 I was in a crib and two adults were yelling. But my mom came in the crib and was like, it's okay. And I can remember my mom crying. So my very earliest memory as a human is instability. My dad was like a big, he was a pro bodybuilder. He was a big, strong guy. And I would tell people about my dad like he was still in my life. I never told them, because they'd be like, well, where's your dad? And I'd be like, oh, he's busy, he can't come. But the truth was he didn't care that much. My mom says, Ty, when I was pregnant with you, the FBI kicked down the door with guns, put guns in my face, took your dad away, and brought him across the country to Terminal Island off Long Beach. I remember it was my birthday. My dad, when he got out of prison, he just stayed in Long Beach. But for that birthday, my dad's like, I will drive down and take you out to dinner. And he said he'd be there at like 5 p.m. And she had to go to work. She had a night shift job. And she's like, okay, your dad will be here soon. So I'm gonna leave you at the house alone. So I sat there, I was kind of on the couch. And I remember waiting for my dad. And it was like 5.30 came, nothing. Six, nothing. We had a home landline, like waiting for the phone to ring, seven, eight. I remember being like super sad going, but you're a little kid. So you're like, oh, I have hope. Like, he's still gonna come. He's just late. I don't remember how long it was, but my mom said she came home at midnight. I would just asleep, like literally like on the couch, just like looking out the window. And he never came. And so I remember that being like super painful and being just like, my dad doesn't care about me. Life will throw tremendous blows at you. You'll have the betrayal of a close friend or family member. You'll have sickness, death. Life is painful if I perceive it as what it was supposed to be. But the second I switch it and go, wait, no, life's like a puzzle that I was handed. Here's your puzzle light of life, Ty. We took a piece out. The dad was gone. And when I look at life like that, my life's like an adventure. And I'm thankful for it. Even the stuff that sucked in the most painful day and sometimes in the moment, I couldn't see it there. But in hindsight, I'm like, but I wouldn't have found that puzzle piece. Nobody in my family had ever really made money. And, you know, they say poverty is systemic and it's true. Like most people, you can't rise out of like your socioeconomic class. Like one of the biggest predictors of where you'll be in life is where you're born. It sucks. Breaking the cycle is something that has to start happening in the world. And what broke the cycle for me was like realizing that I was doing it wrong. I was in a mobile home in Clayton, North Carolina. And I did not have a job. I didn't have a resume. I didn't have anything to put on a resume. I didn't have a college degree, just laying there on the couch. And when I was laying there, the question that came in my head was, is this it? All my friends went to college. They had parents that had more money and they had this and like, I missed this. I remember just going to sleep. I was just depressed. And the next day, my mom was there and she said, you should read this book, Tony Robbins. And I remember being like, oh, I don't want some self-help book. But she's like, yeah, you should read this book. So I read it. And I don't remember that much of what I read, but I remember this one page and it said, all greatness starts with failure because when you succeed you party and when you fail you ponder and all greatness comes from pondering your situation. And I remember thinking, that's what I was doing last night on the couch. I was like pondering like, what did I do wrong? I made myself vulnerable to the fact that maybe I did make mistakes. Maybe I had to change my life. Maybe I had to listen to different people. Maybe I had to try a new path. Einstein said the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting different results. And I'm like, Ty, you're being stubborn. So after I read that book, I was like, I'm gonna try something new. So I went back in that mobile home. I found the yellow pages and I remember flipping through it, going to the financial section. And there was this full page ad by this guy, Mike Stainback. It said Stainback Financial Services. And I kind of pretended, I didn't lie, but I kind of pretended I was coming there to be a customer. And I get to a place and I'm like, I'm Ty, can I speak to your boss? And I'll never forget, he was sitting like this, like a big, like lazy boy chair and he had this big mustache. He looked like Tom Selleck. I wanted to be super honest with him. I said, listen Mike, you don't know who I am but I know you must be successful because you've got a full page ad in the yellow pages. That's all I know about you. But I know that costs a lot of money. If you teach me what you know about making money, I'll work for you for free. And he was sitting like in this chair and I was talking to him this way and he was sideways. And he just slowly pivoted his chair. You know, I've been looking for someone like you for 20 years. You come back in the morning and I'll set you up with your own office and you can work for me. And I promise you, if you listen to what I'm gonna say, one day you'll hug my neck. And he did have an office but what he had done was he cleaned out a closet with no windows and he had put a desk that's where all the filing cameras was. I sat down on the chair and he plopped down pieces of paper and said, cold call these people. I'll give you a percentage of the money you make from them, no guarantees working for me. So I just started calling and I sucked at it. I would call if he bought six at night. People were like, who are you? They were hanging up on me. I remember being like, oh no. I think I've gone from nightmare to another nightmare but I started to get curious and creative. And I wrote down a few little different things I would say to the people. And I remember in that first month I started opening up deals for this Mike Stainbacker and I opened a deal that was $150,000 in commissions if the deal went through. And I remember going, wow, life can change like fast. And within nine months I went from $0 to making 100 grand. I remember being like, this is the pinnacle of my life. And I went out from then like a madman. I became a CFP, a certified financial planner. I got into finance. I learned, I read every book. You can either be paralyzed by what life gave you and let the pain, cause there will be pain there will be trauma. You can either let it build up and like build scar tissue that just paralyzes you or at some point you go, the cars didn't, weren't dealt for me like I wanted. And so I'm gonna go recreate those cars. And that's what mentors were for me. And I think for every person, you got a different path that you have to do. I just spoke on this subject that I think is like the ultimate puzzle piece. You get this down, most of your problems go away. I call it the law of 33%. Basically you should spend 33% of your day around people who have not accomplished what you've accomplished yet. You can help them, like you mentor them. And there's always those people and you need to spend time around people that you can help. And then you spend 33% of your time around people who are on your level. Like you're about at the same level of what you're trying to do. Those are your become your close friends. Those are the people you hang out with on the weekends. But the last 33% is the magical one that doesn't happen in our school system and almost no one even tries to find these people. Unfortunately, you spend 33% of your time around people who are five, 10, 20, 30 years ahead where you wanna be. And if you do the math, you know, that's like a couple hours a day. And now you can do it with YouTube videos. You can do it with a book. You can do it with an audio book. You can do it with Facebook videos. If you can start absorbing from the world's greatest mind downloading their advice into your brain, they're 40 years of experience in pain and reward and making mistakes in accomplishing great things. And you basically get like a cheat sheet. And if you can absorb that, and this is what I tell myself every day I wake up, it's like tie law 33% who you spend in time with. I think the most pain that we get in life is when we think life is like a straight line to start, finish, and here's what's supposed to happen. Nothing's supposed to happen. There's, it doesn't work that way. Sometimes the puzzle pieces swap out and you can't overreact in life. If you wanna have a complete life, you go find a piece. You put the piece back in. You have to take your destiny in your own hands and try to recreate what you missed out on. For good or bad, today I control my own destiny.