How To Start A Business With Nothing

How To Start A Business With Nothing

Sean: Hey guys. Welcome back to the show for today we have a special guest all the way from California. His name is Sensei Gilliland. He’s the founder of Black Belt investors in 1995, which is an education, consulting, and investment firm specializing in the art of creating cash and wealth through buying, selling, and investing in real estate.

Now, if you think this is going to be another real estate episode, it’s not, this guy is a true blue entrepreneur and he has founded many businesses. In fact, I am so excited to ask him about his startup journey because you guys will want to hear it. Sensei, thank you so much for being here with me in the show today.

Sensei: Well, I appreciate it, Sean. Thank you.

Sean: We want to hear from you first. Like any other person who ends up being an entrepreneur, what was your start up journey? How did it look like?

Sensei: Oh man, I can really go into depth on this, but I’ll hit some key points here. As a kid, I didn’t grow up rich. In fact, I didn’t even grow up with money.

My grandparents had a lot of money. My parents did not have a lot of money. In fact, I remember as a kid going out with my father on the weekends, after business hours going dumpster diving. If you don’t know what that is, we’re jumping in the trash cans and pulling out produce and food.

And we would throw it in the back of the truck now to me and my brother. We were young, we were a little, we thought that was the greatest thing in the world. It was so much fun to jump into a trash can and it was like an Easter egg hunt; it was like Christmas and we loved it.

But later on in life, I learned “Oh my god”. We really had to eat out of a trash can at one point. And it’s not because my dad was lazy or anything. Man, that guy is a hard working dude. But he was a truck driver, in that time he would work and get laid off and get work and laid off. And so it was really, really difficult. And I had a lot of brothers and sisters.

So there was one summer back in 1984, I was in high school. I was watching the 1984 Olympics, which was happening in Los Angeles, California at the time. And. I thought it sucked that I had to stay home and babysit and watch TV.

But what the Olympics did for me is saying, “Hey, you have opportunity out there. You can get whatever you want.” Because the majority of those people that I watched on the Olympics came from nothing. They had nothing and they created something and here they are top athletes of the world. And I said, I’m going to do that. That’s what I’m going to do.

And so with all my efforts, I got, I was into martial arts and I put my efforts in everything to where I started traveling around the United States in competition, winning championship, after championship, and then started going international to the point where they now have the junior Olympics to qualify for the Olympics.

And I got gold, silver, bronze, gold, and silver. I got five medals. And so with that, I’m now on this journey in athletics, teaching me how to channel my energy and focus in something that’s positive versus focusing, which is negative, which I was doing as a kid. And so right out of high school, I took all that positive energy.

I took my focus and said, you know what, I’m not going to be like my dad where he’s breaking his back, working. But not able to capitalize on a paycheck because he has to rely on his company, his boss, and all the other people that are higher up, I will build my own boat and I will make sure that my boat sails. If it sinks it’s on me and I’ll figure out how to get it afloat again. I refuse to work for anybody but me.

And so right out of high school, I opened up my very first martial arts business, which 33 years later next week, we’re still in business. And that was the beginning of my journey.

Sean: Wow. Right out of high school, starting up the business. And Sensei what an amazing journey.

This is the first time that I have a guest in the show with a history as you have. That is amazing. And we’re both God fearing Christians, as we discuss in the show where God has taken you from to where you are now; it is mind blowing for me. And so you had your martial arts school and now you have Black Belt Investors and you’re doing real estate.

Can you tell us what were some of the disciplines that you learned from martial arts? You mentioned focusing on positive energy. What are some other disciplines that you learned from your discipline of martial arts  that you were able to take into your entrepreneurship journey to where you are today?

Sensei: Yeah, so for me growing up as a kid, I was never disciplined. I don’t have the discipline to sit down and do my homework. I didn’t have the discipline to focus on doing my chores. I just didn’t have that structure. You know, it was like trying to build a skyscraper, starting on the 13th level. It just doesn’t work.

And that’s me. So with that, my instructor taught me the basics, the foundational work of how to develop structure, how to develop discipline within yourself and how to use other people’s disciplines also to your advantage. And along with that came the respects that are associated with those disciplines. And so when I was able to, to harness that power and I really mean it’s a true power when I was able to harness it, I applied it. Almost to everything in my life.

