232. Unlock Your Potential: The Power of Positive Influences with Brett Figueroa

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational and of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice and the choice is yours.

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Today's episode is amazing and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at coach. Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Brettt Figueroa thank you so much for being flexible today and showing up and being here. For me and my audience, it is such a privilege and an honor. So thank you so much. Awesome. Somebody once said a long time ago, I don't remember who it is, they said, flexibility is power.

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So for me, it's like, okay, I'm going to be flexible. Yes. Thank you for yours. I appreciate that as well. Thank you.

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Oh, my gosh, I'm so thrilled. Great to be here with you. Yeah. I mean, just for the audience and we're going to dive into your background and everything, but you have trained hundreds of thousands of people, you've given over 3000 presentations and you were trained and were on Tony Robbins teams for many, many years, right? That is correct.

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That is yes. Yeah. And you have a very interesting story. And I'd love for you to share that. Because when I come across a guest that has truly had to go from nothing up to a huge success story such as yourself and I know it wasn't always easy, and we all have roadblocks and twists and turns that we have to deal with.

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I love to highlight that story because it's such a great story of resilience that people need to hear it because I know that there's people out there that will hear your story and be like, you know what? What I'm going through isn't as hard. So if he can do it, I can do. Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm really excited to dive into that for a bit and I appreciate that, Sandy, because I think everybody has a story to some degree.

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Some are definitely better and more interesting than other stories like anything else. And so I think my story is fun and intoxicating for some, and then for others, it's what it is. They look and go, well, that's cool.

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I love to hear people's stories. Like, if there's anything that I love to hear. I think what people really want to kind of get in tune with are people that are overcomers, like themselves yes. Who really, truly cares about the guy that got rich and then just got richer.

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It's like, yeah, I was rich and then I got richer. You want to buy my book and I can even get richer. We like stories of people that ate out of a trash can and lived by 711 would, like steel coffee and stuff, like real gritty.

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People go, wow, that's cool. And you got out of that and into this like, okay, now you're talking. Now, for me, I think with my story, it's really to kind of just kind of break the myth that for many people have about myself and about my work. Just because it's almost like an actor, right? It's like we only see the end result or an athlete, we just see the end result, right?

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We just see them on the court. Steph Curry with the warriors, killing it, crushing it, banging three pointers every second, just bam, bam, bam. But we don't see the dedication and the hard work and the injuries and all the things that go on in people's. So I think that for your audience and whoever your listeners are that will either watch it or listen to this podcast, whatever you got going on, I believe that there's definitely some resilience to yourself because you're still in the game, and that's really cool. I said to my son as he came over and we sat at my kitchen table for about 3 hours, I said to my son, I said, his name is Grant.

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And I said, Grant. I said, I'm really happy about a couple of things. I said, of course I'm happy about a bunch more than a couple of things. But I said, one is I'm happy I'm not in prison. And I said two.

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I'm happy I'm not in a grave, that I'm not dead. I said, because I think all human beings, for the most part, have made wrong choices, wrong decisions, wrong turns in life that could have landed them either in a grave or in a prison box. That's right. But for somehow we avoided that. We either escaped and got out of that situation.

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However we escaped, jumped, whatever fence to go, god, oh my God, I didn't get caught. Because if I did, I know where I'd be right now. That's right. I'd be in prison. So whatever the story is, at the end of the day, I just said to my son, I'm really glad I'm not in prison.

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I'm not in a box. And the fact is that I really should be anyway. So for your listeners, so I think it's whatever your story is, whatever you got going on. I think it's really to be able to look at your story and say, how do you take your mess and turn it into a you know, we all have a and again, some are much messier than others. I had one person I was working with a couple years ago, Nicholas, and I was talking about how Tony would always tell me and say to me, he's like, Brett, your story is your you know, I'm talking to this guy Nicholas about his story and he just didn't have one.

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Grew up with the greatest family, had everything just thrown into his know, monthly vacations or whatever they did. So we had know, figure out what that was to reposition what that looked like in the marketplace. But again, whatever that story is, so I think it's really about what one is willing to overcome in their life. And so for me, I think from just day one I've been an you know, a lot of people only know my Tony Robbins story forward and so for years that was really all I shared. They go, oh, he went to work with Tony Robbins, he's a great speaker, yada yada, probably went to a great college educated dude, blah, blah, blah.

