Episode 81 – Rick Hopper

00:00:00:02 – 00:00:18:01
Rick Hopper
My name’s Rick Hopper. I, as you said, I’m actually a serial entrepreneur. I’ve been a serial en- entrepreneur long before we were using those words as a kid. Um, so most people recognize me from Shark Tank. Uh, publicly. I’ve been I’m in England, somebody goes, “I saw you on the Shark Tank.” Can I talk about my drug addiction a little bit?

00:00:18:02 – 00:00:35:07
Rick Hopper
I’m a 200-pound guy. I weighed 145 pounds for a while. My wife kicked me out. I lived on the street for a little while. I spent some time in jail. Uh, that’s a whole series of stories. From there, I was like, “I’m, I’m gonna do Really Wild Life.

00:00:35:08 – 00:01:06:18
Rick Hopper
Rick Hopper, the guy you know now, was chained and shackled to the back of my skull. I’m in the background looking through these 2 big holes that are my eye sockets, screaming, love you. I’m sorry.” I’m just, I’m screaming, and I’m, I’m, like, literally bawling and crying on the inside, trying to get through, but I wasn’t in control. Within 3 years, I was selling $5 million a year worth of strips of plastic with double-sided tape to window installers.

00:01:06:19 – 00:01:25:09
Rick Hopper
My tombstone is gonna read, “Rick Hopper, he coulda made more money, but he couldn’t have had more fun.”

00:01:25:11 – 00:01:39:24
Brandon Adams
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to The Blueprint. Today we’ve got Rick Hopper, serial entrepreneur. He’s gonna tell you how he started all these businesses, wins, losses. Uh, stay tuned. Uh, let him tell you about how it goes. Also, if you guys can do me a favor, hit that subscribe button on the bottom down there. It’s gonna get a lot more of these stories out there.

00:01:40:00 – 00:01:52:22
Brandon Adams
Really appreciate your support. Rick, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. My pleasure. Well, first off, I’d gone to your house and done, or your studio, and done a, a podcast, I don’t know- Great show, bro

00:01:53:02 – 00:01:53:20
Rick Hopper
Great show bro.

00:01:53:21 – 00:02:05:01
Brandon Adams
thanks, man, a couple of months ago, maybe a month ago. I don’t know how long ago it was, but, um, it was really cool. So I know that you’re on w- one side of DFW, and I’m on the other, so welcome to the sticks on my side.

00:02:05:02 – 00:02:07:08
Rick Hopper
Yeah, man. Pretty cool country out here you got.

00:02:07:09 – 00:02:17:08
Brandon Adams
It’s, uh, it’s new as of 10 months ago, so, uh, I really like the kinda backdrop.

00:02:17:13 – 00:02:23:16
Rick Hopper
It’s nice one. You could not have picked a better setup. Thank you. It looks like, it, it People are gonna think, “Wow, they’ve really put a lot into that wall.”

00:02:23:17 – 00:02:26:17
Brandon Adams
We put 111 years worth of wall in there.

00:02:26:18 – 00:02:28:17
Rick Hopper
Amazing. Beautiful. Uh, well, cool.

00:02:28:19 – 00:02:36:05
Brandon Adams
Cool vibe. Well, tell me about, uh, I just want everybody to know a little bit about you.

00:02:36:07 – 00:02:53:15
Rick Hopper
Oh, who I am now? Yeah, who you are. Uh, I, my name’s Rick Hopper. I, as you said, I’m actually a serial entrepreneur. I’ve been a serial en- entrepreneur long before we were using those words as a kid. Um, so most people recognize me from Shark Tank. Uh, publicly. I’ve been I’m in England, somebody goes, “I saw you on the Shark Tank.”

00:02:53:16 – 00:03:13:12
Rick Hopper
And, uh, so I was on Shark Tank. I was Lori Greiner’s very first deal, but that was a s- my second startup. My first startup was, uh, in 2001. And so, uh, you know, when I quit my job and started really doing, making money with my own ideas, that’s really when I, I, I took off as far as, like, I’m, I’m a, “Oh my God, I can do it.”

00:03:13:14 – 00:03:42:10
Rick Hopper
Um, so and I’ve, I’ve, uh, I’ve got a life, a whole life c- culmination of, of answers to questions about s- going from 0 to something. And so, um, I’m, I’m now a published author, or just about to be. In about 5 minutes uh, my book is gonna be out, and I’m, I’m, as you know, I got my own podcast. I feel like imposter syndrome for many years. Like, who am I to tell the world, uh, anything that, that, that with validity?

00:03:42:13 – 00:03:44:21
Rick Hopper
And then you know what? Turns out- Here it is

00:03:44:22 – 00:03:45:04
Brandon Adams
Here it.

00:03:45:04 – 00:03:59:04
Rick Hopper
I have, I’m an authority in a few things. And so really, I’m a, I’m, I’m a creator, I’m a visionary. I’m absolute chaos. I have to be surrounded with, with, surrounded by people that can organize my chaos. Otherwise, I’d never make a dime.

00:03:59:05 – 00:03:59:23
Brandon Adams
Yeah. It’s awesome.

00:04:00:00 – 00:04:16:20
Rick Hopper
I’m a, I’m a, a father. I got, uh, 3 kids, 5 grandkids, uh, incredible friends, a wife of just about 40 years that, uh, that’s a miracle story all by itself. And, uh, so that’s, um I got a, a really full life and, and incredibly blessed.

00:04:16:22 – 00:04:29:03
Brandon Adams
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I mean, I love that, that you said you go from 0 to something, and so, I mean, that’s kinda what this, this podcast is about. And really, I’d like to hear about 0. Like, w- where’s origination?

00:04:29:05 – 00:04:35:05
Rick Hopper
So I would call I would say 0, ’cause I’ve had times of zero, and then I’ve had times of much, much less than 0.

00:04:35:06 – 00:04:35:20
Brandon Adams
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:04:35:23 – 00:04:59:14
Rick Hopper
Yeah, yeah, yeah. As a matter of fact, there was a movie called Less Than 0. I don’t know if you guys remember that, Robert Downey Jr. So 0 would be, um, I was a little kid. I have 2 brothers, one year older, one year younger. Uh, they were both bigger than me. So the, I had to, they had to, uh, live under the, under the threat of Rick might have a pocket full of sand to throw in their eyes. And I was, I learned how to run really fast because there was a lot of fighting, and there’s a lot of, uh, uh

00:04:59:16 – 00:05:03:08
Rick Hopper
But they were also very protective of me as well. I was the small- I was the littler brother.

00:05:03:09 – 00:05:05:08
Brandon Adams
I was a little brother as well. I get you. Were you?

00:05:05:09 – 00:05:27:19
Rick Hopper
And, uh, so- Took a few you know, I had to deal with that as a kid. Uh, my older brother tried to suffocate me 35 times uh, under a beanbag chair. Yeah, sure. If anybody identifies with, uh, being under a beanbag and just dying. Um, we, uh, we made do. Uh, we didn’t have money, uh, but we had love. We really did. We had a, we, we came from a loving home.

00:05:27:21 – 00:05:48:08
Rick Hopper
Um, no- nobody’s perfect. Uh, my dad was Well, if we weren’t in Sunday morning at church, uh, my dad was missing on a alcohol bender. So he was an alcoholic that loved his family. And so he was, he had that, that disease where when I start, I can’t s- I can’t stop. I mean, that’s really what the definition is uh, of, you know, when I start, I can’t stop.

00:05:48:08 – 00:06:07:09
Rick Hopper
So he learned not to do it at all like, about-34, oh no, third, oh, 38 years ago. So, uh, he lives at my ranch now. Got a great relationship with my dad. Mom died when she was 65 about 15 years ago. Uh, just had bad health. Didn’t couldn’t, couldn’t make it here, if you know what I mean. And, uh, so but we, we, we, we, we did just fine.

00:06:07:09 – 00:06:26:09
Rick Hopper
I was a mediocre student. Um, I was a B student but I got As in everything I loved and Cs and Ds in everything I hated just like any other entrepreneur. Um, so I’m unstoppable with something I’m passionate about and I’m, I’m immovable with things I’m not.

00:06:26:10 – 00:06:32:04
Brandon Adams
Where were, where was this, uh, origination at? Was it in California, I think is where you say you’re from?

00:06:32:04 – 00:06:43:11
Rick Hopper
Born and raised in Anaheim. Spent- Okay and then, uh, moved to Fullerton, raised my kids in Fullerton which is 10 miles north of that. So you got Disneyland in Anaheim- Yeah, yeah and then 10 miles north of that you got Cal State Fullerton, great sp great baseball town.

00:06:43:12 – 00:06:45:11
Brandon Adams
Were you involved in any sports at all?

00:06:45:12 – 00:06:47:11
Rick Hopper
Oh, yeah. Uh, baseball’s my thing.

00:06:47:12 – 00:06:48:03
Brandon Adams
Okay.

00:06:48:05 – 00:06:49:11
Rick Hopper
That was it, just baseball.

00:06:49:13 – 00:06:51:23
Brandon Adams
Did you play that up for a while or?

00:06:52:00 – 00:07:02:22
Rick Hopper
Uh, and if he ever watches this, he’s gonna, he’ll, he’ll say, “No, that’s, that’s not true.”

00:07:02:24 – 00:07:06:23
Brandon Adams
Yeah, shout out to Rob out there, buddy. We know who you’re talking about.

00:07:07:00 – 00:07:08:04
Rick Hopper
His name is Todd, actually.

00:07:08:05 – 00:07:10:13
Brandon Adams
Todd, we got you now. Um, no, so I played sports, but my, my big thing in my life has always been solo sports- Okay

00:07:10:15 – 00:07:24:24
Rick Hopper
standup sports, skateboards, surfing, snowboarding. Uh, matter of fact, before there was a word for snowboarding I went surfing in the snow on this thing that I built ’cause I was shaping skimboards.

00:07:25:00 – 00:07:25:15
Brandon Adams
Okay.

00:07:25:17 – 00:07:44:06
Rick Hopper
If you know, don’t know what skimboards are uh, Google, uh, look at YouTube videos of skimboarding at the Wedge in, in Newport Beach. Great stuff. So I was shaping skimboards because I couldn’t afford to buy a skimboard so I figured out I got the materials and learned how to make them. While I was doing that, I made this thing called my snowsurfer.

00:07:44:07 – 00:07:45:12
Brandon Adams
How old were you when you started that?

00:07:45:12 – 00:07:47:14
Rick Hopper
I was 17, 18.

00:07:47:15 – 00:07:49:11
Brandon Adams
Uh- Your parents had, like, woodworking stuff in there and everything or?

00:07:49:17 – 00:08:09:01
Rick Hopper
No, my buddy, his dad owned a wood shop- Okay in Anaheim. So we went, we went in there and destroyed his woodshop with- Sure did resin and powder of fiberglass and resin. He was not happy. But we, we had a great time. We, we made lots of cool stuff. So snowboa- then right after I built my snowsurfer Burton shows up with a snowboard. And I, you know, I’m, I feel pretty revolutionary about that.

00:08:09:02 – 00:08:17:14
Rick Hopper
If I’d a if I’d, if I knew then what I knew now, what I know now I might’ve been the, the s- it might’ve, they might’ve been Hopper instead of Burton.

00:08:17:17 – 00:08:29:22
Brandon Adams
They might’ve been Hoppers, yeah. That’s cool, man. Honestly, like you, you see that early on for people that try things and get out there and just try to build stuff. Or have you always been kind of handsy with, with building things and been out in the shop and things like that?

00:08:29:22 – 00:08:32:19
Rick Hopper
Ever since, uh, Lincoln Logs and Erector Sets.

00:08:32:21 – 00:08:33:11
Brandon Adams
Okay.

00:08:33:16 – 00:08:41:03
Rick Hopper
Uh, I could build a mansion out of Lincoln Logs.

00:08:41:03 – 00:08:48:24
Brandon Adams
I mean, I’ll be 50 this year, so I’m not outrunning nobody, so yeah. Lincoln Logs and LEGOs and Erector Sets and- But as far as sports fans 00:08:49:03 – 00:08:59:17
Rick Hopper
your question, sports for me have al- has always been surfing, snowboarding, skateboarding all those things. I’ve owned up, I’ve owned every imaginable riding toy as they’ve been, become developed.

00:08:59:19 – 00:09:04:10
Brandon Adams
So kind of like extreme type sports, though. Yeah, I would say. No golf, no, uh- A lot of injuries.

00:09:04:11 – 00:09:19:04
Rick Hopper
I mean, I didn’t even know I was breakable till I was 46. I crashed my X-Skate electric skateboard at 30 miles an hour. Hit a pothole. An 8month recovery. Thank God I was wearing a helmet. Um, and then, uh, yeah, kind of changed the way I do things a little bit.

00:09:19:06 – 00:09:29:11
Brandon Adams
It’s funny, like you can go through your entire life and think that a certain way, and then one moment comes up and it really changes the way you see life, you know?

00:09:29:11 – 00:09:52:19
Rick Hopper
Uh- I call it dos and dids. Because, and I have got a, a 90-year-old uncle, he’ll be 90 in July, and, uh, I, uh, we got him off 2 wheels ’cause he’s, he’s our, he’s, he rides with us. He’s our, he’s our gang leader for our motorcycle club. And he, uh, I s- I, I said, “Hey, Uncle John, isn’t it amazing how some, as we go through life, the list of things we do starts to get shorter than the list of things we did?”

00:09:52:21 – 00:10:22:16
Rick Hopper
So dos and dids. And I, I go, “How do you know when to take 2 wheel motorcycles from the do column to the did column?” He goes, “I think it’s time.” All right, let’s go get you a 3wheeler. And so the dos and dids that’s what happens. It’s like an accident, an awareness. Last, yesterday, one of my employees caught me on the second to the top rung, standing at the second to the top rung of a 10-foot stepladder replacing the metal of a gable of a shed in the back of my property.

00:10:22:18 – 00:10:45:18
Rick Hopper
And, uh, I show, you’ve seen it. And it was a disaster. Well, I, I finally replaced it. And I’m standing up there with my b- I got a new knee, and I have a m- a maybe knee, and I’m up there h- hands-free, standing with my feet 9 feet from the ground with screw guns in one hand, screws in my mouth, and I got the, my, my square and my-

00:10:45:19 – 00:11:07:10
Rick Hopper
piece of metal. I’m, and screws. And I’m, and I’m, and I, first time really in my life, I, I really was doubting my ability to, to have balance. And I’ve already been injured. I mean, I, So today I got an email from my guy. It says “Hey, I think you, uh, you might be in the tax bracket of hiring people to do the thing you did yesterday.”

00:11:07:11 – 00:11:09:21
Brandon Adams
Yeah, yeah.

00:11:09:23 – 00:11:11:05
Rick Hopper
hate that tax bracket.

00:11:11:06 – 00:11:28:02
Brandon Adams
Yeah. Well, I mean, it’s really cool that first off you got people that actually care about you and don’t want to see you get hurt, right. The other thing is that you have done things so long that you just don’t doubt yourself. You know, like I got up today and was the latter wasn’t tall enough for me to change some of these spotlights out of here.

00:11:28:02 – 00:11:30:10
Rick Hopper
So that’s why. That’s why he looked at you.

00:11:30:11 – 00:11:34:20
Brandon Adams
I got that stepstool right there. And I wasn’t tall enough, so I stood on the very top of the handle with one foot.

00:11:34:21 – 00:11:35:15
Rick Hopper
Are you kidding?

00:11:35:20 – 00:11:52:11
Brandon Adams
And then I reached up with one hand. Do, anybody got a picture? Uh-uh. And I said, “No, I got it.” And you know, I’ve, I’ve climbed walls and stuff for murals I’ve done on top of like, you know, scissor lifts that just don’t go high enough and 00:11:52:11 – 00:11:54:18
Brandon Adams
it’s, it’s- You ever put a ladder on a scissor lift?

00:11:54:18 – 00:11:55:14
Rick Hopper
A scissor lift.

00:11:55:15 – 00:12:11:05
Brandon Adams
I’ve stood on the top of that. I mean, it’s just been crazy. Somebody said, “I’m gonna change my perspective of who I am.

00:12:11:05 – 00:12:27:23
Brandon Adams
I’ve decided to do that.” And I said, “Well, tell me why you’re doing that.” And I said, “Then do it.” And I said, “And train your brain to believe that you can do it every single day. Convince yourself, when you start to doubt, convince yourself that you can do this.”

00:12:27:24 – 00:12:31:18
Rick Hopper
Well, when you say do it, you’re talking about change the way you think.

