S1E4: Entrepreneur Stories - Resilience and Redemption: How John Kohrs Built a Business from the Ground Up

John Kohrs is a remarkable individual who has turned a tumultuous past into a triumphant present. Growing up in Clarksburg, Missouri, with both parents incarcerated for drug offenses, John himself fell into similar troubles before radically transforming his life post-prison into a successful entrepreneur. Now based in Kansas City, Missouri, John has rebuilt his life, running a thriving online fitness, nutrition, and mindset program designed to help others overcome their struggles.

In this inspiring episode, John shares his incredible journey from incarceration to establishing a multi-million dollar business, only to face bankruptcy and personal setbacks that tested his resolve. Despite these challenges, John's resilience and commitment to self-improvement led him to personal and professional revival, ultimately launching CoorsFit to empower individuals facing similar adversities.

Listeners looking for motivation in entrepreneurship will find John's story particularly compelling. His approach to overcoming adversity through self-investment and personal development—spending over $250,000 on masterminds, coaches, and therapists—underscores the transformative power of believing in oneself. For anyone facing their own professional or personal trials, John's journey emphasizes the importance of resilience, the value of mentorship, and the transformative impact of relentless self-improvement.

Questions Answered in this Episode:
1. How can overcoming personal challenges lead to entrepreneurial success?
2. What are effective strategies for personal development after overcoming adversity?
3. How does self-investment impact long-term success in business and personal growth?

Timestamps of Key Moments:
(1:36 - 2:32) - John discusses his journey from imprisonment to building a multi-million dollar business, emphasizing the hustle and initial success without a formal business background.
(2:32 - 3:31) - John shares the challenges that led to his business hitting bankruptcy shortly after reaching a $9 million revenue mark, highlighting the unexpected nature of business downturns.
(4:11 - 4:56) - The impact of bankruptcy on John’s personal life is discussed, detailing the emotional and psychological effects of losing a business.
(5:32 - 5:54) - John talks about his commitment to personal development post-bankruptcy, including his significant financial investment in self-improvement through masterminds, coaching, and therapy.
(6:26 - 7:34) - John provides details on his new venture, CoorsFit, explaining how his experiences and learnings are channeled into a business aimed at helping others overcome similar challenges.

https://www.visioninmotion.co

Transcript

0:00

I embrace failure now because I know that's the only way I'm going to grow, getting out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there and taking the risk to fail and not being scared to fail. Welcome to Motion Matters, where we shine a light on the entrepreneurial journey, sharing real stories of triumph and challenge. Guided by Jamie Tilka, we connect, inspire, and educate. This is Motion Matters. Hello, hello and welcome to Motion Matters. This is the podcast that we sit down with other entrepreneurs and talk about their journey and work and discuss some of the trials and tribulations that they've gone through in their journey. And today we have a good friend, John, on. Him and I both met mutually at a fellow mastermind event and heard a little bit about his story and wanted to bring him onto this podcast so that he could share his story because a lot of the stuff that, you know, I saw him discussing I just think will resonate with a bunch of people. So with that, I'd like to open up a hand over to you, John, just like introduce a little bit about your background, where you came from, what your name is, you know, and then kind of what led up into your entrepreneurial journey. Yes, my name is Jonathan Kors. I currently reside in Kansas City, Missouri. And yeah, man, I grew up in a small town of 525 people in Clarksburg, Missouri and both of my parents were drug addicts, you know, all the way through my early years of life. And father ended up in prison for drugs. My mom ended up in prison for drugs. Long story short, I ultimately ended up in prison for drugs. And fast forward to getting out of prison, I had built a company from zero to nine million since six years, just kind of on my own hustling. And I had a little over 50 employees, was in 16 different states. I didn't really know anything about business. I just knew how to hustle, how to make sales, obviously nationwide sales. And that ultimately, without actually knowing business, I didn't know what a mastermind was in my company. I didn't know what mentors were. And even if I did at that time, my ego was so big that you just couldn't tell me nothing. I was doing everything I thought I was supposed to do. I was doing it right. I was doing it the biggest. And yeah, you just wouldn't have told me anything anyway. So with that being said, that attitude kind of landed me