Overcoming Addiction and the Power of Authenticity | Eric Spofford | EP 25

Hey guys, Justin Colby here. If you're liking the entrepreneur DNA and you have an interest in real estate, I'd encourage you to go over to the Science of Flipping podcast and start checking some of those episodes out.
I've been doing it now for over 11 years and we have over 400 episodes. So if you have any interest at all in real estate investing, whether it's single family flips or apartment rentals, go over to the Science of Flipping and check out some episodes on that podcast on Apple and Spotify as well.
See you over there. What is up, The Entrepreneur DNA family? We are back with a very special guest.
He's local to Miami. This has been a guy I've been trying to get on this podcast for some time.
Eric Spofford is here. What's up, brother? What's up, bro? Happy to be here.
This is fun. So we met about a year ago, year ago uh mutual friends sperber and we all went down to dinner and got to know you a little bit and uh the second this podcast came out i've been excited to get you on and appreciate it man i've been looking forward to it yeah dude so you are speaking at a really large event in utah coming up yeah limitless yeah um yeah excited about that 12 000 person arena uh probably the biggest i mean that's huge huge especially for the personal development entrepreneurial space yeah uh enormous venue big crowd big names you know don trump jr david goggins ed my let etc good time so david goggins would be one of the guys that'd be really excited to shake his hand right like i don't I have been in the circles.
There's a lot of people we've met. Like, I've met Alex Rodriguez.
I don't really fanboy over. David Goggins, I'd be like, you badass motherfucker, you.
He's a badass, bro. Yeah.
He's just a stud, you know? And I think that one of the reasons he's such a stud is he just oozes. He's not even trying be an influencer he's not trying to be a motivational speaker he just lives it yeah at such a deep level yeah it just explodes out of him it's almost like he can't help but be david goggins right because he is david goggins so hard isn't that that so i love that we're like he's not even trying to.
At all. At all.
You know, he's living it. And as a result, it's permeating all around him.
I would make the argument the people that we either look up to most or probably even have the biggest following. Joe Rogan is another great example.
Great example. He was a comedian that was an okay comedian.
He gets on Sirius XM or he gets a serious contract because he's just so authentically Joe Rogan. You just nailed the word and you beat me to it, which I think that's what wins today is authenticity.
I mean, you have to be cool. If you're like authentically a boring geek, then that doesn't work but you know good for you but you know these guys they're just filled with authenticity but also committed to their mission committed to you know whatever their thing is yeah and yeah it's cool so how does that play into your success and so for those that don't know eric you guys need to go follow eric immediately on instagram where else do you want to point him instagram youtube yeah it's really the two platforms i'm native to you need to go follow this guy he will inspire you he will be a champion for you he just gives to entrepreneurs in all levels but he's had a 10-figure exit already right nine-figure exit already uh you don't have a formal degree i don't have any degree and you've made more money

than probably most of the people watching this or listening to this right now how how did you do that oh man that's such a broad question I mean one thing is I've been unapologetically Eric Spofford since the beginning and you know my story just doesn't mean it's a background of guys you can go this up. There's a ton of media out there on, you know, my history.
But, you know, early drug addicts, you know, addicted to heroin by 15, drop out of high school right after that 10th grade, you know, run the streets to live in this very, very crazy life until I was almost 22 years old. You did all that that before 22 seven years of heroin addiction you know drug dealing crimes all of that like i grew up in it yeah it was my whole life and so just before 22 years old i find myself um really just a broken dude i'd gotten my ass whooped out there committed an armed robbery got in trouble for it went on the run december 7 2006 uh got on my knees said a prayer in a closet hiding from the police and said god i don't i don't know what to do i don't i can't picture living my life like this any longer i really don't want to and i can't really picture my life any of any other way than what it's been either yeah i need a little bit of help here and uh strangely enough man one day at a time i i haven't used drugs or alcohol or any mind-altering substance in any capacity since that day in 2006 that's incredible and so that that's one thing i i say that sobriety is a superpower yeah you know god discipline and sobriety are the foundation of everything that i've done and i'm again very unapologetic about speak to that i think it's it's been more popular now than i've seen it for a very long time which is sobriety i you know i myself i was just telling a story my wife has been pregnant we just had our second child congrats so i really haven't been drinking i haven't gone straight sobriety when you have a pregnant wife like there's no real