00:12:31:20 – 00:12:32:17
Brandon Adams
Change the way you think.

00:12:32:18 – 00:12:53:04
Rick Hopper
Because just because you can- Yes doesn’t mean you should. Correct. And I do a lot of that stuff. My kids, my kids, if they saw some of the things I did I just built my ranch. And I did all the framing myself. And I was h- hanging off of ledges holding the you know, a 20-foot long, 2by6 frame wall by myself, ’cause I couldn’t get any help that day. And almost fall, fall to my death.

00:12:53:09 – 00:12:57:18
Rick Hopper
And my kids, they’re not gonna be happy with me if I- Sure hurt myself or my grandkids for that matter.

00:12:57:18 – 00:13:11:18
Brandon Adams
Well, I didn’t mean extreme sports and jumping off walls and things like that, but I meant like the way that you go through life, right? Once you start to believe in yourself and what you can do, and you train your mind to think that way, it’s very difficult to go the other way. ‘Cause you believe in yourself.

00:13:11:18 – 00:13:36:04
Brandon Adams
You believe that you can do it. There’s nothing you believe you can’t do, and so you go to the edge. Where other people would have fear for it, you have less fear because you know you’re gonna accomplish those goals, and I think that is a trained mentality over time. And sometimes people get lucky because they went through certain steps of maybe you were great at baseball, and you got this, and you accomplished that, and you were able to take that on, and you picked up something else, and you were really good at it, and you picked up something.

00:13:36:04 – 00:13:46:01
Brandon Adams
So now you start to believe all the time, “I’m really good at picking things up and accomplishing things. This is who I am. This is my mentality.” And so you apply that to every single thing in your life, you know?

00:13:46:04 – 00:14:06:21
Rick Hopper
Yeah, and the more time you spend on the edge, the more comfortable you get on the edge. And then you start and you’ve built things and you’ve proven to yourself that you’re very capable, um, you, you, you feel responsible to do those things and to solve those problems 00:14:06:21 – 00:14:26:16
Rick Hopper
yourself. from the do column to the did column.

00:14:26:18 – 00:14:31:00
Brandon Adams
I’m, again, this is my last full year in my 40s, and, uh, it- No, it’s not.

00:14:31:01 – 00:14:43:04
Rick Hopper
It’s the first year of your 50s, ’cause you’re technically in your 50th year.

00:14:43:08 – 00:15:03:13
Brandon Adams
Honestly, like I, I, I’ve never been fearful of like turning 30 or turning 40 or turning 50. Like, I’m not fearful of that. And if you just keep that about you of like, man, this is a blessing every single day to get another one, you know?

00:15:03:14 – 00:15:07:12
Brandon Adams
And it’s like, uh, what’s it, DJ Khaled, and another one. But you know, it’s like- I got some hope for you.

00:15:07:12 – 00:15:07:24
Rick Hopper
Got some hope.

00:15:07:24 – 00:15:10:06
Brandon Adams
For you. Yeah. Okay. Hit me. I first of.

00:15:10:06 – 00:15:31:14
Rick Hopper
first of all, I’ve had several friends recently turning 50. ’cause here I am 60. I took my studio up to, uh, interview a friend. Uh, he’s from Thailand. He owns an island off of Phuket. Has a pearl farm. He’s the exclusive distributor for Gulf Stream. He’s done very well in his life.

00:15:31:16 – 00:15:54:19
Rick Hopper
He’s, was just about to turn 75 when I was at his house. And he, he rescued a million Hmong people in the Secret War in Laos after Vietnam. Uh, he was young, CIA, American CIA from Thailand. Long story. His name’s Xuvacha, starts with an X. Watch for my show on, on his, uh, his, his e- Okay his episode. we’re sitting in his backyard.

00:15:54:21 – 00:16:11:19
Rick Hopper
Well, in his, on the lake, and, uh, the sun’s gone down, the stars are out. He’s got a fire going.We’re having a little drink, we’re smoking a cigar, Cuban cigars, because a buddy of his It was just one of those epic So here’s the hope part.

00:16:11:20 – 00:16:32:22
Rick Hopper
I’m gonna, I’m gonna get right to it. I said, “Suvichya, you’re gonna be 75 next week. When will you slow down and relax and just enjoy the fruits of all your labor?”

00:16:32:23 – 00:16:52:15
Rick Hopper
And he’s like, “Rick, I will And there’s no stopping. And that’s, and that’s how, that’s just how it goes. That fired me up 00:16:52:16 – 00:17:03:22
Rick Hopper
The, it gives me goosebumps to think about. I can be more on fire than I am right now.

00:17:03:23 – 00:17:20:14
Brandon Adams
I mean, it’s just like love for your wife. It just keeps growing and growing and growing, like- You don’t even know

00:17:20:16 – 00:17:20:20
Brandon Adams
Like.

00:17:20:20 – 00:17:21:01
Rick Hopper
I don’t.

00:17:21:01 – 00:17:22:11
Brandon Adams
past what you kn- You don’t know, right?

00:17:22:11 – 00:17:23:13
Rick Hopper
You don’t have grandkids yet, do.

00:17:23:13 – 00:17:24:17
Brandon Adams
You know? No grandkids?

00:17:24:17 – 00:17:45:10
Rick Hopper
That’s crazy. ‘Cause, I mean, to the max. It was unbelievable. And then I found out my daughter was pregnant with my second grandkid. I instantly felt so bad for the second kid And then when the kid was born, her name’s Bria. Doubled up. More than doubled.

00:17:45:12 – 00:17:51:08
Rick Hopper
It was, I couldn’t believe it. And now I got 5 grandkids. I never imagined.

00:17:51:10 – 00:18:18:03
Brandon Adams
I heard this, this quote today, um, and it was, it was really cool, ’cause it kinda put, put it in perspective. The journey to owning those things is what’s cool,” right?

00:18:18:05 – 00:18:36:14
Brandon Adams
I’ll show you somebody that doesn’t know how to get there. I’ll show you somebody who hasn’t had a whole lot of passion in their life. You show me somebody who took nothing and went to something by hustling all the way through it, it wasn’t the end goal that they got there, it’s the memories of getting there and proving to yourself that you can do that.”

00:18:36:17 – 00:18:59:14
Rick Hopper
There are people that love things and use people, and there are people that love people and use things.” And when you really think about, when you watch people in your life, you can divide those out.

00:18:59:18 – 00:19:05:05
Rick Hopper
You get the ones who love things and use people out of your life and you surround yourself with the others.

00:19:05:06 – 00:19:13:06
Brandon Adams
Yeah, 100%, 100%. You want to see other people eat too, right? You want to see the joy comes to them and how they, you know, raising their career and the things that go, that’s.

00:19:13:06 – 00:19:14:17
Rick Hopper
Celebrating winners, man.

00:19:14:18 – 00:19:30:05
Brandon Adams
Like, Todd’s probably not playing baseball anymore, you know?

00:19:30:06 – 00:19:50:17
Rick Hopper
It, we were actually on our way back from a game on the bus, and I was laughing about something. We lost the game. And I’m like, “Coach, it’s just a game.”

00:19:50:18 – 00:19:51:13
Brandon Adams
Yeah, there.

00:19:51:13 – 00:20:01:10
Rick Hopper
There you go. I played s- I, I, I love competitive sports.

00:20:01:12 – 00:20:01:19
Brandon Adams
I didn’t.

00:20:01:19 – 00:20:05:24
Rick Hopper
He just got third- I mean, not to third base.

00:20:06:01 – 00:20:06:12
Brandon Adams
Yeah, yeah.

00:20:06:13 – 00:20:16:07
Rick Hopper
Uh, so as far as, uh, um, winning, uh, i- interesting, so can I talk about my drug addiction a little bit?

00:20:16:08 – 00:20:18:22
Brandon Adams
100%. I was gonna ask you, like, what happened after baseball?

00:20:18:22 – 00:20:45:18
Rick Hopper
I meet my wife. We’re married, and it was, it was incredible, ’cause we were more interested, we were more committed to the marriage than we were a wedding, so our wedding cost 35 bucks. On a Monday, we went down to the courthouse, paid 35 bucks, under little paper bells, and, uh, a, a witness- Yeah, yeah that we didn’t know. And like, yep, we got married.

00:20:45:18 – 00:21:19:06
Rick Hopper
It’s done. And that’s, uh, May 11th, uh, 1987. The late 1900s, you might say. And then so everything was great, had our first kid a year later, and then, um, uh, 5 years later, uh, in ’92, I tried meth. And you see these signs that says, “One time can kill you.” And I’m just telling you that I, I tried it and fell deeply in love with it immediately. Uh, and, and I, I got strung out for two and a half years.

00:21:19:10 – 00:21:38:00
Rick Hopper
I’m a 200-pound guy. Weighed 145 pounds for a while. My wife kicked me out. I lived on the street for a little while. I spent some time in jail. Uh, that’s a whole series of stories. Uh, but then, uh, miraculously, my wife took me back a year and a half after I got clean and we had our third kid.

00:21:38:01 – 00:22:07:13
Rick Hopper
So I had 2 little girls, and we des- I destroyed our life. I destroyed our life. Um, spare you the details. Uh, miraculously, I got clean, uh, July 13th, 1994, and, uh, my wife took me back about a year and a half later, and I got really serious. I mean, I m- I’ve, I was like, I was c- Even before I got in the house for a year and a half, I was living in a dungeon, just a, a, an, an S hole, just a terrible little, hot, no air conditioning.

00:22:07:19 – 00:22:28:09
Rick Hopper
I was like, p- I punished myself and, and gave my wife and my kids every dime I made, and I lived super humble for, um And then I just, from there, I was like, “I’m, I’m gonna do really well in life. That’s it. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna serve my family and just I’m gonna give everything to my family.”

00:22:28:11 – 00:22:53:17
Rick Hopper
So, and that’s, that’s kinda what I’ve done. I, uh, one of the job, one of my first jobs I got after that was I was working in a door, building French doors. Um, the guy next to us, and this is kind of what inspired me to kind of think differently to where I could go do something really big.

00:22:53:21 – 00:23:16:21
Rick Hopper
I could actually go make more money than I can make by trading my time for somebody’s dollars. You know, every hour I get so many dollars. I could do something big. The guy next to us from the, on our, or the wood shop next to us was making shadow boxes, like little 10 by 12 shadow boxes to his And I s- uh, he was, d- he would roll 10, 20 pallets out every single morning, and they would load them on trucks, and they would build more shadow boxes.

00:23:16:23 – 00:23:36:21
Rick Hopper
So I went over there one day and I said, “Hey, uh, what are you, uh, what are you doing here with all these shadow boxes?” He goes, “Well, a few years ago, I decided I wanted to sell one thing to every gift shop or boutique, uh, in, in America.” He goes, “Oh, me either, but there’s probably a million of them.”

00:23:36:21 – 00:23:51:02
Rick Hopper
He, he says, “I wanna try to sell one every month to every gift shop.” So I went and found out This is before the internet. This is before you didn’t just Google like, “Hey, give me a, give me a list of gift shops.” It was, he had to go find Yellow Pages and phone calls and, uh, 411.

00:23:51:03 – 00:23:54:16
Rick Hopper
And for one one you remember that?

00:23:54:17 – 00:23:55:08
Brandon Adams
You remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:23:55:09 – 00:24:12:16
Rick Hopper
So he, he found a little thing that anybody could make, but he put the work into going out and getting those customers, and he was killing it. Drove a very nice car. So I’ve done a couple.

00:24:12:17 – 00:24:26:01
Brandon Adams
Well, that’s cool. I mean, I, I, I love the fact that that’s how you got to that point. I would love to go You said you’re 21, you got married. You guys had 2 kids by the time you tasted your first drug. Was that the first drug you’d been into, or just meth?

00:24:26:02 – 00:24:42:16
Rick Hopper
Yeah, no, that was it. I never did drugs. I didn’t smoke pot in school. Uh, I was more, I was more interested in high school in, uh, leading people to Christ. I w- I was a little bit of a Bible thumper. ‘Cause my girlfriend, all for 3 years, all through high school, her dad was a Baptist preacher 00:24:42:16 – 00:24:58:02
Rick Hopper
so we were in church all the time. Matter of fact, he made, one of the things that saved my life, and, uh, was when I’d go hang out with my girlfriend, when I’d leave their house, he would hand me a little card, a little business card with a Bible verse on it and say, “Don’t come back till you got it memorized.”

00:24:58:04 – 00:25:01:15
Rick Hopper
So if I wanna hang out with my girlfriend, I gotta memorize Bible verses.

00:25:01:17 – 00:25:02:09
Brandon Adams
Yeah.

00:25:02:13 – 00:25:18:01
Rick Hopper
It got in my head. It was a, it was pretty wild. So that’s, uh, um, I forgot the question.

00:25:18:02 – 00:25:41:09
Brandon Adams
Well, I’m sure a lot of those Well, I was gonna say, like, when you s- when you started that, for somebody who’s never done any drugs at all- Hmm right? You turn 25 and you’re like, “You know what? I think I’m just gonna hit full throttle on the gas and, and let’s go straight to meth.” Like, how does the mentality

00:25:41:09 – 00:26:04:10
Brandon Adams
It’s like I’m running this way. Hard left turn, I’m going that way. Hard left turn, I’m going this way. And it’s like, and once you’re in that section, you are completely in that until something distracts you or something takes you in another direction, right? So let’s get to the point where you’re driving down the road and you think, “You know what?

00:26:04:12 – 00:26:05:03
Rick Hopper
That might be a good idea.

00:26:05:04 – 00:26:06:23
Brandon Adams
“Meth, how about some of that?”

00:26:07:00 – 00:26:34:10
Rick Hopper
No, that’s, this is how it happened. I, uh-I had a neighbor who was, uh, was doing better than I was financially. We had an alley between us and then Uh, but I was, I was, I was a window and door installer. I did that for many years. And so I was in construction. And they, they had My neighbor had broken a door in their h- in their condo, and asked me if I could hang a new door for him.

00:26:34:10 – 00:26:55:05
Rick Hopper
And I’m watching this thing. I’m unexperienced. I mean, I know about drugs.

00:26:55:10 – 00:27:15:13
Rick Hopper
I had family members that did a lot of drugs. And my attitude towards drug addicts was, “What kind of idiot gets strung out on drugs?” It’s unproductive. It’s disgusting. It’s like their life is terrible. Well, and I’m like, what’s made me think, “Well, I’ll never get strung out on drugs.” Only idiots do that.

00:27:15:19 – 00:27:39:03
Rick Hopper
Well, these guys, they say, “Hey, Rick, you sh- you should try this out. This stuff’s cool.” So I’m like, “What are you doing?” I’m looking at them. I go, “No, I’ll try it.” But I go, “Oh, uh, yeah, here.” I go like, I pull it in.

00:27:39:05 – 00:28:04:12
Rick Hopper
And I don’t wanna glamorize. I’ve done this before. I will say that, uh, if you wanna absolutely destroy your life and feel great a few minutes at a time, and then your life gets worse and worse, yeah, go ahead, be an idiot. But, uh, because I’ve made the mistake of explaining how it affects you to the point where people wanna try it.

00:28:04:14 – 00:28:28:21
Rick Hopper
I will never do that again. I, I r- I, I feel like I ruined a guy’s life one time. ‘Cause he was asking me all kinds of questions about how it made you feel and all this stuff. And, and he had pain, he had pain from, from early in his life. I didn’t. I think the difference between somebody who didn’t have who had pain or trauma back in their mind that they need to quiet- They run away from

00:28:28:22 – 00:28:29:06
Brandon Adams
They run.

00:28:29:06 – 00:28:57:21
Rick Hopper
Now, I loved the way it made me feel. I loved I didn’t do it because I had pain to cover up. And I think that’s the difference between a, a, somebody who stays addicted to drugs 00:28:58:02 – 00:29:03:15
Rick Hopper
They can’t handle it themselves, and they wind up getting wrapped up in something they just can’t quit.

00:29:03:17 – 00:29:12:11
Brandon Adams
You’re like, “I’m gonna do this again.” You went back to those guys a couple more times and hung out. You needed to hang a bunch of doors in their house for some reason, but- No, I knew people.

00:29:12:11 – 00:29:24:22
Rick Hopper
And I, I knew As soon as I, s- as soon as I knew, realized how much I liked it, and I, I d- I got a calculator out, and I knew a lot of people that used it, and I could be their dealer. first thing, my first thought was, “Well, I can get free dope.”

00:29:24:23 – 00:29:25:03
Brandon Adams
Free.

