laundromat, like we did not know anything about business investing real estate, like we didn't know anything about any of that stuff, right, so we really didn't know what we were walking into. And you know when you're, when you walk into a business and you're expecting to make money and you end up losing money. Well, I think a lot of people can identify with, like when, when there's financial stress, it puts stress on all of your relationships, right?
Speaker 3:Absolutely Put stress on my wife and I's relationships. The kids definitely felt the ripple effects of you. Know that stress and that creates its own unique challenges.
Speaker 3:You know as you as you go in and do that. So yeah, so I mean I think you know the financial struggles were one thing and you know trying to figure out how to navigate. You know just the difficulties of life. You know, as a dad who's trying to help provide for the family and is like failing at it, you know like felt like a big failure and trying to figure out how to share with my kids, you know the lessons.
Speaker 3:This is this is, yeah, this is what life is about. It's about this struggle and then, if you don't quit, you know you can come out. You know how things are now is not always how things will be going forward, right.
Speaker 3:And if you don't quit you know, you can dig yourself out of holes and and find new paths, and that's kind of how life has been turning out is I'm on this weird path that I never thought I'd be here, right, right. But it's cool to be able to share that with the kids as we go along.
Speaker 2:Nice. So, like, the lessons that you've learned is is you know so far that you've learned and you're teaching, that you're sharing with them is about, you know, let's say, how to deal with with those early failures, and that life is not like that you know, like is always going to be some changes if you proceed. You know, like, if you have this, but this persistence you know so. So, like, what else have you taught them so far in terms of from those, those early failures? Well, you know what are the lessons that you know like, yeah, well, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So I mean it's been, it's been good. You know, only in a business there's there's a lot of opportunities to teach the kids a lot of things. And you know, I think a lot of people don't talk to their kids about money and don't talk to their kids about struggles that the family's going through, Right and On.
Speaker 3:you know, on the one hand, I get that because kids you never know what they're gonna say and who they're gonna say it to, right, you don't want to say, air all your dirty laundry out, but on the other hand, you know, I think, letting them see, you know kind of what you're going through and you know to an extent, you know to a level that they can handle Right, and and even one one thing I think that I sort of accidentally did, that I think has turned out really great is I'll ask my kids, like what do you think we should do in this situation? Because it gets them to think critically about Problems as they're coming up. So that's been one thing that you know, I, I sort of did on accident when we, you know, as a story we were, I took the kids to the laundromat with me to go collect some quarters and, you know, do whatever the little things were you cleaning with them and and somebody had broken into some of the coin machines right and so just on
Speaker 3:the drive home. We were talking about it, you know, the police came and everything, and yeah, we're talking about on the right home and I was like what do you think I should do to you know, to help, you know, make it so people don't break into the machines, right, and so they are coming up with ideas and I was like you know, this is really cool to get their input on, you know, the things that affect the family, right, and so given them that opportunity has been really cool. You know other things we've been able to. You know, teach them is a lot of like. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 3:So in in my son, who's now 12, when he was in like second grade, his teacher, we were doing this parent teacher conference, okay, and One of the one of the comments his teacher said was like he know what, he knows so much about taxes. He's he taught the class like five minutes about taxes, right, yeah, so being able to talk to the kids about like what an asset is, cash flow, how taxes work, what inflation is Right, you know what crypto currencies are and how they work, you know, and just be able to have those conversations because they all sort of feed into what we're doing as a family has been really cool. How old are they right now? So my son Noah is 12 and my daughter Evangeline just turned 10.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic, amazing, yes, awesome, awesome, wow, this is beautiful. Yeah, because you know, you know, I guess, like you said, you know, you have to know, like with limitations you know, in terms of letting them know what's going on, because some of them, let's say, at a younger age than that sometimes they can be. We call them you know, like me and my wife used to like joke, you know CNN, like you say, or something, and then the whole neighborhood school like so, yeah, you're right, you know, but you can do it with class and you know, but at least this is amazing, you know, this is amazing. They'll be more prepared and I, you know, like, down the road, you can tell the difference. You know like your school, you know Like the school. Now, you see, they notice the difference and when they face the real world down the road as well, they'll be way more prepared and that's beautiful, my friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think one of the one of the messages I think we get a lot and I was for sure Like this when I was younger until probably not that long ago actually is you know, I I've been like a Like a perfectionist, like want to succeed at everything I do, right, I wouldn't try something if I wasn't going to succeed at it. And one thing that this kind of experience in business early on for us allowed me to do for one is to Realize that you know failures just part of the process, right, and if you're not failing, then you're not trying Enough and you're not like that, yes, doing it big enough, right. And so my son, especially my daughter's more she'll put herself out there even if she's Doesn't think she's gonna be good or something. My son in particular is very like he won't try things unless he thinks he's gonna be good, and if he tries something he's not good at, he won't do it anymore.