in bankruptcy a year after I hit that nine million dollar mark, which I kind of literally didn't see it coming, totally blindsided. And it kind of just all caught up to me just like one day. It was like, bam, hit me in the face. Dang. Yeah. Immediately called my attorney when I realized it. He said, dude, I had to break it to you. It's probably not a bad thing, but you need to file for bankruptcy. Like tomorrow. So it was already too far gone. Nothing I could do about it. I mean, if I knew then what I know now, I probably could have saved myself, but that's definitely a learning lesson. So fast forward a few years out of bankruptcy, kind of just spiraled downhill from there. Kind of went in this black hole for a little bit. It really, really killed my ego, killed my confidence. It wasn't the first time I'd had my whole world taken from me. Obviously, it happened before. You know, going to prison and stuff. But this one hit a little harder because I'd actually built something that was what I thought was worth value, and I did it through a legal means of hard work. So that hit pretty hard. That kind of drove me into the downward spiral for a little bit. Two years after that, I ended up in divorce. That was a result of the bankruptcy and lots of other things that played a part in that. I definitely wasn't becoming the person I needed to become. So yeah, after the divorce, I kind of went a little deeper hole for a couple months. And just one day, I told myself to quit being a little bitch. You know, man up and said, nobody's coming to save me. That was my turning point. I realized I literally had nobody, nobody to turn to. My wife was the only person that I had at the time that I felt like meant something to me. I had two children with her. She was trying to take those from me. I'm like, man, dude, I literally have nowhere to turn, and nobody is coming to save me. I'm going to get myself out of this. I dove headfirst into personal development. It was really, really tough. The first year, I spent about $250,000 on investing in myself. I joined multiple masterminds, hired coaches, hired mentors, therapists, you name it. Courses online. I was just 100% knee-deep in the personal development. And I still am today. My biggest investment today is in myself. Recently here, about six months ago, I started CoorsFit, which is an online fitness, nutrition, and mindset program that I launched to help guys just like me that have been through what I've been through. Either to stop them in their tracks before it gets too late, or to help them with what they've already been through. Man, the whole point of this podcast, why I wanted to start it, is because there's so many people that have passion dreams, but most of us generally agree that fear is the number one thing that inhibits most people from going after their dreams. But I also wanted to make this podcast about digging into some of the raw material of the things that really impede people's process anyway. That being said, man, just one or two of the opening things that you talked about could easily be like an hour dissertation that we could sit here and talk about. And so, no, I love it, man. It's like I'm probably going to have to invite you back. I don't think we're going to get through all this, because one of the things that I wanted to, that stood out to me immediately, I got a couple preliminary questions, and then I want to ask you this one question, but what, how long ago were you, did you get out of prison? Like, what year? About 2013. Okay. And so, you mentioned during that time that when you got out, then you started this business and you built it into a nine million dollar company. So, I'm just curious, like, you went down that pathway, you told me about your parents and stuff, and ended up in jails with drugs, but like, what transpired that you then came out of there and was like, I'm going to build a business? Because that's a major mind shift. I mean, I guess selling drugs, but I don't think that's what you were doing, right? You said... I was selling drugs before I went to prison. My indictment was a 13 million dollar drug conspiracy indictment. Wow. Wow. But I also, at the same time while I was doing that, and this was throughout a six-year span, like, I started working for my dad when I was about 12. You know, my dad got out of prison back in 91, I believe, 91 or 92. He's been clean and sober ever since, and been in business for himself for the last 30 years now, I believe. So, I started working for him. Like, he taught me the trade, like the cabinet trade, and, you know, just started helping him with little things, custom cabinets in the garage as side jobs, and, you know, doing stuff like that. I ultimately ended up being a full-time cabinet installer for him. So, I'm a cabinet installer by trade, and I learned that trade before I went to prison. Okay. You know, to me, even back then, I thought I was the best at what I did, even though my skill has evolved now to where, looking back, I'm like, I wasn't You know what I mean? But now, I really feel like I'm the best cabinet installer on the planet. So, coming out of prison, though, man, I