Jeff Heggie When I Started Listening To The Whispers

 

Summary:

I had the pleasure to interview a remarkable man named Jeff Heggie. He is the host of several podcasts and a successful coach. He shares his amazing story with us. He started out in rodeos, from running his own manufacturing plant to being a successful coach and podcast host. He shares the lessons he learned along the way, when he should have listened to the whispers and when he finally started listening to the whispers. What kept his going through it all and who inspired him the most. How he learned that it is okay to fail and his advice for anyone that wants to follow their own dreams.

Episode Transcription

Intro Plays

Ari:Welcome to whispers and bricks. My name is Ari Schonbrun. I’m your host. I have a very interesting gentleman with me today. His name is Jeff Hegyi. Jeff is an entrepreneur and success coach with a passion for helping others achieve their biggest dreams. As a coach Jeff starts with a focus on mindset. Taking this client or their business to the next level always begins with the right mindset. Jeff enjoys using his extensive experience in the banking industry over 20 years as an entrepreneur, plus his training and experience as a coach to help his clients break through the mental and physical barriers that hold them back. Jeff and his wife Tamara, both grew up in Southern Alberta, but now make Arizona their home. Family and sports have always been important to him. He loves spending time coaching or watching his kids. He’s a former professional rodeo cowboy and has over 20 years experience coaching basketball. Please help me welcome, Jeff. Hey, Jeff, how you doing?

Jeff:I am doing excellent. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity.

Ari:Oh, it’s my pleasure, my pleasure. Everything good.

Jeff: Things are great. Yeah, we’ve got a lot of good things happening.

That’s great. So before we get started on my usual, you know, questions, I gotta, I gotta tell me about being a professional rodeo cowboy. Like, that’s not exactly the most common profession, certainly not in the New York area. I mean, what was what, how, why?

Jeff:Well, I grew up growing up in southern Alberta. Um, you know, I grew up on a farm. And I really, I really followed my brother’s footsteps, my my entire life, you know, the things that he did and things he was interested in. I always wanted to be like my big brother, and he was an athlete. And so I followed that that path, you know, played all the sports. Basketball was really what I loved. And it was really my focus.

Ari:Another thing that we have in common, by the way, I say my absolute favorite sport to play not to watch necessarily, but to play God. I’m sorry. Yeah.

Jeff: So he, he graduated high school, went on to college, and he started to rodeo. And, you know, I watched that and it looked really cool. I loved what he was doing. But he was riding bareback horses, and I didn’t want to get on a horse and get bucked off and get on and stuff. So I watched, but then he started getting into the roping and doing the other events as well. And I started to take interest in that. And so in high school, I started roping, and he got into steer wrestling. And that’s the one where your your run out on the horse full speed, jump onto the horns of the steer and wrestling to the ground basically, is what you doing.

Ari:Yeah, sounds like fun.

Jeff: So one day, I called him and I said, Todd, I need you to teach me how to wrestle. He said, okay, yeah, I’d love to. He says, next time we go out and practice, I’ll give you a call. I said, No, you know what, I need you to teach me by Friday because I entered a rodeo. So, so that was really the start of my wrestling career. And you know, I roped in stuff through high school and amateurs and stuff. But when I got into the professional ranks, I just steer, steer, wrestled. And you know, it was it was fabulous. You know, the people in the rodeo industry, it’s a big family, the experiences, the places I went, it was it was incredible. I mean, I got a lot of opportunity to travel with my brother too. And you know, we were in Texas at some rodeos. And we decided to enter a rodeo in Louisiana because we had never been there and we wanted some Cajun food. And so a lot, a lot of places I’ve been that I never would have been if I hadn’t been on the route. Wow. And I was leaving. Yeah, the people that I still connected with. It is it’s a big family. It’s really cool.

