 Woo. Hey, John Cristani here. Now, we're doing a special video today. I'm actually doing an interview with a very interesting entrepreneur Who I've known for a number of years JR Fisher Now JR Fisher is You know, he I don't know he owns some internet websites that make millions of dollars a year he's he's been very successful he and You know, he teaches he teaches about what he knows now I mean, he's really cool guy really interesting been through a lot in life and I'm very excited to bring To you bring him to you so you can understand The mentality of what it takes to be successful. So JR. Thanks. Thanks for being on and What do you think of the statement old dogs can't learn new tricks? Thanks for having me on first up John. I really appreciate it. I love your stuff. Um, yeah You know, we were just actually discussing this before we started this interview But you know, what I hear all the time is that I'm too old to learn that I didn't grow up in the technology error Yeah, yes, you did. Okay, because if you're 60 and there's a 20 year old You grew up with them. Okay, they they they were alive for 20 years And so were you you were there at the same exact time and whatever you do know you learn you can learn anything There's nothing you can't learn. So I think that's kind of a cop out or a reason not to do something So I noticed it took, you know, I You know, I did I did a little looking on your LinkedIn too and I noticed there were 10 years, you know in between you know college and You know where I saw you work at Southern Automotive Group and then another 10 years where you were working your job before you got into the online stuff and Started your internet businesses. So can you can you tell me a little bit about about that journey and how that all led to survival cave foods and Yeah, what what you were doing and maybe did those experiences in form, you know things are yeah Just tell me a little bit about those 20 years not not not where you're at today Sure And first off, you know, I have people say well How did you ever, you know think of starting a survival food company and the answer short answer is I didn't I didn't think of it at all I just hated my boss and I wanted to do something other than what I was doing I was actually managing new car dealerships at the time. I had 16 locations. I managed Yeah, we yeah, yeah, we had 16 different franchises and I I Didn't like somebody telling me what time I go to lunch You know, I didn't like when somebody said you're gonna get two weeks to spend with your kids And I was a single dad. I got my kids when they were 12 and eight I raised them 100% by myself and grown now and I wanted to take them on vacations and do things with them And I didn't want to come home at nine o'clock at night You have to go to bed and get up the next day be there seven thirty or eight in the morning And somebody tell me what to and then I really didn't like this guys I didn't like that they limited my income, you know, I wanted to make millions and may you like well that job doesn't pay that It's pay that that's insanity So what I did start doing was starting to market those dealership online and the people that were in charge of the marketing department Didn't like that. They said no, you can't do that. You stick to running the sales departments, you know We don't need you we don't need you to do that So it got me to think and well, maybe I could just sell something of my own online Now the thing I ran into and some of you guys may run into is I didn't have any time to do this And any time because literally I would be at work at seven thirty or eight in the morning I get home at eight or nine at night, you know, I get the kids in bed I'd watch TV for maybe hour and a half two hours. I go to sleep. Let's start the next cycle again I was working six to seven days a week. I was also in the Virginia Beach Rescue Squad as a volunteer was EMT So I was doing that whatever free time I had one day off or whatever and I was sitting there one night And I turned on the TV and I was getting a watch something. I'm like, wait a second. I'm watching TV You know, I'm watching TV. Maybe there is some time, you know I know there's an hour and a half two hours before I go to bed But maybe that's enough time to do something. So I turned off the TV I got on the computer and I tried to learn how to sell stuff online and I started doing here was this This was It's a great question 2009 2009 and I started selling stuff on eBay and all of a sudden that hour and a half would turn it into two hours Now be up to midnight that I'd be up to one in the morning I'd be up at three in the morning and I'd still have to be at work at seven thirty or eight And I would have people say well didn't you get tired? I'm like, yeah I got real tired, but that wasn't the point the point was I was starting to figure out something So that's actually how I got started and that was with cell phone cases of all things 2009 that was like nuclear winter for For a business in America. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah No, you're not don't start a business that that's right. So tell I'm I'm particularly interested I mean tell me a little bit about, you know in between 83 and You know, you know the years the years in between, you know when you graduate from when you graduated college and you know how What I mean, I don't know maybe what lessons did you learn in in those Years Because it sounds like you had kids you went through divorce you you you know all all this other stuff Or I don't know what happened, but but all this stuff happened. I mean it looks sounds like you were living in Or maybe you moved to California later, but Tell me about those those years 80s 90s, you know, yeah, it's it's interesting because I Guess because of the successes I've had the college that went to older than the university is contacting me several times The president's come out to California. I've had dinner with him, you know And a matter of fact this year just about a month ago. They wrote an article on me Which will stick it up on the screen there about my survival cave food business And they asked me to be in the monarch their magazine They sent out to all the alumni which I thought was really pretty cool But what happened was, you know, I actually it was selling cars And I've got 79 80 like that and I thought well, I don't want to be a person What kind of life is that that's not good. I'm gonna I'm gonna go to college Not only give me a degree, you know, because I hear that's the thing to do, you know, get a degree So I went to Old Dominion and I went year round. I was bartending at a Mexican restaurant And I got a degree The day you had to pick what major you were going to select they had lines for marketing They had lines for finance. They had lines for all these different lines And the shortest line I could find because I had to get to work was finance So I said well, I get in that line because it's short and I can get to my ship So that's how I ended up picking my major was the short line really The short line so what I didn't know and I wasn't good at it was math was a big thing to do with finance I didn't quite put that through my head. So I had to get into calculus and I didn't know any of this because I was terrible student school and So I went year round my last semester. I took 21 credits I went I got my degree in three years in three months But that was not because I was industrious. It was because I didn't have enough money to pay for another semester I just honestly did not And I got out and I looked around and the only jobs that were available were teaching which I taught in a business college I taught accounting and I knew business law So I taught business law and then I bartended at night and I was like, this is terrible and I like this So I saw an ad one day for a finance manager at a car dealership And I had no clue what that was or what that entailed and I was like, well, that's not really selling cars That's, you know, finance manager. I'll be a manager And I took that job and it sucked me back into the car business Um for a good period of time and I ended up. Yeah, we moved out to california Ended up running a mccune chrysler jeep, which was the number one dealership in california number three in the nation So we did really well there, but I I had this thing where I wanted to teach people stuff So in gosh, I'm trying to think what year that was and can you and just f y it seems like you're screen shaking a little bit I don't know if you're like hitting the table. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, just yeah, I won't go on. We'll edit that So, um, I actually left the dealership I was at and I went on the road and I started teaching dealerships how to sell Uh, and I got pretty darn good at that And I did that for about eight or nine years. I traveled the entire united states I did seminars all over all of the place top dealerships in the country and my wife and I decided we were going to split And she did want to take care of the kids. So that was going to be my responsibility And that was when they were 12 and eight years old And at the time getting custody for a guy. It was really difficult, you know, this is um, 2002-ish I guess something like that And uh, my attorney just said hey, you're gonna have to have a job You know, you can't be running around the country doing seminars So the original dealership that I sold that before I even went to college I talked to them and they were like, well, yeah, you know, you train all these dealerships We'll have you run our dealerships. So that's kind of how I got stuck back into that and then from there, you know It was just too many hours and then I started my internet business basically from that point forward Wow, interesting and were there any Do you think now as you said you got You know, and that's that's about 20 years right there. I mean, that's a lot of time How do you how do you feel if if so that you know, your experience is, you know Bar tending selling cars training dealerships all that stuff Like Would you have done things any different way or how or else how do you think that all kind of formed into Where you are now, which is, you know, jr. Fisher, you know running a, you know Millie, you know multi-million dollar internet business. Um You know, yeah, tell me tell me about That you know, I would not change a single thing. You know, I'm remarried now I met my wife at one of the dealerships we bought And a quick funny story about that. She's considerably younger than me. She's 23 years younger than me, but at the time Hey Yeah, and I was I was like 50, you know, so I'm right at 50 and I went into that dealership It's a funny story and my job was to go in there and get rid of all the deadwood It's just start firing people right and left and that's what I was doing. I had my notepad I was going around. I'm like, you're fired. We don't need you anymore. You're fired. We don't need you anymore And I came to the reception desk and jessica was sitting