had multiple business plans. I took advantage of every course, every class, everything free that the government offered. They got multiple employers in there, you know, multiple vocational, technical, and even some academic stuff that I did plus reading. I read hundreds of business books, real estate books. That's awesome, man. Books for dummies, you know. I literally spent 100% of my time invested in myself while I was in there. But my biggest plans upon coming out was, it's funny, I was just talking to somebody about this this morning, was I was going to try out for the, there was a couple NFL players, a training with them in there. And they literally trained in there the exact same way they trained when they played for the NFL. So, it was like crazy intense stuff. So, my first plan, number one was I wanted to do an open tryout for the Kansas City Chiefs. And it's funny because I joke with people all the time. I'm like, the only reason Travis Kelsey has a job is because I didn't want to try out. That's good. That's good. I wanted to be a tight end. And I knew if I were to try it out, I had no doubt, my confidence was so high. And if that didn't work out, I was going to get into MMA, and I wanted to get into the UFC. If that didn't work out, I was like, well, maybe I'll go into the army or military and either be a great fighter or a seal. If you notice, all these plans are like, I wanted to jump in and be a tight end with my game and whatever I do. And then I always had what I knew to fall back on if none of that stuff worked out. But ultimately, what ended up happening was, I have an 18-year-old daughter now. She was six when I got out or something, six or seven. And her mom was just messed up on drugs and alcohol. And so, when I got out, within two weeks of getting out, it was like the third day that she came home from school, got off the bus, and her mom wasn't home. And I was like, you know what? Fuck it. Just pack up whatever you need for the next couple of days, clothes-wise, or whatever else you need to bring. I'll come pick you up. You can just come stay with me. So I ended up doing that. Her mom never called, never one time fought me. So I was fresh out of prison within two weeks, a newly single, full-time single father. And I was like, I still had all these plans fresh in my mind and all these things. I even had some things in motion and I kind of had to put them on hold. And this was my first priority. So I just immediately ended up going back to what I knew, and that was installing cabins. And I knew I could make good money doing it. My dad always told me, as long as you know a trade, you'll never go broke. I went back to that. I ended up installing cabins for a guy. He ended up owing me about 60K for about three months. And I got down to about my last five grand. And I was like, man, if this dude don't pay me, I'm going to either have to figure something else out or find a new contractor to work for, or I'm going to have to threaten him. Take it back to my old self before I went to prison and just put it on him, put the pressure on him. And that's kind of what I did. I did it in a more sensible way, I guess. But I went to him and I said, dude, if you don't pay me at least 50% of what you owe me in the next 30 days, I'm going to figure out how to put you out of business. And he was like, oh, what are you going to do, get dropped off in China and just find a cabinet manufacturer? I'm like, maybe. I mean, that's the risk that you're going to have to take if you don't pay me. So six months later, that's exactly what I did. And so I ended up, it took me about six months of networking online to narrow it down and find out who was real and who wasn't, because there's a lot of fake brokers over there. Ended up finding this gal that had worked in a countertop factory over there ever since high school. Ended up stealing her and actually hiring her directly to work for me. And I immediately, I had five grand left in my name. I went and told my wife, I said, hey, I need to book a flight and leave for China tomorrow. I was like, but I need your credit card to do it, because I didn't have a credit card or anything at the time. And that was before she was my wife, but she's like, yeah, whatever you need, fully supported me. I was like, I got five grand left in my name. So it's like, I really have nothing to lose. It's five grand. It's enough to pay the bills for a month. So it's like, I either come back and I'm set for life or I come back and I'm a $5,000 broker. So I took that gamble. I was over there for about seven days and built the relationships I went over there to find and build and came back and just hit the ground running, man. So when you said, I'm going to destroy your business, I'm going to build something that's going to take all your business away. Yeah, definitely. So basically do exactly what he was doing. He was importing his product from China. He was just a horrible relationship guy. He was horrible at relationships with his clients. He was horrible at relationships with his contractors. So I knew that I could do that better than him and that alone would allow me