reason to drink not even a glass of wine you're just like i don't know we're just gonna hang out yep so i just recently had two cocktails with another family the husband brought some tequila and he was like hey let's have a congratulatory cocktail because he just had a kid we just had a kid awesome i have two smashed just smashed my wife is like here's the real question though how'd you feel the next day no awful that night i'm i literally had to feed the baby twice that night right like i'm just like why why even have the two yeah you know i think that there's a broad spectrum of people that are put sobriety or a sober lifestyle within there as a target. One being people like me that are left without a choice because of the disease of alcoholism and drug addiction.
Sure. I can never use again.
Yeah. Not a choice for me.
I don't get to go do two drinks and feel bad about it and, you know, go, what was I doing? That literally ruined my life. Right.
And then all the way to the other side of you know people that live normal productive lives they have complete control and the ability to to moderate the amount that they take around alcohol they don't really have a a problem with it but ultimately from from one side to the next what i tell people is this let's forget about this for a second. You have a vision for your life? Can't hit a target you can't see.
So let's talk about what your ideal life looks like, right? What are you in your best form, your best shape, showing up the best way possible, getting the best results? What does that look like? Write it down.

Define it in detail, excruciating detail. Picture it.
Close your eyes. Squint at it.
You know, what does that look like? Now, where does alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs fit in there? How does it help you get there? What role does it play, right? And if you, I believe that every human being has a purpose. They have a mission in life, right? It's our job to find that mission.
It's our job to find that purpose. And I call that alignment, right? When we find out what we're supposed to be doing, right?

When you get in alignment with that, I think that your life becomes so cool.

Yeah.

So exciting.

That's what it's supposed to be.

Yeah.

You're supposed to wake up pumped.

Yeah.

Even when life's tough, people get that messed up because they're like, oh, well, you know, life's hard.

