My Opioid Addiction Led to a $60 Million/Year Company

Sean Weisbrot: Can you pay your own bills yet? No. Can you pay your debt off? No. Well, why the hell are you thinking about anybody else? Like, sure, it's okay to have it in your goals, but like if your parents are demanding, you give them a thousand dollars a month, but you can't pay your debt off. You have to tell your parents, I'm sorry, I would love to give you money, but I need to be able to do this, this, this, and this first, especially in Asia, was a huge, big. It was a big deal because a lot of Asian families really like, require you to give them some of their salary because they invested their early days of their life into you. And so now that they're in their retirement years, they expect you to give back. And for Asians it's like, it's not even a question, you just do it even if it's to your own detriment.

Sean Weisbrot: And so many, many, many times in Asia, I had to go Look, I, I get it. Like, I wanna help my parents too, but you just gotta like figure your own stuff out first. You know? And then you can help them. Nobody had ever told them that before because everyone else around them was Asian. And so they would go, yeah, you need to, you know, give your parents money. Everyone reinforced that social stereotype or that social requirement. But it wasn't until someone who wasn't from their culture, who had a different perspective came into their life and, and cared about them enough to be like, look like I get it. And you're not wrong. They're not wrong and it's fine to help them, but like you're doing it at the wrong time. Jeff Seconder is the founder and CEO of Nerp, a company that's making algorithmic trading technology accessible to retail traders. In this conversation, we talk about his addiction to opioids in the past and the things that he went through. In the process of realizing that he'd become addicted and separating himself from his family and his friends to hide the pain that he was going through, as well as how he realized he needed to get rid of it and move beyond, and the tragedy that he saw before him in the wake of that and. So much more. If you like founder's journeys, if you like to hear people overcoming suffering, this is an episode for you. In it, I also share my problems with caffeine and sugar and a little bit about my past weed, uh, habit that I kicked years ago. How long did it take for you to realize that you had become addicted to opioids?

Jeff Sekinger: Uh, well, it was relatively quick. I would say probably. Within a, within a year I knew that I was, I had a physical addiction because you can feel the physical symptoms and then that problem just slowly progressed. So it was, it was relatively quick at the beginning.

Sean Weisbrot: How did it start?

Jeff Sekinger: Well, I first started originally, you know, in high. I went into high school thinking, Hey, like, you know, drugs are bad, never going to use them. And then I started to hang out with a crowd that was. Using just, you know, basic, you're smoking weed every once in a while and things like that. And then that slowly evolved into harder, uh, drugs. So there was, it was a little bit of experimentation at the beginning, I would say freshman into sophomore and in high school. And then I got injured when it really got bad is when I got injured in football, uh, senior year. And I got prescribed Percocet and muscle relaxers. I like tore all the muscles in my ribs. I was chasing the receiver. I tripped over his legs, put my hand out, and it like stretched my whole side of my body and it tore all the muscles here and those dried with blood. And it hurt every time that I, you know, breathed or moved in really any direction. So they prescribed me, uh, Percocet. I was on that for just over a month. And then when that ran out, it was like, okay, well that actually made me feel a lot better. And I realized that the thing that you'll, you'll realize when you're gonna be in trouble. From opiates is when it actually gives you energy. So it, it actually gave me a bit more energy to, and, and, uh, drive to want to do more things, like lift more weights and work on things. And, uh, from what I hear, that's a sign that it's, it's likely gonna be a problem. So once I ran out as slowly, you know, continued to use, and then it just got into worse and worse. Categories of opioids. And, uh, it got to the point, you know, that was what, six years later when I had to go into rehab in, uh, 2018.

Sean Weisbrot: How did it affect your daily life?

Jeff Sekinger: Well, the, the, the amazing thing is I actually went through life pretty normal from the outside, from the inside. It was not an easy thing to deal with whatsoever. I mean. Just for me to operate as a normal human, I had to be using some type of of opioids. So like whether I was on and off of what the doctors were prescribing. Because once I got into college, I realized I gotta stop. Like I, you know, the first two years was like, okay, this is kind of fun, but a little bit annoying. And then the last four years I was actively trying to stop practically every day. So I was seeing doctors, I was reading books, I was educating myself online, trying to get around people that could potentially help. Uh, but I didn't wanna be labeled as like the black sheep in my family or be like that type of person. I never envisioned myself having any type of problem, any, anything relatively close to what, what happened. Uh, so, so yeah, it took the last four years, it, it just slowly, slowly evolved into a worse and worse problem. And then it got to the point where I couldn't even, couldn't even function. I, I had no more sick days. I. I was over 60 grand in debt at the time, so my back was against the wall. I had no, no other direction, but to go into rehab and then use that as a place for me to reset and change my life.