Speaker 1:But I think that this yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that this experience has been a really good platform for me to speak to him in particular about like hey, like you, you should be trying things and you're never gonna be good at things the first time you try them.
Speaker 3:Like, I think a lot of people go through life trying different things and waiting to find the thing that they're good at right and we're, generally speaking, like we're just not good at things, we just try for the first time. It takes us a whole bunch of repetitions to get good at something right, and so one of those lessons for for myself and then also for my son, is Like failure is part of the product, like failures good, it's part of the process. It helps us gain clarity on the direction we're going. It helps us gain clarity on you know what skills we truly do have Mm-hmm and can develop, and what skills maybe we, you know, aren't gonna be as strong at. But you can't really know that until you've gone through some iterations and made some failures and stuff. So I think that's been a really good let learning lesson for me and for my son.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. That's beautiful and and also I think on the on the other side of it, somebody can think about. You know how we're just brought up, I think, the old school ways where somebody think I'm gonna be a plumber, I'm gonna be this, I'm gonna be that, and they do not look at an outside the box for anything you know. So that needs to change now, with you know, so that we can. You know, like, if you see something else that works, you should go. You know like. You know, just go for it and even if you have the failure, you can either improve or just Just change through to like something else. I think this is a good lesson for for all of us.
Speaker 3:My friend, thank you so much for sharing that yeah, I, I agree, I mean it's definitely a lesson that I needed to learn and you know it's having having that sort of mindset of, like you know, failing is is okay feeling. And I tell my kids to like, listen, if you ever try something and you fail at it or you're not good or you feel bad about how how it went, like I will never, ever be disappointed if you try something and you fail, or you try something and you mess up, or I would never be disappointed about that. So you know, in fact I was like, in fact, I'll be proud of you for trying like new things, because that's what we should be doing right, especially, as you know, the younger we are as kids, and even in the 20s and even in your 30s and beyond. But we should be trying new things, growing, expanding, right. And, like I said, failure is just part of that process. It's inevitable.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I think you know I've shared this example and, by the way, your kids will remember you for this. They will thank you for this because I still remember today my dad passed away, but before he passed from, you know, my primary school was in Africa, tanzania. So from primary school you go to secondary school and then to go to secondary school you have to do this exam. That is a national exam. You have to pass and then go to the government secondary schools and if you do fail, you go to private school. And it's known you go to private school. That means you did fail the exam.
Speaker 2:But my dad I guess the way he saw the struggle I was going through and all those things he says do not worry, if you do not make it, you know I'll pay for you. To this, you know the secondary school, I mean, that's what's going to happen anyways if you do fail and the parent has to pay for you. But just him saying it, it added that assurance like, wow, you know, like my dad got me, you know. So. So this is beautiful, my friend, this is beautiful to provide that encouragement like by the way, don't worry about failure If anything happens, we still got you, because as long as we see that you're, you're doing all this work, you know that's beautiful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and even the message like hey, the only reason I can have your back like that is because I tried a bunch of stuff and failed a bunch of stuff and eventually found a path right. I mean it might not be the path you expect, but you know that's. That's the only way I got to where I'm at right.
Speaker 2:And how.
Speaker 3:I'm going to get to where I want to go.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2:My friend. So so long rematch might not be like the first thing comes. That comes into mind when you're talking about achieving the financial freedom. So what drew you to this industry? You know because you know, and how do you believe this can help other folks to get the financial independence?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know what's interesting about laundromat, so what? What drew me to it was a friend of the family who had a. He had a tech job making good money, working 70, 80 hours a week, though, and he ended up buying a laundromat and replaced his income and was working like five hours a week, and I was like, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I mentioned already, it didn't work out like that for me. That was the idea behind it, right? And you know, after getting into the business and meeting other people in the industry and then finally figuring out the business myself, I just saw the power of it, right, the power of a laundromat, and I had gotten into the, you know, hey, financial freedom through real estate investing. I was listening to all the podcasts, reading all the books, all that stuff, and, and, while I still I'm a real estate investor, I love real estate, and when you talk about financial freedom and you talk about, you know, like, replacing your nine to five income what you're talking about is cash flow.
