 what's up what's up everything good good man let's roll so why don't we tell everybody who are you man your background and everything quickly all right my name is Richard Cooper I guess I'm an entrepreneur all my life I got stuck in the middle of my life working for a corporation for a while which kind of sucked you want to do like the origin story like go right from the beginning sure man do this you know what I was I was I was always in business for myself I was always doing something shoveling driveways cut people's grass I had a paper route and even when I was doing the paper route I went out of source I would actually outsource a lot of the work to some friends of mine as well so I did that in high school I had a car detailing business I'm a car guy for those of you that don't know me I'm sure we'll throw a link afterwards but I have a YouTube channel for entrepreneurs and cars but I had a car detailing business it was a mobile one we'd go pick up cars from dealerships and detail them and then you know finish up school and even everybody told me to do which was get a job and work for corporation get your pension and all that bullshit and I hated it I did it for like 10 maybe 11 years I started out working at a friend's circuit work plan on a drill press and that's a shitty job so I look for something in office where I can you know dress smart wear a tie and slacks you know dress up a little bit and I found something and it was a collection agency and I had no idea how that works so I went for the interview that hired me basically a sales job you don't have to talk and did really well they promoted me I left the place a six-figure manager because well what I learned there was you get hired for your resume and your talent you get fired for fit I got in a big fight with my French Canadian boss was a bit of a ass you know we're cool today though but yeah and when packages were going out head office in the US gave him to me so I went home not a lot of money and I decided what I want to do us 30 years old it was I just moved into my first house had a big mortgage and I had no way to pay it I thought about doing was let's open up an indoor car track cuz I like fast shit economics and the finances that didn't make a lot of sense and the guy that was gonna finance it never did so sometimes fate falls in your lap for a reason you know what I'm saying I mean this is sort of thing that probably happens with you and I've seen you talk about in your videos too right without you got to be at the right place at the right time with the right experience yeah so I'm doing my taxes had my piddly ass package they gave me to when I walked you know when I walked away from that manager's job and the guy that was doing it was doing my taxes he goes look I'm just getting in a mortgage as you're working a collection agency rich he goes I got a guy that needs to pay off $50,000 of credit card debt but I can only get him a second mortgage for about $30,000 so he goes what do I do and he throws me the credit report I go you settle it basically you pick up the phone and you work out a deal between the creditor and the debtor to pay less than what's owed and it's something that I had done before many many times you know as a manager negotiating with the big banks and the credit card companies most people don't know that you can pay way less than what you owe I put a DIY debt settlement book out on Amazon that basically walks everybody through all the steps but most people don't know that you can pay way less than what you all mean right now here we are May 2016 we got Donald Trump talking about negotiating the federal debt yeah you can do it for your own personal debt anyway so he throws me the credit report back he goes good go do it in charge of fee so I did I made like $3,000 for I don't know it was maybe six hours total work over the course of a couple weeks I thought shit man this this this could work you know I you know I did the math and the multiples I'm like I could build a multi-million dollar business office mm-hmm you know the whole lifestyle thing I was really passionate about it I was really fed up with working with the banks and credit card companies so that's one of the tips I can give you you got to be fucking passionate about it don't even bother doing it if you're like you know I'm gonna go play some college about it for a minute but you had something key over here it wasn't just passion by itself you had actual skill set to go with that passion yeah you definitely have to be like I said the right place the right time with the right skills and the passion it's like for you and I we want to be passionate about like rockets yeah what the fuck do I know about rockets I can't make a business out of rockets they make a lot of noise and they fly far yeah so I did that and I you know I built this multi-million dollar business that was very innovative in Canada at the time nobody else did it other people started copying me it grew to about four four-and-a-half million dollars and what ended up happening was what I learned from that was we started taking money away from banks and credit card companies we're saving people so much money so after about 10 years we got on the radar screen and they started noticing what we were doing and they lobbied the government to change the legislation so that it would delay our fee and when we would get paid so I did a video not not long ago and you know you and I talked about blockchain and cryptocurrency one of the things that you and I talked about was you know if you're in a business or if you run a business model that threatens another bigger entity it's like you're this virus that's entered the body of this other entity and like any other virus the immune system will go and attack you and try to do something about you and that's essentially what happened about 10 to 12 years into the business so we had to restructure and reorganize a business a lot of the competitors that we had disappeared we managed to survive through some very clever restructuring and we still do that today I for the most part have pulled out of it and I make YouTube videos for entrepreneurs and cars basically giving people tips on being better in life with self-care with their business and all that sort of stuff and I'm lender I'm basically a lender so I invest in businesses and loan opportunities and things like that looking for coaching opportunities in a new business to create and building it up from there so that's what I'm up to today I'm in a I'm in a happy place where I've got passive income that's good and options options and the thing about money is it doesn't create lifestyle it doesn't create you know fancy shit big houses with 10 foot ceilings and all the toys and all that what it creates is options it allows you to say fuck you to people that you don't want to do business with people