Sean Weisbrot: Something similar happened to my dad, although it wasn't from, uh, college sports. He was, uh, in his fifties and he was a dentist and he had pain daily in his neck and his hands from having to sit like this for hours and hours, you know, just looking into people's mouths and, and in tiny spaces. And, um, you know, over time the opioids became. Easier for him to take because it made hi, it possible for him to continue doing his job and mm-hmm. We could see him taking the opioids. 'cause some, he had this lollipop that he would suck on and it was something that would probably kill me if I were to try it, like from having no experience with opioids. And he was, he sucked down several of those a day, so he was very heavily on them for. Hmm. For years you said that internally you were a mess and you tried to keep it together. Personally, did people realize in your life that this was a problem or were you hiding it from them? My dad didn't even hide it, but I. Did you, did you have to hide it or did you try to hide it? Uh, what was your relationship with other people? How did opioids change that?

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah, I mean, I, I isolated the, the heck outta myself because I didn't want to, I was trying to limit the amount of people that ever got involved in it because I knew that it was bad. I, I didn't enjoy doing it whatsoever, but I had to just to keep, you know, feeling normal and to be able to operate and continue to study in college and pass tests. Like I went through college and I. A lot of my friends, they tried to major in finance and things and they had to bump down to communications and, and different, uh, majors just to get through college. Meanwhile, I'm like heavily, you know, addicted and I'm still on top of my game, uh, still getting, I, I think I graduated college with like a three, two, but, so that's what I'm saying. From the outside it looked like I was okay because I was passing, I was. Getting through college, I was still working, uh, you know, in type like the last year I was driving my Nissan Ultima to pick up hundreds of shoes from discount outlet malls and then selling them on Amazon. And I was like climbing up the stairs of this like frat house with like all these shoes and they're like falling down and people are partying downstairs. So I'm like the dude that's still working, trying to hustle and get after the money and everyone was, you know, partying and not taking things too seriously. So for like from the outside I looked. Looked decent, but from the inside I just really hated myself because if you can imagine trying to do something that is like pretty much a life or death type of thing and you're trying to stop that life or death or that you know deathly thing and you're trying to do that hundreds of times and you keep failing over and over and over again, you just absolutely wreck your self-esteem. I just felt like very hopeless and helpless, and I didn't want to tell anyone because again, I didn't want to be the black sheep in my, you know, family. I come from a pretty good, uh, family and, and, uh, I also didn't want, you know, my friends, family, peers to think that I was unsuccessful or I was a screw up. Uh, I just didn't, I was just really worried about that, those types of, of labels. And, and more importantly, I just really hated myself from, you know, giving up on trying to quit so many times. So I had a really low self-esteem to the point where like I didn't, you know, speaking in front of other people was like nerve wracking. And, um, I, I, I, you know, couldn't really focus on anything except for just trying to pass school. I stopped working out, which I worked out for since I was 13. Um, so I had just terrible habits and I would always hit these, like even when I was running the, the businesses on. On Amazon and different entrepreneurial things that I, I worked on, I would always have a little bit of success and I would plateau. Then I would come back down, I'd have a little bit more success plateau and then come back down. And it's because I had a, a terrible foundation with, you know, my beliefs, thoughts, words, actions, and habits that were all just completely inconsistent because of my problem. And then once I got rid of the problem, everything skyrocketed because I was trying so hard on personal development, reading, self-help books, people didn't even know what was going on. But in college they're like, what's wrong with you? Why are you reading self-help books? And I'm like, secretly, I wanna like tell you. But at the same time, I just actually enjoy like working on myself trying to improve. And then once I got off of the actual problem, got off of drugs, then everything. Like catapulted, because I've been working on myself for so long and I finally got over that issue where I could have empowering beliefs and thoughts and, and consistent actions and habits that put me into the place that I'm at today.

Sean Weisbrot: So I, I can't compare my experience. I, I can't, I don't wanna discount your experience with my experience, but I feel like my journey with sugar, I. Caffeine has been similar it in that they have affected my sleep, they have affected my self-esteem because I've gained a lot of weight. It's affected a lot of things in my life. Um, even though I can function normally, I. Obviously because it's, they are an addiction, but they are, it's different. You can go, I'm gonna quit coffee and after a few days you're fine. Um, if you are willing to stick it out, sugar is a little bit harder. I've struggled to quit both of them for years, and I failed many, many, many times and it has definitely affected my self-esteem. It's something that I'm able to talk about with people. But they're like, you keep talking about it, but like, why don't you just do it? And I'm like, you don't realize, I, I do. Like, I, I was at a point where I, I was taking one espresso a day and I said, I'm gonna quit. Well, guess what happened? I ended up drinking a second espresso a day. I. Then I've been addicted to two espressos off and on going between one and two for the last year or so. I've recently, four days ago I quit my fourth, uh, my second cup. So now I'm back to one and I, I feel better. I'm sleeping better. It's like, okay, I'm gonna do it this time. I'm gonna give up coffee. And it's just a matter of follow through, but it's hard. It's really hard. Same with sugar. I went two months without sugar because a friend challenged me and as soon as the challenge was over. I went right back to just devouring sugar, but I, I did it because someone challenged me. But when I'm not being challenged anymore, all now, it's okay. Now I can go back to it. So like, it's, it's hard because you can say no for, for this at least, but it's still a struggle. So I've been off sugar almost two weeks now. And so after I got off the sugar for about a week, I said, okay, I'm getting rid of the second cup of coffee. And after that, okay, after a few more days, I'm gonna get rid of the first cup of coffee and oh, I'm gonna start working out again. 'cause I used to go to the gym six days a week. It's been over a year more since I haven't really worked out 'cause I got injured from yoga last summer. Um, so these things kind of compound. It's like, oh, well I got in your situation. I got hurt, so now I'm not gonna work out. But I, but I kept eating as if I was working out. And so I gained weight, which affected my, uh, self-esteem. And I was eating sugar and I was having the coffee, and I wasn't sleeping well, and I was stressed from work. And, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make these changes, but I'm addicted to these things and it's hard. It's like, it, it's a freaking loop. Um. It's, it's hard. Uh, I can't, and I was a, again, I can't really say I was addicted to weed because weed is much more of a habit than an addiction. You can just quit it. And, and I did, but I was on it for 12 years and I, I felt like I needed weed to, uh, be normal. I felt like, oh, you know, if I smoke this, then the massage is gonna feel better. Or the swim, you know, the water is gonna feel better against my skin as I'm swimming. Or, you know, if I'm gonna go watch a movie, the movie's gonna be funnier. Um, and, and that, as you said, when, when you feel like this thing gives you energy that it's a problem. I realized when I smoked because I was expecting it to enhance my experience of life, that I was like, oh, damn, this is a problem. Yeah. I need to stop. Um, and then it still took me a few more years to finally get off weed. So I, yeah, you only