Speaker 3:And I started realizing like, hey, if I buy real estate and I'm getting like $200 a door of cash flow, and I was like I got to have like a lot of houses or a lot of doors to replace my income.
Speaker 3:That's a lot. And I realized that for a laundromat, you know, really 99% of America could replace their nine to five income with, with one to three laundromats, that's all it would take. And I was like, wow, and you know the in terms of cash flow, like the returns for a laundromat, average returns you're looking at 20 to 25% return on your money and that's unlevelled without using a loan. So if you use a loan those numbers go up even higher. And so you can see how pretty quickly you can, you know, achieve that financial freedom through laundromats. And so that's that's sort of the path that I stumbled into and, like now, the reason I do what I do and I help people get into this business, because I'm like man, I can, I can see how freedom can be achieved much quicker through something like a laundromat than even you know, real estate, which also was great but just not as good as cash flow as a laundromat.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, now. Now do you do? You know I'm diverting a little bit, but do you notice this sex? Mostly in the inner cities, of course, or like the suburb area? Is that? Is there like a big difference between the two?
Speaker 3:because yeah, there's a difference for sure. But you know, generally in the bigger cities it's going to be there's going to be more competition and really you know, for the self serve laundromat, really what you're looking at is like communities that are like median income and below right and renter communities right and same with same with like suburban areas. They're just different pockets right and they're farther apart. But also in the lawn, my business, really big right now, is the service side of the business. So that's either people dropping their laundry off and then the laundromat processing the laundry, cleaning it, or the laundromat actually going out and picking up and delivering the laundry right, right to people. And that's a different demographic than the self serve laundry.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. I think I've noticed that. I've traveled me to East, have seen, you know, like in different countries they really take advantage of that. Where they really serve you, they, they look out for you. They give you business card, by the way. I come and pick you stuff, so you're you're traveling and and somebody's offering you. This is definitely handy, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so. This is good. This is good so. So, so far, you know, hosting the laundry, my resource podcast, which is an awesome podcast. My friend has given you a platform to share your insights and experiences. So what are some of the most valuable lessons or success stories you have come across while interviewing experts and entrepreneurs in the laundromat field?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so great question. I mean I think you know one of the big ones that comes to mind is you know so? So when I got into the business I I there really wasn't a whole lot of information out there on laundromats. This is like almost a decade ago now and there wasn't a lot of information out there. There weren't like groups of people to kind of communicate with, and so I sort of was like on my own right.
Speaker 3:But one of the biggest takeaways from podcast guests and from my own experience too, is don't, whatever you're going into whether it's buying a laundromat or being a good dad or you know, whatever it is like don't, don't lone wolf it. And I think a lot of guys especially and at least you know for me we have this tendency to sort of lone wolf things and go our own way. But as I've now gotten older and gotten some experience under my belt through lots of failures I am, I am like 100% on board with like I want to. I want to talk to the people who are doing it well. That's why I think this podcast is so great.
Speaker 3:Right, people listen to this, want to be good dads, and if you want to be a good dad, then you should be listening to what other good dads are doing. If you want to be a good business owner, you should be listening to what other good business owners are doing. Right and I think that's one huge piece of advice is, you know, don't, don't go it alone, especially your first foray into something new, right, and you can shortcut a lot of those failures we were talking about. You can borrow them from other people. So you'll still make mistakes and you'll still, you know, trip up here and there, but hopefully you can catch the big ones by learning from other other people, and that's a much better way to learn, and learn inexpensive lessons on your own, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's a big takeaway.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you so much. This is good. I appreciate that. So you know folks have to. You know like you. You know like you advise them not to. You know like do it alone. You know like either learning or partnership and stuff with. You know folks like yourself. This will be amazing. So you have found your. You're also a fan co-founder specializing in buying long-term arts and commercial real estate. Can you explain how this investment strategy works and how it aligns with your goal, maybe in achieving the financial freedom which is what we can attach to already?
Speaker 3:But yeah, yeah, so, yeah. So I mean my, my goal is to just help. Like you know, I I kind of realized, look, I've paid like six figures to learn the lessons I've learned and money lost on that. You know that early business experience, right, and I'm like, well, you know, nobody should have to learn the lessons I learned the way I had to learn. Like, borrow my lessons right.