00:29:25:09 – 00:29:49:17
Rick Hopper
I can make money on this. If I can make money off of this- I can pay for myself enjoy the fruits of my labor and sell it and make money- I can keep doing what I do. And, uh, he hooked me up, and, um, next thing I know, it got really bad really fast.

00:29:49:18 – 00:29:53:11
Brandon Adams
That’s crazy. You took the entrepreneurial aspect of even using drugs and- Hardwiring, bro

00:29:53:11 – 00:29:54:07
Rick Hopper
And hard wiring, bro.

00:29:54:08 – 00:30:02:15
Brandon Adams
split that up and started going. So how long until your wife found out you were doing this? Did you bring this to her and go, “You might wanna try this,” or- No you hid this from her the entire time?

00:30:02:16 – 00:30:03:15
Rick Hopper
Oh, I thought I was.

00:30:03:16 – 00:30:03:24
Brandon Adams
Yeah, I.

00:30:03:24 – 00:30:16:03
Rick Hopper
You can’t hide that. But I can lie about it and lie about it and make her feel bad about it and manipulate her and just turn it and turn a, a regular marriage into an absolute shit show.

00:30:16:04 – 00:30:16:20
Brandon Adams
Yeah.

00:30:16:23 – 00:30:43:11
Rick Hopper
And, uh, then she realized, and then she said I can get help, and then she tried to help me get help, and then she finally h- she finally gave up, ’cause I was, my word was worthless ’cause I was lying about everything. I would start fights just so I could leave and go use, and, uh, I would Oh, oh, oh, no, that’s, that’s the, the never-ending, uh, just terrible stories um, that A- I, I do not deserve her love. Uh, I mean, and we’ve, we have a great relationship.

00:30:43:12 – 00:30:59:24
Brandon Adams
It’s amazing. The reason I’m kinda digging into this is because there’s a lot of people out there that struggle with different things all the time, right? And they may be at those early stages that, that you had, and they may not have made it through this curve. They may not have made it through the relationship. Okay, let’s give some people hope.

00:31:00:01 – 00:31:14:24
Rick Hopper
Um, actually, I have, if you go to, uh, my website, rickhopper.com I give away all kinds of resources. Uh, I don’t trick people into going to my website so I can sell them something. Um, if you do go to my website and you see Read Arrest magnetic eyeglass holders, there is a link. You can buy these.

00:31:15:00 – 00:31:45:08
Rick Hopper
I like giving things away because I get enough blessing out of this world and fruits of my labor, and I get to, yeah, help people a lot. Um, one of the I got a few different resources. Uh, rickhopper.com, too easy. Um, it’s, I ca- I It’s like a cheat code for kicking addiction. There’s a lot of people that are secretly doing something, putting something in their body to change the way they feel.

00:31:45:10 – 00:32:02:15
Rick Hopper
So when you, when you think about it, what, what’s the trigger? If somebody’s watching this show and goes, “Well, I’m not a drug addict. I’m not like those losers.” “I don’t have that problem.” But if they were really to look in the mirror and go, “You know, I do something that’s not great for me on a regular basis to change the way I feel for a little while.

00:32:02:19 – 00:32:46:14
Rick Hopper
And if I got really honest, I would have to admit that it’s having a negative effect on my life that nobody else can see but I’m hi- I’m, I’m hiding the dark secret.” “Or I’m hiding” And, um, uh, I go, “Oh, oh, I have a hard time articulating myself without actual tears.” It’s like, um, the, the, uh, the feeling of being purely motivated, uh, being completely clean of any chemicals or behaviors that are bad for me is, it’s, it’s the, it’s the most, um What’s the, what’s the word? Uh, autopic or, uh, it’s like the sensory feelings of feeling things and feeling people, being able to pick up things that are going on in a room, having the gift of discernment and may- having your mind so clear and being so aware of everything that’s going on in a room, where you can identify somebody in the room that’s hurting.

00:32:46:16 – 00:33:06:15
Rick Hopper
And with a word, you can, you can give them a compliment or lift them up a little bit.

00:33:06:16 – 00:33:29:00
Rick Hopper
And when everybody in the room sees that person being lifted up, everybody in the room gets an inch taller. So I may not be able to change the world, but I change every room I walk into whenever I can because the clarity in my mind gives me the ability to identify what’s going on in the world.

00:33:29:00 – 00:33:45:24
Brandon Adams
But you weren’t on that For a while, you were, you were still down on the bottom, like, I mean, you’re talking about the other side of this. I’m talking about people who are actually living in it now, right? Whether it be alcohol or porn or drugs or theft or whatever it is that you’re, you’re addicted to, whatever, right?

00:33:46:04 – 00:33:48:13
Brandon Adams
Like, people are kinda feeling kinda stuck at that moment, and you’re- Oh, and they, they can’t see their way through the woods.

00:33:48:13 – 00:33:52:22
Rick Hopper
They don’t know where to go and how to get, how to stop.

00:33:52:23 – 00:34:14:22
Brandon Adams
Yeah, and, and here’s somebody here on the other side that said, “We’re gonna get to your good stuff here in just a second,” but man, you’re going through the bottom at this point. Like, you’re, you’ve, you’re lying to your wife. You’re starting fights. You’re going out and using drugs. You’re 25, 26, 27 at, at these points. And at 28- 29 or 29, you look over and go, “What?

00:34:14:24 – 00:34:17:14
Brandon Adams
This is over. How do I get out?

00:34:17:20 – 00:34:43:19
Rick Hopper
so sadly, I’m gonna give some people some good news and some bad news, um, especially people who love somebody who’s in the middle of this.

00:34:43:23 – 00:35:10:22
Rick Hopper
No way. I love this person too much.” Well, you’re gonna love that person straight to the grave because you’re allowing, allowing the behavior. If you The b- the behaviors we tolerate are the behaviors we are encouraging more of. That a- that applies to every, every aspect of life.

00:35:10:24 – 00:35:32:03
Rick Hopper
Now, so mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, anybody who has somebody in their life who is in the grip of some sort of addiction, um, you have to expose them to enough pain to where they’ll be willing to make a decision and change the way they’re doing their thing. Okay? So if you’re enabling, if you’re encouraging more of the same by tolerating it, uh, you’re not helping.

00:35:32:03 – 00:35:52:13
Rick Hopper
So most people aren’t willing to put somebody out of the house or put, call the cops on them, create full accountability to just disgusting behavior. That’s some bad news. Um, here’s what worked for me. I’m in the grip. I’m in the disease. I’m in the bottom of the barrel. I’m just like, “My life is just, is, is dis- is a disaster.”

00:35:52:13 – 00:36:11:13
Rick Hopper
It doesn’t have to get that bad. Some people have a different tolerance level. They’re on the verge of getting fired. They haven’t lost their job yet. They don’t even know what it looks like to not have that job, but they know that they’re on the- on thin ice, and they’re still, they still have the, the wife or the kid or the house.

00:36:11:13 – 00:36:50:10
Rick Hopper
They still have the car, and they haven’t lost everything yet. You don’t have to lose everything to hit rock bottom because you stop digging a hole when you put down the shovel. here’s what happens. If you’re in enough pain, you’ve created enough chaos, or you’re scared enough of the outcomes that are about to happen, you stop. Sadly, most people, most people wait until the pain is so great or the chaos in their life is so intense that they’re just so miserable that they make a change.

00:36:50:12 – 00:37:14:16
Rick Hopper
Y- y- y- you can pick your bottom. So here are the rules, the rules of the game. Really, really simple. This is part of the cheat code. I’ll just share it. Number one, if you don’t pick up, you don’t use. If you don’t pick up a glass of alcohol, you don’t pour it in.

00:37:14:21 – 00:37:36:01
Rick Hopper
If you don’t go buy it, you don’t pick it up. If you don’t go buy it, you don’t pour it. If you don’t go in that store where they sell it, you don’t buy it. You don’t hang out with people. So change your playmates and change your playgrounds. 2, I’m sorry, uh, most people don’t wanna change up their friends. And, um, well, you’re stuck.

00:37:36:03 – 00:37:57:20
Rick Hopper
Your playmates and your playgrounds, so the people you hang out with and the places those people hang around with hang out at. Um, but you can, uh, pull yourself up by the bootstraps by picking a different lifestyle where you’re going and doing something that’s better than those people that makes them un- uncomfortable.

00:37:57:20 – 00:38:03:04
Rick Hopper
It’s just uncomfortable for them.

00:38:03:05 – 00:38:04:09
Brandon Adams
Put the mirror in front of their face.

00:38:04:10 – 00:38:25:12
Rick Hopper
You realize like So, um, so the most basic rules are you have to change your playmates and your playgrounds. Um, and you have to stop. And if you put a reservation in your head, “Well, I’m gonna stop for a couple weeks and I’m gonna see how it goes,” well, 2 weeks from now you’re gonna jump right back into the same behavior.

00:38:25:14 – 00:38:47:06
Rick Hopper
Um, the, the rule of thumb is, like, you go to AA or NA, the, the Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings, you know, they reinforce, uh, and I do highly recommend And I’m not an advocate for or I don’t s- I’m not a s- I don’t speak for those groups, but for me to get from the gutter, out of the gutter and onto the curb, I went to Narcotics Anonymous.

00:38:47:08 – 00:39:07:08
Rick Hopper
So I went and h- locked arms with a bunch of people that know how to get clean and stay clean.

00:39:07:09 – 00:39:33:15
Rick Hopper
That’s not where I learned how to really, really thrive in life. But that was the step that gave me the opportunity because, or the opportunities should I say, because you have one option when you’re, when you’re in the grip of addiction. That’s your only option, and anything that gets between you and that option is in trouble.

00:39:33:17 – 00:39:37:21
Rick Hopper
Once you’re out of that, the options are unlimited.

00:39:37:23 – 00:39:48:18
Brandon Adams
Have you heard these people say, “I want you to have,” as a, as an employer say, “I want their employees to have crackhead mentality”? Crack head, crackhead mentality means like- Yeah, yeah

00:39:48:19 – 00:39:49:07
Rick Hopper
they’ll do anything- They, they don’t take a day off They don’t take a day off.

00:39:49:07 – 00:39:59:10
Brandon Adams
They’ll do anything to get that crack. No matter what it is, they’ll go through fires to get that crack or whatever. Oh, yeah. And so that’s kind of the mentality of, like, getting out of the gutter too, right?

00:39:59:13 – 00:40:36:18
Rick Hopper
Uh, you know, it’s funny, when I, when I was done, July 13th, uh, I was done. I have not once Once I got clean after a couple days, I, uh, I got, uh I don’t, I’ll, I’ll save j- I wanna, I don’t wanna tell jail stories, but, uh, we don’t have time for that. But when I got clean, um, it was like the contrast is so vivid between not just in my life in general, but when in my brain.

00:40:36:18 – 00:40:59:14
Rick Hopper
I’ll give you an example. I can paint you a picture of, uh, how I felt. Um, I’m on drugs or I’m out or I need more or I’m, uh, I’m trying to get more drugs or I just got more drugs. Any, at any point while I was in the grip of addiction, everything I saw, I saw everything through 2 big circles.

00:40:59:16 – 00:41:25:19
Rick Hopper
That’s all I could see. I could see everything through 2 huge circles. And I realized what it was. Rick Hopper, the guy you know now, was chained and shackled to the back of my skull. And the way I thought and the way I felt and the way I love and my creativity and my enthusiasm of life was s- was w- was anchored to the back of my skull.

00:41:25:19 – 00:41:50:15
Rick Hopper
And while the beast was running my body and I was cursing at my wife and trying to run her off so I could go use more dope, I’m in the background looking through these 2 big holes that are my eye sockets, screaming, “I love you. I’m sorry.” I’m just, I’m screaming and I’m like literally bawling and crying on the inside, trying to get through, but I wasn’t in control.

00:41:50:15 – 00:41:55:19
Rick Hopper
It was a, was a, a really wild phenomenon 00:41:55:21 – 00:42:06:03
Rick Hopper
of, um, I’m shackled to the back of my skull, and the real Rick Hopper wanted out, but I’d, I’d been taken over by this beast.

00:42:06:04 – 00:42:07:05
Brandon Adams
You were a passenger.

00:42:07:07 – 00:42:13:19
Rick Hopper
Oh, yeah. Passenger watching the, just the, the wreckage happen in front of me.

00:42:13:21 – 00:42:25:24
Brandon Adams
And to grab hold of the wheel, what was the moment like? No one’s just driving down the deal and is like, “Okay, cool. That was 5 years. That was enough time.” Like, what’s the moment? What causes you to flip that switch?

00:42:26:02 – 00:43:02:20
Rick Hopper
It’s, so it’s, it’s not an event, it’s a process. It’s like, it wasn’t like one second, 2, 2 minutes later I’m, I’m in control. It was I, uh, I wanted to be done, and I had talked to probably 30 or 40 drug addicts in drug houses where we’re dealing drugs and smoking dope together and running around town, all these dark places, abandoned houses, and where there’s no electricity, and we’re hiding in there with candles and smoking meth. And, and I kept telling them, “Hey, there’s this event coming up in a couple weeks at Anaheim Convention Center called the Harvest Crusade.”

00:43:02:22 – 00:43:17:15
Rick Hopper
Um, Greg Laurie, it’s a, it’s a big Christian organization that And I had been involved with them years earlier. And I’m like, “I’m gonna go get saved, man. I’m gonna go get renew- I’m gonna renew my faith in the God of my youth, and I’m gonna do it.” And I was talking to all these drug addicts saying, “Let’s go.”

00:43:17:15 – 00:43:34:23
Rick Hopper
And every single one of them said, “Yeah, when I get clean, I’m gonna do this, and when I get clean, I’m gonna do that.” They’re all dead. All but a few of them are dead today. And I, I f- I, I was, I probably had 12 people that wanted to go. I said, “All right. It’s on this date. I’m going. I’m gonna change my life.”

00:43:34:23 – 00:43:54:21
Rick Hopper
And I, I, uh, on that m- that afternoon, I was r- running around town looking for these people. I found a couple of them. I say, “Hey, hop in. Let’s go. I’m gonna go to that thing.” And they’re like, “Uh, no, no. It’s cool, bro.” And I couldn’t get anybody to go. And then I realized, like, I’ll be lucky to save my own life.

00:43:54:23 – 00:44:14:20
Rick Hopper
I gonna save anyone else’s? It’s like, and I realized, like, this is just 100% up to me. And so I went to that Harvest Crusade, and I expected a miraculous thing to happen. So I’m on my way to this thing. I’m listening to the Christian radio station called KYMS at the time. I’m throwing my dope out the window on the freeway.

00:44:14:20 – 00:44:32:19
Rick Hopper
I’m getting rid of my drugs, driving down the freeway, and it, and the, and the, the radio station is saying, “Hey, stadium is full. Come g- come tomorrow night. There’s no room.”

00:44:32:21 – 00:45:08:19
Rick Hopper
This is the moment. You know what I mean? This is like, this is like the moment of clarity where I knew I’m done. And it’s like l- little did I know that it, well, that wasn’t gonna be the, like, the k- the hard right turn. It was gonna be the beginning of a process. So I get, I go in there. I run in. They let me in. And I look, I look down, and the, there’s an usher standing down by home plate, uh, looking up the stairs right at me with one finger up pointing to a seat front and center. Very front row, front seat, front and center.

00:45:08:21 – 00:45:40:24
Rick Hopper
Anyway, so I didn’t feel a- an awakening. I didn’t feel but I did feel relief of like I can be done. I don’t, this doesn’t have to own me anymore. So I went to, the next day I went to this church up in, uh, Portola, uh, called, uh, it’s Rick Warren’s old church up there. They had a, they had a, a drug thing called, I think, uh, I can’t remember what it’s called, like Lions something or the other.

00:45:40:24 – 00:46:01:07
Rick Hopper
So here I am. I’ll tell you one more quick story, ’cause this is kinda like really a big pivot in my life. Their, uh, eyes are clear, and they look like normal middle-aged people and some young guys, some old guys.

00:46:01:08 – 00:46:19:24
Rick Hopper
And there’s a, there’s this table full of snacks and cookies and crackers for when it’s over, they’re gonna go over there. So I’m sitting here, and I’m hungry.I’m, I’m looking over at the cookies the whole time, like, I’m listening, I’m listening. Now, I, I need hope, you know?

00:46:19:24 – 00:46:35:21
Rick Hopper
I was like, my mind was like I was like, “Man, I could sure really use some dope right now.” But I was, I was like, but I didn’t want to. So I’m looking at the cookies and, and so afterwards, um, at the very end somebody g- some- somebody says, um, “Hey, we got time for one more if anybody has a burning desire.”