to take all of his clients from him because they loved me and they loved the work that I did and they loved how I answered every time they called, how I was there if they needed me and they could never get a hold of him. Every time there was an issue, it was me taking care of it on his behalf and he was nowhere to be found. So I knew that part would be easy. I just had to find the supply chain, which I did. Yeah. No, that's funny because you mentioned as part of your multi-tiered plan, going Special Forces Green Beret, which I don't know if I ever told you, but that's what I did. Yeah. Yeah. 24 years in service. And so I'm bringing it up because my point is, is one of the things that we talk about all the time inside of our organization, we say relationships matter. And so you just mentioned a key aspect, which was that everybody loved you, right? And so this is a bigger overarching theme for another day, but I feel like in America, customer service is all but gone in many businesses. And so I've been telling, we own a small hospitality company and I say, listen, if we have the preeminent customer service, I don't have to sell nothing because as long as you have a good product and great customer service, who doesn't want that? Everybody wants that. So in your case, you had already built the relationships. And so therefore, once you set up the infrastructure, like you just said, it didn't take you crap to figure out how to get the people back over you because they would prefer to work with somebody that's providing incredible customer service. So kudos, man. Look, there's a reoccurring theme with everything that you've said so far, which I think is awesome because I feel like there's some similarities in my mindset and what I've tried to tackle in my life as well. And that is, you're like, I want to come in at the top, right? If I'm going to do it, then let's do it with the best. It's the same reason why I picked to go SF, Special Forces, is because I was like, if I'm going to give my life on behalf of our nation, I want to be side by side with arguably the best people in the game. So it's awesome because also on top of that, not only do you want to be there, but most people in and around, as you well know, are going to tell you, that's crazy, John. There ain't no way you can do that. You can't be a UFC fighter. You can't go to China and figure it out, put the infrastructure together. You can't do it. And you're like, yeah, that's good. Just don't worry about it, man. And I think that's one of the big differentiators for people that have been successful. I mean, you literally built $9 million. That's not chump change. That's real money. So kudos, man. That's freaking awesome. I absolutely believe if I would have built myself first or as I was building that company, no doubt I would have built it up to probably $30 million, at least $10 to $12 million net and been able to exit that thing. Yeah. Do you feel like your childhood and your upbringing is part of what kind of probably, because you mentioned earlier that you thought your shit didn't stink, so to speak, and you feel like- Yeah. I basically raised myself in survival mode my entire life. So it's just like fucking back to the wall, figure it out as I go. Not really stopping and thinking before I do anything. It's just like, we're doing it. We're doing it right now. It's happening in this second. That's the decision I'm making. That's freaking crazy. The $9 million business was the cabinetry business though, right? That's what- Okay. Got it. One other question. I'm just curious and I'm thinking maybe some people listening to this podcast would be curious too. So when you got out of prison, did you have a landing pad or did you literally come out and no place to stay, no nothing? I actually stayed with my daughter's grandma. So my daughter's mom's mom. Okay. I could have stayed. It was my mom or my dad, but- I just chose not to. Plus my daughter, she was living there at the time, so I wanted to be with her. I was on house arrest for the first six months. Oh, okay. Yeah. Well, then that absolutely makes sense. So you talked about the bankruptcy. Again, there's so much details in your story. So you built a successful entrepreneurial business. You did it. But what was it that caused it to collapse? I mean, you mentioned that. What specifically? Man, it was no one thing specifically. It was an accumulation of many different things. I take accountability for the main thing of myself, not investing in myself, not building the person that I needed to build in order to keep up with the growth of the company and to take it where I needed to take it to. Also the decisions I was making in my personal life at the time. Once I started making decent money, I let it get to my head. I started partying. I started taking on that whole lifestyle again, even though the whole time I was in prison, I told myself I would never allow the money to do that to me again. So I fell back into those old habits. It got to the point to where I was never coming home to my wife and kids at night. I was just after work. I would use the excuse that my brain's fried. I need