Jeff Sekinger: when the, when the pain of staying the same exceeds the pain of change.

Sean Weisbrot: And, and part of the pain for me is I'm approaching 40. And, you know, I've been divorced for a few years now, and even though I've never really drank alcohol and never really smoked cigarettes, I, I look quite young. My skin looks really good, but I don't feel that great inside. I mean, uh, emotionally, psychologically, like I'm, I'm very, uh, strong, but also, uh. I feel self-conscious a lot more now than when I was younger because of my weight. When I was younger, I was very thin, um, and I was very handsome and I, you could see my jawline and I was very proud of those things because it was, uh, attractive and, and I got a lot of attention from women. And as I've gotten older that attention has waned significantly and it's like, fuck, I just need to lose weight. I just need to get my stuff together. Otherwise, in that regard, I mean business wise is fine, but, um. But yeah, it's this physical stuff that, uh, really weighs down on people's psyche.

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah. Yep. And like you said, it's, it's the, the, it's the compounding effect. One little thing, you slip up in one little area, you slow down the momentum in whatever area, life, business, relationships, whatever you're trying to focus on. And then you can slowly, things can start to compound against you. That's exactly what happened to me. I, I was slipping up on, on, uh, you know, my, my daily habits and working out and diet and using drugs and all those things, and I slowly just let compound interest just compound against me to the point where I hit my rock bottom and then the pain of change did, uh, did not, uh, ex exceed the pain of, of staying the same. So that once it actually had, I had so much pain in my life that I'm like, look, I don't care what it takes. I'm just gonna change. I just dramatically, I changed my phone number, I changed all the clothes I was wearing. I moved outta the place that I was in. Uh, I changed all my, my friends. I stopped listening to people that I thought, you know, gave good advice and started listening to people that actually had what I wanted. And then I slowly just reworked all my beliefs and thoughts, and then that transitioned into my actual reality. So typically,

Sean Weisbrot: what was that exact moment where you said, damnit, all right, let's do this.

Jeff Sekinger: Uh, I went into my, my mom actually at this point in time, obviously, she, I mean, I, I fell asleep, but wrecked my car and, uh, it was as pale as a ghost and like 20 pounds underweight and people could really tell that something was wrong. So my mom found a place called Cornerstone of Recovery, which they had an intensive outpatient, uh, place in Columbus, Ohio, which I went into and I got an assessment done. The three days before the assessment, I took like this medicine, um, that the doctors prescribed me. And if you take it too soon after you take opiates, you go into something called pre precipitated withdrawal, which where it condenses all the withdrawals into like a week's period of time. So I couldn't even like, swallow my own saliva without throwing up stomach acid. Like I, let alone drink water or do anything else. So I'm laying in the bed. Um, you know, feeling absolutely horrendous for three days. And then I'm, so I'm sleeping in the basement of my dad's house. The basement floods 'cause we're out in the country and there's like, we're on well water and the whole basement floods and I'm literally, I've gotta move out of the basement and go upstairs, like on the second day of going through all this stuff. Then I went into the, the intensive outpatient to get a, an assessment done. They talked to me for like two hours and I was just, felt like death the whole time. Like, yeah, you're definitely way too bad to come into IOP, which is the outpatient, you have to go to inpatient. And then, uh, you know, I walked out of there and I was trying to go to work 'cause I had no more sick days. And I thank God I didn't go in because I looked terrible. But right when I left, my dad called and he said, Hey. What'd they say? They're like, I'm like, I gotta go to this place in Tennessee. He is like, well, what do you think I do you think now don't you think now's the time? And I'm like, yeah, I, I have no other option. Let's just go. So I was on a plane the next day, uh, to Knoxville, and then I went and that's all I needed. Like I, I just wanted an opportunity to be able to get off of that stuff for 30 days, start to try to feel somewhat normal. I mean, it took several months for me to actually start to feel normal. Um, probably six months, to be honest. But, uh, but yeah, then I, I, I use that opportunity just as a place for me to just flip the script and really focus instead of dis destroying my life with all of the, the terrible habits and actions that I had, and then transition that into being obsessed around success and personal development. And, um, and now I just, you know, I've transitioned that, all that energy that I put over there, I just transitioned it into a positive thing and now everything's gotten. Uh, I mean, I exponentially better, I can't even describe how much better my life is now.