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Again, my work that I do in today's world is really to really break the myth of all of that is really more of an illusion than anything else because I don't have any of that. I'm just a dude that did terrible in school, got terrible grades, suspended all the time, and I just after 50 years found out who my foster parents were. So I was in a foster home from age three to six and my parents would never tell me who my foster parents were. So 50 years later I find out who my foster sister comes and finds me. After 50?

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Yeah, after 50 years. So then I meet my foster mom Beverly. Now Beverly is like 90, she was like 88 when we first reconnected. My foster brother Michael, my foster brother Patrick. So I was in a foster home from three to six and got out at age six.

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And when I got out I went back to my parents house and my dad was a very violent man, grew up in a very bad part of the world and the only thing he knew was physical violence. He just break stuff and what have you. So he decided to break his hand on my face and my brother's heads one night and so he comes back the next day with a cast on his hand and wants me to sign the cast, sign it. So very violent. And so I decided age nine to go into the house, grab some matches out of the kitchen.

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At age five, woke up from a nighttime of resting and went into the kitchen, grabbed some matches and I threw them into the couch and basically said fu to you. And your house. You ever touch me again, I'll probably do something even worse and burn down the house. So it was really like something out of a movie where a young nine year old kid or a young nine year old kid goes and says, not by accident either, very deliberate. Don't touch me again.

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Start breaking stuff on my face like that. And burned down the dad's house, my mom's house. And I became the hero because I'm like fire. Got everybody out to the street and we all did our stuff and what have you and watched our house burn down. And so then about age ten, I said, I'm out.

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I said, I can't handle this. I'm not going to get beat anymore. I'm not going to deal with running and burning down houses. And I said, I'm just going to get out. I'm just going to die.

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So I just decided I'd just commit suicide somehow. So I remember going upstairs, digging a knife and young ten year old kid at that time and I was just like as I look at my kids today, I'm just like, oh my God, it's just pure torture. And my dad nobody knew that I burned down the house. It was all mystery. I just kept everything a mystery.

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Nobody knew. And so we had moved. As we had moved, my dad would wake me up from 11:00. He'd wake me up in the middle of the night and he would grab me by my arm and he would drag me down the hall and throw me into the garage to sleep on the floor, on the cement, just directly on the cement floor. And I did that for several years.

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And then I'd walk to school for the next couple of hours, a couple of miles, and it's just brutal. I said, basically fu. I'm out. In age 17, I moved out into a world of drugs and alcohol and no college, no college friends. I just got off the phone right before you and I got on with my 85 year old friend.

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And I met his son at age 24, where he just graduated UCLA, and now he's super off the grid successful and lives in Austin, Texas. But I said to my friend Bobby that I've known since he was 50, he's now 84. But I said, Your son is actually my first experience into any college kid whatsoever. I said, I never went to college. Your son at 24, and I was 24.

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Your son was the very first person I ever met that ever went to college. But not just college, but student body president, UCLA superstar, and just stud. And so it was just wild moving out into drugs. And so I just said, you know what, I got to make some changes. And maybe there's some people that are listening or watching right now that go, yeah, I got to make some changes.

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You got to make changes. And one of the biggest change people got to make and that I needed to make was who I was hanging out with. And I was always told that if you go down with dogs, you're going to come up with fleas. And so I had to really begin to notice and look around going, okay, dude, if you stay here, you can continue to do drugs, you can continue to drink, you're going to probably just die. You're going to probably just die with everybody else in town.

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And so I borrowed $50 from a friend. I boarded a Greyhound bus out of downtown Sacramento, and I headed out and took on my life from that point forward. And so when I look back from 19 before that, it was all overcoming resilience. Overcoming, overcoming, overcoming. It's like, go ahead, throw me in the garage.

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Do it again, do it again. It doesn't matter. I'll deal with whatever comes at me. You just bring it on. And the more that person brings it on, the deeper and more of everything is necessary for me.

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I don't know. God is going, okay, dude, we're going to toughen you up because you got a big world to take on. We're going to toughen whatever, however that looked like. But I don't know if it was a big setup to get me so strong and intense in my, um so I moved to Los Angeles, was out in Los Angeles for several years. Just kind of dabbling around, doing nothing to nothing, doing a little bit of real estate in the mortgage business.