Ari: Wow, I gotta tell you that that’s great. I actually I was never at a rodeo. But I had been invited. We when I was working at Cantor Fitzgerald, we had a guy by the name of Steve Blakely shout out to Steve, who every year, the rodeo came to tape he was in. He was in Houston. And I think it was in Houston. Yeah, it was in Houston. And every year, he would take a box at the rodeo. And he would entertain his customers, you know, in the box, the rodeo, and every year, he invited me to come. And there wasn’t a every year something else came up, right. Just couldn’t make it. And I kept telling him next year, next year, next year, well, never happened. Never been. But maybe one of these days, you know, maybe you and I will get together and I fall you’re not doing it anymore, are you? I’m not now. Okay. Yeah, but maybe you know, maybe we’ll get together you show me the ropes. Get it up, show me the ropes like a god, that would be one of those things where my kids would go, Daddy, come on. Anyway, so let’s get started. You know, as you know, the name of the podcast is whispers and bricks and the whispers of those voices telling us what the right thing to do is and they represent the good in life. And the bricks, you know, they represent the bad things that we go through life and let’s be real, there isn’t a person out there that doesn’t have bricks thrown at them during their lifetimes at some point in time or another just that is that’s the way the world I mean, it just that’s what happens. Now. You’ve done many things in your life before becoming a coach. In 2003, you started an investment company with a focus on real estate, which is still ongoing. From 2005 to Jan 2021. You were the co founder and president and CEO of Kodiak mountain stone. In 2018. That’s when you started a coaching business. And in 2021, you started a podcast sounds like a great life and a great career. But again, we all know there were bricks in there. So take us back to Kodiak like how did that come about? My list is really want to know what was some of the struggles or no failures? Some of the bricks that you got hit with when you were starting out and through that, you know until Jan 2021. What was going on?

Jeff: Absolutely. So I mean this this is a this is literally bricks. Kodiak mountain stone was a company that I started with a manufacturing company making artificial stone veneer. So the artificial stone you see on the front of houses and fireplaces, and whatnot. And as we expanded, I actually got into the business of selling bricks. And so I was definitely in the brick, brick and mortar brick business. There you go. But you know, I was when I graduated from college, my major was entrepreneurship. I wanted to be my own entrepreneur. I started buying real estate, bought a mini storage facility and whatnot. And when I graduated, I got an excellent job offer from the bank. And I turned it down because I wanted to go be a cowboy, and rodeo. No, but I eventually went back there and they still gave me the job. And I worked there for a number of years, about five years. And one day I was sitting in one of my clients offices, and he was building homes, and he had a catalog on his desk. And it was for artificial stone for the homes that he was building. I got looking at it. And I thought I can do that. And so I quit the bank and started a manufacturing company making fake stone, I found a place in Missouri that taught me how to do it. And, you know, I remember sitting in the airport in Dallas flying back to Canada. And in my mind thinking this was this is such an easy business, it’s so much easier than I anticipated. And I was so wrong. It was I mean to give you an example, you know, I thought I’m going to go home, I’m going to make my first stone and that’s going to sit on my shelf forever, you know, the original stone we ever made. And I had looked at a lot of my competitors products and one competitor had this stone and it was called the Kota Brown. And I really thought you know that’s a beautiful stone. That’s the first thing I’m going to make is a stone that looks just like that. And so we went to the process of making it the next day we went to D mold and take them out of the molds. And this I’m expecting this beautiful brown stone to come out. And it was literally pink. So this this stone that I was gonna sit on my shelf for the rest of my career. I don’t know how far it was but as far as I could throw it out the front door of that factory is wherever it landed.

Ari: Oh my You know what? It’s too bad. I didn’t know you back then. My second daughter, her favorite color. Pink. Everything that she has is pink. If I were to know you back then I would have said mine

Jeff: before Yeah, but you know it was it was a steep learning and being in the homebuilding industry. You know, from 2005 Onward, we had a lot of ups and downs, it was a roller coaster, we had to pivot a number of times. And, and like I said, so we started as a manufacturer, we got into doing our own distribution and had some retail stores. And eventually, in 2017, because of the relationships I built with some of the big manufacturers, I actually got out of manufacturing, sold a lot of my manufacturing equipment to some of the big guys. And then we were just in the distribution business. I was in the process of establishing some new things down here in Arizona, and when COVID hit, our investor backed out thinking the house housing industry was going to collapse here. Hindsight, the housing industry here is crazy. But then with, with a lot of challenges we had already been facing, and the shutdowns and everything they were doing in Canada, come January, I just it kind of got to the point where I was forced to shut our doors and so went from 2005 to 2021. It was a great run lot of experiences that were just outstanding, a lot of bricks, a lot of learning experiences. And it was a lot of the reason I got into coaching. There’s a lot of times throughout my career running that company, I’d be sitting with my partner, Dave, who is my CFO, and saying, You know what, these are the things that I want to be able to teach people help them avoid these mistakes we did or else help them to understand how we did this, and were successful with it. And so it really got me to interested in doing the coaching.