there Now, I didn't know that she actually worked in the office doing the dmb paperwork and all that She was filling in for somebody at lunch. So I didn't bother to look up at And I started listing the things I wanted to her to get done And all I heard was this little tiny voice that said what makes you think I would do any of that for you And I was I looked up and I was like, I think I'm gonna like you We've been together ever since she has an internet business now. She helped me build survival k food. She has a YouTube channel called the furry family coach Jessica Fisher. She has all kinds of courses on dog training She does animal rescue and it was the best thing that ever happened to me Meeting her like that, but At the time you can't see a lot of these things that are going to affect you later on in life and I think Teaching people how to sell cars or many years ago Enables me to teach people how to sell stuff online and motivate them So what to do if you do it right, you know, you can get results But every little step in life is leading you somewhere and you may not be able to see it You may not be able to I couldn't see it, you know But it's going to help you on later on as long as you don't quit as long as you don't quit You know, that's the whole thing as long as you don't quit Um, so I think it all helped me and I wouldn't change the darn thing not a single thing Both my kids are grown now. They're both stable. They're both, you know, well off. Yeah, I wouldn't change any more That's awesome. Yeah, awesome. That's awesome. Um, I love that now was it uh Just wondering how how did uh How did having a you know, obviously, you know, your first relationship broke down how did How did that? How how did how did your relationships affect like how well you did in business? Hmm. That's a good question. I would say did it Oh, yeah. Oh, no. No, it was very difficult if anybody's ever been through divorcing. So yeah, it's not a fun thing at all Um, you know and that dragged on because it had to do with you know, uh, custody and child support and all that kind of stuff um Yeah, I guess I'm going to go back to the saying if it doesn't kill you it's going to make you stronger At the time I thought well, I'm never going to be married again. I'm done with this. I don't want another woman I'm not into any of that. I'm done, you know And I was very bitter at the time and I think you go through these seasons of your life Where you don't you can't see the whole picture and I couldn't at that time Um, and I wasn't looking to date anybody or go anything but nothing I was just taking care of my kids and you know working, uh, and then Opportunities open, you know, like, um, I wasn't supposed to go down and run that dealership That day, you know, I was I was going to leave because I had already kind of started my business on the side And I was just going to leave and when they asked me to do that one thing that I didn't want to do I did it And ended up meeting my wife, you know, that was 10 years ago now. We're still together and we're doing great um, so I think a lot of times you'll see Things that you think are going to be detrimental to you and they're not they're really going to be helpful to you It's it's like if you you don't get that one path and we talked in another interview If your facebook ads account gets shut down and you can never advertise on facebook again You're going to find an opportunity over in youtube. You're going to find another opportunity that's probably far better That's that's kind of like the universe saying well, maybe you don't need that You know, maybe you don't need that and that's kind of how I look at all those things now I couldn't then didn't take some maturity, but now anytime something goes bad I you know, not too long ago a few years ago. We had to go to my warehouse and my wife was going to drive me To the airport dropped me off. Let me go to the warehouse. I'd check on some things And we got outside of our house and I normally park in the street She parked in the driveway and we looked in the driveway and her car was gone And I said we're gonna have to take my car because yours got stolen and she says, how do you know? I said well I'm no brain surgeon, but it's gone And I asked and she says well, it's terrible. I said no it didn't she said what do you even know it isn't? I said something good is going to come out of this something really good and as it turned out The car was stolen. It was it was retrieved, but it was pretty much total They had drugs and guns in it and all this stuff the police found it It was crashed into other cars But the insurance company paid her way more than what the car was worth and we ended up getting a much nicer car And it was all paid for and I said see there It was all it was all a good thing man. Everything's good and you've got to look at it that way, you know every problem How do you maintain like where where does that come from because I feel like especially nowadays like that That attitude that ah, it's going to be all right. Like it's going to work out for the better is I don't feel like that's the attitude of the general population right now I think I feel like the general population is like, you know, or at least the news is pushing down our throats that That nothing's going to work out. Everything's horrible. Everything's awful, you know You're walking over dead bodies trying to go to the market, you know I mean, and I'm I'm wondering, you know, how have you been able to maintain Uh a positive attitude and and also How does that help business because or or you know, has that helped your business? 