Sean Weisbrot: So you said the first six months of recovery were hard. What kept you going on that path and prevented you from using again after rehab was over?

Jeff Sekinger: Well, I mean, I saw many people saw four friends die from. That same thing in high that I, you know, went through high school with. So I saw that. And then when I got outta rehab, my, uh, my cousin was in a different rehab. This was probably the cousin that I was, you know, closest growing up to, uh, when I was growing up. And he got outta rehab, like, I don't know, five days after me. And then he unfortunately went the other route and used again and overdose and died. So, and that was like two weeks after I got out of, uh, rehab. And then I was like, I remember, you know, vividly I'm in the car. I just like, this is one of the first time, you know, the, probably the second week outta, outta rehab, uh, I got pulled over because I was going like seven miles an hour over the speed limit. They let, let me off, but then af after he was leaving. Um, I got a call from like the old dealer that I used to talk to, and this is when I was like, okay, I gotta, I gotta get far away from these people. 'cause I'm like in a vulnerable state at that point. And they call me and they're like, Hey Jeff, we're ready. Come meet us. I'm like, no. Hung hang up on 'em. They call, I blocked that number. They called me from another number, blocked that number. Call me from another number, block that number. And then I'm like, okay. So I'm like about to pull off of the street and I'm like. If I see a kind of T in the road, this is just me visually thinking like, okay, I can go this way where I know many people that are in jail are dead. Or I can go this way and start to change my, you know, obsession of this problem that I have and do an obsession around success and, and health and uh, and just, you know, having impact on people and. I decided to take the high road and say, screw all that, and I changed my number and I just, you know, heavily, I just got absolutely obsessed with bettering myself. So that was the, that was really the, the point where it was like, 'cause like I, I was in involved, you know, I wasn't on anything and it took about probably like a month and a half for the physical symptoms to subside. And then the next, you know, like four months it was. You know, four, five months, uh, just mental, you know, stuff. Getting my brain back to normal from many, many years of on and off, these things. So that, that was really the transitional point. And it, I, you know, I looked up to people, love him, hate him, whatever, it doesn't matter. But I got some inspiration from Grant Cardone because he got outta rehab the same, at the same age that I did. I was a little bit earlier than he was. I think he got out at 25, but he had just, you know, pretty, pretty much. Destroyed his life. Then he is like, did the same exact thing, transitioned from Obsessive of Destruction over here into obsessive around success. And now he, you know, has a life that he enjoys and is obviously very wealthy and has probably had some, some pretty decent impact on a lot of people. But he gave me that inspiration so I'm like, look, I can go do what he did, or I can go this route and I'm probably going to die. I just, I just, in that moment, I just decided like, no way am I going back.

Sean Weisbrot: I heard that a lot of people in the States have died from opioid abuse, overdose, and there was a number of like a hundred thousand, I think in 2022 or 2023, but I've never known anyone that's actually died from it, so it's never. Hit me personally, but it's always been a number that kind of sticks in my mind, especially knowing that the Chinese government is directly responsible for flooding the US with these medications and they actively, uh, pro provide rebates to Chinese manufacturers that produce these drugs and get them in the hands of Western companies that then lobby for them to be available and push doctors to promote them and the entire. Thing is really awful. And for you to have to go through five people possibly more dying from it, uh, I'm sure was very impactful for you. And I'm sorry that you had to go through that, but I guess also it was a lesson that was really important for you that unfortunately you had to learn through the. The loss of other people, did that teach you something else besides, I need to just change my life?