Dude, I have been through the hardest things you could possibly imagine. Yeah.
And woken up pumped about it. Right.
Like, yeah, this is really hard right now, but I get to show up. That's right.
But I get to show the world what I'm made of. Yeah.
But I get to show myself what I'm capable of. Right.
And so when you have that alignment and you have a vision, a goal, you understand your purpose, you're aligned in that life is just so exciting. It's like, why would I want to alter my state of being? Because it's a form of escapism.
Of course. Like, and so, you know, for me, I have to be sober sober because i'm in recovery but for everybody like dude i value things like mental toughness perseverance will grit it's not tough to have a couple drinks get smashed and feel like shit the next day that's right you know what i mean it's not you're not mentally tough smoking weed right like you're you know i'll watch my language but you know now you don't have to on this show you're a fucking pussy yeah yeah yeah like you're a fuck like you're if you're tapping out to me at this stage of the game how i think about it is like if people want to defend their weed and defend their drinking of course you do you suck it on it like a fucking pacifier yeah of course you do the baby doesn't want to give up the binky either does he yeah you know what i mean you little bitch like it just it it is straight up soft and weak in a form of escapism to be relying on something that alters the way you feel in the way that you experience reality.
Now, the other point of that, for those watching or listening, if you're hanging out with me or anyone, right? So I basically don't drink anymore, but I'm not as extreme as you. If someone orders a cocktail around you, are you? I don't care.
Are you shaming them? Are you? Not at all, dude. Not at all.
Right. I'm extreme with the sobriety, but that doesn't mean that people can't have a cocktail.
That's right. Have an a drink and having, you know, a healthy relationship with alcohol.
Please. That's not what I'm talking about.
That's right. But I'm talking about the people that escapism.
That's probably the best. That's the best word.
They have to drink to take the edge off. That's right.
They have to come home and have a couple drinks because life's just so hard and I'm so stressed and life's so tough. That is an entirely different thing than I met up with the boys after work on Friday and we had a beer.
That's right. You know what I mean? That's a social event.
Yeah. God bless, dude.
That's it. Do that for sure.
But when it becomes a working part, when you turn alcohol, marijuana, or whatever other substance is into a tool, into a survival mechanism in how you get through life and how you experience life, brother, you are a long mile from anything that resembles what I would respect as mental toughness. Amen.
And I would say the reason why I think this is such an interesting subject these days, I'm seeing more and more successful people come out, like Dan Martell, for example. Love him.
Unbelievable. And this is part of his story, whatever it was, 12 years ago or wherever.
12 years sober. I'm just like, dude, but then you look at the people.
You have had a bigger success business-wise than probably most people watching or listening to this, and there are think about even break that down like the competitive edge in business y'all were doing that i was on the grind i was clear-headed and and and mission driven and focused while you guys were distracted that's it you guys are out doing whatever you're doing smoking weed you know taking that job drinking weekends nights all this stuff and i did not one bit yep and again that's and it's people think it's like it's not going to be this explosive differentiator right out the gate between the person that's committed to sobriety and the one that's not but as months years stack up it's, it's inch by inch, inch by inch, inch by inch. How many years did it take you to sell your company? And all of a sudden you look back and you're a long mile ahead of all these other people with all these other distractions.
I started my business in October, 2008, and I sold it for $115 million in December of 2021. That was 13 years, two months, start to finish.
Congratulations, my friend. That is really, really incredible feat.
It was a wild ride. But to your point, you kept your head down for that whole damn ride.
You didn't let yourself get distracted. And we can get off the kind of substance stuff, but you just didn't let yourself get distracted.
You just kept your head down. Yeah.
And I think that speaks to a lot of, it speaks to the contrary of a lot of what's out there on social media and influencer land today, which is, you know, entrepreneurship is in businesses, pictures of Lambos, it happens fast, you know, it portrays this fast lifestyle and it's really cool and that's just not my experience yeah i got my dick kicked in for a fucking decade yeah and nobody knew who i was and i was stressed about payroll and the amount of nights that i sat there laying in bed staring at the wall staring at the at the ceiling, fucking sick to my stomach, like not with the next problem of the day, not knowing how to figure it out because I've never been in a situation before. And it was it was endless.
Right. If you notice, I'm smiling.
Right. I mean, this is the that's the fucking journey.
I'm not laughing at your brain. I'm like, dude, this is what we just got my experience.
And so you look at my content, it's a lot of that messaging. And I think one of the differences, not I think, one of the strong differences between me and a lot of your favorite influencers online was I had a nine-figure net worth before I started making content.
There's a lot of fake people out there. And so you have to be careful what you're listening to, because the messaging, if you just plugged into Instagram today, which thank God when I started, it didn't exist.
Right. Because if you just plugged in, I'd be like, what am I doing wrong? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's all these people with all these cars and all these girls, all these boats. And I'm over here working 16 hours a day, inching my way along.
And my message for entrepreneurs is like, listen, it's it my experience if you want to know how I got here and if you want what I have you will you will look at what and study what I did to get here is that I endured very difficult challenging things and I chose hard every day and I worked my face off for more than a decade and that's what it took And it took everything I had to fucking give. And it wasn't overnight.
And when I could have bought a car, I put the money back into the business. And when I could have gone on a dope vacation, I put the money back in the business.
And I just had to persevere and stay the course. And it took an immense amount of grit.
It was was incredibly difficult and most of the people that started along the way the difference between me and them and why i made it over the finish line is they fucking gave up and i didn't say it louder for those in the back so you know but was it easy was it fast absolutely not good oh my god it was the most difficult thing in the world. No doubt.
But also the most valuable, right? That experience. Sorry.
No, go ahead. That experience.
I love talking about this. People look at the $115 million exit, nine-figure net worth.
If you go on my social media, you'll see my yacht. You'll see a bunch of fancy cars.
You'll see a bunch of fancy friends. I was out with Jorge Masvidal last night.
took go on my social media you'll see my yacht you'll see a bunch of fancy cars you'll see a bunch of fancy friends i was out with jorge masvidal last night took him on my yacht to his press conference with nate diaz for their upcoming boxing match you see all this crazy shit right to me that's the aesthetic that gets people's attention that brings them into my world that gives me the opportunity

to be like yeah yeah that's cool now listen let me tell you something yeah it was so much more

about the person that process created than it was the end result like the the tangible the asset

that became so much more valuable for me was the man that got to nine figures not that i have