to go have a drink. One thing led to another. I'd end up being out all night partying and just doing all kinds of shit that I shouldn't have been doing. As far as the business goes, I made a couple of large financial decisions prematurely. I always had this vision. I always had a bigger vision. The vision was always bigger than me. But I was always trying to take that next step on getting closer to achieving that dream. We strictly only worked with contractors, developers, and apartment complexes. It was commercial only. I had this bigger vision. The factories in China own a lot of the warehouses in the US that stock pre-manufactured cabinets. So I was like, I want to do the same thing. But they only sell to contractors. I'm like, I want to open a warehouse, stock it, and be open to the public. So cut out all the middlemen, and I'm going straight from the manufacturer to the public. But the premature decision I made there was I got the warehouse without having the funding for the unit. I got this 120,000 square foot warehouse. I had it fully stocked with racking, everything that we needed except for inventory was in that warehouse. I built it out. I was in the process of building out all the divisions I needed for my company structure. We had the offices built out, the conference rooms. I mean, we had everything ready to go, showroom built out. I did all this out of my pocket as I was working with a banker. Again, when I was young, I didn't know anything about this. So I was just kind of letting the banker tell me what to do and how this process worked. Went through multiple different banks. It was about a 13-month span. We were working on a $5 to $20 million line of credit. It was basically going to wrap up. It was going to cover all of our equipment, all of our vehicles, all of our inventory, and it was going to roll out in phases. Eventually, within five years, it would have been an open $20 million line of credit that would have covered our revolving inventory. After about a year going through this process, in the meantime, I'm paying about $70,000 to lease this warehouse and paying for all the expenses that came with it. Paid for the build out, this money. It ended up costing me a little over a million dollars total out of pocket. We kept getting denied from every bank because the banker was classifying us as a contractor and not a manufacturer. I had no idea. By that time, it was already too late. At the same time, the contracts that we were doing, some of them were upwards of a million dollars. I have to pay in full for the product from overseas before they release it here. Well, I'm only getting a 50% deposit up front from the customer. It didn't fully cover all of my costs of the product and the shipping costs. I'm on every contract, I'm rolling money over. I had about $150,000 to $200,000 payroll every two weeks. That was my biggest expense. Mm-hmm. If we had one issue on one of the 16 different contracts that we had going at any given time and say, I didn't get that $80,000 check because my billing lady forgot to cross one T on our pay app or something. Well, boom, that pay app gets denied and we don't get that payment until the month. If we're 1% short on the production that we billed for, when the banker goes out there to inspect it, boom, we don't get that payment. They don't even give you partial payment. Dang. A lot of things that I heavily, heavily, heavily relied on cash flow. We were also bonded on four different contracts there at the end and one of our bonds got pulled. I thought that I got really good at negotiating my contracts to where they were on mutual terms, but you still get some general contractors that just will find any and every reason to be in control. That's what happened on one of them. They pulled our bond. All of this was happening at the same time, along with my lifestyle. I had like $11,000 in car payments a month, just a bunch of stupid stuff. That's real shit. It all caught up to me at once. We had one of our pay apps that didn't get approved. The bond got pulled. The bonding company hired another contractor, called our contractor immediately. All the bills were just piling in together at one time. Warehouse lease was a month behind. It just hit me and I'm like, man, before this gets too far. This is a two-part question. The first part is from the time that you made the decision to file for bankruptcy until the time that you move forward with the next plan of action. That part is roughly what was that timeframe. Then the second part of the question is, a lot of people, if they got kicked and knocked down like that, would probably say, fuck it, man. I'm going to get a W-2 job. I'm going to work it out. What made you want to keep going in the entrepreneurial space? 