Jeff Sekinger: I mean, it taught me that, look, I can learn from everyone. I can learn what not to do from some people, and I can learn what to do from some people. And my problem was I was, I was listening to everyone. About what their opinion was, of what I should do or what success was, or you know, if I should use this thing or not use this thing. And I realized that I was people pleasing my whole life because I was trying to please everyone's opinions of what they thought about life and their worldview and what they thought I should do. And then I realized I need to, yes, I can learn from everyone, but I'm only gonna listen to the people that actually have what I want in life so I can hear everyone and be respectful of what people say. I'm only gonna listen and change to the people that actually have what I want in a certain area of life. So yeah, the biggest thing was just taking the lessons away. Like, look, I can learn through osmosis by, you know, soaking up what's going on around me, and I don't necessarily have to die to try to learn from it. Unfortunately, some people did, which yeah, was pretty tough. But it did allow me to understand that like, look, this is. Reality like this, this is what is going to happen. So do you wanna do this? Do you want this result or do you want this result? And then I stopped listening to like, I mean, I was listening to everyone's opinions. Then I'm like, look, I'm gonna listen to like five people. And to be honest, I didn't even have the five people around me. So I found them online. I started to listen, I mean, like the number one that I, that really changed my perspective, there's, um, but you know, that I still listen to today is Jim Rohn, which he's not even around anymore. But, uh, I listened to Jim Rohn at least a few hours a week and, um, and it's all about personal development and, and that was a thing that helped me rewire my brain. So, yeah, I think the big thing was just like, look, you can learn from everyone, but you know, the majority of people are going to, that you learn from are gonna be what not to do. Then there's gonna be a select few that have what you want. It doesn't mean that everyone else sucks. That just means that everyone else is taking this path. Maybe your path and values and goals are in this direction. Just go find people that have the thing that you want and listen to those, those select few people.

Sean Weisbrot: Why do you feel like you are people pleasing? Have you figured that out?

Jeff Sekinger: Well, I think I've gotten. Gotten over it. But even when I got outta outta rehab, I was still like, at this time I went in like 60 something in debt and then I came out and I had even more debt. I had almost eight, like 80 something, mid, mid eighties, maybe even high eighties. And I had a 5 24 credit score. And I was starting a, a business. And, and this is, I was still working for JP Morgan at the time, and then I, this was right before I left and I even told my mom, I'm like, look, I want to, uh, I'm gonna take 20% of everything that I make and I'm gonna donate it to causes that I care about. And she's like, Jeff, you're in tens of thousands of dollars in debt. You just got outta rehab. Don't you think you should probably take care of yourself first? And I'm like, yeah, you're probably right. And then I also realized that on, uh, you know, when you get on an airplane, what happens when they're going through the security protocols, right? They say, oh, in a case of emergency, the oxygen masks are gonna come down before you help others. Make sure to put your own O oxygen mask on first. Why do they say that? Because you would be dead if you didn't take care of yourself. Yep. Which in return, then you couldn't take care of the other people. So I'm like, I have to make my glass super full. I've gotta be, uh, selfish before I can be selfless. And the last, like six and a half years, the vast majority of my time, energy, and resources has gone back into myself because I understand the power of compound interest. I can keep growing what I'm building. And have a, a larger sum of resources and also become, you know, more personally successful as far as my mindset goes in health and all those things. And then I can have a larger nest egg in a more powerful foundation to then be able to help more people. So instead of me trying to like, help everyone on these micro levels, I'm gonna try to help everyone on a huge macro level because I, I was so selfish for so long and I compounded, uh, so long. In the right direction to be able to help more people. So yeah, the people pleasing was a big thing. I think I was also sub suppressing my ambitions. Uh, there was quite a few things that were, that were going on. I was also really shy person, so that kind of helped me like dull my shyness, you know? Um, so yeah, I, I realized quite a few things that was kind of wrong, that I had limiting beliefs around that I had to change to get better. Yeah. Yeah, one of the, uh, one of the best quotes that I heard that that is around this topic that also changed my perspective on everything that I still live by is you can't shoot a cannon from a canoe. Meaning you can't do anything big if your foundation is not solid. So you have to build a solid foundation yourself before you try to do these crazy things and help all of these people. If you can imagine shooting a canon on a canoe, what's it gonna do? It's gonna flip over. Right? But if you have on a rock solid base that you spent time, energy, and resources building, then you can have more of an impact and be able to do some great things.

Sean Weisbrot: I feel like if you shot the canon from a canoe, it wouldn't tip over. It would probably destroy the entire thing.

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: And you'd fall into the water anyways and it would fall into the water. And now you don't have a canoe or canon.

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah. Now you're just sinking.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. So how did you use this energy to get into a business that would become stable and what, what, what, what was your idea of like a business that you could run that would allow you to use your energy in a positive way?