Thank you. asset that became so much more valuable for me was the man that got to nine figures, not the nine figures, if that makes sense.
Yeah. Because if you lost it all today, you can go recreate it.
There's a sick part of me. There really is.
There's a sick part of me that, I mean, obviously I don't really want this, but you're always looking at your downside and you're always looking at okay worst case possible what could happen i still take a lot of risk like a lot today you do for sure but it's the only way i enjoy the game everything all it has to be all stakes in right there you go fucking sick in the head and so i look at it i'm like all right well since i'm a guy that takes a lot of risk and i take all my chips and i put them into the middle of the table, I have to consider the downside. The downside is I lose everything.
Do I want that? No, of course I want to win and I want to go to that next level. But there's a sick part of me that is like, but if I did, but if I did lose it and I had my back against the wall and I was down and out again, it's almost's almost like an analogy of i climbed this mountain i got to the peak yeah it'd be fun to do it again yeah you know what i mean well so it's either i go climb a bigger mountain i have to find a bigger mountain to climb that's it or i do it again i do it again well so i think there is so i personally maybe you relate to this i personally have found now i'm 42 right and i've been in business now since i graduated college again pointless degree who cares yeah but i've owned my i've never been a w2 employee i've owned my own business all along the way but i've found probably a couple years ago i've i've created this what you're talking about without knowing i would create the chaos in my life to prove to myself i could do it again yep but i would create this chaos without knowing i'm creating the chaos i would i would almost intentionally unconsciously fuck some shit up so i could have to go back rebuild it and look myself in the mirror and say you did it again again, dude.
You fucking saved the day again, brother. Yeah.
You know, I think that's the importance of, of having a clear defined vision that's big enough to keep you on track. Like relate.
And I'm the same way, but hopefully at this, and I've done that plenty of times, hopefully at this stage of life, I've learned that lesson enough that I don't do it again yeah you look at that well what does that mean it means that i have enough that i never have to fucking work again i could walk out of this podcast studio i'm like you know what i'm out fuck it i'm done you know what i mean i'm going on my boat fuck you guys and it but instead Instead, I've created this enormous vision for myself.

And so it has me up at 5am. It has me dialed.
It has me training. It has me learning.
It has me chasing. And in that, the process of all of that brings me contentment.
It brings me peace and I'm content in it yeah you know because otherwise if i didn't have that bigger thing to chase and i think a lot of entrepreneurs like you and i and others have this in common i would fucking fill my life with chaos and destruction totally i have to stay on the course yeah and they're like eric why and here's the funny thing and this is where the wires get crossed between entrepreneurs and the general public i like to call them civilians because they don't really understand what this is like that's right you you're nine to fivers god bless dude i wish i was one you guys probably have a better quality of life than i do you know it's fucking crazy but um is that they think it's about oh you have so much what do you need more you need more stuff you need more money and i'm like you're so fucking lost yeah you're you were the materialistic one to think that this is still about money right you think this is about money yeah i don't have anything left to buy right how the fuck is this about money when i've literally run out of things to buy right right i agree with you 100 playing but they're gonna call you money hungry and the whole thing yeah but they're gonna call you money hungry they're gonna call you whatever those negative ways of saying it's always about money i hear the same thing people think i'm too money hungry like no no no i like the chase of this whole thing it's it's exclusively for a love of the game that's it you know it's about the process. It's about, you know, getting up every day and executing at a high level.
And I think a lot of that reverse engineers into this one moment that's very, very important to me every day. And it's right before I go to sleep.
When I sit down and I get in my bed and I put my phone on silent and I put it on my nightstand and I sit there and I start to recap my day. And I asked myself one question, am I proud of me today? I, yeah, I'm proud of me.
And anything that comes up in that moment that speaks to the contrary of my conscience of like, Oh yeah. Then I know what I need to do.
I got to clean that up. I know what changes I need to make.
There you go. You know, but stay on the grind and stay on the mission and practice of discipline and hard work and obedience that the result of that is I'm proud of me.
But there's not a lot of people. And so I'll ask you a very direct question.
Do you think we're the crazy ones as entrepreneurs? Or do you think the nine to five worker is the crazy one? I think there are 8 billion people on planet Earth. And I think God's in charge.
And I think the answer to that question is probably more spiritual than it is, you know who's crazy and who's not i view life as you know school for spiritual beings having a human experience you know if you have to come to planet earth and be the guy that flips the cheeseburgers and and pumps the gas and works the fry later at mcdonald's and that's what you do for this lifetime yeah then you know i don't know why you need to have that experience you know in this human you know form that i'm in now i probably will never understand that yeah but that that's what you're meant to be doing bro you're blowing my mind right now because aesthetically looking at you no one watching this on youtube or anywhere is thinking eric spofford is a spiritual motherfucker nobody you just are looking at you even just how you talk the thing this motherfucker is gonna fight me right just but no but here's what i'm you're blowing my mind i'm sitting here and i've already had dinner with you i've already personal, you know, I had no idea the depth of what you believe in, the spiritualness that you believe in that helps you every single day, A, be sober, A, continue to fight the fight of entrepreneurship. But it is mind blowing and it shouldn't be is I think what I'm getting to is no one should be judging a book by its cover because the depths that you have, it's obvious why you've had the success, right? It's obvious why you're on a mission to help others, why you're speaking on a stage of 12,000 people to impact other people's lives, bro.
Because I never would have guessed you would have brought up something that I believe in. Now I'm West Coast woo-woo a little bit, right? I was born and raised the West coast.
Right. So that's a little bit normal for me to say you're a spiritual being in a human or, you know, dude, talk to us about that.
That's incredible, man. Cause I think this needs to be heard for entrepreneurs, right? Cause otherwise we can drive ourselves crazy.
We take the spiritualness out of everything and everything becomes math kpis data driven uh sales but you don't take just be a fucking you know spiritual human you take god out of the equation and i don't mean that in the traditional sense of any set religion spirituality the universe your creator whatever but you take god out of the equation and everything just becomes so shallow hollow and meaningless you know and and it's such a uh inexhaustible well of power and guidance uh and inspiration and motivation that i think one thing that's lost on me and my story is that bro when I told you I said it started by me on my knees with a surrender to God in a closet hiding from an armed robbery charge you know coming to know God and so it's it's been about God every day since my day starts with prayer my prayer. My day, you know, and I think I also said that I'm unapologetically Eric Spofford.
Well, that does not mean that I'm unapologetically Eric Spofford in his own will. I'm unapologetically Eric Spofford in alignment with fucking seeking what God wants for me and, and what he would have me do and who he would have me be and what he would have me do.
You know what I mean? Yeah. And with that, because so many people, even the ones that talk the talk, very few seek and challenge themselves and are willing to, to, you know, put themselves out there.
Like God's got such greater plans for your life than you could ever think of yourself. Look at my life.
A recent epiphany. There were a lot of questions that I had to answer to find peace.
One of the big ones that I had to find a long time ago was, why didn't I get all this pain? I lived a very painful life, a very hard life. It's been very blessed, not complaining at all.
But my life, if you really understood the places that I've been and the things that I've been through, has been incredibly hard and difficult, including being a heroin addict. you know i breezed through that seven years of