100% and it's and I tell you it wasn't always my attitude. Okay I used to fall into the trap of oh my god, this happened to me or and that's a horrible place to be It's a learned thing and it's also a life experience thing where you could look back like, you know The divorce was difficult and all that kind of stuff But I can look back now and go wow, but it got me to here You know, and if it got me to here Then I would have never gotten here otherwise, you know, so Now I look at stuff and when it goes bad, it's like it's just going to lead me to someplace else And like right now with the election and I'm not going to get into politics But everybody's going well if my guy gets in everything's going to be okay My guy gets in there and my life is going to change and your life won't change You know, neither one of them are going to fit your life. This is not going to happen Let's say your guy gets in there and interest rates go way down They go way down for everybody. Not just you, you know, if the economy gets screwed up It gets screwed up. You're on an equal playing field with everybody No matter what happens in the world with the exception of what you do What you get up and do every day will have a tremendous effect on your life But those external portions like what you're talking about they just don't matter They really literally do not matter when times are really bad. I mean times are really bad There's always some people that are doing really well, right? And when times are really great and everything's booming There's always some people that are doing very poorly So it doesn't matter. It's what you do every single day and I finally came to that realization and guess what more things work out now Yeah, and I I can totally pair it exactly what you said in the sense that you know, it's it's being able to Be optimistic in the darkest of times. I mean, I've shared many stories on You know my channel about this, but you know, it's It's not quitting until you turn your back. Um, you know, I've been through some really dark times in business and You know maintaining a positive attitude and being able to say hey, there's a light at the end of the tunnel And I'm just going to keep walking forward. Um has helped me out a lot too. So you said you learned it You said you didn't always have that attitude and you learned it Can you tell me a little bit more about how I mean, how did you learn it? I think First off listening to the right people Okay, listen to positive people if somebody's got a negative message I don't care if it's about politics if it's about life if it's about health, whatever it is You need to immediately shut that out. You know, if you've got friends that are like that You need to get ready your friends, you know, that's that's going to be something I'll get some bad comments about But it's a fact You know, if you're hanging out with the wrong people you are never going to be able to get ahead And some of you say well, I've got negative family members. Well, you don't have to spend all your time with them They go, well, I'm married to them. I said, well, maybe you should get rid of them. You know My first wife was a very negative person And it was it was uh an opportunity that I didn't see at the time You know, when we split up it was an opportunity to find somebody really good Now I didn't even go looking for them. They were just there But when you when you're faced with this stuff and I do think it takes life experience Because you've got to be able to look back Or listen to somebody who's been through it There's the other way you don't have to get this in the pain and listen to them And find out that all that stuff that you thought was bad is really an incredible opportunity You just can't see it yet. And I think that's the problem if people can't see it right then You're like, well, I don't see anything positive about this. That's because it's not there yet It'll be there hang in there. It'll be there So tell me a little bit more about, you know, this because you trans it sounds like there was a point There's like a period where you kind of like, you know, you transition from having You know, whatever one circle of friends or acquaintances then you kind of started switching that over to some new folks and um I mean tell me about that process like was it rocky? Was there an explicit like Hey, you're not my friend anymore. Like no, I'm not going to the family reunion or no You know and and and and also like how did you Like get these new people in In your life and where did you find them these new positive or successful motivators? Like how did you bring those in and how did you get the others out and how long was that period and And you know, was it difficult? You know, yeah Tell me a little bit about that and how fast did you see the results of like your new peer group? In in your business It's kind of a gradual process However, I take it back to dating When people want to date they always want to have the perfect make They want to have somebody who's attractive and in shape and intelligent and accomplished And they're like, I just can't seem to find anybody like that So I always say to them. Well look in the mirror. Are you that? Because you're going to attract Whatever you are Okay, if you're a negative person and you're not accomplishing anything That's exactly what you're going to attract if you change your life a little bit you start accomplishing