you don't want to spend time around it gives you the opportunity to just say no and there's nothing better than being able to say no to somebody if it does not align with your your core value you know with your systems with who you are and be able to walk away from it just walking with you know I've walked away from multi-million dollar deals just because they did not align with me because I don't want to get involved in that horseshit you know what's really funny when we first came to Canada this is where we live just over by the Plaza yeah the area is growing so much it's totally changed I used to fly kites in that park nice so anyway that's my origin story boys ladies and gentlemen that's a good story so rich let me ask you this man if you had to rewind everything and start from the get-go what are some things that you do differently I would do it sooner you know what I get a lot of comments that I see on my channel and people ask questions it's always from younger kids like how do I get started do I wait for the opportunity to fall in my lap you know how do you like just do shit that you like you know just stop doing shit that you hate and do shit that you really let you'll do for free okay it and then once you've done that long enough look for problems to solve in that space there's always somebody that's struggling with something you're doing something that you love go and find a way to make money off it and add value and if you don't at least you're doing shit that you like you'll learn that there's no way for you to make money at it let me give you a really good example I've always left cars and a friend of mine when I was in my 20s needed a pit crew for a race at Mossport which is a racetrack like an hour outside just east of Toronto and I volunteered you know I had time and I had knowledge and I had you know the ability to hop over a wall with a big gun in one hand over the tire hose and the tire in the other hand and put it on the car and there was there was a lot that happened that weekend for a day and a half I got paid nothing I put all of my time into going there and coming back only to be exposed to a race crew the entrepreneur that ran the race crew to see how people dealt with you know building these cars and recent the cars and where the money is and all this sort of thing and what I learned from it was I had a shitload of fun I had the experience but there's no way for me to make a business out of something like that with the skills that I had so what I'm saying is spend time doing shit that you love and try to find a way to turn it into a business and stop doing shit that you hate but you hit on something really important though is there's a time and place where you have to master the craft and go in there and add value into an entity or add value into a company yeah so most people they're coming from this like I deserve model just because you think you deserve something and you believe that all of a sudden you're gonna get this just because who you are right right as opposed to like the number one question you should be asking yourself is like who out there I can help like who's out there are there a company a person anybody that I can actually add value to their organization yeah yeah I mean if you can find ways to add value to somebody else's business or some other model out there just go and do it I mean every every success story that I've heard time and time again I mean okay let's talk about Tim Ferriss everybody knows that name right how the hell did he get started he started volunteering for nonprofits in the tech sector in the Bay Area in San Francisco it was you know it was a growing economy he didn't know people there he didn't know what to do what do you have no contacts he had no money but he had a lot of time he had a lot of energy to burn so he's he burned it volunteering his time and that's how he got exposure to all the amazing people that he wanted to Richard Koch talks about this in the star principle and the book 8020 he made about like 300 million dollars and it wasn't him starting his own company wasn't him starting anything new it just he had tremendous value when it comes to scaling businesses he was an angel investor so he found a star principle he calls it a rising company yeah he went in there and devoted all his life and career into that one business yeah the rest is history yeah absolutely I mean it's it's happened over and over again Zappos Tony Shay he didn't he didn't start up Zappos you know he was an investor and then he went through he went all in he went balls deep on the business it's your everything into it well Tesla as well yeah realize this but Elon Musk didn't start Tesla like these things two guys and start Tesla yeah and Elon Musk came around and the rest is history you know it's the most successful car company in the last ten years absolutely cool so is there anything else you want to add just start early and just do shit that you love stop doing shit that you hate I don't understand people that waste their time and their energy every fucking day life is so short as far as we know this is the only one that we get ladies and gentlemen it ends it ends and that's it you might as well do shit that you love to do and stop doing shit that you hate that's my message for today I love it so if people want to get your book or no more information about you where they can hit you up well you can find the book on Amazon just search for my name or DIY that settlement and the YouTube channels where all my good shit is it's my passion I do it for free I don't get paid for it obviously and there's like a hundred fifty hundred sixty videos on there on one entrepreneurial tips and just being better in life in general so go check it out subscribe there entrepreneurs right on with a little bonus clip over here because we're driving in Richard's BMW over here why don't you tell us a little bit about this beauty oh this was my success right so I bought this car in 2010 I don't I've always had fast cars right like I've always been a petrolhead always had fast cars like to go quickly I don't like I don't understand people to drive slow-ass boarding cars life's too short for me to drive something slow and boring I don't know 2009 M3 convertible fuse light mods to it and take an exhaust just open up the breathe and make it sound nice and a lot of fun you know I have no problems it is probably one of the most reliable and best cars that I've ever owned a BMW is a good company yeah and one of the fastest growing companies right now actually really stock yeah they're doing really well fantastic you're taking this on the track I have not taking this car on the track I took the hard top version on the track it was a competition package and it was a shit ton of fun it's a great car all right man awesome there you guys have it man go check out Richard adios