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Floundered out there, got really flustered. Ultimately just got to a place where I had no car, no job, no money, and I just had nothing. And now I'm really stuck because I'm in Los Angeles, much bigger city, don't really know people, and I'm just like, flat out. And I had a friend of mine, he said, well, maybe you should go see Tony Robbins and maybe you should go to his office, go meet, go see that guy Tony. Now, I'd heard of Tony because I'd been listening to Personal Power and his early 1990s audio program.

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And I listened to that thing over. So Tony was definitely on my radar. So when my friends like, dude, you should just go to Tony office. I'm just going to go there. I'll just go there.

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If he can help me, I might as well just go. And so it was only 3 hours away, so I had a friend drive me to that place, to Tony's office. And I go to the front desk, and the lady's like, Can I help you? And I'm like, yeah, I'm here to see Tony Robbins.

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She's like, what? I'm like, yeah, I'm here to see Tony Robbins. I heard he can help me. I've got some things I need to get help. Tony can help me.

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The lady's like, it doesn't work that way. That's why we have audio programs and books and things just go to the library, get yourself a quick read on the book. And so I'm like, you mean so he's not available? He's like, no, he doesn't just do drop ins. I'm like, well, can I just hang out in the lobby for a minute then, and know, chill in one of the chicks?

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She's like, do whatever you want. And so I'm sitting there in the lobby, and all of a sudden I heard Tony's big voice. I'm like, oh, my God, that's Tony. I'm like, he's somewhere around me. Where is so I got up out of my chair, and I go down, look down the hallway, and all of a sudden, Tony's and his posse and all of his people are coming right at me.

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And I'm like, wow, this is cool. Success is coming at me. I don't even have to walk to it. It's coming right at me. I love yeah, like, this is super cool.

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Oh, my gosh. I'm like, just show up, right, and things will just come at you. You just hold your ground. And so they were getting into the elevator. They were coming towards the elevator, and I was standing right in front of the elevator, so it just worked out.

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So I jumped into the elevator and said, hi, I'm Brettt Figueroa, and took his big ass hand, his hands like, I'm just this huge monster of a hand, and he's just a monster of a huge guy. Anyways, you're like, so intimidated when you get around Tony because you feel like that just can only imagine because he's so massive.

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So I walked him out to his car, and I went to work with him. Several months later, I went in. There was a position, which ultimately I ran the position throughout the country, but in my early minutes of going to work with Tony, I wanted that position, which was what I call the Navy Seal Six. Now, of course, it's not the Navy Seal Six, but it's his best of the best. It's his creme de la creme.

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It's the sharpshooters of sharpshooters that represent Tony on the road, traveling 48 weeks out of the year on Tony's dime. It's super cool. And I thought, well, that's what I want to do. Like, that sounds super cool. I don't have any money or car anyways.

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If Tony's going to pay for everything, I may they gave me a shot at that, and I came in to do my presentation, and his sales lady, Deborah, it was this big ass conference room, like, huge conference room, and she sets at one end of the conference room, and she goes, well, go down there. And it was almost like she was pointing down a football field. Like, go down there. And I had this flip chart, and she goes, go down there and present and tell us, what would you say if you were selling for Tony Robbins? Like, if you were pitching one of his programs, or pitching one of his this I fumbled and failed and fell over.

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No, I'm like, dude, I had no clue. I had nothing. So I didn't hear anything back. Now, that would have been the creme de la creme de la creme job if I could have pulled that one off out of Finnick. But I didn't.

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So I went back to doing nothing, and I got a phone call about four months later, and they said, well, we got a job for you. And I said, well, that sounds really great. What's it? They go, well, it's in the boiler room. It starts at $7.25 an hour, and it's setting appointments for the guys on the road.

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I'm like, oh, God, I want to be the guy on the road. I don't want to be setting the appointment for the guy on the road. I want to be the guy on the road doing the appointment. Got to earn your stripes, right? Got to earn your stripes.

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So, reluctantly, I chose to take that position on, and I moved 3 hours away and moved into my friend Baron O'Brien's house. One of my mentors in San Diego, my same age, and he was a rich guy, rich friend. I was always told that if you're poor, live with rich people, because you can't have two poor people in the same house, it doesn't work. Someone's got to have some money. You got money?

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No. You got me? No. Get out. Move.