00:46:35:21 – 00:46:46:06
Rick Hopper
I’m looking around for somebody that has a burning desire, and it was me. So I just, I raise my hand, I start, I just start bawling.

00:46:46:10 – 00:46:48:07
Rick Hopper
Blah blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:46:48:09 – 00:47:07:01
Rick Hopper
I, I, I have no idea what I said, then it ended and instead of everybody running to the cookies, they ran to me. I’m thinking, “I gotta get to the cookies- ’cause they’re gonna eat all the cookies before I can get over there.” Anyways, and this guy, this one guy gave me this, this little He tore off a piece of paper.

00:47:07:02 – 00:47:23:15
Rick Hopper
I’m, I’ll never forget the shape of this little piece of paper. His name was Wayne, he wr- put his phone number on there. This is before cell phones. And so I had to find a pay- He says, “You need to go to Narcotics Anonymous, ’cause you need real help. This is great, but you need to really go get the basics under your, you know, under your belt.”

00:47:23:18 – 00:47:44:12
Rick Hopper
He says, “Go to this place tomorrow night and call me from the payphone when you get there.” So I called him. I could drag this story out, but I called him, he answered, he remembered my name, blew my mind, and that was my very first NA meeting. I went to mar- I went to meetings for years because of the relief, the clarity that I got about life.

00:47:44:12 – 00:47:52:23
Rick Hopper
They should teach the 12 steps and principles in high school. Because it, it, it’s an adjustment to the way people naturally think.

00:47:53:03 – 00:48:10:16
Brandon Adams
So- And so j- meeting these people, you know, going out on a limb, feeling some relief, some excitement, another, an- another potential page turn, one step to the next step to the next step really caused you to honestly make it to the other side. You could have broken that chain at any point in time.

00:48:10:18 – 00:48:32:16
Rick Hopper
Absolutely, and a lot of people do. You know what, you know what a lot of people say? Uh, and this is the thing, this is the, this is the killer. This is what kills people, um, because there’s biblical concept in- mixed into this, but, um, a lot of people, um, they tell themselves, “Oh, I can do one. I can just have one drink,” or, “I can just, I can do one hit.”

00:48:32:19 – 00:48:53:17
Rick Hopper
And that’s the end. That’s usually the end for people. Once, once you get clean uh, and the biblical concept is when, when you have a demon and you get the demon removed from your life and then you got, your house is clean. Sweep the house. If you let ’em in, 7 come with them. And that’s the, I think that’s what a lot of people- Bigger, badder.

00:48:53:17 – 00:48:54:21
Brandon Adams
People bigger. Better.

00:48:54:22 – 00:48:58:22
Rick Hopper
Oh, man. So stay clean, bro.

00:48:58:23 – 00:49:10:06
Brandon Adams
All right, so cool. You crossed that bridge, you went through, you, you went through years of Uh, appreciate, by the way, the, the deep dive there, and I know not everybody wants to go into their, their past, but really that is a part of this because- It was my responsibility 00:49:10:07 – 00:49:17:01
Rick Hopper
to share my experience. I have no problem sharing the hope with people that are maybe feeling hopeless.

00:49:17:02 – 00:49:25:14
Brandon Adams
And so you got through this. You went through, uh, you said years’ worth.

00:49:25:16 – 00:49:49:09
Rick Hopper
Um, it was about a year and a half. About a year and a half. And it’s, it’s funny, um, I, I got a job pretty quick after I got clean, and then I got a better job, and then I worked, I worked at this, I worked at Home Depot. Uh, my second job was Home Depot. A year after I got clean, I wor- I worked there for 6 years. But I’m, uh

00:49:49:10 – 00:50:08:22
Rick Hopper
Uh, and I wanted to be home. And so I’d meet girls, and they’re like, “Hey, what’s up?” I’m, I’m wearing my wedding ring, but um, and this one girl was like, uh, “Hey, we should go out,” and finally like a year and a half later. I said no, no to no to girl, this girl, no to

00:50:08:22 – 00:50:29:03
Rick Hopper
I just, and I was like, I just, I stayed away from the girls. And then finally I realized I had done the damage. My wife was letting me have a relationship with my girls, but her heart was, was a stone And sh- ‘Cause I had done so much damage. And I, the, the morning that I finally, I threw in the towel, I remember the relief that I got when I threw in the towel.

00:50:29:04 – 00:50:45:22
Rick Hopper
I’m like, “Uh, you know what? I have to, I have to own it. Um, I’m gonna be, um, I’ll be divorced and I’ll have kids. Um, as much as I love my wife, I d- I broke it. I broke it. It’s, it, I can’t fix it.” And I threw in the towel and I called this girl.

00:50:45:22 – 00:51:05:12
Rick Hopper
I says, “All right, we can, we can hang out.” I’m, and I, I give up. That afternoon my wife calls me out of the blue, and there’s no chance whatsoever that she could’ve known at all. But something whispered in her ear, and she calls me and she says, “Uh, look,” and she was almost, like, under duress. Her attitude was under duress.

00:51:05:14 – 00:51:17:21
Rick Hopper
She seemed like she was going against her own will. She says, “Look, I love you and I think we need to work this out.” Canceled my date, went out with my wife.

00:51:17:23 – 00:51:32:01
Brandon Adams
Pretty wild. Pretty amazing. And so at, you said that time you were living in a dungeon. You’re just throwing money back to the house, back to the family, making sure everybody’s taken care of. She’s starting to build a little more trust in you, and you have to prove yourself. You’ve d- you’ve torn down so much. They say every relationship’s like a bank.

00:51:32:02 – 00:51:40:02
Brandon Adams
You gotta deposit as much as you withdraw, right? So you were busy putting in deposits for the next year and a half until you started to build that thing back up, right?

00:51:40:03 – 00:51:55:00
Rick Hopper
Takes some time. Proving behavior, proving behavior. Uh, words, by, by then my word was absolutely worthless, so I might as well not even speak. I might as well just live as a mime. No words. Only actions.

00:51:55:00 – 00:52:06:08
Brandon Adams
Yeah, so you came back. You, you got through that, and then you were working at Home Depot, right? So I know you’re a serial entrepreneur, so that’s not where the story ends, right? It’s kinda where the story begins, right?

00:52:06:09 – 00:52:08:00
Rick Hopper
Yeah, I’m a bad employee.

00:52:08:02 – 00:52:08:15
Brandon Adams
Tell me about this.

00:52:08:16 – 00:52:26:23
Rick Hopper
Tell me about that. Uh, most, most entrepreneurs are bad employees. I, because, uh, because everything we look at, we have this thing in our head going, “Oh, there’s gotta be a better way.” Or, “Why do they wanna do it this way? Because I have a better way of doing it.” “Uh, I think we should do it differently. I th- you know, the way I would do it.” Well, they got, you know, 1,500 stores at the time. 1,000 stores at the time.

00:52:26:23 – 00:52:46:18
Rick Hopper
And the corporate office says, “Every end cap of this screw aisle is gonna look exactly like this, because that’s how we roll it out to all the stores.” And then they come to my store, and, um, matter of fact, I was, uh, tell you a quick story. I, I was so entrepreneurial that I was op- I was, had, a few years into it, maybe 4, 4 years into my Home Depot thing, I had taken over departments and I was ordering inventory.

00:52:46:18 – 00:53:09:24
Rick Hopper
I was responsible for a lot of stuff and employees and stuff. So I had, like, a dozen They, they asked me to go open a new store. So I’m opening up the La Habra store, and we’re about, eh, maybe 8 miles from the West Coast corporate office. And I get all my, my orders, and I’m responsible for literally setting up all the racking and the building materials department.

00:53:09:24 – 00:53:33:23
Rick Hopper
And, and I look at the orders and I start measuring space and so I started calling vendors and, and adjusting quantities, and cha- I’m changing all the- Replenishes and everything our buyer is like he’s, he’s- So our buyer calls me. Now, I’m not, I’m gonna try not to cuss on your show, but he cussed at me. And, uh, he finds out I’m ch- I’m changing orders, altering his

00:53:34:00 – 00:53:53:20
Rick Hopper
So I get the call from, from the, from the buyer at the corporate office. He says, “What the are you doing? Who the do you think you are?” I said, “Look, you come on up.” Here’s a map. “You come on up, and, uh, I’ll show you, uh, I’ll show you what I’ve done, and you can thank me.” “And you can buy me a steak dinner.”

00:53:54:00 – 00:54:10:06
Rick Hopper
Oh, now he was really mad. So he goes, “Oh, don’t worry. I’m on my way right now.” “Uh, and, and, and you’re gonna be out of a job in about 10 minutes.” I said, “Well, you come on up.” And sure enough, we walk the department, and at the end of the walk he thanked me. I never got my steak dinner-

00:54:10:09 – 00:54:32:13
Rick Hopper
but he thanked me, ’cause I, covered his butt big time ’cause I was paying attention. So that’s, okay, we’re not that employable. We try to do things that are better than are already being done. So, but I went to Home Depot and I worked there. And, uh, I, I had the least amount of out of stocks. Uh, my, my department was incred- one of the best departments in, like, the entire district.

00:54:32:13 – 00:54:54:18
Rick Hopper
And, and I overheard somebody, uh, ask the manager why I hadn’t got promoted as assistant manager yet, because they kept promoting department supervisors. And, uh, and I’m like, and it was like a dagger went in my soul. And I overheard her tell him, uh, “Yeah, Hopper’s got a great department, but he’s all talk.

00:54:54:19 – 00:55:05:02
Rick Hopper
“He’s not a good manager.” And that, that’s when I realized she’s right. I would try to delegate, but when somebody didn’t do their part, I would just do it myself.

00:55:05:05 – 00:55:05:14
Brandon Adams
It out?

00:55:05:15 – 00:55:18:07
Rick Hopper
Pick it up. I’d do it myself and do it better. I could do it faster than them doing it. It would take me longer to explain what I want done than just do it. So I’d work in extra hours. Anyway, that’s, that was my nature. I couldn’t get promoted.

00:55:18:09 – 00:55:35:01
Brandon Adams
Well, I mean, I think that’s really cool. I mean, there’s a lot of people out there that kinda feel the same way about things in general, and sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong on what they can get done, you know, but it’s kinda the mentality that kinda goes with it. Um, Home Depot, you decided Home Depot’s maybe not for you after you got daggered?

00:55:35:03 – 00:55:55:23
Rick Hopper
Well, here’s what happened. I, when I went to work at Home Depot, it was the heydays of Home Depot when the stock was going up and splitting, and going up and splitting, and going up. So I put, back in the day, you were allowed to put 35% of your paycheck into stock. So I had the ability to make real money on the evenings and weekends and days off.

00:55:55:23 – 00:56:16:03
Rick Hopper
So I was installing doors and windows. I would make more money on, in one, on one Saturday than I would in 2 weeks at Home Depot. So I stockpiled stock, it went up and did great. And, um, So I was door and window guy. That’s where I really made my money, but I had a, a 40-hour-a-week job which I could do standing on my head.

00:56:16:04 – 00:56:38:17
Rick Hopper
Matter of fact, I’ve h- y- I’ve heard it put entrepreneurs work 80 hours just so they don’t have to work 40. Do you know what I mean? So I’m, uh And that’s wild. I, I s- built up all my stock, and then one day I, I bought my first house. It was like a little condo-type house. And, um, um, my wife and I are back together.

00:56:38:17 – 00:57:00:17
Rick Hopper
We have our third kid, and we buy this, buy this little condo. Well, I needed all my money, so I sold all my stock and put it all into as a down payment on the house. And I had 5 grand left after doing all that. And like, “What’s wrong with everybody?”

00:57:00:20 – 00:57:21:07
Rick Hopper
And they’re like, “Didn’t you, didn’t you see what happened yesterday?” I go, “What happened?” Stock dropped in half. I’m like, “Wow, I, I sold my stock the day before, all of it.” They’re like They were mad. “How did you know? How did you know?” I’m like, “How did I know what?” “How’d you know it was gonna fall?

00:57:21:07 – 00:57:45:04
Rick Hopper
How’d you know to sell your stock?” I’m like, “100% pure luck.” Pure luck, yeah. I swear to God I wouldn’t have been able to buy my, buy my house. So I lucked out, bought my house. That’s part of the story is I buy this condo. I spend The first thing I do is I replace some doors and windows. That’s what I do. Now, for years I hadn’t realized how irritated I was with the window industry because they wouldn’t invent or they wouldn’t provide a product that I needed as a window installer, and I’m like, I realized.

00:57:45:04 – 00:58:15:09
Rick Hopper
I’ll do it myself. And called it Trim Quick. I would’ve named it Quick Trim, but that was already done. Somewhere in New Jersey somebody had a dietary supplement called Quick Trim. So I named it Trim Quick, and it was a great, great company. It still exists to this day.

00:58:15:09 – 00:58:34:19
Rick Hopper
I bought some adhesive, had this extrusion guy make me product, and I took a week off of work, I drove around California, and I sold $20,000 worth of these strips of plastic. And long story short, had a near miss, almost blew the company in the very beginning, but I turned a corner and I, uh, th- a few weeks later they’re calling back for more.

00:58:34:20 – 00:58:55:01
Rick Hopper
So I went and I took 2 weeks off work ’cause I had like 6 or 8 weeks of vac- I never called in sick. So I, I go out and I, I sell $40,000 worth of this product.

00:58:55:03 – 00:59:06:22
Rick Hopper
There’s a lot of people that want this product. Within 3 years I was selling $5 million a year worth of strips of plastic with double-sided tape to window installers. Total niche product.

00:59:06:24 – 00:59:07:10
Brandon Adams
It wasn’t.

00:59:07:10 – 00:59:18:21
Rick Hopper
Um, so that’s, that And that’s how I got out of being an employee to being an operator in a business.

00:59:18:21 – 00:59:31:01
Brandon Adams
You saw, you saw a need because it was something you were doing already on the side, and you thought, “I need to make this a little bit.” What did you do? You went to other companies out there that were doing exactly what you were doing, so you went through the phone book the same way and said “Where’s this at?

00:59:31:02 – 00:59:34:20
Brandon Adams
Who’s h- who’s here? Who I need to call?” And you said, “Let me come show you what this thing does.”

00:59:34:21 – 00:59:55:07
Rick Hopper
Well, I So I, I went even one step a little bit, a little further than that. I, I realized I was my own customer. I solved a pain point for myself. So I knew the language, I knew the customer, I knew the people, and I didn’t I mean, I, I knew the, the makeup of I, I had a very easily d- easy-to-define customer demographic.

00:59:55:08 – 01:00:21:00
Rick Hopper
That’s it. I, phone book. I was in my little S-10 pickup truck with a little trailer on the back. Wasn’t even long enough to hold the product, but it stuck out the back.

01:00:21:05 – 01:00:36:18
Rick Hopper
But I had a little printer in my backseat, had like a double door type. It wasn’t like a, the double, double cab, but I had a little tiny fold-down seat. Had a printer, and in my passenger seat, I had a little paper cutter. So I would I had a, a, a graphics designer, uh, create a, um, a, a little brochure for me with my

01:00:36:19 – 01:00:55:03
Rick Hopper
Well, I only had 3 products at the time. And I would print out the brochure. I’d, I’d drive to a, a location, and I’d look at the, make sure I had the name of the company right, and I would type it in. I would put the customer’s name on the brochure. Customize every single little brochure. Now, I didn’t have a full bleed printer so I would grab the paper, and I would have to cut

01:00:55:05 – 01:01:11:21
Rick Hopper
Sorry about the mic. I’d have, have to cut the edges off to make it, and then, and then fold it, and a lot of times it didn’t fold up perf- Didn’t, then the corners didn’t- Yeah, yeah I’m a B+ guy, remember? So, so I go, uh, I, uh, I go into the places, and I go Dude, people loved the product.

01:01:11:22 – 01:01:35:13
Rick Hopper
It was easy to sell. I spoke their language. I knew what the problem was. I had a really simple story to tell. And at some point, and this is, uh, this was ballsy, but And I recommend everybody does this. If you got a great product you really stand behind, I would go into, uh, these window shops, and I would take I’d have $200 worth of product. It was 12 feet long, about 50 pounds. Had 50 strips of plastic in them, one pound each, and I would bring product in, show my brochure, and they’d be like, like, “That’s pretty ballsy to bring the product in 01:01:35:13 – 01:01:40:04
Rick Hopper
And I would bring product in, show my brochure, and they’d be like, like.

01:01:40:05 – 01:01:40:17
Brandon Adams
That’s pretty.