Speaker 1:Going back, to my advice right Like borrow my lessons and you know.
Speaker 3:So that's you know. I started sharing that as like and like you know, I started writing like a blog, and then I was like man writing so hard.
Speaker 1:Right, and so I was like I'll just do a YouTube channel.
Speaker 3:So then I started recording some videos Perfect and we've got a you know a YouTube channel over there, which is great. And then I was like, well, if I really want to get better myself and I really want to help other people as much as I can, I should be following my own advice and talking to the people who are doing really great in this business. So then I started a podcast right to interview people who were doing awesome in this industry, so that you know, similar to this podcast, people who want to be good dads listen here and people who want to be good at laundromats listen to my podcast right, awesome, and and and started that. And then I, you know, I offer, you know, consulting and I've put together some tools and resources and stuff like that to help you know people get into business the right way the first time and not have to make the mistakes that I learned.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's beautiful, thank you. I think one of the questions that somebody was asking prior, which was answered by you know, by the previous colleague, was was saying you know, by the previous guest, you know she was asking, you know she was saying that why do you know? Dads, you know, say things but they do not really go for it. They do not do it. Like we can, we are good at giving advice but we're not good at doing them ourselves. So I think you, you know, you, you you've taken care of that for us, my friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know the fear is real, right, like, and I think if I like, if I'm honest, like I think if I knew what I was walking into when I bought that first laundromat, I don't think I would have done it right, but the fear is real and it's really hard to. You know, that first step of like okay, I'm going to try something new and I don't know what I'm doing and I don't know how, what the end result is going to be, and I don't know how it's going to affect my family. You know, as dads especially like, we feel a lot of responsibility for taking care of our families, right, so when we make a mistake, it can not just hurt us, which I think most of us are, can be okay with, right, like, if it. If it's, if it's me and I make a mistake and I have to go like, live in the back of my car for a little while until I can get back on my feet, like, I'm like, well, that's not ideal, but I'll be fine.
Speaker 3:Right, but if I have to bring my family with me and do that. That's a whole different thing, right, that's not something I'm willing to gamble with, right. But that that fear is real and is not to be, you know, underestimated. It's not anything to feel bad about, like if, if that's where you're at, you know you're listening to this and you're in a place where you're like I do have a dream, I do have a goal, I just can't get over that fear. There's nothing wrong with that, there's nothing to be ashamed of.
Speaker 3:But I would say, number one you're never going to achieve your goals unless you take action on them. And number two is, if, if that's where you're at, borrow someone else's courage, right. So, and what I mean by that? Like, if you want to be a good dad and maybe you're expecting a kid, right and, and you don't know what to do, you know, borrow somebody who you know who is a good dad and borrow their courage and just go and get advice from them. They've learned all the lessons, right, they've gone through it. If you're trying to buy a laundromat and you're too scared to go, buy it because you don't know, you know how it's going to go.
Speaker 1:It feels too risky.
Speaker 3:Right. Borrow my courage or borrow somebody in the industry's courage? Absolutely. You still have to take that step in order to achieve the goals that you have in life.
Speaker 2:My friend, beautiful, thank you, thank you. I think this is a great advice. It's a great advice, then. You know, because you know, and you know, like you said, if you don't try you will not find out, you will not able to find. You know you won't be able to find out what's. You know how it could have been, and that's not a good thing. You know you only leave once right, that's right. So, my friend, so can you say you know like. You know like many fathers, always they seek these ways of being. You know have a security in terms of you know like the finance. So so far, you say this can be viable option for dads looking to create. You know like an additional income and that's seen that you say maybe one or two of no, we don't want. You know like about three of those. They could really make you independent from your. You know like nine to five, yeah, yeah, and I think too.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think it's a good reason to you know, obviously it doesn't have to be a laundromat, but it's a good reason to you know, start your own business or buy a business or buy a real estate investment, right, Because of that, you know security. Because one thing that I found is that once you hit that security number where your, your bills are taken care of you know, I kind of mentioned like when you have financial stress, it puts stress on everything else, right? Yep, but once you, once you hit that number where you're like, okay, my bills are taken care of, it's not that all your stress is going to go away and all your problems are going to go away, because they won't, but it gives you space, right. It gives you space to think about Whatever it is you want to think about, right, Could be your next move.
