FreeMind Network: Unveiling The Grit
Meet the Founders of FreeMind Network: Building Community and Entrepreneurship - FreeMind Network Podcast
Join Nate and Johnny, the founders of the FreeMind Network, as they share their journey of building a community and fostering entrepreneurship. Discover their complementary skills, lessons from the corporate world, and their vision for the future. Perfect for aspiring entrepreneurs, community builders, and anyone interested in personal growth.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction and Background
02:00 Early Ventures
04:00 Complementary Skills
06:00 Building Trust
08:00 Lessons from Corporate World
10:00 Vision for the Future
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/freemind-network-unveiling-the-grit--5189978/support.
- Duration:
- 24m
- Broadcast on:
- 17 Aug 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
-You know my story, right? Rise the fame from the pain and glory, right? -Uh, right? -Little echo puttin' there. -Nice. -All right, Johnny, Calabunga, Johnny. -No control, this is our first time. -Yes, dude. -Absolutely, man. What do you think? -It's pretty cool. -It's a lot different than the basement in the pixelated with him. -Yeah, yeah. I think this is gonna be good. -A little more lighting, so maybe I'm not as scary as people. I don't know. Hopefully. Hopefully, yeah. All right, so, let's go, man. 30 days? How long? What was the date that we sat at that bar in Lancaster? 30 days ago, 45 days ago, and remember this better than I did. -Well, I wasn't drinking. -Yeah. -That's a good point. -That's a good point. -Yeah, I wasn't. -There's only two beers. You're fine. -Yeah, so, you started the podcast. I mean, officially, you started a day. Like, two years ago, the most three years ago. -Yeah. -With tradition, yeah. But you changed the format, I think, last, or this past winter. -Yeah, Q4, 2023, changed the format up, yeah. Got less cheesy, less formatted, it just got real raw. -So, that's when I started listening. And, you know, I wanted to listen to support you, but then I got hooked on it. So, I kept listening and listening, and then I thought, you know, I have some ideas. So, we were sharing ideas back and forth like we always do. And the more and more I thought about it, I was like, "I'm going to be a part of this. I think we can elevate this. I think this is something. I think we have something here." And, with my tech background and everything, I have all kinds of ideas on how to optimize things and all that. So, that got me excited. And then, like you said, we were at a bar one day talking about it. And you're like, "Are we doing this?" -With this book right here, I wrote it down, 60/40. I was like, "I think we're doing this." So, then I do remember coming home and telling staff, my wife. So, Nate and I were starting to cry. And, you know, she like, she wasn't surprised. I mean, you know, we've been like flirting with the idea for years, almost 20 years. -Yeah. -Pretty much since we met. -And we have worked together at some level. -Yeah, you went to Colorado with me, went to a great American rear fest in New Belgium. And then we did all the, that was when I was doing the media work back then too. So, we went, we were hauling the cameras around all the cameras. Even though we never shot anything. We did all the equipment in Colorado, we just didn't shoot. -Yeah. And the first, if I remember, right, the very first business partnership we made was the St. Patrick's Day Party in college. -Yeah, that would probably be the first venture, the transactional thing. Yeah, we're out of tangible dollars and get out of the cash. -Yeah, we were tasked with raising money for the rugby team. And, uh, a party just made. -You had no sense. -And to date people, that would be like 2006, 2005, 2006. -That went down to 2006. -So, almost 20 years ago. -Yeah. -And we, we knew car bombs were the murder maker. -So... -And Joe shot. -Yeah. -Joe shot. -Yeah. So, we didn't, we only got like one or two Ks. -Yeah. -I think we got one K. And then... -Yeah. -We were, Nate and I were selling car bombs on the second floor of the house. -It was one of the only times I took my arm out looking at shopping spree and just held out for all the vodka and plastic bottles that one experience had. -Yeah. And I just, I just remember, I blinked and there was just cash all over the bed behind the wall. So, like, that was the first time I, I remember like, not only partnering up with you, but really joining. -Yeah. -I know it was a party in college, but, you know. -Yeah, but it was organized. -True. -Yeah. -It was organized chaos. And that's what people forget. And when you look back at things like that, you're like, "Oh, that was the first time we learned how to work together." And you don't remember like, regardless of if it's a party or if it's a PTA meeting or if it's like a soccer league match, the act of just working together and collaborating and