150% unemployable. That was never an option. That was never even a thought. Because of the felony? No, no, no. Just because I've never had a job. I've just always done my own thing. I'm not sure. I'm just unemployable. I would never work for anybody else. That would never be an option. That's awesome. I wish more people could say that, but anyway, keep going. I immediately went into the next thing the next day. Survival mode kicked in. Thankfully, what happened was, it was almost like I was subconsciously thinking one step ahead up front. Whenever we would order product for any contract, I would always order about 20, depending on the size of the job, $20,000 to$35,000 worth of extra material. I did that because it would take 90 days to get replacement if we had to ship in a container. That way, we had everything we needed. My thought process was, at the end of the contract, once it's 100% signed off on and fulfilled, I can just liquidate that extra material and get my cash. I never did that. I always had all this extra inventory piling up and piling up and piling up that was off the books because it was already accounted for within that project's account. I just always had this extra material just sitting there. I piled that up for three, four, five years. I probably had at least three-quarters of a million dollars of extra product that was just sitting there. I immediately basically just started another company at least within two weeks once I got everything figured out and got the logistics of the bankruptcy and all that stuff figured out. I figured out a plan to get moved out of that warehouse. I worked out a deal with our landlord. It just worked out to where our landlord was actually one of our biggest clients. They owned a lot of apartments nationwide, and they brought us a ton of work. We still have a good relationship with them. I just immediately started advertising to the single-family residential home market. Back when Facebook Marketplace was really hot for getting leads and getting jobs off of it for free, I just advertised on there for free. I only sold the extra material that I had, so I didn't have to go use another supplier or anything. I had so much material left over that that's all I advertised pictures of, so I sold it for a discount. That just got me going, kept the bills paid. I had so much material that I lived off of that for about the next two years. Wow. Wow. Yeah, definitely. Virtually all profit, right? Because it was started paid for. Man. We first met a year ago when we met at Mark's Mastermind event. At that time, I remember you were still doing cabinets. From the span of the bankruptcy and then going back out, you ran that business for a couple of years. Then now, just recently, as you opened up with your introduction, you've now left that space and now you're into the fitness space, correct? I'm still in that space. Bankruptcy hit in 2019. I went back to the trenches. I lost all my employees and went back to doing the work myself as well. I found a small shop last minute that I was able to move all this extra inventory into. It was super cheap, so I knew it was going to be to be able to afford it. I basically worked out of there for the last five years. I ended up building up a team of just a handful of employees that allowed me to join Mastermind, start going to events, start spending more time investing in myself, learning business, building relationships with people, take myself out of it for the most part. Took me about three and a half years to do that, roughly. After about three and a half years, I guess I started to get burnt out. I got back to the point to where I went back in the trenches so deep that I was starting to lose my entrepreneurial mindset. I'm like, man, this isn't me. I feel like I'm thinking on such a small level. I just know that this isn't me. I didn't feel right. I got to that point that most entrepreneurs get to, that is why they can never take it to the next level, because they get in so deep on thinking that they have to do everything themselves. They can never get themselves out of it. I recognized really quick that that's the position I was in and I needed to very quickly get out of it. That's what I started working towards. I went to a Kyle Mullins event in Nashville two years ago. It was an M&A event, mergers and acquisitions, basically how to buy existing businesses. I was like, man, I've got to either figure out how to scale this one and my goal would be to exit it because I'm just burnt out on the industry, on the business in general. I want to do something else. I was ready for a change. I had a little bit of money and a little bit more time on my hands, a little bit more freedom, flexibility to start branching out and going to events and networking and stuff and investing in myself. I went to that event with the sole intention of learning how to buy other existing businesses that were already profitable, already had a management team in place, already had a sales structure in place. I could just buy, use my hustle skills and expertise and the experience that I had already going through building a successful company and then ultimately failing. All the lessons I had learned, I know that I could easily step into a company that already had the infrastructure and grow it to where I didn't have to learn how to build the infrastructure, basically, because that's where I failed at with my first company. I ended up meeting a guy there, another attendee. The good thing about this event was the very first thing