Speaker 3:It could be about how to be a better dad. It could be space to do more things with your kids. It gives you space, and that space is something that dads especially don't have, but we desperately need in order to be good dads, in order to be good husbands, in order to be good business owners if that's what we're doing, or investors, or whatever. It is right, and so the goal should be get those bills covered and create as much space in your life as possible, because then you'll have room to decide how you want to build your life, how you want to live it out.
Speaker 2:So that you don't miss those rehearsals, you don't miss those games, you don't miss, oh man. That's why initially, my friend, if you have nailed it for me initially I meant to just talk to dads and maybe just emphasize how important being a father is. And let's say, what are the fondest memories of your dad? Those are my initial questions. But then I was like this is getting not boring, but I find a similarity in terms of the answers. Then I was like no, no, no, there's more to this.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of times dads, we do not have the time to be there for our kids. So then I was like it's best if here we can also provide information on how we can be financially independent. So then I started talking with different dads as well, but also asking what do they do? And maybe they share their background and maybe somebody else maybe might be better or might be able to learn fast about your career, or that way we can all adapt and then we become better, so that we have the time to spend time with our kids, my friend. So this is why I'm here today.
Speaker 2:I'm talking with dads, but also I'm asking about their career, because then force can learn from it and I hope, if you listen to other dads and even moms and sisters and wives I've spoken to like ladies as well, because they have some great opportunities in terms of the career, like advice and everything. So everything, dad is here, my friend. All the puzzles, we're going to put them together. So now that if you follow what my good friend here is saying Jordan, in terms of his business, then you can create the financial freedom. Then you become a better dad because you dedicate more time with your kids, you put them to sleep if they're too young. You have that bond, that attachment, so that when you're associated, you're not having regrets. We don't want that, my friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I think a lot of dads are doing what they can for their kids and what they can do is provide for them, and the way they do that is through working. But I will say that, at least for me, my goal is to want to be successful in all areas of my life. I want to be successful in my career, my business, I want to be successful as a husband and father. I want to be successful in my health. Spiritually I want to be successful, and so I think all those things are important. But that space, that space is really what we need, and you have to be proactive about creating that space, because not just going to happen, things will just fill space if you allow it. So keep doing the best you can out there, dads, but be proactive about creating space in your life so that you can be successful in multiple areas all at the same time.
Speaker 2:Wow, thank you, sir. Thank you. This is great advice to dads. Thank you, sir. And what about so far? One can say the laundry in my business is not very glamorized in terms of their reputation. So how do you aim to transform that perception to people that are I don't want to call them superficial, because this can be superficial thinking you as a dad. They should not be about glamorized situations. I think as long as, like my opinion, as long as you rightfully bring food to the table, you should be proud. You know what I mean. It doesn't matter what you do, my friend, in terms of the legal things. We don't imply any other crazy stuff, but you should be proud of any job you do. But anyways, in case you get, you're being attacked like oh yeah, this is not a glamorous. How do you tell those dads?
Speaker 3:I say, yep, you're right, it's not glamorous. However, I walk my kids to school every single morning and I pick them up every single day after school and I'm at Jogathon and I'm at their school performances and I'm at their sporting events and I'm at all things Like the women mostly at the school, who volunteer, who work there mostly women because dads don't have time.
Speaker 3:They know who I am because I'm around for my kids and my kids love it. And when I'm not there, my kids notice and they you know, and so you know. And at the same time I'm training for an Ironman and at the same time I'm trying to be a good husband and father, and so who cares?
Speaker 1:I don't care if it's glamorous or not.
Speaker 3:All I care about is am I able to be the person that I want to be? And you know your job, your business, your investments, all of that stuff is great. Those are just tools to help you live the life that you want to live. And if you're not living the life you want to live, then it's time to look around and say, ok, well, what needs to change in order for me to live the life I want?
Speaker 1:to live.
Speaker 3:And if that's buying a laundromat and having people be like, why did you buy that? So many people are like, why did you buy a laundromat? It's so random, that's so weird, right? Well, the reason I bought it is because it's going to help me live the life that I want to live, right, and that's all it is. To me, it's just a tool, and not only that. But guess what I like laundromats have the opportunity to really transform a community. It's one of the last places communities still gather together, and a lot of lower income communities too, and so you have an opportunity to make a difference in a community at the same time. So you know, lammers, mammer, I don't, you know like I don't. That's irrelevant to me.
Speaker 3:It doesn't factor in whatsoever to me.