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Go. I need someone, bro. Bring some bank. So, yeah, so I moved in with my friend. The office is about 20 miles away, and so I had to figure out how I was going to get to work.

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So I have a car. So Baron used to drop me off out of his limo at the bus stop in downtown San Diego. And I'd get out, and I was always dressed to the nines. I was always dressed like I owned the building. I'd never dressed like I was a boiler room guy banging calls for 10 hours a day.

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That was never me. I was the guy that suit, tie, shirt. We're in San Diego for success. Yeah. So the other guys and gals in the office, they wore flip flops and t shirts.

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We were in San Diego, close to the ocean. So to them, they're like, dude, I'm on the phone, bro. I'm like, I'm going to the top. And we'll have a different dress code. Should you come to work with me?

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At $7.50 an hour, Baron drops me off at the bus stop. I get into the bus. Bus takes me about an hour to get to work. I go to work. I bang calls 9 hours a day.

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At the end of the day, I get back on the bus. The bus then takes me back downtown. I get downtown. I get out of the bus. I get into a train.

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The train takes me inland. I get out of the train, jump into a cab, and then the cab brings me home and I'm making $7.25 an hour. So I basically have no money. I'm paying everything in just transit. I'm there on a hope of wish and a prayer that something great is going to happen, right?

00:20:31
Something really is great is going to happen. So after about maybe four or five months inside the office, they pulled me and said, well, Brett, we're going to put you on the road, like just out of boom. And they really were giving me a shot because what they really wanted to do was fire my ass because I was just too much inside the office. I was too loud, I was too bombastic, I was too eccentric. Like, who the hell is this guy?

00:21:03
I was really anime and I was super excited about life and what I was doing. So they said, well, we can't fire him. We have no reason or no means to fire him. But if we put him on the road with the guys, they'll eat him up like shark meat. So let's put him on the road with the guys.

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Let's get him out of the corporate office. He's not an inside guy, clearly. Let's get him on the outside. Let's put him in San Francisco. The guys are in San Fran right now.

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Tony will be doing a seminar in about two and a half to three weeks. We'll put Brad out there for the remaining two and a half, three weeks, see how he does. Well, they called the shot to do that. I show up out there, they start training me, start watching meetings, start selling, start doing two and a half. Three weeks later, the seminar comes into town.

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Tony's on the stage doing a thing. The sales manager brings me off to the side and gives me the we like you, you're awesome, you're amazing, and we got to let you go. Oh, wow. Yeah. So they found the reason to let me go.

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They found it right there. The guy sucks. The guy ain't going to do nothing. He doesn't have any game. Let's get him out of here.

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So they got me out of there and they said, I said, dude, I ain't got no money, no car, no, figure it out, you're out of here. Damn. That was a short little stint. So they said, well, we're leaving to Los Angeles. And they said, we can't do anything about where you decide to go in the country.

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You want to go to Los Angeles? Go to Los Angeles. That's where you stemmed from anyways. Went from La. To San Diego.

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Go back to La. Probably know some people. They said, it's all up to you. They said, but we ain't giving you a car, we're not giving you housing, we're not giving you leads, we're not giving you money, we're not giving you appointments, we're giving you nothing, dude. But if you want to go sell for Tony because he's so awesome.

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Have at. I was like and I was like, oh, damn. I said, oh, man. See, I was on a crusade to help people. I was on a crusade to make a difference.

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I was on a crusade to impact, to empower, to move, to motivate, to inspire. I was on a crusade at that juncture of my life. I wasn't out to make money. It was not my crusade whatsoever. That's why I went to work for Tony for 750 an hour.

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It wasn't like, oh, let me go get rich. Like, dude, they're paying you 750 an hour, bro, and you might not even make it, so good luck on this one. So it wasn't about that. It was just really about making an impact. And I said, you know what?

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I said, I'm going to go. I don't know where I'm staying. I don't know where I'm living. I don't know what's happening. I got nothing.

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So I go there, and for a bit of time, I was homeless and just dabbling the streets, just hanging out. What the hell am I doing? What am I doing out here? So finally I got a friend that had a boat out in the marina, and a small boat, just small. And I'm jammed up into the front of this little tiny boat, and I said, Forget about it, dude.