heroin addiction do you understand what that was like like do you understand what a single fucking day of survival in that world was like not even a little bit most people never could but it was it was unbelievably painful and so i come out the other side of it and and i have to make I have to make peace with like the question of like why me you know what i mean like how did i get this set of cards well you know the ultimate answer is this is that i believe that god you know pulled me through those things as as a prerequisite to make me uniquely useful to a lot of people. I get messages by the hundreds on Instagram, mostly, and all over the place.
And people come up to me every single day. I promise you, if I leave my house every single day, someone comes up to me, happened five times while I was outside last night.
And I'll get more than 100 messages this week where people come up and say, you inspired me to get sober. That's why.
That's fucking why. That's why you were given the courage you were given.
Yeah. So then I look at it and I'm like, well, why am I this crazy entrepreneur? How did I end up with this house? How do I end up with this boat? How do I end up with all these people on social media? Because, you know, when you look at it, when you reverse engineer it, if you look at, all right, you have this guy who's a drug addict.
He got sober. That's, you know, that's a powerful story in itself.
Even if you had a job know had a family whatever like good for you man yeah proud of you but that's not my story i'm a guy that was a ruthless criminal drug addict brutal bro fucking robbing people staring them in the fucking eyes like psychopath yeah that gets sober comes to know god has a transformational experience with god and and you know the work that i've done around that but then goes on to to build a net worth of over 100 million dollars and ends up with all this fancy shiny looking stuff and ends up with a social media following and ends up with all this attention and at a certain point you as my life started to change because you have to recalibrate people don't understand that right like a guy that nobody knew and now i go outside and people ask for pictures with me right this is fucking strange right right and and so i'm like how did I get here um it hit me and i was like oh god did his thing god did his work and then he shined a flashlight on it he wanted to show it off that's crazy yeah you know and so i really you know for whatever reason i think that you talk about the guy, you know, who is going to flip cheeseburgers for the rest of his life. And, you know, and then the difference between him and us, I think that it just comes down to there's a purpose and a reason for absolutely everything.
I can only speak to my journey. I have 110% belief that I had to go through the things that I went through to give me a unique

message to qualify me for people to listen to me because I have the lived experience of going through what I went through and changing my life. People will listen to me that will not listen to fucking anyone else.
You can't go get a PhD or a doctorate. You earned one just in a different way.
For sure.

And then all the rest of this stuff,

will it put me on a stage in front of 12,000 people next week?

Brother, man, proud of you in that.

Do you know what I mean?

And so that's like the answers to the questions.

And so that's God.

That's the underlying spirit of all of it.