Speaker 2:And I think you know, if you're you know that listening and you're really being affected by this glamorized situation, it has to end with you today, because, you know, I think that's a very poor status to have in your heart, thinking like, oh yeah, this is a, you know, it's not as glamorous, you know, just do whatever it takes, if you know, to make ends meet. You know, and you should not be faced with that and we should teach our kids to not be affected by that, because that's how we have our kids down the road. They complain, they're struggling, but you have many opportunities in front of them but they're not able to do them because they think it's not cool or it's not glamorous, you know, because they're affected by the society. So we need to fix that. I appreciate that, my friend.
Speaker 2:So, yes, sir. So I know like so far you've been, you know balancing the, you know like the family career and this entrepreneur endeavors which is challenging. So what advice can you offer to other guys who aspire to pursue their own businesses, while being present for their families? Because sometimes you know, especially for the folks that are starting, it can be you know you might be so occupied, you know most of the time and you're not really at home, or you know there for the kids because you haven't been to that level yet you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, I mean, I think it gets into like the work-life balance thing. Right, and my opinion on work-life balance is that they're really you can't have work-life balance, not that you can't, but especially early on, normally you're not gonna have work-life balance all at the same time. Right, there's more like at least my experience has been more like seasons. Right, there's seasons where, so like, if you're working at nine to five right now and your goal is to try to leave that nine to five in order to do that, you're gonna buy a business, or build a business or buy some investments, guess what You're gonna be working at nine to five and then, after you're nine to five, either right after or after everybody goes to bed or something you're gonna be working on your side thing.
Speaker 3:Yes, sir, right, and so you are gonna have to sacrifice some time from the family. I had to do that when we bought the Launderbat and it was losing money. The goal was to free up time and I ended up spending a whole lot more time and money on birthdays, on holidays. I was one Christmas Eve I had to go out there because somebody shoved a toilet or a potato in the toilet and I had to go dig a potato out of a toilet on Christmas Eve, right, like you're just gonna have to do that stuff early on sometimes in order to get going.
Speaker 3:But you do it for a reason, right. You do it for it's an investment for a future goal, right.
Speaker 3:You do it for a reason and if you can just make that sacrifice, you're gonna front load this effort here. Then you'll have the opportunity to scale back the time investment on the work side and have more time with the family. Now a lot of guys I've seen don't make that transition and just continue to work nonstop, and I think they're missing out in that scenario when they do have that opportunity to make the transition. But that's, in my opinion, that's how it works is like you've gotta make some sacrifices upfront but you're doing it for a bigger goal.
Speaker 2:Wow, this is amazing, because I'm thinking, if you go back, for instance, if I can just change, while we're talking about the incident where in the Christmas time, you had to go fix the toilet, for instance what do you see in terms of this idea? Because I think I've seen folks, let's say, like gas stations, like busy gas stations, or like those interstates, you need that service. And so I don't know, do you see having somebody on this place for a long, all the time? Is it worth it that way? Or to completely just shut down the service, because it's not really part of the business really, it's just something that you attract folks to be like. Oh yeah, by the way, there's so comfortable, like everything is there, there's water, there's all these things. What do you? That's just my side idea. I don't know if you can venture on that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it depends. I think it depends on the goal and I think it depends on where you're at in the journey, like when that happened to me, I was still losing money and I was trying to figure out how to grow my business and I didn't want to shut down for the day because I couldn't afford to lose the money, because I just knew, if I shut down, well, I'm gonna lose that entire day's worth of income and I'm already losing other money, right? If, for example, I owned a gas station and it was well, ultimately the goal would be so that I'm not there working, that somebody else is right and I can pay them extra for working on a holiday or whatever, so I can stay open and somebody else is working.
Speaker 3:That's the goal, right. But sometimes you don't start there. Sometimes you start at I'm the one doing everything. So if that's the case and you're working towards getting to that point where you can hire somebody, then maybe you do stay open and you do sacrifice. And is it ideal? No, is it gonna be difficult to do?
Speaker 3:Probably is your family gonna be disappointed Also probably but if it's for the next Christmas, and the one after that, and the one after that, and the one after that where you don't have to do it, then it might be worth it for you.