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You got a place to stay. Now get up and get showered. So I'd go to the community shower there in the marina, and I'd shower, put on my suit, put on my tie. Back when I had hair, I'd blow dry it. All the guys you had blow dry, feathered hair, a goodie comb, everybody else all flip flops, getting ready to go out to the marina, take their yacht, their boats, have a great day, and I'm going to make it happen.

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I got my suit, my tie. Now I go out, and I'm like, all right, where's a phone booth? I need a phone booth. So I'd find a phone booth that would just be parked somewhere. Remember, you drive down the street, bam, there's a phone booth.

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Yeah, I'd have a phone booth that would just be parked just in a place. I'd have a phone book in a hotel. A phone book in a hotel. And I'd go in, and I'd have a pocket full of dimes. I'd grab the phone book, and I would bang calls, bang calls, bang calls, bang calls.

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And I'd call companies. Say, Hi, I'm Brett Bigger. I'm with Tony Robbins. We're in town. We're doing this.

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This isn't this. And I'd get them all pumped up, all excited. They said, oh, that sounds awesome. Why don't you come out? We got ten guys here.

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Come in. We do our sales trainings on Tuesdays. We'd love to see you come on out. Once I put all the details together, I'm like, I don't have a car train. Our bus is going to take me a little bit over 2 hours to get this appointment.

00:25:23
He says ten are going to be there, probably six will show, three are going to be half dead, two will be in a coma. I might have one live person to actually talk to.

00:25:37
I had to take a risk and a bet of like, am I going to myself on a bus at a bus stop, get into a bus, put in my little quarter, take me anywhere I need to go in town on a hope, wish and a prayer that this meeting is actually even going to happen. Well, long story short, I made everything happen. I made sales happen, I made things happen. Buses, trains, phone booth boats. Like, I just made it happen.

00:26:00
All the other guys on the team like, dude, they had it cush, right? Their lives were cush. And they're watching this grunt of a guy just doing things that are just so the way off the beaten path. Way off the beaten path. And so Tony, we had dinner at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and Tony was invited to that dinner.

00:26:25
And Tony said, hey, anybody that's willing to do what you just did, dude, you're a man after my own heart, bro. You are back on this team. Nice. And I'm like, yeah. So how long was that time period where you were, quote, fired, but you were still working for them?

00:26:43
Like, okay, yeah, I'm still going to do this. How long did that last?

00:26:48
So that would have lasted from there to there a short period of time of about ten to twelve weeks. Okay. Which is usually it would depend upon how long that city was. Los Angeles. We had a tendency to do an overstay in that just because it's a big territory for us to be able to market to, and since we're in the city, we just would extend.

00:27:12
So that was a short stint in terms of how much pain that I needed to go through. A couple months bit up, I guess thereabouts 60 to 90 days, not anything horrific. So I was back on Car apartment, lead sales trainings. I'm with the team, we're running. We're having a great time.

00:27:36
Go ahead. I was just going to say so what was it that you found within yourself that you didn't have when you were on board with them? What was that shift that took place? Okay, so I'm going to open that up to an answer in just a moment because I'm going to carry on just a bit further down the path on this, and then we can shift gears and answer that because I think that some of that will get answered as I go. So I was brought back on love and life, everything's awesome.

00:28:10
And then I got to a place with that where I began to self sabotage. So I began to have success, more success than I'd ever had. I'm on. A team, tony's elite team, traveling, all expenses paid. I'm just this dorky dude that boarded a Greyhound bus with no money, 50 borrowed dollars, and just took on things.

00:28:35
I'm like, I don't have any extra special anything. And so I started to sabotage. I'm like, I'm not worthy of it. I'm not deserving of it. I started to self implode, we'll say, and my numbers were not hitting where my numbers needed to be.

00:28:50
So here's where it all turned around. December 15, 1996. So I believe that we have a day that can turn it all around. I just believe we have a day, a moment, a time, an experience, something something of clicks in and goes, boom. And it all turns around from that point forward.

00:29:07
And so, for me, that turned around in that point forward. So December 15, 1996, the rest of my team is being invited to Tony Robbins house in La Jolla, California. Beachfront. Big, beautiful estate right on the ocean in La Jolla, California. Big, beautiful I'm being diverted to my sales manager's office at the corporate office just a few miles down the road.