You brought up the cards you were dealt. I have my own thought but i want to hear yours do you feel as if some of the more successful entrepreneurs come from a pretty shitty hand of cards to start a lot of them do yeah yeah no as i think about that most that i know most and usually within childhood young right Whether it's really childhood, right? So I have my own childhood story, family alcoholics waking up in the streets because of all my shit.
But then you have the younger, teenage, difficult hands. I think the majority of the people that I'm aware of, there is a story somewhere in there that they had a shitty hand of cards dealt to them early for sure you know and then the second part of that question would be do you think some of that is self-imposed right so you choose you by the way i don't know your actual but choosing to do heroin is still a choice right doing any drug taking a drink to having a beer is a choice to have a beer right do you think some of this was self-inflicted to say okay i i chose my cards now i gotta figure out how to play them a couple different answers i believe in extreme accountability it's all on me yeah i've i've adopted that in every area of my life that said said, I was 14 years old.
One of my best friends that I grew up with, known him since first grade, came over the house, brought a pill. I was smoking weed and doing stupid 14-year-old stuff, right? No different than generations before me.
I was doing it too, yeah. And broke that thing up, and I sniffed half of it, and it ended up being an Oxycontin, which was essentially pharmaceutical-grade heroin.
Yeah. You know, and so there were some circumstantial things there that you look at the older generation, they were doing Quaaludes, they were doing, you know, different drugs that were oxycontin and heroin and so

there's some certainly some circumstantial things that i didn't even know what i was getting myself into i was addicted to opiates before i even knew what an opiate was of course you didn't even know the word right so there's that whole thing but but the spiritual answer the spiritual belief i guess is that, and I'm not like a set religion guy.

I actually, is that, and I'm not, I'm not like a set religion guy. I actually, you know, have some probably, you know, outside of the box thoughts on that as well, where you have a bunch of different groups of people with millions and billions that believe one certain thing that contradicts the other certain thing.
It's like, well, God, you know, God speaks a lot of different languages, doesn't he? Like whatever. And I don't, you know, but there's a lot of, a lot of spiritual beliefs that actually believe, you know, the ones that believe in reincarnation that believe in that process of reincarnation, you actually make some choices in your spiritual being before you come back here um and and that just hits me as true that's how i filter what i believe spiritually it's like does that feel true or not are you sure you're not from the west coast bro because this is how i was raised boston i know brother i'm just they'll punch you in the face fast but so you know in that I look back at it and I'm like, well, you know, they say that you choose your parents and they say that you choose your pain.

Nobody, you were not guaranteed.

You were just.

Life is meant to be painful, right?

Like life is hard.

It's supposed to be hard.

Nobody gets out alive. And one of the things that you're guaranteed to go through is pain and adversity it's part of it it's supposed to be there are no fucking victims yeah and and so when you look at it like that it's like oh maybe i just signed up for this tour of duty you know yeah doing exactly what i was supposed to be doing that i knew i was gonna i chose it there's a talk about extreme accountability i mean you bring that right back to a spiritual belief of like i literally chose this path right yeah let me go do that let me go let me go experience that let me go learn those lessons from a past life i i believe in something very similar like let's just use your example of the the mcdonald's burger flipper this is their path for this life they had to go do that and maybe it's because they're young in their lives right you and i may have had 2 000 lives already or whatever some big number may be on life 14.
So they're learning the harder lessons, the lessons, right? And we're going way off what I thought we were going to be talking about, but I'm liking it, bro. I think it's real shit.
So let's get a little bit back into the business because I want people to understand the power that you have as a businessman, what you've been able to create. Um, what are you doing now? You've already said

you've had your payday. You could literally walk out of the studio and say, fuck it.
I'm out. What, what keeps you going? What are you up to? What are you doing? Uh, a lot, a lot.
I'm busy. Yeah, no, I'm busy, busy, busy, busy, uh, very scheduled and have a ton going on um and so I'll break it down kind of where I spend my time.
One, I'm the active CEO of another addiction treatment business. Currently have two sites, Ohio and Florida, probably combined, I don't know, 140 employees.
Yeah. So it's a lot.
that's a big yeah yeah decent sized operation and so in the day-to-day with that from from a ceo level right yeah not in direct care i'm not at the facilities but um you know guiding and running the organization and growing it every day okay and then still very active in real estate right i've i've transacted both on the buy side and sell side