Ari: Mm hmm. So it was I guess it was you, you got to a low point in your life, I’m assuming, was that true? I mean, in other words, hat, how was it when you were coming out of that you sold everything, you got rid of everything? What was your feeling when this was going on? You know, I had you explained it to your wife,

Jeff: you know, what she was an incredible support. And, in fact, I’ve got a chapter in a book that talks a lot about that, that part, especially as a coach, you know, we hear all the cliche things, you know, fail fast, fail forward, you know, you learn from your failures. But one of the things about it is it doesn’t matter how much you learn from it, when you’re in the middle of failing yourself. It’s not fun. It’s, you know, it’s sleepless nights. It’s anxiety, it’s stress. And that’s what this was, and I have learned a lot of a lot of lessons from it. Probably one of the biggest lessons is that failure is an option. Because even though I know all these things, I say, as a coach, when it was me in the situation I was doing well, let’s put it this way, we shut the doors in 2021. We failed before that. And I was of the attitude, that failure wasn’t an option. Because I wanted to protect my employees, I want to protect myself, I want to protect my investors, everyone. We had such great people involved. And I didn’t want to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to work out. And doing that actually ended up costing us more capital more a lot of things. And I think if I would have read the writing on the wall, when it really should have been looked at. We still I mean, we wouldn’t change the final outcome. But there would have been less pain involved with more investment going into it and things like that.

Ari: Well, I guess that’s kind of like listening to the whispers You know, you it was there. As you said, the writing’s on the wall, the whispers were there, and you just decided that, you know, I’m sorry, I’m not listening to this. And then ultimately, you got hit with that brick, which, you know, kind of like, put you out of business at the end of the day anyway. How did you bounce back?

Jeff: You know what I, I was actually it was it was a really difficult time. Very stressful. My biggest worry was for my investors, my staff, all them. And I was actually sitting right where I’m sitting right now. And my wife came in here one day, and she sat down across from me, and we just got talking about it. And I remember she stood up and she came over to my desk and she says to me, whatever happens, you know, regardless of how this all turns out, you and I were good. It helped me put things into perspective. You know, yeah, I did everything I could to make that company stay successful. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of things that I just couldn’t control. And that when she did that, it just helped me put things into perspective and say, You know what? Okay, I’ve got to focus on what I can control and mitigate what I can’t.

Ari:  You know, I always talk about how important family life is. And, you know, it is so important that a family stays together, you have the husband supports the wife, the wife supports the husband, they support the kids. It is so important, you know, doing that you’re, and I noticed, even, you know, when you’re talking to people that are, you know, the rich, the very rich, the super rich, I found that they’ve got the same problems that I have. It’s just on a different level. I worry about, you know, what kind of car am I going to Can I afford to buy right now? And, you know, the rich guy goes, like, what kind of a plane can I afford to buy right now? You know, I look at what kind of house can I afford to buy? He says, What kind of a mansion Can I buy? You know, it’s the same problems. And trust me, they have the same problems with their kids that I have with my kids, that money doesn’t affect, and sometimes they’re worse off because of the money that they have. So I know that, you know, everybody goes through something my but believe me, I know that there are people in my audience that have gone through exactly the same thing that you’ve gone through. And it’s good to hear they need to hear that. Yes, I was able to overcome because my wife supported me. You know, I mean, that is so important. It really is. Okay, so she supported you. She said, Whatever you do, you know, we’re good. So what happened?

Jeff: You know, and then that’s been, it’s actually an ongoing process. I’m still because I’m, I’m the co director of it. It’s, it’s all on my shoulders. And so I’m the one that’s cleaning things up. But we we have shut everything down. Fortunately, all my employees, it was, it was easy to deal with. They were great employees, and they were able to pick things up really quick. Unfortunately, myself, the investors and stuff it didn’t turn out well. It was an investment that we did

an investment that didn’t work out, it hadn’t worked out. Alright, it happens. Look, you know, that’s, that’s one of the risks of being an entrepreneur going into business for yourself is that the business doesn’t work. I mean, you know, it just happens. So, in 2018, I think it was, is that when you started your coaching business,