00:29:27
Then I'm like, why am I being you guys go to a party. I'm going, sales manager's office. What's up? I walk into my sales manager's office, and when I walked in there, deborah is sitting there at her desk, and she got pink papers on her desk. Brett, we love you.

00:29:44
We like you. You're awesome. You're amazing, and we got to let you go. We just need a signature here. We're done.

00:29:52
We need to part ways here.

00:29:57
And I'm just like I'm just beside myself. I just don't even know how to handle this one. And so I just recognized in that moment, I had one or two things. It was either, dude, step up or step aside. It was either step aside, make room for someone else that you'll committed, bro, because clearly you got issues.

00:30:18
And I said, no.

00:30:23
I said, I didn't start this to end this like this. No way. I told her. I said, you can't fire me. And I said, I ain't going anywhere.

00:30:32
I said, you will need to call security, because I'm not leaving. And I was pretty intense. I just let her know, dude, I'll break every record. I'll break every this. I'll break every that.

00:30:44
She's just looking for a signature, not a debate. And her eyes were, like, lit up, because I just was, no, dude, I'm not leaving. You cannot fire me. I'm not going anywhere. Call whoever you need to call, because I'm real clear.

00:30:57
I'll break every record in this company from this point forward. She's not in your eyes. And she's like, okay, I'll give you one more shot. Goddamn. One more.

00:31:06
She gave me that one more shot. I showed Tony's house. Big Tony answers the door. He's like, you're supposed to be fired. You're not supposed to be here.

00:31:17
I told my guys to let you go, you must be really good.

00:31:25
You must be real good, because my guys are the best. And you got through them. And you got to my house when I told them, don't even let you close to my house. Wow.

00:31:39
So then I went on and I left out of there. And I ultimately started taking my income up to 3000 a check and 5000 a check. 7000 got to 10,000. I was like, God, this is nice, man. I'm making some coin.

00:31:52
I said, Dude, you got something under the grill, bro. I said, you need to really go for it. And I said, you know what, I'm going to do something nobody's ever seen before, at least right here in this organization. I said, I'm going to go do something crazy. I said, I made $10,000 on this paycheck.

00:32:07
Next one I'll make 100. I said, just, I'm going to go make $100,000. My next paycheck, I made over a hundred thousand dollars. No kidding. I broke every record, every income record, everything that company has ever seen or done.

00:32:23
I coached. Jerrick Robbins. Tony's Son. I coached his son in law, Scott. Tony brought me in to speak on stage at his company, to his company, sharing my story.

00:32:35
And Tony's like four rows way back there with notes. What did you say that again? What was like it was so awesome. We got done. Afterwards, him and I went and had lunch together, just in a booth and just him and I.

00:32:46
It was super cool. And afterwards we got done and he's like, Dude, listen, you and Shelley, my ex wife, you guys are invited. Come to Fiji. We got all expense. We got you cut.

00:32:57
And I got done. And I'm like, that's funny. When I first came to work with them, I made $7.25 for that hour. And now I spend an hour come to Fiji. It's on me.

00:33:16
Just to kind of close up on that. There's so many little elements I don't speak to people in my work. Through theory, through concepts, through yeah, I read on so and so book on chapter twelve, on paragraph three, that if you really get after it in life, you can make some great things happen. That's not how I lead by example.

00:33:43
I'm not just speaking rhetoric here, bro. This is stuff that really works. The only way I know is because it worked with me, so it's real live. My oldest son, as you know, I didn't go to college or do any of that kind of stuff, but my oldest son graduated high school with a 4.5. He got a quarter of a million dollar scholarship.

00:34:01
He went to Budapest. He's a full blown Eagle Scout. He's working on his Master's for math right now. He's also the professor's assistant, which is super cool. My middle son Grant is a big, beautiful 22 year old kid on the eigth of this month.

00:34:22
22. His focus right now is to be on the PGA Tour. So the only thing he does is work and play, work, play. Everything is golf. Work is golf.

00:34:31
Play is all golf. 100% keeps himself 100% disciplined. Then I have a 17 year old daughter. That's just the angel of my eye. But again, it's just like, people let their stories hinder them.

00:34:45
And for those and I know my story is a little bit lengthy, and some people can go, God damn, that's a long story. But again, my story was much shorter in my earlier days, because the only thing I shared was Tony Robbins story forward, and nobody had any clue. What do you mean you burned down your dad's house? What do you mean you were in a foster home? What do you mean you slept on garage floors?