trusting each other. -Yeah. -That's what it was. And realizing that like, I know how to make money, but I might as well just throw it behind me and give it to you. -Right. -And that's when otherwise it's lost and burned. And so that pretty much worked out really well. And that we should have saw that a long time ago. -Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing we quickly realized over the past month or two is we, our skills complement each other so well. -Mm-hmm. -And worry about our jobs, our tasks, and trust each other, which is awesome. I mean, like, you know, I can make updates to the YouTube channel. I feel like I don't have to run it by you. -Right. -But I typically do all the time. -Well, when you got to spell my name right, you know? -Yeah. -Yeah. -Yeah. You've been asking me for friends' addresses since 2010. -I've been staying with you. You still have to ask your address when driving down the road in your car. -I want your personal yellow pages or whatever. -In my defense, it was because I was changing lots of phone numbers and phones. So it wasn't saving and transferring it. -Yeah. -Yeah. -I could help you with that. -That was before I knew what you did. I thought you just turned on the Internet. -Yeah. That's another funny thing. It's like, we never really, you know, what we all do. Yeah. -We have to be very critical friends and we're all, like, all the really great careers. Oh, I wanted to bring up, like, not to bring up parties again. What we were talking about this recently about how I was joking. Like, most people get drunk and they drunk text their girlfriend or boyfriend. Nate gets drunk and he starts businesses. So he starts registering LLCs and websites. -I did. I did keep GoDaddy in business for 20 years. -Yeah. -Yeah. -Yeah, Patrick has made a fact that it's going to go ahead. -Yeah. It's the point where you said you even made money on some of the domains you purchased. Which is awesome. But when we hooked up and you sent me to listen to me, I was like, whoa. If you saw the time stamp, so when they were purchased, it would make sense. -Yeah. -Yeah. -Now, that's a really good, funny point. Like, I look back at, like, some of those things and some people would look at, like, certain things in my life as huge mistakes. And I remember you with certain things in my life that then some of them were beautiful mistakes. That really led to, even mistakes that I looked back at. I was like, well, I lost money or I didn't lose money or I made money. But it's also like, what was the experience like? -Yeah. -And I think that, like, when I look back and think about what you're saying, like, I looked back at, like, the pretzel company I worked with. It was like, that deal was, was many happy hours. Many late nights at a bar and then it came out of a cocktail. Literally, like, a cocktail napkin is how we built the business plan. And now it's a, like, it's a nationally distributed, like, they produce in the morning, they ship out. And it's, like, amazing to see certain things that, like, come from different prohibitions. And, like, they were already established when I came in for a year. But it was awesome to, like, come in and, like, talk about wholesale, talk about distribution and expand their mind from, like, just being a retail shop in a town like York, Pennsylvania, to now being a nationally distributed product. It's sold to a sellout on QVC now. So, like, he goes out on QVC and pitches their stuff and sells out in one session. And, like, I look back at, like, that and I'm like, you know, but there's other ones that we've done, like, same group of people we did, like, we tried to do a snack distribution under capitalized and bombed in, like, six months. You know what I mean? Like, same group of, like, so what I'm saying is, like, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes, well, a lot of people don't even try. That's it. And to go in a little more in my background. So we both graduated from drugs all around the same time. Maybe you went off in the beer world and never did the street. Not professionally as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I went to work for a large financial firm and I climbed the ladder over 16 years there. But I was really unhappy with the corporate world, the corporate structure, and it literally made me sick. So I, over the past two to three years, I've been, like, really changing my mindset. I left my job after 16 years, which, you know, I never thought I would leave at this age. But I'm happy I did because as soon as I left, it was, like, a million doors just open for me. And I've met so many great people since I've, like, joined the artist community nearby, the corner, are collective in Westchester here. They've been so great. I met so many great people. But one thing that I think is most interesting is I always thought I hated networking. I hated doing it in the office. I understand why you needed to do it or why, you