I figured, okay. You know what? I’m not going to be like every kid that graduates from high school going to go to college, not really sure what I’m going to do, but I’m going to spend money on parties and drinking and doing this and that. I’m like, forget that I’ve got bigger and better things to do.

Let’s channel that energy, get a head start because I’m already a late bloomer and let’s get business going. And so I’ve been able to parlay the discipline and respects of martial arts over into my entrepreneurial life and really just focus on a short mid-term and long-term goal. So I can accomplish those baby steps to get past that finish line. But the problem is with me, Sean is I don’t ever have a finish line. I keep pushing it back. So I keep having all these other goals along the way.

And with that, we’ve gone through starting out my very first martial arts school up to 11 different facilities, different gyms, and then expanding into different areas of business that I truly have a passion for.

And I can accredit all of that going back to not having anything in the beginning. I was at the bottom of the barrel. Now here’s the thing. God gives us one great power and the power is choice. Make a choice. Are you going to stay at the bottom of the barrel, sucking your thumb, whining and crying in the fetal position that you have nothing that everybody else has everything? Or are you going to take the purpose he’s given you in life and utilize it to help, not only you, but others that are around you?

And I learned that and I was able to expand on that and he’s blessed me on that. And he’s blessed others as well. And that brings me here today. And thankfully, yes, I am still young. 51 years young, and I still have a huge career in front of me.

Sean: Wow. What a journey. Those disciplines that you learned, I would say are super important.

You mentioned that when you were younger, discipline did not come naturally to you, and from your martial arts school, you mentioned you opened 11 of them. I want to talk about how you got into real estate. What was that journey? Can you tell us more about that?

Sensei: Yeah. So its the early nineties I just got back traveling the world.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be you know, traveled to over 30 different countries. And I figured, you know what? This is, my business is awesome. I love being a martial arts instructor. I love working with, you know, hardcore athletes and I love working with children. And developing them and molding them. I mean, they’re like a clump of clay and I get to sit there and shape them into be something, you know, beautiful and strong. I absolutely love it.

It’s a passion, but here’s the thing; martial arts programs and boxing programs, which I teach are after school until mid evening program. So, what do I do in the morning and in the early afternoons? I figured, well, look, I want to get into more business. I love what I’m doing. So I decided that I was going to get into the coin op carwash business.

That basically means you wash your own cars. You put your quarters in the machine or tokens in the machine and you wash your car, right? I’m thinking it’s a passive income business. You hire your senior citizen for a couple hours a day to fill the soaps and clean up the property.

And you collect your coins at the, at the end of the day. Then, perfect! This doesn’t take a lot of time. I can still focus on my martial arts business and make that grow. I can focus on cleanup carwash. In fact, I can probably do multiple of these coin-op carwash because it doesn’t require a full-time attention.

But here’s the thing, Sean, look, I got the concept of the business. I understood the ins and outs of a carwash, but what I did not understand was real estate. I didn’t understand, build to suit. I didn’t understand zoning. I didn’t understand leasing. I didn’t even own a house at that time. You know, I’m in my, I’m right around 20 years old, 21 years old. I didn’t understand these things.

But quickly when I started investigating about real estate and how I would build or buy an existing carwash, I learned real estate controls every business. And so I pushed the coin-op carwash off to the side and started learning more about real estate. Think about it, you tell me a business out there that’s not controlled by real estate.

You can’t people say, oh, what all satellites get controlled down here by real estate. So I wanted to be in the controlling area of business. Going back to my dad, where he was controlled by everybody else losing his job. I was not going to be in that position. I was going to be in the position of control.

And so then I started learning everything I could about real estate.

Sean: From a business that you were planning to do, which is the carwash business to real estate. So you started learning everything about it. And guys, if you are listening here and you’re planning on starting up your first business, listen up, you have to study everything about that business first. Before you take that leap of faith, don’t let the numbers fool you. Don’t let the testimonials of successful business people fool you, you have to do your due diligence and study up.