01:01:40:17 – 01:02:07:22
Rick Hopper
if you’re that sure they’re gonna buy it.” And then I’d go, “I’ll tell you what. I’m going to give you $200 worth of product, but there’s a catch. 2 rules. You have to give it to your number one installer, and when you buy more, when you fall in love, when your installer falls in love with it and you buy more, you need to pay for the stuff I’m giving you, ’cause I can’t afford to give it away.”

01:02:07:24 – 01:02:17:01
Rick Hopper
“If you don’t like it, you don’t pay me.” But I knew it was a hook. I had already dealt drugs. I know that the first one, if it’s free, yeah, you know what I’m saying?

01:02:17:03 – 01:02:17:18
Brandon Adams
Yeah, yeah.

01:02:17:19 – 01:02:23:22
Rick Hopper
Not to be dirty. But 100% of the people I did that with became regular customers.

01:02:23:23 – 01:02:49:17
Brandon Adams
That’s crazy. Well, here’s a, here’s a big deal about a lot of this and people’s ideas and their dreams and their You know, people always say, “I got a milliondollar idea,” right? You hear that everywhere. There is a gap between someone that’s built something for themselves and then someone who has the executables on the other side. Can you walk through kind of the stuff that’s not sexy? Like, all right, h- how did you know how to do taxes?

01:02:49:17 – 01:03:02:04
Brandon Adams
How did you know how to set up a LLC? Did you know about a LLC? Like, did you register your name before you started? Did you know any of that? Did you g- need to get a website? There’s so many hurdles that people are gonna say, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go next.

01:03:02:04 – 01:03:09:06
Brandon Adams
I got an idea. That thing’s over my head. I’m gonna let this sit.” Somebody else comes up, back with it, and they wanna tell a story of the one that got away.

01:03:09:08 – 01:03:39:15
Rick Hopper
Okay, this is- How do you do it? this is for your audience. Um, this was not a setup. We did not plan this, but he just plugged my book. And, um, so the book is called The Bridge from Idea to Money. And the, the, uh, the, the reason I wrote the book, I started 10 years ago, was because on- after I was on Shark Tank, I had hundreds of people come out of the woodwork asking me all the same bout- the same bout 20 questions and curiosities about “Hey, what, what if I got an idea. I just don’t know what to do next.

01:03:39:15 – 01:03:54:21
Rick Hopper
I got a, I got a design, but I don’t know how to get a prototype. I got a prototype, but I can’t get the product right. I got, I can’t find my” All these different things, like, “How do I get my inventory?” Blah. So I’m like, all right, I’ve already been through it twice. Went from literally an idea to millions of dollars.

01:03:54:23 – 01:03:58:09
Rick Hopper
And I’ve also done a couple of idea to

01:03:58:11 – 01:03:58:20
Brandon Adams
Yeah.

01:03:58:21 – 01:04:18:13
Rick Hopper
And I know about some of those mistakes too. So I put all that in my book. The Bridge from Idea to Money. Straight up plug, shamelessly. But to answer your question, um, when somebody has an idea and they wanna go make money, they wanna quit their job. So many people wanna make a pivot, or they wanna start something.

01:04:18:15 – 01:04:38:21
Rick Hopper
And I couldn’t possibly answer every question imaginable. We’d need 50 volumes for that. and how to make sure you refine them into something that’s worthwhile, and a lot of steps and procedures. Lots of bullet points in this book.

01:04:38:22 – 01:04:46:08
Rick Hopper
It’s the easiest read. Uh, 10th graders, I wrote this for 10th graders, ’cause that’s how I think.

01:04:46:10 – 01:05:09:04
Rick Hopper
you have to have somebody in your life that understands it. You have to have wise people around you that have made mistakes. You have to learn how to ask all the right questions, and, uh, that’s, that’s, that’s what my book does, a lot of. It’s, like, really kinda like I’m training the mind to learn how to

01:05:09:05 – 01:05:29:10
Rick Hopper
It’s like AI. The better the prompt, the better the outcome. Uh, same thing with anything else. You, uh, I, I built everything I’ve done without AI, a lot of the stuff I’ve done without i- the internet. When I went to find something I’d have to find, get the address, look it up, and use maps to find them.

01:05:29:12 – 01:05:32:19
Rick Hopper
You ever seen a map?

01:05:32:21 – 01:05:39:00
Rick Hopper
Is there a camera on him? There should be. We gotta dub him in somehow. Anyway.

01:05:39:01 – 01:05:43:12
Brandon Adams
Or ask g- ask for directions at a gas station. Oh, that. “Did I go past this, or is this on up here?”

01:05:43:17 – 01:05:56:12
Rick Hopper
Oh, dude, the old days, wild. B- I got a brand-new iPhone last year it didn’t work for 3 days. And I was up in a, at my ranch, and I didn’t have a phone for 3 days. It was like, literally, I went back to the- Kinda liberating, though, huh?

01:05:56:13 – 01:05:57:02
Brandon Adams
Kind of.

01:05:57:04 – 01:06:07:16
Rick Hopper
mid-1900s. When I stopped going, trying to, “Oh where is the What if the Anyway, did I answer your question?

01:06:07:17 – 01:06:26:17
Brandon Adams
Yeah, uh, but for, for the people that are getting to start in this, I know we can go to your book. Did you have help? Did you do this yourself? Did you sign up for other stuff? Like, a lot of people are just gonna jump into this and go, “These are the reasons I can’t,” you know? And they, again, pull over to the side of the road, get out of the car, and they’re done.

01:06:26:18 – 01:06:47:03
Brandon Adams
I’m trying to get them back in the car and say, “Let’s go. Let’s drive.” So I’m looking for your story to say, “Yes, I did these things,” or, “I asked somebody,” or, “I invested 3% of what I was gonna put into this to go to the someone doing books for me,” or, “I did 3% for someone to do the legal part of setup for me,” or, “I did it all myself.

01:06:47:03 – 01:06:50:03
Brandon Adams
It’s not a big deal.”

01:06:50:05 – 01:07:17:23
Rick Hopper
So I had my, uh, my first business, I had a partner whose wife was in banking, and she dealt with a lot of businesses. So she knew a lot about business. So she was, and she was, uh, she was really valuable to, um, to me as far as, as far as that goes, and so having somebody in there. Plus, I, I, I knew some other business owners, and I knew enough to know that I don’t know a lot of things, and I would go ask, “Hey, what are some of the things I should know before I get started in a real business?”

01:07:17:23 – 01:07:40:12
Rick Hopper
‘Cause I- There you go I ran the numbers, and I know how mu- I’ve already figured out what it’s gonna cost to make. I know the industry, so I know what it’s, what the perceived value is. I know what people will pay for it. Not what I hope they pay, but what they will actually pay for the product.

01:07:40:17 – 01:08:10:14
Rick Hopper
And it’s like I’m gonna turn dimes to dollars. Now, I know that there’s enough margin in there where I can pay bookkeeping and tax preparation and distribution and warehousing. I can pay all those overhead costs and bills and utilities, and there’s still gonna be enough money left over. So the people that wanna do a business or create an idea, if they don’t do that first and they, and they go, “Well, it 0 it only costs $3 to make, but I think people will pay $5 for it.”

01:08:10:19 – 01:08:11:02
Rick Hopper
That’s not a business.

01:08:11:02 – 01:08:12:02
Brandon Adams
That’s not a business.

01:08:12:02 – 01:08:25:03
Rick Hopper
That’s a hobby. If you got 40% gross margin uh, between the cost of goods and the, and the selling price, uh, that’s not a business. Mm-mm. That’s a make some and give them away to your friends. And, you know, ask for donations.

01:08:25:04 – 01:08:29:02
Brandon Adams
What do you think that number has to be before it turns into a business? Um, off the, off the cuff, 25% is, uh, the basis.

01:08:29:04 – 01:08:55:24
Rick Hopper
Um, uh, 10 cents, uh, 10 cent, 10% cost of goods is great, and 5% cost of goods is optimal. If you can create something that people will buy for 20 bucks, and you can make it for a dollar, you’re, you’re gonna

01:08:56:00 – 01:09:15:07
Rick Hopper
There’s a lot of, lot of other factors, but uh, I think my, my, my s- my for people that may have an idea, or they wanna start a business, but they don’t know anything about business. Um, find somebody that understands the, the obvious stuff, a tax person, an insurance person, and, um, a contract attorney that would actually write up your company agreement and help you get your, um, LLC and your business, and you can learn about bank accounts.

01:09:15:08 – 01:09:39:22
Rick Hopper
A tax person, an insurance person and a contract attorney that would actually write up your company agreement and help you get your LLC in your business. And you can learn about bank accounts between the banker, the tax person, the the, an attorney that will write that stuff. You don’t need an attorney at first. You can go get your own stuff.

01:09:39:24 – 01:09:55:22
Rick Hopper
Um, even when I go to, to do a product, and I, I want it, I can do my own patent searches.

01:09:56:01 – 01:09:57:04
Brandon Adams
Uspto gov.

01:09:57:06 – 01:10:20:16
Rick Hopper
uspto.gov. And I do my own research, and to this day, I’ve, I’ve, I find everything I can. They call it prior art. It just means it already exists in one way or in one form or another. I do my full-on pat- patent research and find out if the patent exists or not, and to this day, every single time I’ve done that, I do my own s- re- work.

01:10:20:17 – 01:10:46:24
Rick Hopper
Then I hire a patent attorney. I pay them $1,000 to do the same research. To this day, they’ve never found anything that I hadn’t found. Um, I was gonna say something. uh, my, my original patent for the magnetic eyeglass holder called ReadArest. I had bought 50,000 magnets. I was already in prod- production, and I realized, “Oh my gosh, I need a patent.” Went to uspto.gov, did a patent search, and I found it.

01:10:46:24 – 01:11:09:09
Rick Hopper
It was already done. Um, an elderly gentlem- gentleman, he would’ve been 85, he had died a few months earlier. I found out after the fact, ’cause the, the patent had transferred from his name to his wife’s name, and I’m like, “There it is, magnetic force eyeglass holder,” and the patent, it was different product, but it was s- my product was still protected under the, under the, uh, the terms and the, and the claims.

01:11:09:10 – 01:11:28:06
Rick Hopper
And so I, I called Myrna, said, “Hey, Myrna, I, uh, I’m interested in your product.” She’s like, “The patent’s for sale.” I go, “Well, what if I just wanna check out” “The patent’s for sale,” she interrupts me. And I go, “Well, okay, how much?” She’s like, “10 grand.” I go, “10 grand? You guys couldn’t make any money. What makes you think I’m gonna make any money?”

01:11:28:06 – 01:11:39:03
Rick Hopper
Blah, blah. I said, “I’ll give you 5 grand.” She calls her kids. She says yes. I drove 8 hours to Santa Rosa and did the paperwork, and instantly got a patent, a utility patent.

01:11:39:04 – 01:11:40:03
Brandon Adams
Yeah.

01:11:40:05 – 01:11:40:18
Rick Hopper
So.

01:11:40:24 – 01:11:51:09
Brandon Adams
Well, that’s cool. I mean, honestly, like, it’s So what you’re telling me is you can do a lot of your own legwork. You just have to have enough desire doing something and enough passion behind it push through the obstacles, right?

01:11:51:10 – 01:12:15:06
Rick Hopper
The more work you do on your own and the more you learn about the manufacturing process, the manufacturability, the more you learn about the industry, the less you’ll be get taken advantage of by people in that industry. ‘Cause when you go to a manufacturer and ask, start asking questions, or a prototyper, and you have, you have a lot of understanding about the product, how it might be made or whatever, you do as much as you can first, they’re gonna see that, wow, you, this person has done some homework.

01:12:15:06 – 01:12:30:06
Rick Hopper
If you ha- only have a vague idea and you don’t even really have it designed yet, man, it’s not very, it’s not worth very much- Mm-hmm. if you haven’t done some of the work yourself.

01:12:30:07 – 01:12:49:20
Brandon Adams
You know, what I’m kinda hearing from you is like there’s the people that go through and have an idea, there’s the people that go through and kinda give up because they haven’t gone through and vetted it out, right? People are looking for reasons not to do something, because it has to do with desire and effort and things that go into it, and people say, “Life’s already busy enough.

01:12:49:20 – 01:13:18:08
Brandon Adams
I don’t know that I got room for this,” or, “I’m kinda tired, I’m kinda over it,” or whatever, right? And entrepreneurs are just, they don’t even say no to themselves. Like you said, the 80 for 40, right? Like, they don’t even say no to themselves. They just continue to push and push and push and push and push until, because they believe in themselves. Like, they, they don’t understand that they can’t say no. Like, they’ve done things and they’ve won enough that they don’t believe that they’re gonna fail, right?

01:13:18:09 – 01:13:27:19
Brandon Adams
But there’s always a little bit of doubt behind some of those other people on the other side to say, “Oh, is it gonna work? Is my effort gonna be worth this?” Or whatever.

01:13:27:21 – 01:13:35:23
Rick Hopper
here, I’m, I’m slouching. Sorry to be such a lazy, lazy guest.

01:13:35:24 – 01:13:37:23
Brandon Adams
How am I doing? Is that good? You’re doing great.

01:13:38:00 – 01:14:10:06
Rick Hopper
People stop short for various reasons. I will say, tell you the, the most common thing that I’ve seen happen, somebody contacts me. Dude, I’ve had 3 people fly into DFW without telling me they were coming. Florida, Houston, and Michigan. 3 nut jobs fly in, come to my office to show me a product that they’ve, they’re, that they’re, they’re developing, that they want my advice and their help to, you know, critiquing their product or fi- tell, giving them all the advice I can to help them win too.

01:14:10:06 – 01:14:28:05
Rick Hopper
Which I think is nuts but I, I got a lot of respect for people that do that. Um, 2 of ’em wound up at my post office box about a mile from my place. One guy calls me, and this long-haired dude from Florida flew in on his own dime. Didn’t even have a job, but he had 10 grand saved up from his last job.

01:14:28:06 – 01:14:34:09
Rick Hopper
He’s got these i- 2, 2 products. If he watches this video, I’m sorry, bro, but terrible products.

01:14:34:10 – 01:14:39:14
Brandon Adams
Sorry about that, Bill. Not gonna work. Well so he calls me and I go, “Uh, hello?”

01:14:39:16 – 01:14:59:04
Rick Hopper
And he’s like, “Yeah, this is so and” He’s telling me. I go, “How’d you get my number?” He says, “Well, I thought I was at your office and I, they said that you’re not, there’s just a post office box, like these little ditch in the wall.” And I walked out and there was some guy in a white Lexus, and I just walked up to him and says, “Hey, um, do you know Rick Hopper?”

01:14:59:06 – 01:15:17:11
Rick Hopper
And the guy goes, “No. No, I don’t, don’t know the guy.” “Well, he’s” And he says, “He’s the guy that was on Shark Tank with the magnetic eyeglass holder. I know he lives around here somewhere.” And the guy goes, “You know what? I don’t know him, but I have a friend who does.” Calls his friend, gets my phone number randomly at, outside the post office box.

01:15:17:13 – 01:15:38:16
Rick Hopper
I call the guy. He calls me. I’m going, “Okay, bro, uh, can you see Marty B’s Coffee House from where you’re standing?” He’s like, “Yeah, it’s right here.” I go, “I’ll meet you there in 5 minutes.” I had to know, I had to meet this guy. Anyway, long story short, here’s what happens. Most of the people that br- wanna tell me their ideas they just want me to do all the work. Yeah, sure. And they wanna get paid.

01:15:38:17 – 01:16:05:11
Rick Hopper
You don’t get paid for ideas. A lot of people quit early because they just don’t know what to do and they have fear. They’re afraid of making, wasting their hard-earned money that they’ve been saving on a maybe. Uh, but one thing, people, people just don’t innately know how to, uh, qualify or disqualify an idea. So every single person that calls me, I take the call.

01:16:05:12 – 01:16:23:20
Rick Hopper
You know why?Because when I was getting on Shark Tank, I called 2 people. I was on season 3. I called 2 people. I called somebody from season one and somebody from season 2. They never called me back. I won’t tell you who it was. I thought it was really uncool. I was calling them to s- to see what their experience was with Shark Tank.

01:16:23:21 – 01:16:46:20
Rick Hopper
Is my website gonna go down? What kind of re- effect is this? Blah, blah. Now, I was so disappointed that they wouldn’t call me back, and I wound up What I do is anybody that tries to get ahold of me through email, through info, webs, readarest.com, rickhopper.com, I don’t care, I call every single person back. Everybody gets 5 minutes.