probably at this point in the last 45 days 24 25 million dollars transactions it's great uh yeah it's just busy you know what i mean yeah moving this moving that doing this doing that and so and that's commercial real estate that's a lot of my i talk about all the time one of my favorite asset classes, even though it's not sexy at all, is Section 8 real estate. That's a lot of my, I talk about it all the time.
One of my favorite asset classes, even though it's not sexy at all is section eight real estate. And so I love, I love section eight real estate, which is not weird for me because when you think about my background in healthcare businesses, I'm used to highly regulated third party payer systems.
And so the idea that I provide you a service and bill someone else who regulates me that's health care yeah right for sure if you come to my rehab i'm going to provide you addiction treatment services and bill your health insurance and deal with them and their regulation it's very similar yeah and so and guaranteed payments or whatever so i'm very busy in section eight and uh and then i've been having a lot of fun with my personal brand. I monetize it in several different ways.
I have a mastermind group called the Inner Circle where I coach seven and eight figure entrepreneurs. Yeah.
And all different stages of life cycle and business. And then we also have events where we get everyone together.
We have a two day event coming up, uh, May 16th and 17th. Where can they go to find that specific Instagram? Just go to Instagram.
Eric Spofford, make sure you're following them. I'm the only one guys.
If you come on my Instagram, you shoot me a message. I'm the only one that has access to it.
So if you get a reply, it's from me.

And so, you know, I enjoy that very well. I enjoy that a lot.
And then putting out content, doing stuff like this, speaking engagements. And then one of the big projects that I'm actually really, really excited, probably the most thing that I'm the most excited about right now in the moment is called Operation Comeback.

Talk to me about it it is a uh so give you some context first before i tell you what it is 46.5 million americans have a substance use disorder okay 112 000 people died of a drug overdose in America last year. You are more likely statistically, this is a shocking statistic, but you are more likely as an 18 to 50 year old American to die of a drug overdose than you are a car accident.
Wow. It's the leading cause of loss of accidental loss of life in America.
Yikes.

In America, we had 171,000 alcohol related deaths last year. Yeah.
One out of 10 Americans has what

would be diagnosed clinically as alcohol use disorder. Alcoholism and drug addiction,

the substance combined substance use disorders are arguably one of the largest problems that

Thank you. alcoholism and drug addiction the substance combined substance use disorders are arguably one of the largest problems that america faces right it's killing our young people it's killing our old people it's affecting everyone almost everybody in america has a story of either their own struggles or them being front row to someone else's.
Yeah. Right.
The addiction treatment industry, which I've been an entrepreneur in since 2008, now as an industry is a $35 billion annual revenue business in America. It's a $35 billion a year market.
And when you think about that, what does that mean? That means that that's not people that are struggling. That's not people that, you know, that is specifically representative of how many people went and received addiction treatment services in a calendar year and what the revenue associated to that is.
And that's probably the people that receive the help is probably a very small fraction that's what i mean it's a very small fraction of people that actually received the help compared to how many people needed it that's right that is representative of 35 billion dollar a year industry nobody has done a goddamn thing for the families and the people that love those people if here's what's interesting if we combined had a friend right now say cody spermer we love cody and cody's one of the most fantastic human beings i know so this is not a real situation but he went off the deep end right you're like damn cody you know got on drugs so they you know what i mean like intuitively we know the answer that's the gets her. According to the Cotteria.
Yeah, we got to help him. We're what I mean? Like intuitively, we know the answer.

What's the answer?

Cody used to go to rehab. Yeah, we got to help him.
We got to go down there, hit him in the head with a club. That's it.
They're going to rehab. Yeah.
You dummy. Yeah.
What about Cody's mom? Yeah. What do you tell Cody's mom to do? Exactly.
Yeah. And that is the answer that everyone has.
And so when you have 330 million Americans, 46.5 million of them have a substance use disorder of some type. You have a giant pain point of a ton of people that love those people and they don't know what to do and they suffer in silence and they suffer alone

and you know what they actually have to way worse gig than the alcoholic or addict themselves because the alcoholic and addict goes and gets high and drunk and when you're high and drunk you care about what nothing nothing not a lot the stressors of life gone are gone you know. They're totally gone.
The husbands, the wives, the moms, the dads, the children, the best friends, the employers, the person that sits in the cubicle next to Nancy who's struggling, they sit at home and they worry about them. Bro, this is hitting hard because I come from that.
I was the child waking up in the backseat of a car at two in the morning on a wednesday because my mom and dad were at the bar yeah operation comeback is an incredibly accessible online coaching program specifically for the family members and loved ones of addicts and alcoholics i think we launch next week bro everyone go follow eric right this second for no other reason than that because you guys all know someone are that person you are that person and you know that person 100 and so there's nothing no one's doing anything for these people and it hit me one day and probably a god-inspired idea where it's like no one does anything for these people. And mind you, understanding what it means to me and my why, besides everything I just said and how big of a problem this is.
Everyone, when you look back at my life and all that time that I spent using drugs, I was a street kid, right? And so I don't have much family. And my friends were my family fentanyl shows up to to america about 2012 and it kills everyone that i know that i've grown up every one of my friends is gone i'm the last of the mohicans like right now those people that you grew up with they're all gone yeah i have a tattoo across my stomach i mean if i took my shirt off i do not have a piece of white that's not tattooed left on me um but the tattoo across my stomach is actually a graveyard i've had it for a long time and right here there's uh a path and there's just one guy walking alone through it and uh you know that the grief of that is a pain that i live with every day yeah and i you know i try to talk about it enough to keep their names alive but not enough that i'm always a debbie downer fucking everyone's day up but uh you know i miss them all and and what happened with that was i watched their parents and and what happened with them.