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah, so my first business was actually writing business plans for startups, which I learned on an internship that I took over in Australia and college. That didn't do too well, but it ultimately transitioned into what I I, my first really successful company. But in, when I got out of JP Morgan, I realized you have to have some type of atten. You gotta learn how to get attention in order to monetize things. So I read a book called Crush It by Gary V, which talked about personal branding and how it's your resume and it's not going away, and it's a major trend that's gonna continue. So I started a personal brand, but I had credit issues from all the, you know, years of destruction. And all the debt that I had. So I learned how to get late payments, collections off. I learned how to move my utilization, so the debt that I had over to, uh, business credit when I started some companies so that I could have my utilization lower and increase my credit score. So I got it from a 5 24 to a 7 93. And at that time I was running a marketing company with another entrepreneur running ads for chiropractors, doctors, dentists. While I was doing that, I was personal branding really heavily and teaching about credit and the process that I took my credit from a 5 24 to a 7 93, did that all on, on Instagram, shared tons of things about credit and travel hacking. People were asking me, Hey, can, how, how do I work with you closer? 'cause I, I'm trying to get this done and that done and I want to travel for free and do stuff like that. So I ended up launching a program. It was, uh, like an educational, uh, program that started at $97 and went up to a thousand dollars. And then that really took off quickly because I was building my personal brand so heavily. And then that slowly was centered around, you know, increasing and repairing your, your credit and then using that to go into like travel hacking, you know, the points game. And then that slowly transitioned into funding businesses. 'cause what I learned from the, you know, the, the business plan company that I started was people don't want a business plan. They want to be able to execute quickly and they honestly don't really need a, a, a rock solid business plan, uh, to start. Either they need some type of a plan definitely, but not like they're not gonna pay when they haven't even made money. They're not gonna pay 15 grand for a business plan. So I'm like, okay, these people need capital 'cause that's the oxygen to their business. Let's go ahead and use everything that I just learned in credit and how I move debt over to to business credit and teach people how to do that. That turned out to be my first company, which is zero percent.com. So the issue that I had right from the addiction problem, I transitioned that problem into my purpose, which became my first company centered around helping other people get out of the credit and debt issues that they had, uh, similar to me. And then creating a cool, you know, lifestyle. From the, the points and the travel hacking piece as well. So that's how everything transitioned and that happened, um, you know, within a year and a half after getting out of, of, of rehab. And it slowly, like the first couple months I launched like the, the travel piece and that, that educational program. I think I made right around five grand. And then it went to, you know, the next month it was like 12 grand, and then it went to over 20, and then it went to, uh, I launched a little bit of a higher ticket model to work closer with people that went to 50. And then next thing you know, I was over, uh, six figures in a month, which just absolutely blew my mind. I didn't even, I didn't even think that that was possible. Uh, and then I, I hired aggressively and then I moved out to San Diego and everything just kept growing. So it was, it was, it was really amazing to see.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm glad to hear that it's, uh, sounds like a lot of Gen Z's dream, which is, they call it to escape the matrix, which is to have a business that does a hundred KA month. And you built that. Obviously the business you have now does a lot more than that. Uh, before we talk about that though, I was wondering. If you could tell me really quickly, if you have bad credit and you're trying to start a business, how do you fix your, your debt problem so that your credit score goes up? I'll give you an example. I invested in a guy in Canada. He's in his mid twenties. He was in debt when we, uh, started working together, and his credit score in Canada was quite low, and so he couldn't get business loans and so he came to me looking for me to get a loan. And I turned it into equity in his business and have been working with him longer term. Um, and he's been working on fixing his credit. But for people who don't know, how can they do that? What's the best way to do it? 'cause he had some bad ideas about how to handle debt.

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah, I mean, the big thing is you gotta use debt for purposes of, of increasing your wealth, not being a consumer. So you can decide to be a producer with a debt or you can be a consumer with a debt. Don't use debt to be a consumer. Use debt to invest into things that can grow and actually pay you a positive return. I mean, that's number one. But if you have credit issues, I mean, there's a lot of different things you can do. Um, in the United States, there's uh, a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. If you go to cfpb.gov, you can submit a complaint on any, uh, late payments collections, charge off any errors that are on your credit report. You can submit that through cfpb.gov, which is a, it takes five to 10 minutes. Everyone should start there with trying to get things off of your, your credit that you think are reporting a little bit inaccurately. Um, and the credit laws. You gotta study the credit laws in, in the United States because there's a lot of things that you can use to your advantage if things are being reported wrong. Your name is spelled wrong. Uh, you know, sometimes if you, you know, co-sign for something that that wasn't actually a, a legitimate loan or the interest was way too high and that that creditor was actually being more of a, of a predator, um, you know, certain things like that where it's like outside of the, the fixed laws around credit, you can get things removed off of your credit. You can also negotiate. I mean, I just straight up went into the bank that I had late payments in a collection with, and I'm like, look. I just went through some issues. I'm willing to pay this off ASAP and if we continue doing business, like I'll be on auto pay for as long as we do business together, but let's work on this together. And you have to not talk to the customer service representative. You gotta get escalated to some type of a manager with inside of the credit department, and a lot of times you can negotiate with them to just pay things off and if again, go on auto pay if you're gonna continue to to use them. But, uh, um, and a lot of times you can negotiate getting those things removed and they'll say that you can't, but you can't. So that was some of the things. And there's a lot of, uh, credit repair companies that specifically know the laws around credit in the United States that will submit, uh, letters. And you can get a lot of the, a lot of things removed in three to six months. And then the major thing is like, you just gotta, the, the whole thing around credit is. In order to get qualified for larger amounts of debt in the future, you have to show that you are credit worthy. And how do you do that? You show, show that through your payment history. So you actually need to have 21 accounts to have a perfect credit score in the United States, and you want those accounts to be different types of accounts. So it's good for you to get like auto loans, a mortgage have, you know, a line of credit, have a credit card, have a term loan. Those types of things. You don't need to go into massive debt in order to do that. But if you get a bunch of accounts and you, if you're just starting working on get, get over five accounts when you're just starting out with credit and then make small payments on those. Put your gas on this account. Go buy a water from the gas station. Put your utility bill on on that, that other account. Then pay that off on time. And because that every time you have a new account, not only is that adding to your total account section, but then you're making on time payments. And those on time payments build up when you're making 15 on time payments a month from your 15 accounts, that builds your credit history a lot quicker. And the higher, the more credit history, more on time payments you have. The larger amount of credit that you're gonna get approved for in the unit, in, you know, whatever you apply for in the future. And then the larger lines that you have, the larger lines you're gonna continue to get, because they'll look at, okay, what's your comparable credit? You know, if you've only had a $10,000 credit limit, but you're trying to get $120,000 car loan, they're probably not gonna give you that full 120,000. They might bump you to like 40,000. Um, so it's all about, it's, it's a credit ladder that you've gotta climb. No matter how deep you are and how many issues you have on your credit, you can get it better. And sometimes it may take a bit of time, but there's, there's tons of ways. You just gotta, you gotta self-educate yourself. Start taking action on it.