01:16:46:21 – 01:17:05:14
Rick Hopper
After fi- A lot of m- a lot of times it turns into 20 minutes or a, a lifelong relationship. But I do, I do The first thing I do when they call me, I tell them, “Look, I don’t sign NDAs. I get a million dollar i- I get a million dollar idea every week. I don’t have time for my own ideas.” “I br- I got projects lined up till I’m 150 years old.”

01:17:05:15 – 01:17:29:19
Rick Hopper
“I’m not gonna steal your idea, but I’ll give you some advice if you want it.” one rule, I’m gonna be honest with you. It might hurt.” And they, they like, “Oh, please do.” “Well,” so I do. And, uh, not a lot of great ideas out there or a lot of great ideas that don’t have legs that are either not patentable or they just won’t hit the market because m- margins or whatever.

01:17:29:21 – 01:17:49:16
Rick Hopper
But people, um, when people reach out, I’ll be honest with you and, um, if it’s a great idea, I’ll tell you. I’ll even tell you how to make adjustments from a manufacturing standpoint. I’ll give you c- I’ll give you connections for manufacturing. And you, you owe me nothing. I, I don’t I give away so much, it’s unbelievable.

01:17:49:18 – 01:18:03:24
Brandon Adams
That’s really cool, honestly, to see p- you know, uh, people getting a little bit of help, you know, on the other side, and that’s kinda where I was going with this. People get stuck, you know, and, and there are a lot of dumb ideas, and there are a lot of, like, recreations of the yo-yo, and it’s like, you know, that already exists out there.

01:18:03:24 – 01:18:27:10
Brandon Adams
And they’re like, “No, but this is the no-no.” You know what I mean? It’s like they have that kind of spin on- The Olo. Yeah, the Olo. The Yolo. Um, but anyways, as you go through this, like, being the person to rip the Band-Aid off sometimes is not fun sometimes, but I always try to be as real as I can with people when it comes to any kind of project or thoughts or, or whether whatever they’re going through, ’cause they’re looking to you for an, an honest opinion, right?

01:18:27:11 – 01:18:45:21
Brandon Adams
And I think that y- people do other people a disservice by telling them something they just wanna hear versus reality, you know? And so I appreciate the fact that you’re like, “Hey, man, I You get 5 minutes and I’ll Can I be honest with you?”

01:18:45:22 – 01:18:50:02
Brandon Adams
They may take it away that way. “Oh, he’s just trying to run me off ’cause he wants to do something with it.” It’s cool.

01:18:50:03 – 01:19:15:08
Rick Hopper
Well, you know what I do tell them? If I t- if I spend my time giving somebody a directive, a series of directives, “Do this, this, and this,” um, if it’s a, if it’s, uh And I, I try to push them in a direction that will either qualify or disqualify their idea- Hmm number one, but if they don’t do the things I ask and they call me back and they didn’t do the first thing I said, you don’t get a second conversation.

01:19:15:10 – 01:19:35:15
Rick Hopper
You do not get a second conversation. Also, when people, um, have a great idea that I f- that I really like put them on the clock because if I identify a great idea, “Ooh, this is a good, this is a good one-” Mm-hmm pretty rare, here’s what you’re gonna do. Do this first and do that next.” “Do those 2 things.

01:19:35:17 – 01:19:46:03
Rick Hopper
And then, um, in one month, if you haven’t done those 2 things-” Mm-hmm “I’m gonna do it myself. I’m stealing this idea.”

01:19:46:05 – 01:20:08:10
Rick Hopper
I’m not, I’m not going to. I’m not going to. You just tell them that. But I’m gonna tell them. They’re like, “What?” Put a little fire under them. “You said you wouldn’t steal my idea.” I go, “Well, if you do it, I will, I will, I will cultivate you. I will-” Mm-hmm “give you free information. I will put But if you’re just gonna talk and you’re not gonna take action-” Mm-hmm “I’ma steal it from you.”

01:20:08:12 – 01:20:09:10
Rick Hopper
You know what they do.

01:20:09:11 – 01:20:10:04
Brandon Adams
They wanna hustle up.

01:20:10:05 – 01:20:16:19
Rick Hopper
They would’ve, uh, done something if they wouldn’t if I didn’t threaten them. A lot of people, they wouldn’t take action. “Uh, if you’re not gonna do it, I will.”

01:20:16:20 – 01:20:17:07
Brandon Adams
Put little heat.

01:20:17:07 – 01:20:17:19
Rick Hopper
On the fire.

01:20:17:20 – 01:20:21:24
Brandon Adams
Put, put a little heat on the fire. Well, that’s cool. So you went from It was Quick Trim, right?

01:20:22:00 – 01:20:24:00
Rick Hopper
Well, no, Trim Quick- Trim, Trim Quick was the name of the company.

01:20:24:04 – 01:20:26:18
Brandon Adams
Yeah, Trim Quick. You had Trim Quick.

01:20:26:20 – 01:20:45:23
Rick Hopper
That thing, you said- Did, did that for 10 years 10 years. Uh, sold, sold my interest of the company to my partner, uh, that, um, I think s- uh, 6 months or a year in, he came in full time. He had a landscape company. Uh, he, that guy’s a genius when it comes to marketing. I mean, he’s a great at marketing, great at machines and he had an incredible landscape company.

01:20:45:23 – 01:21:06:20
Rick Hopper
Um, name’s John. And, uh, so when he came, I finally A matter of fact, w- the company was making money, and we are alr- we had already started a partnership because he had developed a product that I helped him create. Uh, it’s called the Water Reacher. We never did anything with it. But, uh, so w- we, we had formed this partnership, and then so now the company’s making money.

01:21:06:21 – 01:21:30:05
Rick Hopper
It’s like, it was making good money, like 400 grand a year within, like, 6, 8 months. It’s like, th- thing’s making money. And I, uh, we’re on our way to the river to go on a, a, a b- Jet Skiing or something, and, uh, he’s my wife’s sister’s husband. And, uh, we’re at the gas station. I says, “Hey, um, I’ve been trying to convince you to let go of the landscape company and come full time, uh, ’cause I can’t do this myself.”

01:21:30:09 – 01:21:47:12
Rick Hopper
And I said, “I’ve decided I’m gonna start taking 100% of the full salary. I’m gonna take the whole 400 grand myself since you’re not, since you’re just not even here.” And he’s like, “You can’t do that.” I’m like, “Watch me.” So he, he finally got rid of his landscape company and came full time, and the company really went like this.

01:21:47:13 – 01:22:10:18
Rick Hopper
Anyway, so t- we did that for 10 years. Um, the partnership really ended poorly, um, because And it’s in my, I talk about this in my book about the importance of, um, treating a business like a long highway, especially partnerships, where you, you schedule off-ramps. So sometimes you need to fuel up. Sometimes you need to swap drivers. Sometimes you need to assess more of, less of.

01:22:10:20 – 01:22:33:02
Rick Hopper
And so we didn’t do a lot of that. We were just like, ah, going, going, going. And and the spirit of cooperation is great early in a gig when there’s nothing but potential. But you get to a point where some th- some, the world’s, like, ’08, ’09 happened. And the world’s going crazy, and we stopped going like this, and we went like this, and we leveled off at $5 1000000. Where we should’ve been 6, 7, 8, $10 1000000.

01:22:33:04 – 01:22:57:09
Rick Hopper
We had just got a 40,000 square foot building. We were fine. We were still making a million dollars profit each year and splitting it. That’s good money. But everybody got weird. Uh, oxygen starts getting sucked out of the room, and the, the, the partnership ended really, really poorly. So I took, um I finally went to him and said, “Hey” Because he loved the business, and he, he really wanted to keep it.

01:22:57:09 – 01:23:12:00
Rick Hopper
So I, I said, “Look, uh, give me 25 cents on the dollar of the value of the company and I’ll just go do something else.” ‘Cause it was, it got so toxic that it was, like, unrecognizable relationship. So that’s all I’ll say about that.

01:23:12:00 – 01:23:16:09
Brandon Adams
This was your brother-in-law? Are y’all back together now?

01:23:16:11 – 01:23:19:22
Rick Hopper
Oh, so- No, my wife hasn’t talked to her sister in 14 years.

01:23:20:02 – 01:23:20:12
Brandon Adams
That’s tough.

01:23:20:13 – 01:23:49:18
Rick Hopper
Oh, that’s tough. 15 years, something like that. 20-0-9, 20-0 Wow, 17 years. Really sad. Uh, oh, heart-wrenching. Um, uh, and I don’t wanna get into negative stuff. But let’s just say that the only ship guaranteed to sink is the partnership. And it is, uh, the stats on partnerships is unbelievable. But what, the, the original point I was trying to make was p- uh, the partner, partnerships should have, every relationship should have an exit plan built in.

01:23:49:20 – 01:24:13:19
Rick Hopper
And, uh, I talk about this at length in, in, in my book because if you don’t identify off-ramps, because priorities change. Um, health, people’s health, ideas. Somebody might come into some money from a family member, and your, and their interest in the company goes down. Or th- they lose their wife, and they just lose, lose interest in, in, in, in the business, or something happens.

01:24:13:21 – 01:24:41:12
Rick Hopper
Um, you have to plan for all the eventuals and say, “Hey, this is how it ends.” And lastly, the best way to end a relationship is called the Texas shootout. The Texas shootout So you got a partner, right? Um, here’s the rules. There’s only 2 rules. Rule number one, one partner at any time can go to the other partner and offer to purchase their interest in the company at a certain unit value 01:24:41:14 – 01:25:08:09
Rick Hopper
under certain specific terms. Could ter- the terms could be payout time, could be, um, I g- you know, p- I got 6 months to pay you. Uh, I got, you know, you no non-compete, you know, whatever. So now, the next rule is the person receiving the offer is thrust into the driver’s seat and must either accept the offer or turn it 180 degrees and give that person the money and the terms.

01:25:08:09 – 01:25:12:05
Rick Hopper
Super clean. You don’t need appraisals. You don’t need valuations, nothing.

01:25:12:07 – 01:25:15:06
Brandon Adams
You either accept my deal, or you give that deal to me. That’s right.

01:25:15:07 – 01:25:17:20
Rick Hopper
It’s, it’s, uh, the And that, and that’s it.

01:25:17:21 – 01:25:20:24
Brandon Adams
What about, uh, offering a duel?

01:25:21:01 – 01:25:21:09
Rick Hopper
What’s a.

01:25:21:10 – 01:25:22:08
Brandon Adams
What’s a duel?

01:25:22:08 – 01:25:23:06
Rick Hopper
Where we both- You mean actual guns?

01:25:23:07 – 01:25:32:00
Brandon Adams
Winner takes all. Listen, if that’s in the terms It’s in

01:25:32:02 – 01:25:32:12
Brandon Adams
So you guys.

01:25:32:13 – 01:25:33:24
Rick Hopper
So you got- I was, I say knife throwing would be better 01:25:34:00 – 01:25:36:00
Brandon Adams
you know, just strap y- Or darts.

01:25:36:02 – 01:25:37:18
Rick Hopper
Darts.

01:25:37:20 – 01:25:58:11
Brandon Adams
Put you on the wheel and throw and hit the balloons. Um, but anyways, if you, y- you sold that company, and you thought, “All right, I need to do something next,” right? What did you do? Did you just go like, “I have an idea,” or, “This thing has been really tough in my life. I wanna solve it”? Like, how do you go about churning ideas?

01:25:58:13 – 01:26:21:05
Rick Hopper
Well, they happen randomly usually, but this, in this case, um, about a year before-We ended the partnership with TrimQuick. I started making these out of paperclips. Um, my buddy, actually my best friend who lives in Tennessee, he does now, but he goes I’m, is this mic too, too far from my mouth? Are we good?

01:26:21:06 – 01:26:22:15
Brandon Adams
How about that? Just tighten up that corner there.

01:26:22:17 – 01:26:25:01
Rick Hopper
about that?

01:26:25:02 – 01:26:26:12
Brandon Adams
Um, you’re not gonna edit that out, are you?

01:26:26:14 – 01:26:28:07
Rick Hopper
You’re not going to edit that out of, you.

01:26:28:09 – 01:26:31:13
Brandon Adams
No, I’ll keep that in. That’s that’s for Todd that’s- This is all Todd’s fault

01:26:31:14 – 01:27:00:24
Rick Hopper
Anyway, Todd. Um, so when I s- w- long before I, I, I, I parted from, from TrimQuick, I was making, I l- my So my best friend comes up to me and says, “Hey,” ’cause we had just started wearing reading glasses fairly recently before this. And, uh, I was, and we were putting them in our shirt. You know you bend over, they fall out. And he goes, “Hey, Rec, I saw a lady with a, uh, this thing, or somebody with a little pin on their shirt.”

01:27:01:03 – 01:27:18:13
Rick Hopper
He says, “You should do something with magnets.” I think that’s how the conversation went. And I’m like, “Oh, yeah.” He s- and he had, he had already made one. I say I’m the inventor. But my buddy And then, you, then I come to find out it was already invented. But nobody knew about it 01:27:18:18 – 01:27:39:20
Rick Hopper
So I, I’m, you know, I mean, we’re not geniuses. We’re just, uh, y- you, you read about my theory on ideas in my book. I highly recommend it. It’s my last plug probably. Anyway, so I’m literally wearing a paperclip. I bend it into a U shape, epoxied 2 magnets to it, put a fender washer under my shirt, and for a year I had a place to hang my glasses.

01:27:39:20 – 01:27:46:01
Rick Hopper
Now, I don’t know if you can catch this.

01:27:46:03 – 01:28:04:21
Rick Hopper
Your glasses don’t fall out. So I did that for a year. The, uh So a year later, fast-forward, I sell my company. I’m hanging out at the house for the first time in years. And one day my wife says, “What are you gonna do?” I go, “What? Today?” She goes, “No, every day.” “You’re driving me crazy.

01:28:04:23 – 01:28:19:20
Rick Hopper
You gotta get, you gotta go do something.” You gotta go do something. Get out of the house. Long as I had some money. And I’m like, you know, I got some money up front. I’m getting money each month for 4 years. I got a commercial property here. So I’m like, “Okay.” I said, “You know what? I’m gonna do something with this paperclip thingy.”

01:28:19:24 – 01:28:35:12
Rick Hopper
It wasn’t, didn’t have a name yet. It wasn’t called Readerest. A paperclip thingy. Speaking of which, Readerest, a lot of people don’t like the name. I don’t even like the name. Readerest. R-E-A-D-E-R-E-S-T. Hard to spell. Hard to remember, but I couldn’t think of a better name, so I just went with it.

01:28:35:18 – 01:28:51:13
Rick Hopper
And since then I’ve had probably at least 20 people I’m at a trade show or whatever, they come up to me, “Hey, that’s a really stupid name.” I go, “I know,” and I pull a $100 bill out. I’ve never given away $100. It is what it is. Readerest it is.

01:28:51:15 – 01:29:08:11
Rick Hopper
Get your thinking caps on, people. 100 bucks waiting for you. I go, I’m like, “Okay, I’ll, I’m gonna do something with my paperclip thingy.” Because at least 3 people a day stop me on the street and say, “What is that on your shirt? How’s that, how are your glasses hanging on there?” “Is that part of your shirt?”

01:29:08:17 – 01:29:29:06
Rick Hopper
Next thing you know, I go into production. I get the patent. On, uh, like January of 2011, I start doing street fairs, farmers’ markets. So I’m doing some research. Who’s my customer? How much will they pay? Street fairs, farmers’ market, gun show, golf show, home shows, quilt show.

01:29:29:06 – 01:29:49:05
Rick Hopper
Anywhere there would be thousands of people. I got a little 10 by 10 booth with a little thing. I got some little racks, and I’m, I’m making these by hand in my garage. guest room. Best, guest ba- guest bedroom. And people are throwing money at me. it was incredible.

01:29:49:07 – 01:30:12:22
Rick Hopper
People come up to my booth and look at them and go, “I wouldn’t pay 2 bucks for that thing.” Next day I charge 10 bucks. People come up to my booth, throw $20 at me, take two, and walk away, and they go, “Hey, 10 bucks. What a deal.” Perceived value- Sure, yeah People don’t realize if you price something too low, it diminishes the perception- Of how good it is of the quality or 01:30:12:24 – 01:30:20:14
Rick Hopper
whatever it is. So we did it. 10 bucks, ba ba ba. I mean, we sell, like right now we sell 400 a day on Amazon. Uh, sold the company 4 years ago.