things like You know on a frequent basis I get contacted by people are like, oh man. I heard you did this I heard you did this, you know, I'd like to talk to you about things I wouldn't have attracted any of those people if I sat back and didn't do anything People love people who have accomplished things So if you want to be around accomplished people the first step is to accomplish something do something You know, don't just sit back and go. I want to hang out with rich people They don't want to hang out with you until you've done something until you've proven that you're somebody worthy of them Spending their time with because that that process that you're going through where you're saying, well, I want to hang out with successful people They're saying the same thing What did you do? What'd you do? I started doing stuff. I started accomplishing stuff like what like what? You know, well actually in the automotive industry I I did very well there. So, you know people that Delta in the automotive industry were like, I want to talk to this guy because he's like making sales and training people Yeah, yeah, because you know, he gets he gets results I think people like results oriented people to give you an example. My wife Has dog training and she does dog rescue and all that And we were contacted By a group and they were doing a tv show with Caesar Milan And Caesar Milan and his son were traveling around the country. It's called Caesar and son And she had done so much good in that area that he wanted to film a tv show at our house, which he did Now that wouldn't have happened if she hadn't had gone out and rescued animals And we were doing all these things that meant something and helped all these You know, she has bins all over town at all these pet stores Will we collect thousands and thousands of dollars worth of food when we donate them to Dogs Without Borders, which is a Mexican rescue And then they got in contact with that group and then they got in contact with us and we were on tv So it's like What do you put now in the world that people are going to admire? You know, if you're not putting something out in the world that people are going to admire They ain't going to want to hang out with you. There's not but if you are All of a sudden you're going to attract those people. It's just happens And I know that's kind of a technically thing, but it's true You know, I mean, I'm sure you're in the same situation. You're a successful guy I'm sure you have people contact you and say, hey, I want to hang out with you. I want to talk to you I want to ask you a question Before you achieved all that nobody was calling you Right, they didn't want to talk to john and sit somewhere But now they do because you become who they're looking for and I think that's it Uh, and I think a lot of people don't want to hear that because they're like, oh my god I gotta do work. Yeah. Yeah find somebody that's in shape. Guess what you got to be in the shape That's what they're looking for, right? And if you're not in shape, you're gonna find somebody who's not in shape mentally, physically, financially That's just the way it is. Yeah and I especially like, uh Both of your examples because you know on one you're You're obviously accomplishing something that's you know making money training people, you know You're they're making more money But your wife's example, it's almost, you know, she's she's making an impact But it's nothing to do with money, but it it's resulted in You know her being on tv and all this all these other opportunities that come from that so that I mean that's that's uh I mean, I I think that's a cool illustration of that it doesn't always have to be like, you know Oh, you were like the number one salesperson For the month in your company It's like if you're if you're just out there doing stuff making an impact that you know, they're the opportunities Will hunt you down eventually and and now now how The opportunity to start your Your your survival cave food company, which is very successful in selling, you know Can't you know canned foods and for all these different types of foods the last 20 years or more um Did that opportunity come come to you? Did you seek it out? And and did you and when when you came across it or it came across you or whatever? Did you know? You like how did you know to follow up on that because I'm sure all of us, you know All of us get you know, I I don't know it You know, whenever I log on to facebook I get like 10 different business opportunities. It's like star knee commerce business start a Start a ad agency business sell stuff on amazon. Hey, you know day, you know short Short sell stocks and make millions, you know sell real estate How did you know and and this this survival cave food company? How How did that opportunity come and we can't but the other thing is like we can't take every opportunity like I'd be going nuts. If like every person who sent Me a linkedin message said hey john, I hear you're a really good marketer. I'd love you to partner with us Or I'd love to advise advise my company or hey I'd love to pick your brain. I love that one. Oh, that's a good one It's got this horrible like zombie like connotation. Hey, I want to pick your brain. That's like, right Stay away, bro. No Hey, thanks for watching my video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and click that little bell right there So you can be notified every time I do a new video Also, click on one of those videos there. Keep watching on my channel