Sean Weisbrot: Hey, just gimme 10 seconds of your time. I really appreciate you listening to the episode so far, and I hope you're loving it. And if you are, I would love to ask you to subscribe to the channel because what we do is a lot of we're, and every week we bring you a new guest and a new story, and what we do requires so much love. So that we can bring you something amazing and every week we're trying really hard to get better guests that have better stories and improve our ability to tell their stories. So your subscription lets the algorithm know that what we're doing is fantastic and no commitment. It's free to do. And if you don't like what we're doing later on, you can always unsubscribe. And either way, we would love a, like if you don't feel like subscribing at this time. Thank you very much and we'll take you back to the show. Now,

Jeff Sekinger: best way is through starting a company. The second best way is through investing in the real estate. But I think that the absolute best way, and if you look at, I mean, if you're trying to become a billionaire, pretty much almost every billionaire has been built through private equity, which is through the private company. Uh, but that's the quickest way to increase your income and have a quantum leap is to start a company. And you don't have to have, like I, I'm kind of against. Starting companies that, especially at the beginning, they have a lot of overhead and they have ton of, ton of fixed expenses. And you gotta go sign a 14 month lease on this commercial property and now you gotta buy, you know, people think they gotta have business cards and this fancy website before they ever even sell anything. Like I launched a pre-sale of a presale of my course to start before it was even built. And I made thousands of dollars before I even started because I literally showed people look. I know these banks that if you deposit a little bit of money, they will give you $500 cash.

Sean Weisbrot: You said don't use credit in 60

Jeff Sekinger: days. As consumer, why don't you pay me 97, use

Sean Weisbrot: it to make more money. How? I'll show you how to go get 500 can do that.

Jeff Sekinger: And I'm also gonna give you all these resources that I've learned over the last, you know, however much time at that point was repairing my credit and, and travel hacking and all that stuff. So I made it a no-brainer to the end buyer. I was focusing on building my personal brand and attention. I. Then I was able to sell that thing very easily because I showed them ways to make more money than what they were gonna pay me in 60 days. And, uh, that, and that, you know, the only thing I had at that point, business wise was, uh, like a subscription to ClickFunnels. We were just like, I think I was on $97 a month, you know, so I didn't have to have some crazy business idea and buy this equipment and sign this lease and business cards and this or that. Like, I thought that it was the way that you had to do it. But in reality, you just gotta become profitable as soon as possible and, and then use debt to then scale the company. You know, like maybe you've got cash that comes in later and you need to pay your employees through a line of credit, or maybe you are launching a product and you do have to invest in a little bit of inventory. Maybe you got a bunch of software expenses. You put those on 0% credit cards and you can, you know, not pay interest on them for 12 months. While you're, you know, building your cashflow and profitability of the company. So I think the number one way by far is to build, build a company.

Sean Weisbrot: I'll give you an a quick example of what I did with, uh, this guy in Canada. He said, Hey, I need $6,000. We're getting ready to open a location in a mall, and I'm a little bit short for cash. You know, I wanna buy some stock and, you know, can you gimme the money? And I was like, well, I could give you the $6,000. I go, but let me see if there's a credit card that. We'll have 0% interest and give me enough of a credit limit that I can give you an employee card and you know, you can just spend it. So I found a Chase Inc. Whatever business card, and it's like, okay, 1% at 1.5% cash back on everything. And if you spend $6,000 in the first 90 days, we'll give you a $900 welcome bonus. And you know, like that, that's what we did. So. He spent the 6,000, I got the 900. I also got 1.5% and I charged him 10% because it was a loan. So in essence, I'm getting like 23% interest on a $6,000 loan within, within one year back. It's not much, but I didn't have to give him my cash to do it. I was able to use the bank's money to do it.