01:30:20:16 – 01:30:41:20
Rick Hopper
Did I tell you that? Nope. Okay, so let’s, uh, we’re, we’re, we’re back in 2011, so we’re talking about 15 years ago is when I s- really started the company. The thing I heard most at all these trade shows for 6 months, “Dude, you gotta get on Shark Tank.” Now, I don’t watch TV so I’d never saw the show, but I had literally hundreds of people every weekend, “Dude, this is great.

01:30:41:22 – 01:30:55:01
Rick Hopper
This, you gotta get on Shark Tank.” I’m like, “What’s Shark Tank?” I’d ask people. They all had a different answer. “Oh, it’s a game show. Oh, it’s a contest. You could win, uh, the, this thing.” I’m like, “Oh, no, no, I’m, I’m starting I already just sold one company.” “I’m starting another one. I’m not going to some stupid game show.”

01:30:55:02 – 01:31:12:20
Rick Hopper
And then I think in June, my best friend calls me, the guy that gave me the idea. He says, uh, “You, uh, you’re an idiot,” hangs, hung up on me. Hang, he hung up on me. I’m, “What?” Call him back, “What’s up, bro?” It’s like 11 o’clock at night. He knew I’d be up making ’em ’cause I couldn’t make ’em fast enough. So he goes, “Why haven’t you looked at Shark Tank yet?

01:31:12:22 – 01:31:32:13
Rick Hopper
Everybody but you knows about it.” I’m going, “Eh,” so I looked it up. Sure enough, wow, everybody knows about it. This looks legit. So I went and did a submission online. And, uh, they, uh, called me back a week later, and I got on Shark Tank. And tens of millions of people found out about us.

01:31:32:13 – 01:31:54:08
Rick Hopper
Phenomenal. So, uh, let me know a little bit about walking onto that scenario. Like, people are wanting to get on that show all the time. What is preparation like? What do they give you? What do they tell you you need to do? How does, how does that happen? It’s like, ’cause I see these guys come on, and they do these crazy pitches, or they have, like, a 45-second intro, and, “I’m this, and I’m that,” and pew, pew, pew, you know, and they try to, you know, wheel and deal and sell.

01:31:54:09 – 01:32:08:12
Rick Hopper
And then I’ve seen some people that come in, and they’re straight shooters, and they talk about it. Is it free game, or they kinda coach you how they want you to do it? Getting found out by Shark Tank, there’s different ways to do it. They have casting calls in Vegas and all over the country. They, for over the years they’ve done things differently.

01:32:08:12 – 01:32:30:02
Rick Hopper
Well, early on, this was season, so season 2 was done and it was at, w- they were showing episodes of season 2, but I, I, uh, I sent, I looked them up, and I s- did an email submission. Now, I kinda lied and cheated, uh, which I highly recommend whenever possible- if nobody gets hurt- and you’re not gonna go to hell or jail, right?

01:32:30:06 – 01:32:58:11
Rick Hopper
So what I did was they, their, the rules for the, for the email submission was don’t, uh, do not, do not send samples. Do not send videos. Uh, uh, just answer these questions and attach picture of yourself and your URL. Simple. So I’m ba, ba, ba, ba, bam, fill it out. I grabbed my favorite video, popped a link in there, and said, “If you wanna see a picture of me, click on this link.”

01:32:58:15 – 01:33:17:17
Rick Hopper
It was a moving picture. It’s a moving picture. You can call it a video if you want. You can say I broke the rules. Guess what? Uh, uh, uh, was, producer calls me and says, “Hey, nice video.” “Oh, you think so?” He’s like, “Yeah, it’s actually a really good video.” So it was, they called me. So a lot of people do s- a lot, people will stand in line for a day and a half- Crazy

01:33:17:17 – 01:33:36:15
Rick Hopper
trying to get up to a casting call. wrapped around the block, people bringing their products and ideas. So that happened years later. I don’t know how it works. And I, to this day, I don’t know how it works. I don’t know how long a show can last. I think they’re like, it’s been, like, 17 seasons now or something 01:33:36:15 – 01:33:50:06
Rick Hopper
they’ve been going on. Pretty successful deal. So that’s how I got on the show. Now, I’ll, I’ll answer the question a little further with, you know, how we go from th- where do we go from here. You walk in, they announce you on the show. You’re walking in the doors.

01:33:50:06 – 01:33:55:02
Brandon Adams
You have a pitch assigned. Do you guys, they tell you how to do it? They dress you up? You’ve already got your deal, and you’re- No

01:33:55:02 – 01:33:55:18
Rick Hopper
And you’re.

01:33:55:22 – 01:33:57:11
Brandon Adams
they just open the world to who you are?

01:33:57:14 – 01:34:20:06
Rick Hopper
I can only share my experience- Okay with what happened, and it was, um, we did a, a phone interview, and then, um, they, let me know, “Hey, we’re gonna do a, w- we’ve selected you, but there’s no guarantees. Um, you’re gonna come the day before and do a practice pitch to,” you know, a panel or something like that. I don’t even know if I’m allowed to share this stuff.

01:34:20:09 – 01:34:49:22
Rick Hopper
I don’t know. But, uh, so I get up there, and now, here’s, here’s what I, here’s what I learned. the sharks themselves have never seen you. They don’t know anything about your product. When you, when they, when they, or, like, between when they’re recording the show, they go from one person to the next, so the person, when they’re done, they move the stuff out. They bring my table and my banner and my stuff and put the displays on the table for me. They’re like the hands, stage crews or whatever. They put the, put the stuff up in front of the sharks.

01:34:50:03 – 01:35:12:11
Rick Hopper
30 seconds later, Rick Hopper rolls in. And you haven’t seen my episode, but I trip and fall. I tumble- I tumble on the ground and pop up. My glasses stay on my shirt ’cause it was, my inspiration was my my skateboard accident when I was 46. A year before, I tumbled, uh, at 30 miles an hour. I get to the ER, and my glasses were still hanging on my paperclip.

01:35:12:13 – 01:35:30:20
Rick Hopper
So that’s, though, so, and then people go, “Well, no, that can’t be true,” because it, when they’re talking to you, it sounds like they know about your company already. And I go, “Well, I know what you mean,” but keep in mind, I was in there for an hour or, I don’t know, maybe 50 minutes, an hour and 10 minutes.

01:35:30:20 – 01:35:34:21
Rick Hopper
I don’t know, something like that. I was in there for a while. But they edit it down to 15 minutes.

01:35:34:21 – 01:35:38:06
Brandon Adams
So they’ve gotten a little bit of you all the way through that story, and you’re 2 So what 01:35:38:06 – 01:35:48:18
Rick Hopper
you’re seeing is an edited version of the conversation. So of course it seems like there’s, there’s more because you, there’s, you know- More you didn’t see 75% of the stuff we talked about, you never even see on TV.

01:35:48:23 – 01:35:52:07
Brandon Adams
So you planned to trip and fall as you were coming out.

01:35:52:08 – 01:35:54:07
Rick Hopper
That was my first fight with the producer.

01:35:54:08 – 01:35:55:14
Brandon Adams
Yeah, and he said you can’t do that?

01:35:55:15 – 01:35:59:19
Rick Hopper
He said, “No, no stunts.” I’m like, “That’s not a stunt.”

01:35:59:21 – 01:36:01:04
Brandon Adams
He’s like, “No stunts.” It’s a, it’s a moving picture.

01:36:01:05 – 01:36:02:23
Rick Hopper
Yeah.

01:36:03:00 – 01:36:10:07
Brandon Adams
Well, that’s cool. That’s awesome. So you went about breaking the rules again. You went through and said, “Look, I gotta stand out. I gotta do something.

01:36:10:09 – 01:36:10:21
Rick Hopper
Be me, man.

01:36:10:22 – 01:36:14:15
Brandon Adams
They’re gonna cut to me.” Gotta be me, man. And so your glasses didn’t come off. You stood up in front of everybody and said, “Ta-da.”

01:36:14:16 – 01:36:17:03
Rick Hopper
Thank God. That would’ve been the one time it didn’t work.

01:36:17:04 – 01:36:22:21
Brandon Adams
You just said, “Ta-da,” and then they were like, “Oh, your glasses didn’t fall off,” and you’re like, “That’s what I’m talking about.”

01:36:23:00 – 01:36:38:07
Rick Hopper
Well, I, yeah, you know, I could see the look on Lori’s face. It’s like I knew And she, matter of fact, a, a week before I got on the show, they said, “Hey, we got a new shark.” It was Lori’s, I was, it was Lori Greiner’s very first day on the set. I was her very first deal. And, uh, it, it was poetic because there was really, I didn’t really see any symmetry with any of the other sharks 01:36:38:08 – 01:36:54:06
Rick Hopper
that were already there. And I was gonna, I was trying to tailor my pitch to somebody specifically. Now, since then, I’ve gotten to meet Kevin O’Leary a couple times, and I dig that dude.

01:36:54:06 – 01:36:56:08
Brandon Adams
Is that Mr. Wonderful? Mr. Wonderful.

01:36:56:09 – 01:37:07:09
Rick Hopper
And he is one of the coolest people. Um, and I would, knowing what I know now, I, I would’ve, uh, I would’ve been just as happy doing a, a deal with with Kevin as I d- I was Lori.

01:37:07:11 – 01:37:22:18
Brandon Adams
So when you go in and you pitch, and they, somebody says, “I’ll do a deal,” or blah, blah, blah, right? You’ve got the math. You already have decided in your head, “Here’s my pitch. Here’s what I’m willing to take.” You, I don’t know if you hit your gold number or your bottom number- No or whatever you want, but- Disaster

01:37:22:20 – 01:37:23:09
Brandon Adams
Disaster.

01:37:23:10 – 01:37:49:07
Rick Hopper
disaster. Absolute disaster. I, I, I, I, my offer, you’ll, you watch on the show, my offer was 150,000 for 15% of the company. And, uh, Lori offers me $150,000 for 65% of the company. I’m standing there sweating bullets. It’s my only offer. A- so I said yes to a deal I wanted nothing to do with. There’s no way I’m giving up controlling interest.

01:37:49:07 – 01:38:06:15
Rick Hopper
I just got out of a bad re- bad business re- like partnership before. I don’t need some, I don’t need this. I, I, I, this is, this is my net, the, this is more fun than my first company was. I didn’t think I’d ever start a- do another company that was more fun than TrimQuick, but Read-A-Rest has been the most fun company. So I said, I’m gonna be, I gotta be careful about what I talk about because there’s some disclosure rules with, with Shark Tank, but I will just say I said yes to a deal I wanted nothing to do with.

01:38:06:17 – 01:38:23:20
Rick Hopper
Then I went to dinner the next night with Lori and her husband. Awesome people. Humble beginnings. Rock stars.

01:38:23:20 – 01:38:35:06
Rick Hopper
I was their very first deal, so we’re kinda learning together, you know? And so we wound up, we, we wound up, uh, actually sealing a deal that was better for both of us than we talked about- On the show

01:38:35:07 – 01:38:35:10
Brandon Adams
On.

01:38:35:10 – 01:38:36:09
Rick Hopper
The show. On the show.

01:38:36:10 – 01:38:36:19
Brandon Adams
Okay.

01:38:36:20 – 01:38:39:21
Rick Hopper
on the show. And, you know, it’s, it’s real life.

01:38:39:23 – 01:38:41:24
Brandon Adams
Um- ‘Cause what’s on the show is not binding.

01:38:42:00 – 01:38:42:09
Rick Hopper
Well.

01:38:42:09 – 01:38:43:02
Brandon Adams
There’s some kind of.

01:38:43:03 – 01:39:03:00
Rick Hopper
kind of or not there’s some binding factors, but think about when you make a, when you strike a deal with somebody, and you’re going, and, and you’re gonna get attorneys involved and start doing negotiations, it’s like this is real life. You can do anything you want. And everything changes, and everything ends in life anyway.

01:39:03:02 – 01:39:05:00
Rick Hopper
And it turned out to be a great relationship.

01:39:05:01 – 01:39:13:05
Brandon Adams
That’s awesome. So what did, what did she bring to the table? You’re no longer doing this in your living room, obviously. She’s getting you into manufacturing, ma- QVC

01:39:13:05 – 01:39:31:00
Rick Hopper
I had been rejected by QVC 3 months earlier. I got the Dear John letter. I submitted my product to QVC. I got the Dear John letter. “Hey, uh, um, we don’t think you’re a good fit for QVC.” “The price point isn’t right,” blah, blah, blah. Couple months later, Lori gets me on QVC on a Saturday morning.

01:39:31:00 – 01:39:51:15
Rick Hopper
In 5 minutes we sell $300,000 worth of stuff, and I run outta, I’m outta stock. And then, and then a few weeks later we do it again. Run outta stock. Boop, boop. And we just like, we sold millions of dollars on QVC. Lori sold millions of dollars on QVC. And partly because of who she is and what, you know, you know, her reputation.

01:39:51:15 – 01:40:05:11
Rick Hopper
She’s known as the queen of QVC. So it was a, just a great relationship, and, you know, time goes by. She makes more, I think she, I, I don’t know for sure, but I don’t know the stats, but she made a lot of deals with a lot of people. I’ve become friends with a lot of those folks.

01:40:05:12 – 01:40:23:10
Rick Hopper
‘Cause we do, we do events and stuff. It’s, we’ve had a lot of fun. So Lori, uh, we’ve, I eventually wind up with, you know, own 100% of the company, and I, I, I eventually sell the company. So 4 years ago, I sell the company. I think we did QVC for, like, 9 years. That was a long run for the same product every few weeks.

01:40:23:12 – 01:40:32:03
Rick Hopper
So I sold the company to a private equity group out of Berlin, Germany. I think it’s Berlin. Berlin’s a country? Or is it a city?

01:40:32:04 – 01:40:32:23
Brandon Adams
Berlin.

01:40:33:00 – 01:40:33:21
Rick Hopper
Berlin’s a country.

01:40:33:22 – 01:40:34:11
Brandon Adams
Berlin, it’s a country.

01:40:34:12 – 01:40:39:22
Rick Hopper
Yeah, country. Yeah, well, tiny- City. Country I think Berlin’s a country. City. Berlin, Germany?

01:40:39:22 – 01:40:41:03
Brandon Adams
You got me. Somebody- You correct me. We’ll get

01:40:41:05 – 01:40:44:09
Rick Hopper
You’ll When you s- when you publish this, somebody who knows everything is gonna tell you what it was.

01:40:44:11 – 01:40:48:17
Brandon Adams
Yeah, 100%, at the bottom, “What is Berlin? What is this?” I know there’s a wall.

01:40:48:19 – 01:40:54:24
Rick Hopper
I thought it was a s- I thought it was a big, giant, uh, like a, a What do you call those things?

01:40:55:00 – 01:40:56:23
Brandon Adams
Oh, yeah.

01:40:57:00 – 01:41:17:21
Rick Hopper
Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, so these guys buy the company. They think they’re gonna do better than me, and so they pay me a pretty good dollar for it in 2021. And, um, I agreed to manufacture the product for them. Now, th- they I also have a line of reading glasses. So we had made really great reading, reading glasses, spring-loaded hinges, UV protection, blue light blocking.

01:41:17:23 – 01:41:46:13
Rick Hopper
Well, those were a disaster. Um, so they took over all that, and But I continued making the magnetic eyeglasses for them for a couple years, and then I stopped. And, um, but, uh, th- they wound up In hindsight, it looks like they run the Accidentally they, they made some Well, since then I’ve learned that they made 5 catastrophic mistakes, and they Last year they hit They were, like, cr- crashed into the side of a mountain.

01:41:46:15 – 01:42:04:22
Rick Hopper
And I, I hit them up, say, “Hey, any chance you’d sell the company back?” I really missed my customers. I missed the business. Because they went exclusive Amazon. They shut down all the stores, shut off the website, shut off the phone number, shut off customer service, and just went straight Amazon. And, um, now So I bought the company back last May for 8 cents on the dollar.

01:42:04:24 – 01:42:15:11
Rick Hopper
And so happy. I mean, like, it was almost dead. It was smoldering when I got it. And we’re halfway back to where we were when we sold it.

01:42:15:12 – 01:42:27:20
Brandon Adams
That’s amazing. I’m gonna let you borrow this thing that I’ve done for a few years. I need you to give me 92%, And then I’ll just take it back, and we’ll wipe our hands of each other, and then I’ll take it back up to 50%.

01:42:27:21 – 01:42:28:02
Rick Hopper
So I’m not gonna- And you guys go do something else.

01:42:28:05 – 01:42:34:24
Brandon Adams
You guys go do something else. And I’m gonna turn this thing into 148%.