you know, I’ve had a lot of opportunity throughout the years to do coaching to do a lot of mentoring. And it was about that time that I started doing a lot more serious. And, you know, I told you that I’d spent a lot of time sitting with my CFO. And we’ve talked about all these different things. Well, one day he called me and he says, I’ve got someone you need to meet. And he set up a meeting for me and incredible guy. And he had a very similar background, to me having a manufacturing company. And now he’s a very successful coach. And I sat down with him, and we talked about it. He talked about my experience, my credentials, all those things. And I just kept talking about how I wanted to eventually do this. And he just finally says, Why aren’t you doing this? Like, what are you doing? And, and I was really in a position that most of our business was up in our Canadian operation. And like I said, my employees up there were just outstanding. They were taking care of everything. And I thought, you know, he’s right, why, why aren’t I doing this? And so that’s when I kind of took the step to start doing it. And, you know, again, it’s just like any company over the years it morphs and grows into what you really want it to be. And it’s it’s been pretty awesome.

Ari: Wow, that’s, that’s great. That really is. Tell me a little bit about you have a podcast. Am I correct? I’ve got three. You’ve got three podcasts. Okay. All right. Tell me a little bit. How did that come about?

Jeff: So right before I moved down from Canada, a friend of mine, we had been talking about starting a podcast together and it was gonna be we want to call it entrepreneur next door and just interview your everyday entrepreneur. We did some episodes, we never went live with them. I ended up moving to Arizona, he ended up moving to Utah, and it just never happened. Well, I was down here and I was thinking, you know, this is something I I want to do again, I want to look at doing it. And I was just in the process of deciding I was going to go forward with it. And someone I was doing some other work with says to me, have you ever thought of doing a podcast? I’d like to interview entrepreneurs. And I was like, Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s go. So we started the Jeff and I Show. And I think I think we’re on, I don’t know, Episode 75 or something like that we do a weekly podcast. And then I had a client that he wanted just some little bit, just a shot of motivation every day. And I started out sending them some, you know, Voice Memos. And then I did start doing videos on my iPhone. And pretty soon I thought, you know, if I’m doing this, why aren’t I, you know, publishing this somewhere. And so I put him out on YouTube. And I thought, Well, why isn’t it a podcast? And so I’ve got Jeff Hayes Daily Success Strategies, which are anywhere from three to 10 minute podcasts that I do Monday to Friday. And I think

Monday through Friday, yes. So you do it every day. I do it

every day, throughout the day. And I think, I think well, actually, I’ve got one in front of me, I’m on bout 342, I think is what I’m at. So it’s been ongoing. And then more recently, I had a company, believe Podcast Network out of LA contacted me and asked if I would do a podcast on their network. And so I think I’m on episode 12 or 13 of that one. And that’s one that is more focused on. What I really love working with is the high achievers, the mindset and really focusing on that. And so that’s been fun, because because of the focus of that, and the people I’ve been able to interview on that. It’s just been a real fun podcast.

Ari: Wow. Wow, that sounds great. So that was one where you said you had three right?

Jeff:So those are the three so the Jeff and Heidi show. Right. Jeff? Ag daily success strategies, and then the one on belief network.

Yeah, the Jaffe show. Aha, okay. Those are the three.

Wow, two weekly ones. And one daily one.

Ari: Wow. That’s great. That’s great. Okay, well, let me ask you this. If you had to point to one person who had the most influence on your life, regardless of whatever point in time it was, who would it be? And tell me why?

Jeff: Wow.

Ari: A curveball there, huh?

Jeff: Yeah, absolutely. Cuz, you know, in different areas. There’s so many that jumped to mind. But, I mean, going back to what I’ve already talked about, I’d say my wife, and I’ll tell you why is because, you know, we were, well, one when we got married as roadie on professionally and, you know,

a wife, and she married you anyway.

Well, even married, married me on a Tuesday. So I didn’t have to miss any rodeo. How great is that? But you know, I remember, we were fairly newly newlywed, and I came across this program. It was by Robert Allen, who’s a real estate expert. And Mark Victor Hansen, one of the guys from Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Ari: I know Mark Victor Hansen?

Jeff: Yeah, yeah, they were they were doing this program. And it was five $5,000 to get registered in it. And mean, as newlyweds that could have been a million dollars. Yeah, sure. But when I, when I really got looking into it, I really wanted to get into it. Because it really, to me, it was my way of getting into real estate like I wanted to. And so I kind of sheepishly went to my new wife and said, you know, what, do you think we can come up with $5,000 to do this expecting kind of, are you kidding me? And she’s like, Yeah, let’s figure it out. And wow, you know, it’s that’s always been how she supported me. Wow. And that was the reason I got into real estate and bought mini storage facilities and different things. And so, wow, what is that sport?

