Everybody's cat I'm very excited
to have in the studio my very good friend Josh Allen and what's going on.
Thanks, Kenny.
You know, you showed up with some of the risks out of
and then we got to know each other
and you told your story, which is super powerful.
But then I think that next first step was huge, you know?
And what.
But for those you guys might not know and I'll have Josh explain.
He took what he knew, which was addiction,
and turned it into a business and became a social entrepreneur.
Right.
Yeah, I had no idea
I was on the path of becoming a social entrepreneur, impact investor.
This whole movement that really started that I became aware of
in the late nineties, early 2000s, and now it's like
general topics of conversation.
You saw that It was it? No.
You were like a pioneer.
Yeah, it was like really interesting because you the one thing you did know was
you knew the B.S. behind the attic.
Yes. Right. Yes.
So what you didn't know was how to buy the rehab centers
and how to put the deals together and all that kind of stuff.
So, you know.
So how did you switch that?
You know, how did you become that?
Because now you're not really known as an addict.
You're known as somebody who helps addict.
How how did you get past that first step?
Because there's, you know, especially the mindset you were in.
Right. Had to be hard.
Well, I channeled all that energy that I put I invested into my addiction.
Right. Because it takes a lot to be
in active addiction.
And what I mean by the games that we play of,
hey, I got to figure out when are my openings that I can go use?
I got to figure out how to get cash.
I got to figure out how to keep this thing going.
I got to figure out how to get around the law.
I don't want to get pulled over.
I don't want, like, all of this stuff, like you're mapping out your day
before it even starts.
Like, okay, here, how long can I take this thing?
So now that that was away, I had all this open capacity, if you will.
It's like.
And then Rich Dad with Robert Kissack, you Cam
and the Rich dad's teaching is like, Here's a framework.
Why don't you do want to build a business around what your mission is?
And I don't know what my mission was.
I just knew I didn't want to drink anymore because it was going to kill me.
So my deepest, darkest secret, if you will, of being an alcoholic
became my greatest asset, for sure. Yeah.
Because I knew what it was like for that addict
and I knew what it was like or my wife did.
She knew what it was like from the other side of it.
So we're like, Hey, we know our customer.
How can we build a business around that
where we're making a commitment right now that we're not
going to be addicted to money?
That's not going to be our driver, our driver's mission.
We're going to build a business that is mission driven socially driven,
that helps people overcome their addictions as well.
And that's what started the whole thing.
And thank goodness for Rich Dad to provide that framework for sure.
And I think at this point, a lot of people really need
to realize that you have to have a little bit of faith.
Right.
Because like the let's start at the first step and what you did,
because that's kind of when I met you, you're
you're buying those big mega mansions and putting people into them.
Right. And then you sold that off.
So let's let's talk through that and then jump to Warrior's Heart.
So the first step was we had this great idea, but we had no money.
We had the framework to build a business, but we had no money.
We had no credit, you know? And
so the first step is, to your point on
faith, is we knew what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go.
I just know how
I didn't know how to get there, but I knew we were going to get there.
So from banks to investors, lot a lot of banks
said, no, I heard no more than I heard. Yes.
And that's kind of like my dating career, right?
You're nuts.
So you just said, hey, keep politics out of it.
And and it was okay.
It's like, hey, okay, what did you learn?
Why being why did you say no to me?
Some people would tell you, some people would just sugarcoat it
and they really didn't want to be honest with you.
So can you tell me why the business plan sucked?
It did.
And I had no experience in the field.
It was like all that stuff was true.
But we kept on, kept on, kept on cool.
We finally found a private angel investor that said,
You're not going to quit, are you?
No, sir, I'm not.
Because he actually turned me down twice
and he was the only one that would keep letting me have another meeting with him.
I have another meeting with him.
He goes, Your business plan sucks.
We had some work to do on that.
But because of you and your wife, I'm going to invest in you
now is not the business that the.
Yes. You got the. Yes. Yeah.
I was 1.5 million. It was a big deal.
We were in the game
and so we acquired a McMansion, a property, and we had enough capital left
over to pay him back his own money until we got our business up and running. And.