01:42:35:00 – 01:43:02:12
Rick Hopper
That’s, uh Anyway, it’s a lot of fun. People are like, “Wow, will you sell it again?” I, I don’t think I’ll sell this again until Uh, ’cause I’m gonna probably buy a couple more companies um, this, later this year. Um, I will I’m going to identify products that I love manufactured by people that maybe are aging out or who have hit a ceiling with technology or whatever, and I’m gonna, uh, try to f- create, find opportunities to take more products and bring

01:43:02:12 – 01:43:23:24
Rick Hopper
I wanna build a bigger company. I think I would, I would like to, um, honor my employees with a great exit and where we can, you know, sell for 50, 60, $100 million and, and set, you know, set a, a handful of people up, if you know what I mean.

01:43:24:00 – 01:43:24:15
Rick Hopper
Yeah.

01:43:24:20 – 01:43:29:03
Brandon Adams
Do you feel like a modern-day Willy Wonka?

01:43:29:05 – 01:43:32:09
Rick Hopper
I love that. One of my favorite movies of all time as a man, golden.

01:43:32:11 – 01:43:33:08
Brandon Adams
Yeah, the original one for sure.

01:43:33:09 – 01:43:54:18
Rick Hopper
Yeah, the original one. Um, no. No, I’m not like that. Uh, you know who is? You know who I think is like that, um, who’s, like, a real genius who’s, like, really invents cool stuff and develops really cool products and, um, just, like, puts me to shame is, uh, the Scrub Daddy guy. His name’s Aaron. Aaron Krause. Uh, he, he writes 0 one of the forewords in my book.

01:43:54:20 – 01:44:04:10
Rick Hopper
Um, his story’s amazing. The products he develops is amazing. The stuff The products he develops that some- most people haven’t even seen yet. Um, that guy’s, he is, he’s, he’s, he’s 0 he’s off the charts amazing.

01:44:04:15 – 01:44:06:04
Brandon Adams
Next level. That’s, that’s Willy Wonka, part 2.

01:44:06:06 – 01:44:36:20
Rick Hopper
Yeah, I consider myself- 3 more a, more of a hack, and I consider myself more lucky than good. Um, but I will say that one thing I have going for me is I have a motor. I have a lot of energy, and I take massive, immediate action, uh, disqualifying bad ideas and proving good ideas and going after customers and iterating and just, um I got a I, I, I do have that going for me and I but I’m not the author of my ideas, my energy, my enthusiasm 01:44:36:20 – 01:44:44:00
Rick Hopper
my skills. I’m not the author of any of that. I’m- I’m the, I’m responsible for what I do with those things but, um, it keeps me humble.

01:44:44:01 – 01:45:05:00
Brandon Adams
You’re kind of a carny, kind of a salesman kind of guy who catches something, can turn it into magic, and, and make a show in front of people. And, you know, like, that’s a, that’s I mean, that’s a Don’t take that as a slight. I mean, honestly, that’s a really cool trait when someone can take something and go, “Shwoo, shwoo,” and everyone goes, “Ah,” you know? And it may not have been Like the magnetic glass thing, somebody showed you that and did that, and you know what?

01:45:05:00 – 01:45:19:21
Brandon Adams
I’ll make this better. I take this and do that with it. I take that and take it further. Other people let it sit and doesn’t do anything ’cause they don’t have the showmanship that goes with it. They don’t have the ability to multiply it. They don’t have the ability to put it in front of people and make this seem like a great idea when everybody goes- Well, I think that’s what you’re, what you’re really saying, I think, what I’m picking up is, um, the, uh, the nature or the gift that I possess is really a gift of enthusiasm.

01:45:19:21 – 01:45:20:15
Brandon Adams
When everybody goes.

01:45:20:16 – 01:45:46:03
Rick Hopper
If I’m excited about it everybody around me is gonna be excited about it. And I have no control over it. You have no control it. Nobody in this room has any control over how excited I am or how I’m going to affect, infect you with my enthusiasm or whatever I’m excited about. And all of a sudden, anybody coulda done it-

01:45:46:04 – 01:46:11:20
Rick Hopper
but nobody got excited about it. Yeah, there’s a, there’s a famous art piece that says, “It’s nothing but words. I coulda done that,” by the per- said by the person who never does anything. You know? There’s the people on the outside that are gonna try to step into your role and say they’re doing that.But the person that really does it and amplifies it and puts it out there and shows the world what it’s about and gets people charged up for it, that’s the real- Keyword, action.

01:46:11:21 – 01:46:17:02
Rick Hopper
That’s the real key word action.

01:46:17:04 – 01:46:35:22
Rick Hopper
Well, what’s next? Like, I, I, I think that, you know, we’ve kinda gone through this whole thing. We’ve got just a few minutes left as we go through this, but we’ve been through an hour and 45 minutes pretty quickly. What? Seems like we’ve been here for 15 minutes. What is What’s next? Like, what’s the What’s gonna be the pinnacle?

01:46:35:24 – 01:47:05:01
Rick Hopper
Well, uh, like my buddy Suvich, uh, I will never stop. Um, I have a, uh My tombstone is gonna read, “Rick Hopper, he could have made more money, but he couldn’t have had more fun.” And I wanna I, I, I love inspiring people to win. And so one of the, one of the Uh, and whenever I was writing my book, I wrote this It took me 9 years to write this book, at least, maybe 11, for crying out loud.

01:47:05:01 – 01:47:28:18
Rick Hopper
But the whole time I was writing the book and I started putting, doing a podcast, I had this imposter syndrome. Like, who am I to teach anybody anything? I can barely get along in my life as it is. And I look in the, I look at this guy in the mirror every morning and every night when I’m brushing my teeth, and I think, “I’m just a, I’m just the most regular guy in the world.

01:47:28:18 – 01:47:50:07
Rick Hopper
I’m not an authority in anything. I’m not really, I’m not w- I’m not worthy of being listened to.” That’s what my head tells me. And then people start asking me really hard questions, and I hear the words come out my mouth, they go into my ear, and I hear my answers. Like, “Oh my God- That’s pretty good I know some things now.”

01:47:50:07 – 01:48:09:24
Rick Hopper
That’s pretty good. I was Matter of fact, I, I had put my book down for a few years, and then I started reading several chapters I had written. I really impressed myself. Like oh, I knew that then? And I realized, “Oh my God, I gotta finish my book for sure. This, I owe it to the younger or, you know, uh, ambitious people that haven’t done something that they could be doing.

01:48:09:24 – 01:48:29:00
Rick Hopper
I coulda done that,” said the thing that nobody’s I coulda done that. You could, you can do it if you are inspired enough to be honest with yourself and take the, take the action necessary to do it. Uh, and be honest and, and, and, and humble and, and, uh, have the confidence to do it. You know what? Courage is not the absence of fear.

01:48:29:01 – 01:48:54:08
Rick Hopper
Courage, you know, people know, uh, everybody knows this. Courage is, is moving forward in the face of it. And while, while the fear’s happening, courage doesn’t feel good. Um, confidence does because you’ve already proven yourself. So what’s next? I would say, um, I There’s a lot of things changing in the world. Um, you’ve heard the gray tsunami. The gray tsunami is becoming a very well-known, um, uh, cliche.

01:48:54:08 – 01:49:17:19
Rick Hopper
Um, boomers, baby boomers and people that are older that did businesses, that built business through many, many years most of which don’t have anybody to turn their company over to. Oh, okay. Many of which are not sellable because of the way they structured the business. And so what I’m gonna do, I’m gonna go around and identify different kinds

01:49:17:20 – 01:49:30:02
Rick Hopper
I’ve, I’ve got a couple of companies I wanna start. I’m not gonna tell you what they are because I wa- I wanna get some momentum before I get competition. Well, you got 2 months to get them figured out because after that I’m doing it. That’s why I didn’t tell you. That’s why I’m not telling you. I’m not telling anybody.

01:49:30:03 – 01:49:53:06
Rick Hopper
Anyway, um, the, the, there’s a lot of folks that are getting older or they’ve got enough money saved up and they got this business that they’re not really passionate about. They didn’t apply technology to yet. They haven’t created process, procedures, and efficiencies and there’s still a lot of, um, juice left in, a lot of upside maybe a lot of the, the ability to reach customers outside your area or franchise or whatever.

01:49:53:07 – 01:50:11:07
Rick Hopper
So there’s a lot of businesses out there that are gonna be really inexpensive to get that provide a lot of value. There’s people already doing this. So my th- my theory is, and I’ll, I’ll give this one away. Um, I’m gonna go to somebody that’s been doing a gig for many years and they’re making, oh, a couple hundred grand a year.

01:50:11:09 – 01:50:28:15
Rick Hopper
I’m gonna look at the company, I’m gonna look at upside. I’m gonna look at a million dollar potential per year of juice to come out of a, of, out of a gig because of what I know and how to make something happen. I’m gonna go to them and go, “Hey, how about this? How about I give you, uh, 200 grand a year.

01:50:28:17 – 01:50:50:07
Rick Hopper
You give me the company in exchange for 200 grand a year, and we’ll do it for 10 years.” what is that? $2 1000000? $2 1000000. Basically, I’m gonna give you $2 1000000 Mm-hmm for a company that’s probably worth half a million. And, uh, because I really love the product, I see a lot of potential what I could do with what you started.

01:50:50:13 – 01:51:06:04
Rick Hopper
And I’m gonna give you what you’ve been making for a period It doesn’t have to be 10 years. It could be 5 years. It might be only worth a million bucks. I’ll give you the million dollars, but I’m gonna give it to you over th- over 5 years. And but you d- you, what you do is you stay home. You go play pickleball. You go hang out, and you go play bridge, whatever you wanna do.

01:51:06:04 – 01:51:25:07
Rick Hopper
I’m taking the company. I’m gonna grow the company. You get what you earned in the future and I get the company. No money up front. I don’t have to give out or do I don’t have to s- buy a company. I get to trade future dollars for an existing company. I have a, I have a feeling there’s gonna be enough people out there that are gonna wanna make that deal.

01:51:25:07 – 01:51:44:04
Rick Hopper
People that wanna check out. They’re tired. They’re exhausted. They’re afraid technology’s gonna destroy them. Well, I’m gonna use technology to grow them. Yeah, amplify it. ’cause I got a team in place. I got all that. I got a great team. So that’s, that’s kind of what’s in my near future, probably the next 5 or 10 years, at least 5 years.

01:51:44:06 – 01:52:04:05
Rick Hopper
Um, and then you know what? I don’t, uh, I’m not, I’m not a great planner. I do things, I move so fast that drives everybody around me crazy. Uh, but whenever I I, I can’t look too far ahead because there’s too many ver- too many things are gonna change between now and the next 5 years, so I’m not gonna even waste my time looking 10 years out.

01:52:04:06 – 01:52:24:09
Rick Hopper
I got some ideas of how I’d like things to be 10 years from now. I’m not I, I will tell you that I’m not the guy that wants to be a billionaire. I’m not the guy that wants a $60 million Gulf Stream. I’m not the guy that needs a lot of stuff. I’m not really into stuff. Um, I’m into relationships.

01:52:24:11 – 01:52:51:12
Rick Hopper
And, uh, when I have to start something over and s- build something from scratch, I get, like, all charged up. Because I know what happens. All the relationships I build with developers and, and, and manufacturing people and distribution people, and all the, all the relationships I get dude, even my, my, uh, the guy that paints my stuff, I got different colors. The guy that, down in Dallas, he’s older than me, and he’s, uh, ex-military.

01:52:51:14 – 01:53:10:16
Rick Hopper
Every time I get off the phone with Al, I, I say the same thing, and I usually use the F word, but I’m not going to right now. I just say, “I love that guy.” And I get off the phone with my, my packaging guy. I get off the phone with him, “Oh, I love that guy.” I get off the phone with my, my tax lady, “I love her.”

01:53:10:16 – 01:53:28:21
Rick Hopper
So I just fall in love with people. Now, if I don’t fall in love with you and we’re doing business we’re not gonna be doing business very long. Surely, right. If you’re not the kind of person that’s Ah, there’s, like, 3 different kinds of people, okay? I’m gonna just say this real quick. There are people that have a really hard outer shell. You can’t see in.

01:53:29:01 – 01:53:47:13
Rick Hopper
You can’t see the middle. You can’t see through them. You can’t see the middle of them. You don’t know what’s going on in there. They’re either predators, or they’re damaged. And it’s, you just can’t get in. And, you know, no, no And then there’s, there’s, uh, the other end of the spectrum is they’re people that the wind blows through. You see right through them.

01:53:47:13 – 01:54:08:17
Rick Hopper
There’s no core belief system. There’s no solid this person is built off of something really good. Um, if the wind blows through you and I can see right through you, and you got nothing, you don’t have core beliefs and no theory and, you know, um, and, and, and enthusiasm, and you, you know, you, you give back. You’re not like a vampire who’s like, “Suck my energy without giving something back.”

01:54:08:19 – 01:54:29:04
Rick Hopper
Um, I don’t spend a lot of time with those folks. It’s the people that have a solid core. They’re pliable. They’re semi-transparent, where you can see the middle of them, and they’re honest. Those are the people I surround myself with, and I fall in love with them. That’s awesome, man. I mean, just find a That’s one thing that we’ve really been trying to do as well, is, like, try to find I don’t wanna do business with everybody.

01:54:29:05 – 01:54:50:10
Rick Hopper
I just don’t wanna do it. Like, I want me and our team to be happy with the work that we’re doing and not drown ourselves in those types of things, so, like, people that are taking from us. We, we discuss that all the time, of, “Hey, is this a client worth keeping because they are kind of draining on our life? Or do we wanna go after that because these guys are really making things hard versus the money that’s gonna be coming is cool, but it’s not”

01:54:50:14 – 01:55:08:03
Rick Hopper
I mean, we, we spend more time with each other than we do with our own family. So you need to make sure that you’re putting a smile on someone’s face, they’re encouraged by the things we’re working on, they’re, you know, really inspired, and they’re, and they’re achieving the goals that they wanna do. And so if you can do that along the journey, it’s really kind of a cool situation.

01:55:08:03 – 01:55:31:13
Rick Hopper
And I love the fact that you talk about that as you start to build relationships with people because it’s, like I said earlier, it’s, uh, it’s not the stuff. It’s h- learning how to get to that, you know? When I’m, uh, when I’m sucking my last breaths, and I’m trying to pull another one in, I’m just like, about, I’m about to die, right?

01:55:31:15 – 01:55:52:20
Rick Hopper
There’s a s- there’s a story in my book about this. Um, I’m, uh, I’m not gonna be thinking about bank accounts or things. It’s gonna, there’s gonna be a handful of people uh, we left marks on each other. You know? There’s gonna be people That’s it. That’s the only thing I’m gonna, I’m gonna be thinking about people.

01:55:52:21 – 01:56:02:08
Rick Hopper
That’s it. I heard something today that said the only thing that you can take to heaven is other people.

01:56:02:10 – 01:56:20:02
Rick Hopper
I mean, like put everything else aside. One of the reason I do podcasts, matter of fact, I just did a, um, I did a podcast. It was a really unique thing. I, it’s, I got a friend, he’s 86, and he’s not gonna last forever. So we, and he’s had, had a lot of influence on a lot of people in North Texas.

01:56:20:02 – 01:56:43:01
Rick Hopper
And I just did a message from the grave video to show at his celebration of life. And it was, uh, and I’m capturing a lot of his stories. And I’m, I’m, I’m doing more and more of that because, uh, when we die, we take the best stuff with us which is our wisdom and our memories. And the more of that stuff he can leave to, uh, to affect people.

01:56:43:02 – 01:57:04:07
Rick Hopper
And, uh, you don’t really truly die. I’ve heard somebody say this. I can’t take credit for anything I say. You don’t truly die until everybody you affected dies. I get that. Really cool. Good stuff, man. Well, Rick, tell everybody where they can find you at, and, uh, then we’re gonna close this out. Um, rickhopper.com.

01:57:04:07 – 01:57:30:22
Rick Hopper
Easy enough. That’s my website. And rick@rickhopper.com is my email address. And I highly recommend for anybody that has a, um, an idea they don’t want to do next, or they wanna start a business, or they wanna just get a copy of the book to share with a kid on high school, or somebody that wants to make a pivot, somebody in college, they went to college and they learned something, but now they’re working at a coffee shop or something like, they just don’t know how to get, get going, uh, The Bridge: From Idea to Money, I’m really proud of it.

01:57:30:24 – 01:57:47:09
Rick Hopper
That’s awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thanks for taking the hike all the way from the other side of the, the metroplex. Um- Piece of cake, man. It’s been great. Thanks for having me, bro. Yeah, 100%. Well, everybody, until next time, that’s The Blueprint.