Ari: What does she do? If you don’t mind? My asking?

Jeff: Well, she her training. She was a dental hygienists, and Oh, really? Yes, she did that for a long time, which was great, because that’s a great occupation.

It is a very good as well, boy, as a matter of fact, my second daughter before, before she got married, that was one of the things that she was thinking about doing dental hygienist. That’s because she had really rotten teeth. And, you know, they couldn’t figure out why. And it was something that she goes, Well, I’m in the dentist office every day anyway, why don’t I just, you know, become a hygienist. It didn’t happen. She became a school teacher instead. But that’s okay. Yeah. So she was a journalist and

she was a hi Janice. And she did that until my, my daughter who is now 14 Till she was born. And then she, she gave that up and she’s had a number of different businesses of her own that she’s run since then. And right now. She’s a lash technician, but she also has a business where she has someone in Korea that manufactures eyelash glue, and she distributes that throughout the US and so yeah, Wow, she’s got an entrepreneurial spirit for sure. Wow.

Ari: Wow, that sounds great. All right, last but not least, okay. Is there anything else that you’d like to share with my audience? Before we go some words of wisdom words of advice, you know, whatever it may be, you’ve got a long here, you’ve got a long history of doing so many different things. You know, what can you tell my audience?

Jeff: I think, I think this pandemic has been an opportunity to really look at what opportunities we take advantage of, because an example I use a lot is I have a client that he always wanted to start his own business, he had a great idea. But he had the golden handcuffs, he never did it, because he had a great job with great benefits and all these things. Well, guess what happened during the pandemic, he lost that job, that thing that was holding them back from chasing his dreams, disappeared on him. And so I think that that’s his, you know, one, stop, stop believing your own lies, but you can’t do things, we all have so many limiting beliefs. And, you know, stop believing those on your own lies, and be willing to step out of your comfort zone and take a risk. You know, one of the things I have a, I call them my mindset questions, that I do it myself, but I have my clients go through this list of questions every single day. And one of the questions is, what can you do today to step out of your comfort zone. And the reason I do that is, you know, you think of the first time you started something new and how uncomfortable it was. And then pretty soon, it’s second nature. Well, if you’re finding things that are taking you out of your comfort zone, every single day, pretty soon you got a big comfort zone. And so I really encourage people to do that and step out of your comfort zone every single day. You know, appreciate those people that are surrounding you and support you and make sure you’re you are surrounding yourself with those people that are going to be there for you and have your back and really can support you.

Ari: Wow, such really, really such words of wisdom. It’s great. Jeff, I want to thank you so much for sharing your story with my audience. Good luck going forward. Oh, wait, before I do that. You You’ve written a couple of books. Am I right?

I have? Yes. And

any one particular? Where can they find them? Should they just look up Jeff Hagie and see what books you wrote? Or, you know, help me here help me here?

Jeff: I’m not none of them? Well, actually, one is the best place is just go to Jeff hagy.com. And right on the homepage, you can scroll down to the bottom, and you’ll be able to find everything there.

Ari: Is there a favorite of yours.

Jeff: You know, what they’re the ones that are on there are very different from one another. And one is focused strictly on business and marketing. One called bright spots is actually the one i i talked about when my wife was in this, this office here and said, you know, we’re good. I shared that experience in there. And then another one was just from is really when I first started focusing and working with my clients on mindset and whatnot. And it’s called fear to fuel and it was it’s compiled by a bunch of us authors that were in a conference together. And that’s probably my favorite just because it really was the point when I wrote that, that got me focused on the road I’m on right now.

Ari: Wow. Okay, so everybody now, what is that website?

Jeff: jeffie.com. So je FF heggie.com. And if I mentioned my mindset questions, if you go to Jeff hager.com/mindset You can get those for free there too.

Ari: Wow, that’s great. So Jeff hagy.com je FF H eggie.com. Jeff hegyi.com. Great. Jeff, thanks so much. Appreciate you sharing your story. Good luck going forward. You’re listening to us wisdom bricks, and I’m your host Barry Sherman. Until next time, listen to the whispers avoid the bricks and never ever give up on your dreams. Bye for now