00:35:06
You mean that house that I used to party at all the time? You were sleeping on the garage? Like, nobody knew. I was really good. My mom was a deep alcoholic, so you were really good at concealing things.

00:35:19
You were really good that when you went to school and you had black and blue marks, you were good at just saying you fell.

00:35:28
Viewers or watchers that are willing to hang on. I'm actually writing a book right now on the whole kind of a memoir, kind of what I just shared with you, but deeper and more details and colorful, all that. But I did for your listener, just kind of throw the whole thing into, because, really, at the end of the day, it's like I've just had so many things thrown, just like, boom. Dude, figured out. Figure it out.

00:35:53
You ain't got a place to live. Figure it out. Yeah, but I don't have my cell phone, and I can't prospect. Screw you and your cell phone. Go get a pay phone.

00:36:04
Go get something you got to drop quarters into. They're still out there somewhere. Doesn't even matter. I can't get to my meeting. I don't have a car.

00:36:14
Dude, walk. It ain't that far. You need the exercise anyways. Oh, my goodness. If you could just sum up for the listeners, what is that real driving force that you have?

00:36:27
Because so many people can overcome their stories, and yet you still were able to do it? Because that's not easy for anybody to go to that level of success. I believe that. For me, it's really just I grew up as a boxer, so growing up as a boxer, and I still, to this day, I'm in the gym seven days a week. I'm on the mat in the gym five days a week, Monday through Friday.

00:37:02
And I never fail. I have zero fail. So I don't have this well, I think I'm going to go in the morning. No, that's zero dialogue or conversation. I go seven days a week, and so to this day, I go Monday through Friday.

00:37:15
I'm there by 530, not later. And then Saturdays and Sundays, I'm there by 630. Keep a really tight diet, keep really strong hydration, keep prayer top of list. Just lots of little things that I like to do. And so I like to kind of tap into, I guess, the equity that's inside.

00:37:32
I know I am a Christian. I know that God's put in a lot of equity and if I'm willing to tap into it, but I think that I've just have had so many things come at me that I just look and go, what's the alternative if I don't fight for it? What's the alternative if I don't fight to have my kids do great? What's the alternative? My kid comes up to me, my 610 kids, it's like I'm a big thinker.

00:38:00
And I have been my whole life. I've always been a big thinker. I never knew how the hell I'd ever get rich. But my thinking always was, dude, you're going to be rich.

00:38:11
My dad used to ask me all the time, what are you going to do for a living? I don't know. What are you going to do for a living?

00:38:22
I don't know. But I think that people have got to have a sense of resilience inside of them. I just have resilience. I'm just like when the boxing guy would come at me or light would come at me, I'm like, dude, bring it on. Just bring it on, bro.

00:38:38
I'll end on this with you if you need to. So my gym is 3.6 miles away. And so I was like, somebody come and take my car, stole my car. They packaged up my car, took my car and said, oh, this looks like a nice car. I'm going to take it.

00:39:04
They took my car. And so there was a bit of time in there that I wanted to go and say, dude, take my car, bro.

00:39:16
I'm going to make it to the gym. Now, I could find all kinds of means. I could go get a rental. In the meantime, my insurance is going to take a bit of bit to act. Dude, I got lots of options.

00:39:31
But you know what? I don't care if you take my car, you can't take my drive. My alarm went off every single morning at 03:55 a.m.. I was on my pavement at 415 sharp. I would run 3.6 miles to the gym and I would work out for an hour and a half.

00:39:53
I'd run 3.6 miles home and I was on to breakfast by this side of 08:00 A.m., and I'd already put in 7.2 miles in an hour and a half. I'm like, dude, bring it on, bro. Here, you want another one and steal that one too? Wow. It's like, just take two, bro.

00:40:09
Because you can't take my drive. You can't take my will, you can't take my resilience, you can't take my determination, you can't take my commitment. You can take my car, though. Take it all day long, but you can't take these other equities because they're inside of me. I would have to give them to you.

00:40:26
And I'm giving you that, bro. But you can have my car if you need it that bad. I love it. Oh my gosh. I mean, that's just my know.