that they did was they gave the mic to the very first person in the front row and they said, everybody gets 30 seconds. Introduce yourself. Tell us where you're from. Tell us what you do and tell us what you intend to get out of this event while you're here. It was awesome because it cut out the time collapse, the networking while you're at the event. You immediately be like, I need to meet that guy. I need to find that guy today. That's who I want to talk to about this. Your mind just starts going 100 miles an hour. We got to about the middle of it and this guy stands up and he's like, hey, my name's Eric such and such. I came from the corporate world. I was in sales. I built a sales team up to such and such. Then I left my corporate job and I bought this distressed granite company. I immediately fired everybody, rebuilt the sales and management team. I built the company up to $18 million and actually it was in three years. I'm like, that's why I came here. It's funny, man. I talked myself out of going to that event last minute. I knew my business needed me and I was telling myself that if I leave and go to this event, the revenue's going to stop. Everything stops if I leave because the company still needed me. My girl, Courtney, she's like, no, I think you need to go. She went ahead and got online, bought the tickets for us. She's like, I'm going to drive you there. Good job, Courtney. The next morning she drove me there. I ran into one of the guys that was putting on the event, Michael Bowers. I ran into him in the hallway and I said, hey man, I don't remember what that guy's name was that had that granite company, but can you connect me with him? I told him a little bit about my background and my story and where I was at. I told him I was burnt out. I just told him where I was at with my life. He said, man, I'm going to call him right now and see if he answers why he's in there. See if I can get him to come out here. Eric didn't end up answering, but Michael, he gave me his word. He said, before you leave here, I want to make sure Eric gets with you and you guys come up with a plan for you and your business before he leaves. Eric came and found me on the last day of the show. Right before he was about to leave, we sat down and had an hour and a half conversation. A week later, we were under contract. He consults for growth. That's what he does now. Once he exited his company, he started another company called Apex Growth Consulting. That's what he does. He consults companies for growth and gets them to a position to exit. Then he takes an equity position. That's amazing because it's the power of something that I continue to tell people all the time. I always say, take action, take action in so many different aspects. I love what Mark always says, you are one relationship away from changing the rest of your life. Again, clearly that had a massive impact on the trajectory of where you were going. Not to say you wouldn't have succeeded eventually, but clearly that did so. The fact that you went there. I want to ask this question because we're running down on about five minutes or so. I want to ask you a few more questions. One of them is because it's related to what this is. I just want to ask, what does the role of mentorship play in entrepreneurial journey? How does it influence your growth in business leadership? You've talked about it, but emphasize from your perspective what the importance of having mentorship is. The number one thing is you don't know what you don't know. A lot of people, even myself at one time, I'm like, how do these people build such massive companies or how do they experience such massive growth in such a short amount of time? And so the mentorship to me, man, is like, it's a huge time collapse. At the same time, you also have to be willing to be vulnerable. You have to ask the right question. You have to put yourself out there. If I would have known about mentors earlier on in my business, I would have built myself into a person that was coachable and been able to be mentored. That's the other thing. If you're not coachable, you're just wasting your time and your money. A hundred percent. But that's what Mark says all the time. He's like, dude, if you don't ask questions, I don't know how to help you. If you're paying for mentorship, be vulnerable. That was the only way I met Eric and that's the only way that I'm able to be in a position I'm in now. We have a nine-figure exit plan for the next three years. But it was because I put myself out there. I got out of my comfort zone. They said, I need help. First of all, I cried out to myself. I had to admit that I needed help and I had to go find it. Man, that's so amazing. I mean, you run into them all the time. I run into a bunch of people and they're like, I'm not even close to the level of success that you've achieved. I don't have a million-dollar company and stuff like that. But whether you're even in the earlier stages into the latter stages, it's just continuously putting in the effort. I hope the greatest thing that somebody walks away from listening to this podcast show with your story specifically is the