And it worked.
And then, you know,
we refinanced the property and got his money back and made him whole.
But the point is that I had to get comfortable
being uncomfortable hearing no's and keep going and keep on
having that leap of faith instead of going back to the addiction of
Let me just go back to my ex, if you will, being addiction,
working in the nightclubs. It was easy.
My father worked for me. It's okay. Come back to work for me.
Yeah. Yeah.
And sometimes you got to do that.
Just not take that easy road back. Yeah.
And I think one of the lessons that we all learned from Robert is
the purpose of a business is to buy real estate.
This is a classic example of you building a business to buy real estate.
So let's fast forward there because that business grew pretty rapidly
and then you have a private equity company come in and I remember this is
when I was getting involved with you and you got into YPO
and, you know, some other organizations that, you know, even helped even more.
And but what was cool about that transaction?
So at this point, Josh and Lisa grow this huge business.
They sold the business, but not the real estate, right?
Yeah, this is the important piece because that's all you really wanted, right?
Well, our business is real estate.
My passion is drug and alcohol rehab jobs.
I never got paid, never want to get paid out of the rehabs.
How I get paid is through real estate. Correct.
And it was very clear on that from the very beginning.
And steady and rich.
Dad, It's about acquiring assets, not working for money
and studying your books and ABC's real estate.
You got your tenants to pay for your real estate, correct?
So I was like, How can we do that?
How can we have our tenants?
Oh, okay. It's not tenants.
Maybe it is, but it's our business.
Pay for real estate. Yeah.
So it was a it was a real estate play.
We had six locations, multiple states, and sold to a private equity.
And we told them, hey, the real estate's not for sale.
They go, We don't care what, we don't want it.
How great is that?
It was like,
our income's not going to change because we're living off a passive income.
Yep, we're going to get this windfall of cash from the business side of it.
Hey, we're at. Yeah.
So now let's just stop right here. So.
So you grew a business, paid for your real estate,
paid your investor back, you had massive cash flow,
and now you sold the business to somebody who was going to be your tenant. Yes.
To continue their cash flow.
Serious windfall money, plus your passive income.
And that's when you went and bought that awesome rads?
Well, first. Yeah, first we took a year off. Yep.
And that was through YPO Young Presence organization.
I asked a number of other presidents,
Hey, what did you do when you sold your company?
So take a year off. Take a year off.
That's kind of the standard.
It's just really think about what you want to do.
Don't race back into the next thing, too.
Good point, because I wanted to and I made a couple deals, a couple investments
that weren't like I thought I was this major rock star investor, but I wasn't.
I was a business operator. Yeah.
So I made some mistakes in that.
Still taking time off, but I was dabbling here and there's like, just
pause, just pause and think about what you really want to do and,
and then that was, Hey, I'm alive for a reason.
I have resources for a reason.
My wife and I are together for a reason.
What are we supposed to really do with our life is like this.
Is it drug and alcohol treatment?
Help other guys and gals get sober.
So if we can a deal, we can address an attack
addiction, self-medication, that side of it.
We can actually lower the suicide rate among our warriors, among our protectors.
So that's what we did.
We formed up a new company called Warriors Heart.
We put all the chips on the table, are going all in again.
I'm right. You did and said, Hey, these guys do that.
They're all in.
We're going to be all in with them, too.
So we did. We bought a large ranch in Texas.
A 546 acre ranch converted it into a healing center.
Now it's up and running since 2015, we've put over 2300 warriors
through the program, 42 day program that treats addiction, PTSD, depression.
And these are the guys and gals who resonate with me like, I love our
our clients.
And I think that's important with anything you do
is that there should be a love, there should be a passion to it,
because it's going to take a lot of time, a lot of energy.
It takes time away from my family, all that.
So if if I'm not doing something that I purely love,
don't do it, you know, I really do.
And just don't do it for the money.
Because again, you can become addicted to money.
I, I have and it's like, nope, not, not anymore.
I want to be addicted to something that adds value
to people's lives, that has a mission, has a calling, has a purpose.
Yeah.