00:40:34
Yeah. So Brettt, where can people find out more about you and the programs that you offer? They can go to my website, Brettfigarointernational.com Bretttfigarointernational.com. Also feel free and text me. I'm a really big texter and I love having the ability, whether it be I'm a communicator, right?

00:41:00
So I love to be back and forth with people. And so it's not very often when you go on podcasts, people give out their cell phone, but I love it as long as it's not some whack job. Hi, I'm the whack job you are talking about.

00:41:19
But yeah, somebody could feel free all day long and I keep myself really open, really available. I just love to be able because I've been very blessed in my life and I've been very blessed by having the right people around me when I needed them most, when I really needed them most, when I couldn't have access to them unless they made themselves available to me. Like my friend, I was just sharing with you that I was on the phone with that's 84 and I've known him since he was 50, whatever, 152. He was the first one his son taught me. UCLA graduate, superstar kid.

00:41:58
Dad taught me money. Dad taught me mentorship. Dad taught me leadership. I got to live in their big beautiful mansion in Angeles. Like, they taught me all these wonderful things, but they didn't have to.

00:42:12
I don't have to take somebody's call, but if somebody reaches out to me is like, dude, I got a quick question for you. I'm going to do that call in a second with that person. When I was a loan officer, I'll leave on this, but I remember I was a loan officer and I was a struggling loan officer. And as a loan officer, one of their jobs is to call on real estate agents to build relationships with realtors, et cetera. And so I'm scrappy.

00:42:35
I'm using my girlfriend's car. I'm not banging any business. I'm making no money. And I call the number r1 estate agent in the world with Century 21 and she only lives just like a couple of hours away from me. And I thought, well, I'm going to call Marty now.

00:42:50
My friends look, all my friends now think I'm just a whack job because they're like, dude, it's Marty Rodriguez. There's no way she's not going to take your call, bro. And even if she does, she's going to blow you off like second grade. I called Marty that night, 10:00 at night. I was all nervous.

00:43:08
I didn't know what the heck I was going to say. I was praying that she didn't answer. At least I could say I called. Well, not only did Marty take my call that night, marty said, hey, Brettt, why don't you come and have dinner with my family? And I marty and I've been the best marty and I've been the best of friends for 31 years.

00:43:26
And she brought me in at a time in my life when I had nothing. She just made herself available to me and for as long as I've ever known Marty now for 31 years, she's always been number one in the world or number one in the US. Always with one of the largest real estate companies in the world, century 21. And so Marty's always said, if people take the time to call me Brettt like you did, I'm down, bro, let's do it. Well, and you just gave another example of who you surround yourself with because you started out saying excuse me, you started out saying you were surrounding yourself with people that were using drugs.

00:44:03
And look what happened when you surrounded yourself with people because you were able to be mentored by them. Yeah, I was able to be mentored by them and I just had enough chutzpah. I had enough chutzpah to pick up the call, pick up the phone to Marty. And now I've just made that a practice. Over all these years I've been doing my work, I go, well, Marty said yes.

00:44:26
I wonder who else will say yes? So I've been very blessed with the yes just because I make the call when others go, yeah, but they probably won't answer or they probably won't say yes, dude, what if they do? You are such a great example of resilience determination and thank you. Thank you so much. This has been such a pleasure and a privilege and I know that people are really going to get a lot of golden nuggets from this conversation.

00:44:55
Well, I appreciate that, Sandy, and I'm really glad we decided to pull it off today because I was ready. I mean, I wasn't ready, I had forgot or never somebody, I have a phone, certain thing going on anyways, that's a whole nother topic. But we made it happen and we're here. Timing was spot on perfect, so it couldn't really have got any better on timing. So that's why I was like, let's just roll because I feel really great.

00:45:23
So I'm glad we were able to pull it off. Fantastic. Thank you so much. Awesome. Great.

00:45:30
Thank you, Sandy. Thank you for having me on. And I don't think I gave my number. 720-672-5783. 720-672-5783.

00:45:42
Feel free. Pop out a text, introduce yourself, what have you. Love to go into chat or do some dialogue for those that are out there. You're like, I got a quick question. Again, we always love to support people that are out there that are committed to breaking through and getting to the next level.

00:45:57
So again, thank you, Sandy, for having us on today. Thank you, Brett, you're awesome.

00:46:13
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today's review. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with peace, joy and happiness. Take care, everyone.