know, it made sense. But I hated it. And I thought I just hated networking. And then I joined the corner gallery. And now I'm networking, like, left and right. We started with this podcast. You're walking down the street, you're increasing yourself a straight drink. I'm completely, I don't want to say I'm a completely different person on myself. Like, I'm more on myself. And you know that because you've seen me in all versions of myself. Like, maybe the one you haven't seen is corporate John. That's why I haven't seen it. I get to see it now in a comfortable corporate John scenario where you take all the greatest things that you learned in the corporate world and cut out all the bullshit fuckery. Yeah. And, like, now, but you're teaching me so much, like, from a structure standpoint. Because I've been alone for 20 years, like, figuring it out by myself. Wearing all the hats, doing my own books, like, doing my own market, doing my own stuff on sales. And now, like, learn, like, the systematic process of organizing things. Yeah. My production system through the roof, that's because of what you're teaching me. Whether you're intentional or not. Yeah. Whether you're intentional or not, you know. And we push each other. That's the thing. We both have, like, what we said, stronger work ethics. Yeah. We come from, like, I don't want to say a similar background, but there's a lot of similarities. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot, there's a lot of, in UNI's lives, in another episode, in another episode, we can, we can dive really deep into it. But I think, like, just as, like, a peep behind the curtain, I think, there's a lot of, even as we were younger, there was a lot of solo type of things that were going on. You know what I mean? Like, we were on our own. Yeah. And we were team. And also, we were required to manage and construct social situations at a very young age. And, and handling adults. Had a tradition. It was something. Yeah. Both. Always value. Yeah. On the oldest of three, and my, both of my parents are deaf. So I had a lot of responsibilities at a very young age. I was basically their personal interpreter everywhere they went. It could be doctor's appointments. It could be teacher meetings. It could be social events. Social events. I, I can remember times where my friends are playing. And I'm over here interpreting between my mom and their, or my dad and your parents. So, like, these, those are things that, you know, I, I didn't think much of growing up because like, that was my life. It just, this is how I know it. I'm not, we'll talk about like the, the bad that came out of that. But there's a lot of good that came out of that too. In fact, I realized like when I, you know, I, I've known a lot of this stuff over the age. You've heard me talk about finance so much. And you've heard me a lot of times just like, just start to spout and financial education amongst our friends and try to make it a more public conversation because it's so like. Well, you heard the other day, you were so shocked that I naturally said, "Good, dead, dead." And you almost fell out of your chair. Like, what do you, what do you, I'm like, I'm mostly working. Yeah, there you go. There you go. So, um, and then studying that and being part of a financial firm helped me get, you know, closer access to that kind of information and education. So that was really helpful. But all those years I spent interpreting for my parents, doing all these little jobs for them and their friends really gave me all the skills I needed to live in this world and work in this world. I actually think I got a better education doing that than going to college. Um, not, my drugs was great. I love my time there and I'm really happy about a degree there. They really, they catapulted me into that firm. They have their own resume system that companies are connected to. I didn't even apply. They picked me out of the resume system. As you can see, I think it was called. Yeah. Their system rejected me though. I had to go do my own stuff. Simple little jealous while I hear you like talk about how come out of that process. Yeah, I remember. Doc, I much loved Jaxle though, but didn't work out that way. Yeah, I, I remember, um, I went into senior year. I had like a two point nine. There's something, it was under three. Yeah. And I remember reading or somebody told me that like all, a lot of these companies, they won't even look at you. Yes. You have a three. Yeah. So that really stressed me out. That was my issue. Yeah. To the point where I maxed out every semester in my senior year so that I could make sure I could bring my GPA off. Right. Because, you know, by the time you're a senior, it's really hard to change. Think about that. Think about that stress. You put yourself in at that age. You had form to the system when really you could have like what I did was I said fuck it. And I went and started co-calling businesses. Yeah. And it's like, and then I ended up like because it just, they were just like, it was so rigid in that sense. And like, think about that. All that stress you added in all the, the end of your career, the end of your college career to adapt to a system that should have been more flexible in understanding of what the world is. Like, yeah. Because it's really, let's be honest. Like, so you're, you're a college where everybody comes here to go to college and go get placed in their careers, but you have to achieve a three point O to get that. So, you know, why isn't that also, so what we're all paying the same tuition. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Yeah. I know. I mean, I think, well, one of the reasons we started this podcast, right, is because of that whole, the job interview, the resume system, the recruiting system is so antiquated. No. And a lot, and now with AI, we've talked about that both good and bad. People are having a really hard time just getting through the company because AI is rejecting their resume based on some kind of filter they have. So. Yeah. We were talking about this the other day, like from, like, last couple months in between a certain job things I was doing, I applied to 300 jobs and didn't get any of them. And I was either overqualified or matched or whatever. I was nothing was a reach. Yeah. I didn't even get an interview or anything like that. And I was getting messages in four minutes, five minutes. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And I realized that's when you pointed out it was like, AI is popping keywords. They're taking vice president out of all your resume. Yeah. They're taking owner. They're taking founder and all those keywords. And they're going, we don't want to deal with that because that person thinks for himself. Right. Yeah. What, what instead, or one of the things that should be happening is they should be using AI to analyze your history, your resume, your accomplishments and pick out where you would be a good fit on the other side. And then match you guys, not, not this, you get 600 resumes. And then you hit the AI button. Okay. Now we got 10 resumes. It's like, you might have just lost some goal. Well, it's also like the thing where you and I, like we sometimes will differ in like the way I kind of run the things and then the way that you do things from a system basis. And I'm never against systems. I'm against the lens that this put on system sometimes. Yeah. And when you put that lens on there, like you're saying, and the fact that that's how simple is that? Like again, it's like, we don't need to be so rigid. It's like, we could have this path. And then yeah, you could be that for that, whatever. But you also need to see what you're missing. Yeah. It's like that I never took this test, but I don't know if they still do it. But this is a test when you're kidding. Myers-Briggs. Is that like where they tell you what jobs you would be good for? Yeah. It was like, Myers-Briggs was like a letter thing. And then they would tie you to a letter. And that was how you got labeled. And it was like, there was one. Yeah. I kind of remember one where they actually listed positions. That would be good. Oh, and we were like, oh, yeah, I remember that. It was probably like middle school. Yeah. So this is like '97 to '99. Yeah. So that's a very manual way. Yeah. What I'm talking about is just taking that concept and cooperating with AI. Yeah. And then I think you'd increase a lot of matches. So AI is a touchy subject, but I have an optimistic view. I think we share the same view actually. That AI is here and meant to take those mundane tasks, most of us, free up more time. So we have more time together as humans in a human connection. And I think if we focus that way, I think it could be really great for us. Yeah. It's that. And so it's the problem. The problem is our society, American world, with hard workers. And it's always like work, work, work, work, work. So we'll fill that time. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's the thing. It's the same, like the internet was supposed to free us of it from a lot of stuff. But it, we just worked harder and faster. And that would change the way. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So like, you know, it's always just going to make us work harder and faster in some other area. Yeah. So we're like, we're talking about AI. Like, I've been getting ready for today, like to have this conversation. Like, I've just been mentally getting ready for today and like being very reflective. And I think of like when I first, when we were at Drexel 2008, I founded free mind LLC. And it originally was supposed to be called ESC. And it was because at that time, now we're talking about AI. Yeah, yeah. Because we were talking about, we're talking right now, technology is like taking us over. I felt that way then and the business was starting because I wanted to get people out of the house off of Facebook because we're in the first four years of Facebook at that point. And we were in the college where we had the college and it was, people were kind of obsessed. And it was like, hot or not.com. It was Facebook. It was like DU parties, Philly tonight. It was all these things that were showing people to get outside with the logo it was supposed to be. It was because I hated networking events. It was so formulaic and so scripted and so it was like speed dating. It was like just idiotic stuff at that time in Philadelphia. And what I wanted to do was create ESC and it was the logo was an escape button on the keyboard. And that was the logo and it was called Experience Social Connections. Oh, I like that. And that was what before I called it free mind. That's what it was going to be called on piece of paper. Because my buddy Alex Labovich from high school that was like, we were like, oh, let's do this. And he was in Colorado and I was there and we were like, we could do, we were trying to come up with ideas. Like Mark Cuban was just coming out with all the like live streaming and all that stuff. So like, we're like, we could live stream coast. We were thinking this way. Where we're like, we could coast to coast like Colorado to Philadelphia and do networking with screens and all kinds of stuff. And we just, the technology wasn't there at that time. But our brains were thinking that way. That happens a lot to us, right? Yeah, I think about like what an evolution is like when I was booking bands and doing all this stuff. And it was like, everything's been about all the crazy shit I've done, mistakes and successes. It's all been about connecting people. Yeah. And that's what like only in the past couple of months that like you and I working through these systems that allowed me to be more reflective. Because I'm not, I'm able to be more strategic. You're also good at bringing talented people like giving them. I love finding, I love going to open mics. I love tonight. I'm going to a comedy show like it down at Barnaby's in Westchester just to like start to meet other people. Like I, and I'm the fact of in this podcast like being reflective about right now. Like nobody understands how viscerally excited I am every time I hop on a meet a new person. And it's like, it's just like, that's what fucking gets me up in the morning. Yeah, well, I mean, the stories are so different, so interesting. And like one of the reasons I wanted to do this is to show people that it can be done. You can leave your corporate job. Yeah. The skills that you have. So for instance, like I realize I got all these skills and they weren't even used at Vanguard at all. Yeah. So now I get to use every single one of them to tap into them when I need to. And I like the sounds a little weird, but like sometimes I feel like a super human. Like I can shift, you know, I can design custom baseball cards. And then we're finding our SEO for our YouTube channel, then painting. Then I'm drawing my sketch cards. Then I'm designing my trading. Most people look at that as so exhausting, but you're so efficient about it. Like you're two hours. Like I said this before, like you're two hours is like somebody else's eight. Like it really is. Yeah, like maybe. Yeah. I mean, my brain is always going. I always say I have an overactive brain. Yeah. Someone. So someone said to me once, I think you like to think. Mm-hmm. And that was a different way of looking at it. Because I used to always be like shut it down. Shut off. I want to go to sleep. I want to relax. Just shut it down. And when that, when I was reframed that way, I was like this is actually a bonus. It's just like power. It's overwhelming at first. It can be. Yeah. Because like when I first stopped, when I first quit drinking for real, for real. Not like, not like trying for the past few years, but like really got into it. That was the hardest part because I realized I was using that to numb my brain and calm myself. Yeah. So like, dude, fucking lane of bed at night was sober. Like, oh my god. It's like, that's, you know, posted notes or all the walls and I'm like writing in my book. It's like, I'm just like, now that it's like my brain's clear, it's like trying to filter things out. And now, like, we talked about this yesterday. It's like, it's so many ideas are coming out. Like, I can't wait to just start handing them out. I'm just being like, people, here it is. Just execute, execute. I don't want anything from it. Just execute. Yeah. I do really think that we have some great ideas and you're right, we can't execute all of them. Yeah. Or executing what we like to focus on. But these ideas, yeah, we'd love to share them. We'll probably share some of our brainstorming sessions. If you're an aspiring entrepreneur, one that's looking to expand, contact the free mind network today. And we'll help you scale. We'll help you start. We're going to be there for you in your quarter.