It's the worst thing you could possibly go through in life.

I do not think, I don't think the death sentence is worse than a mom or dad losing their child.

The person that died is out of it.

It's over, right?

They don't feel anything.

They don't know anything.

They're gone.

And so it changes their life forever.

I watched them leave children behind, right?

My best friend, Eric McCollum, died of an overdose.

He was using drugs, and he overdosed,

and they waited too long to call the ambulance on a Sunday night,

and they eventually did.

And when the ambulance got up, they brought him to the hospital Holy Family Hospital in Bethune Massachusetts and and he'd gone without oxygen for too long and so they put him on life support and they gave him a couple days worth of testing and on Wednesday they told me and his family that he had like one or two, I forget, one or two percent

brain activity left. And it was essentially, it was just a machine keeping him alive, right? And so they made, they had to make the decision to pull him off.
And that next day, Thursday, they pulled him off a life support and I held his hand and Pastor Anthony Milas was in the room and I sat by his side while he died.

And that was one of dozens and dozens and dozens of people. But he was like my brother and his son Tice was nine years old.
And I watched Tice graduate high school without his dad last year. Yeah.
I watched Tice go to driver's ed and learn how to drive without his dad you know what i mean i do and so you know my people are dead and then working in addiction treatment i've seen thousands of people in my career in addiction treatment i've overseen the the treatment episodes of at this point about 60 000 people it's a lot's a lot of people. Yeah.
And so with that became a whole lot of moms, a whole lot of dads, a whole lot of stakeholders, people. And in the front line of America's addiction crisis with, you know, overdose death and all the suffering that's happened, I've buried and watched the passing of thousands of people and i'm not exaggerating thousands and two last week i mean that um and so seeing what happens with the families i'm like there's just so much that could be done that's not because they don't have the right answers they don't addiction and where do they get that what do you have a baby they give you the book what to expect to what you're expecting and in the you know appendix z in the back of the book is like hey by the way if he becomes a drug addict or an alcoholic i can read this right you know right doesn't exist and it's the one illness that is so so powerful that it not only sickens the host it sickens the people around them and drags them into the quicksand with them.
And the catch-22 is like, if you can get the family out of the disease, if you can get them to stable footing, if you can get them to recovery, if you can get them to be sturdy, then you have something to work with. And the odds and the likelihood of the alcoholic addict themselves finding recovery, if you can get their family there first, is exponentially higher.
The recovery rate of people with family involvement in recovery is like, I don't know the exact delta because I don't think it's been studied, but just from general observation is so much higher than people that's family are in the mix. And what is this called? The mission we're on? What is that? Operation Comeback.
I love that. Everyone needs to look it up.
Everyone needs to follow Eric. And so I'll be doing the coaching.
I have a team of amazing people that will be doing the coaching. And there's another piece to it, which is community, because I can't tell you how many people suffer as that loved one, but they show up to work and smile at everyone because of the shame and embarrassment to be able to tell, where do you connect? And so now we've built a community that we're going to put these people together common problem common mission bro i'm getting shivers right now because how close it's the thing it's the thing i'm like literally the most excited about damn anything i can do to help promote that i'm going to do because i believe in it i came from an alcoholic family my parents brother i could not be more honored to have you on this podcast bro and have gotten this deep with you bro uh everyone needs to go follow eric spofford right now you are a man on a mission love your brother thank you for doing what you're doing putting everything out there guys that is the end of entrepreneur dna uh make sure you're following this man eric spofford on instagram follow the Follow the movement.
This guy's a brilliant mind, brilliant businessman, very successful,

and has a mission that is bigger than all of us.

See you guys on the next, Pat.

Yeah, of course.