reoccurring theme I keep hearing from you is like, every time I got knocked back down, I just got back up. It's not like, woe is me, the sky is falling. I'm a victim. Everybody should know. It's like, bitch, dust yourself back up. Get up and figure this shit out. That's a whole separate topic. You don't truly fail until you give up. As long as a certain part of failure is expected, but it's not really failure. You have to learn lessons in order to take yourself to the next level. If you don't continue to learn the lessons that you need to learn, you're only going to learn through failing. You'll never know how to get to the next level. It's part of the process that you have to go through that I use to continue to take myself to the next level. When I get to a plateau and I'm like, man, I want to do more. I need to do more. I need to get to the next level. I got to figure it out. There's basically two cheat codes to that. It's to continue to take risks, put yourself out there and not be afraid to fail. I embrace failure now because I know that's the only way I'm going to grow. Getting out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there and taking the risk to fail and not being scared to fail. The other thing is, I literally have a coach or a mentor for literally everything I do, everything in my life. Every aspect, I have a coach or a mentor. It just time collapses everything. You can figure it out on your own. Yeah, you can Google things, but it's not the same as having someone in the corner that has the experience that has already been there and done that and can literally take you from A to Z without having to go through everything. I hate the fact that what you just said is one of the things that I feel like is the most difficult thing for a lot of people getting into the entrepreneurial headspace and trying to do it to actually grasp. I know that we've both heard this routinely in our lives and that is, it's not an expense, it's an investment. But so many dudes are like, what do you mean you spend $1,000? What do you mean you spend $12,000? And they're like, that's ludicrous. Dude, I literally go in credit card debt to invest in myself. It doesn't matter. It's not even a question. If I feel like there's going to be a return on my investment, I'm literally taking the last $5 I have invested in myself. Well, to your point right now, I mean, I actually just recently said this to somebody else in a previous episode, talking about being vulnerable is, I'm just being straight with people right now. I went into real estate, so I built slow money before I built fast money. So now my wife and I are playing catch up because we're struggling on a monthly basis. Anyway, my point is I am going into credit card because I refuse to leave that mentor group because of all the, just the inspiration and the knowledge and the community and everything. I told my wife, I said, I'm just going to keep putting out there because I believe that's where I'm going to get to where I need to go. So I'm 100% with you, John. That's fucking love it. Last question before we close this out is, so for all the people that are listening that are either in the mix already or in the game, what's your one piece of advice for somebody standing on the sidelines that's contemplated, I want to build a coffee shop or I want to build a countertop business or I want to be, whatever their dreams and aspirations, what is the one thing that you would say to them to tell them to hopefully inspire them to just to jump in and get it done? That's exactly what you just said. Just jump in, just take the first step. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking they have to have everything figured out before they'll jump in. And that's the biggest mistake that anybody can make. It's just figure out what the first step is that you need to, the action step that you need to take and just do it and then take the next step and then take the next step and just figure it out as you go. Because if you don't, you're never going to do it. I love it, man. I appreciate that. So before I go, well, first of all, thank you very much for coming on here and sharing your story again. I mean, I don't think there's too many people that are going to be able to come on and talk about everybody has their own story. But anyway, you've been through some shit. That's my point. So thank you for sharing that. I really believe that's going to inspire with some people. But before we cut off here, I just wanted you to, so how can people get in touch with you? Do you have an Instagram, Facebook, email? What's your website? Share whatever you want so that people can get in touch with you, John. Yeah. Instagram, kors.fit. It's probably the best and quickest way to get a hold of me. How do you spell that? K-O-H-R-S dot fit. F-I-T. Awesome, man. Well, again, I thank you very much for your time. I thank you for coming on here. Thanks for sharing your story. There's so much more to unpack. We'll have to follow up with another one. Yeah, I'd love to be on again. Awesome, John. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate it. Yeah, no problem, John.