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: But I don't know of any larger ways to do it. Exactly. Although I have several credit cards with over a hundred thousand in, you know, credit limit. Um,

Jeff Sekinger: yeah, no, that's a great example. That's exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, use the, you can use the bank's money and you have to be, you know, logical about it. You can't just throw money into the air and hope that you get paid back, but I mean, that's how you can start and scale quickly is by it. Leveraging your credit to invest in things that are gonna produce cashflow. And in your area, you didn't really have too much risk. I mean, you probably knew what that guy was about. Yeah. You trusted him, right? You gave him a, gave him a small loan. It wasn't a massive amount of risk. You got paid 900 bucks from the bank right away. Getting the cash back. I mean, that's the perfect example. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, I had invested, uh, previously, I'd given him cash previously for a profit share and then turned it into equity. And then he said, Hey, look, I had convinced him to move to another city in Canada because where he was, was too small for us to grow to the level that I thought the business could go. So he finally moved and it took him several months to get settled and to figure out where to open the location and to build up cash to be able to get into the location. But then he was short for stock, so he is like, Hey, I, you know, can you give me more? And I was like, yeah, I can, you know, what do you need? He is like, A six K is alright, fine, I'll, I'll go and figure out this credit card thing. Um, now don't get me wrong, there was a bunch of hassle with him being in Canada. The card was rejected or blocked multiple times or, or just killed because he was in Canada. But the company, my company is in the US and all sorts of headaches making it happen. But. Finally we're able to make it happen and, you know,

Jeff Sekinger: worked out. Yes.

Sean Weisbrot: So you have a new business, or maybe not new, but you have a different business now in the trading realm. And you told me, I believe it's it's doing several million a month, is that right?

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah. We'll, we'll do somewhere between 50 and 60 million this year.

Sean Weisbrot: Tell me a little bit more about that business and, and what, what you, what led you to it and what. You learned along the way in doing it?

Jeff Sekinger: Yeah, I mean, I, so I would teach a lot of what I was, so I've had a hedge fund, first of all, for over five years now. And that hedge fund is all around liquid investments and trading and longer term investments. So I would just naturally talk about some of the things that, some strategies and things like that without giving, you know, trade secrets or reducing alpha of the fund whatsoever. But I would just talk about, you know, what I was doing professionally. People wanna learn about it. So I'm like, okay, I'll teach just general things and I'll talk about trades that I'm making and stuff like that. So I launched a product under, uh, the 0% brand. That was all, that was just a trading product. It was like $197 a month. And I'll just teach, you know, pretty much some of the things that I'm doing and how, how I look at things and analyze projects and stuff like that. That quickly did hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, I think it was. It went up to like 340,000, uh, a month. And I was like, okay, well there's something here, because this thing just took off very quickly. The problem was that people couldn't, they wanted to do all these things, but they're in a job, they're overseas, they're sleeping, they're on vacation. They can't execute on things quickly. So I'm like, what if we help streamline this through software and actually built some trading strategies into software? So I did. Tons of research and networking and, and then I'm like, okay, well I'm gonna start building and testing different strategies. And then I did that for some time, and then I'm like, all right, let's go ahead and launch an offer around, uh, trading with softwares. And we launched it, did very well the first couple months, and I built it under a new brand called Nerp, which is, uh, our, our, you know, software based trading company Now. And, uh, and that that company has just continued to, to do really well. So I have, yeah, three different financial brands still have the, the credit and funding based company that I started originally. Uh, the software company, NERP, which has been around, um, actually technically it's only been around for almost a year now. And, and then, uh, and then my, my hedge fund, which I've had for over five years now.

Sean Weisbrot: What's the most important thing you've learned in all of this?

Jeff Sekinger: I would say that, I mean, number one thing is your level of success in business isn't going to, uh, exceed your level of personal development. So if you're not on top of your game, if you don't have great habits, if you don't really have really strong beliefs, if you don't have a clear mission for what you want to do for yourself and for your company, people are not gonna follow you. You're not gonna attract great people, and it's just your business is just gonna be an extension of yourself. So as I continue to work on myself more and more and become a better person, that translates into business and I attract better people, which would be the second thing that I I'll mention is, you know, I, I had a pretty high degree of, I had a high income, uh, but I really didn't have a great team early on in business. 'cause it's just, it's hard to find the right people and you don't know what to look for. And, uh, it takes, takes a lot of time and, um, and I finally feel like I've got some really strong people on my team now. That are proactive and understand, uh, our mission, vision, values, and more importantly, live by them and are so bought into what we're doing and that helps the company drive forward. And the ultimate, you know, job of A CEO is really, uh, typically a lot of CEOs are on the product level, which I, I am, but it's most important thing is that you, you state a clear mission and vision of the company and you help direct that movement. And then you hire the right people to execute on those things, and then you pretty much get out of the way and you're, you continue to do, you know, CEO and business owner task, but, uh, but you really paint that vision and help attract the right people that can ultimately execute on those things. And that's kind of where I'm at right now, is just trying to build a really great leadership team, which, you know, grows and develops everyone in our company so that we can all continue to grow. Uh, collectively together in order to hit our goals, not just as a business, but also our personal professional financial goals that we have.