Speaker 2:So it kinda depends on your goals and where you're at in the journey, right right, I think it was more also thinking about those extra services, like the bath, you know, like the oh yeah yeah, you know, like the toilet and such, do you really need them? Is it something that kinda you know? Does it help you with the business you know, or you know overall, or is something that you can, you know, like shut it down without any problems?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did shut, like, for example, the bathroom. I did shut it down in one of my laundromats because that one didn't. It was unattended, there wasn't somebody working there all day, and so we'd get, we'd have way more problems. That's what I was thinking yeah, you know what I mean. And so, yeah, I mean, sometimes they're worth it and sometimes they're not worth it, for sure, in that case, you know and there was other options in the shopping center for the toilet, so yeah, yeah sometimes not worth it.
Speaker 2:Maybe add things like coffee shop and stuff, you know, like a little coffee machine and all these things. Yeah, awesome, man Brother. So what do you think about you know in terms of, you know, with your podcast, you know, by the way, you know like, you know, like, congratulations with those, you know 100,000 downloads, you know, that's an impressive milestone.
Speaker 3:We're almost a half a million now. See, I must be an old bio.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, this is a very old bio. We gotta fix it. You know, we gotta fix this thing, yeah, yeah. So what has been? Some takeaways or like memorable moments on your podcasting journey that you would like to share?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, the first big memorable moment was actually just launching it, like I didn't know. I didn't know anybody in the business when I started. I knew nobody in the business. I didn't. I was, you know, not a particularly good laundromat owner, like there's lots of people making a lot more money than me, so I didn't feel very qualified. A little bit of that like what's the imposter syndrome? You know? Right, absolutely yes, yes, yeah and so. But you know, I did it anyways, and so you know, and I never, I never did it and I was very upfront with my story, right, like I lost money coming into this thing. I was very upfront with it from the get go.
Speaker 3:I didn't pretend to be an expert or anything like that, which I think helped resonate to people with people, but what it did was it sorta just became a platform for people to be able to share their stories, and so you know lots of memorable moments where people are coming on. You know a good buddy of mine now. He came on the podcast and he shared how he bought a laundromat. Five days later it burned down and it took two years to rebuild it.
Speaker 1:Right so.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he had insurance but it was like a big fight and it took two years for the whole thing to start over. And now he's got this was like just like five years ago I think four or five years ago and now he's got 13 laundromats and he's got a separate pickup and delivery facility where he goes and runs his pickup delivery business. Amazing, amazing, like pretty cool. And I've got you know a couple of brothers who've come on the podcast a couple times now they own like 35 laundromats, you know, and just so some very cool stories.
Speaker 3:But, like, the memorable stuff is the stories, yes, but it's the people right, it's like I've met some very cool people who are doing some very cool things, and I've learned a lot. Myself and a lot of people who've listened to the podcast have learned a lot, which, to me, is the whole goal. Right, like, my goal is not to be the expert who knows everything. My goal is to be the platform that helps us all help each other.
Speaker 2:Right, absolutely, absolutely. Thank you, sir. Thank you so much for doing it. This is noble. We appreciate you sharing it and we hope dads can really work on it so that they can create that freedom for themselves and the family. And, like you said, you know to be better in all aspects. You know, like you now pursuing the Ironman. I'm very proud of you. The most I've done was marathon and I would like to get back to that. You know, and you know like Ironman is way next step. You know, like. You know that's amazing, my friend, that's amazing.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I appreciate that, yeah, Awesome, awesome. So how can our listeners connect with you or maybe access your resource if they're interested in exploring these opportunities that we spoke about?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I mean Laundermat Resource is sort of the Laundermat platform. If you're interested in that or if you just want to talk dad stuff, that's cool too. So Jordan J-O-R-D-A-N at LaundermatResourcecom is my email.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 3:And glad to talk Laundermats and glad to talk dad stuff.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. So please go ahead and go and log into dadpuzzlescom. From there, we'll find information about Jordan Berry, we'll share his information there as well, and you can listen to the rest of the podcast there, and also you can find other. You know, like you know special guests that we have as well that have joined in and talked to us about differences. You know scenarios about fatherhood and also you know just opportunities of how we can be better in terms of the. You know just the work opportunities, how we can be better as fathers or husbands. You know, and so everything is there dadpuzzlescom. Follow us on our social media, the same as for my good friend here, jordan Berry. Follow him on LinkedIn. He's on LinkedIn, I believe you as well. You are there. You know he has a YouTube channel and you have the podcast. Make sure you download and save it and make sure you become a regular listener on his podcast as well. Thank you again for listening.
Speaker 1:Thank you, dad. Puzzles.