235. How To Be Successful and Overcome Obstacles – Interview with Nelson Tressler

Susan Sly 00:02
Well, Hey, everyone, wherever you are in the world, I hope you're having a fabulous day and shouts out to all of you. We're growing. I think 125 countries now, which is amazing to me. And you're here because you are starting a business, you're thinking of starting a business, you've got a business, you're like, maybe I should sell this business. This is Raw and Real Etrepreneurship where I bring in amazing entrepreneurs like my guest today. And we get raw, we get real and there's no holds back. And my guest has had not one, not two, ten successful businesses. it's mind blowing. He is incredible. He's the founder of a company and a movement called I Got Smarter. He was at one point, a top commercial realtor generating over a billion, with a B dollars in transactions. And on top of it, he served in the military for the United States. So I'm so grateful. I love to showcase veterans. And lastly, I want to say, he and I both share this, we grew up, our early beginnings were not so generous and grew up in abusive homes, and he has transcended the odds. And I am so grateful to have the author of The Unlucky Sperm Club here, Mr. Nelson Tressler. Nelson, thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for having me on, Susan, I appreciate it. Well, I want to ask this question. You know, what was your first business? I have, sometimes we have kids listen. I've interviewed young entrepreneurs. I recently had two 12 year old entrepreneurs, I've interviewed this year, what was your first business?

Nelson Tressler 01:38
The first thing I did, I did it was my mom had ordered some thermometers. And so I took those thermometers and went door to door and just sold those thermometers for a profit. And I think I was probably eight or nine years old. And I just remember selling them and making a few bucks on each one of them and thinking that was, you know, the best job in the world.

Susan Sly 02:04
That's, that's really interesting, because a lot of kids wouldn't think, Oh, my mom has these thermometers. I want to go sell them. What was the reason behind that? Did you, was there something driving you to want to generate some revenue?

Nelson Tressler 02:17
Yeah, a hunger, food in the fridge. I mean, we were, we were like dirt poor. No food in the refrigerator, poor growing up. So everything kind of at that age was just geared towards survival. And whatever I could do to help. I mean, at a young age, I was the oldest in my family of five kids. And so I was definitely looked upon to kind of do my part in helping to provide for the family. So yeah, it was a, it was a matter of eating.

Susan Sly 02:51
Yeah, and that will definitely do it. Brandon Steiner is a great friend of mine. He's been a guest on the show. And that was how he started his first business. They were living in Brooklyn, they were on food stamps, his dad had passed, and he was the man of the house, you know, and, and the, I want to ask you this-- I am, when I was in my early childhood, we I lived in an apartment complex, and it was subsidized housing. So when my mom would get her check, we had food. When the, and it was great for a couple of days. And then we had nothing. Can you you know, can you share, I guess, with the audience a memory you have, you know, from being a child, maybe a memory of being hungry or a memory, when did you first know that, you know, your family was poor?

Nelson Tressler 03:44
Well, I've got quite a unique origin story. I mean, I can get into that a little bit to kind of give some background if you like. You know, my mom became pregnant with me when she was 15 years old. And while she was pregnant with me, her father, who was the local trash collector in a very small town, drove into the town square. There, he spotted two police officers. He stuck a gun out the window and open fire on those police officers, killing one and critically wounding another. And eventually my grandfather was captured and brought to stand trial where he was facing the death penalty. And during my grandfather's trial, my mom got up and testified to the jury that the reason that her father had shot and killed that police officer was that the police officer had raped her and she was now pregnant with his baby who was me. And that's kind of how my life began in that small town. My mom's testimony worked. The first trial ended in a hung jury. However, my grandfather was tried again, the state took the death penalty off the table because of my mom's testimony. But eventually my grandfather was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, where he eventually spent the rest of his life more than 40 years behind bars, leaving behind in this small town, his family of 15 children, including my mom, and now me, to kind of deal with the circumstances of what he had done. And, you know, it's hard enough being born to a 15 year old mother, who's dropped out of school in the eighth grade. But eventually, my mom would get married to a man who would become my stepfather. We quickly came to find out that he was an alcoholic, and very physically and emotionally abusive to me and my mom on a daily basis. And, you know, my mom and him had four children in quick succession. And because of the lifestyle that they were living, a lot of the basic needs of my siblings fell upon me as the oldest, you know, from diaper changing to bottle feeding, to even waking up in the middle of the night to put crying babies back to sleep. And my mom would rather me stay home from school and help her with the kids than to go to school. And I remember one, you know, one day, you know, at the end of fourth grade, you go into school and you're excited, you know, the last day of school, you're thinking, Okay, you know, who do I have for fifth grade, or am I going to be in class with my buddies, and I looked down at my report card, and I realized that I'm not moving on to fourth grade, I had straight Fs. And I had flunked fourth grade. And, and it shouldn't have come to a surprise, you know, I probably missed school 60 days that year, because of staying home. But that's the way my life went. Until one day, my stepfather was walking home drunk from a bar, and somebody else was driving home drunk from that bar, and they ended up hitting and killing him. And as hard as my mom's life had been with him, losing my stepfather pretty much broke my mom, Like I said, she had dropped out of school in the eighth grade, never worked outside of the home, here she is, with five young children, has a six month old baby at the time, and she cannot wrap her head around how she's going to care for us. And it's at this time that she decides that she's going to take her own life, and my mom attempt suicide. And fortunately, she wasn't successful. But when she did get out of the hospital after her suicide attempt, it was at that time that my family got split up. And I went to go live with my grandmother who was the wife of the man who shot and killed the police officer. And that's kind of where my life took that first turn. Because for the first time in my life, there was always food in the house, I didn't have to worry about my stepfather coming home and beating me or my mom or my siblings. And the survival kinda went out of it. And I started to reflect upon where my life was heading and what I was doing in my life. And that's when I started to kind of think about my future.

Susan Sly 08:13
Well, Nelson, thank you for your vulnerability and heart. And I had read about your stepfather being abusive, and that and, the statistic in the United States just to give everyone perspective, three out of five American women have been physically, sexually, emotionally abused. Two out of five American men have been physically, sexually, emotionally abused. I think that number is probably higher. I have, you know, men get abuse too, young boys get abused. And it's, the thing I want to say that the reason we talk about this stuff on the show is because there's this mythical notion out there, Nelson, that you know, an entrepreneur who's successful like yourself, 10 successful businesses, is somehow handed something or it's the opposite, The Lucky Sperm Club, right, which I know is why you wrote the book with the title. But the reality is, sometimes success comes from a place where you're trying to prove that you're so different from your family tree. And I know from myself, being abused at a young age, being on, I remember people coming over to our house with food, and, you know, I'm like, why are they bringing us food? I couldn't conceptualize that. And I was almost embarrassed. And when I got to finally go live with my dad, because my mom, God rest her soul, she was abusive to me. When I got to go live with my dad like he was, like suddenly we had food every day. And I didn't realize what I didn't have until I had it. And that's, you know, that's the piece of this. And so wherever you are, our show is listened to in Africa, in India, and all over the world, wherever you are, know that you're hearing from someone today who's so successful, who came from the most unlikely place, and managed to achieve. So let me ask you this. When did you, one thing I read about you is you really want to go to university. You wanted to change your family tree. When did you begin to discover yourself worth?

Nelson Tressler 10:29
Yeah, you know what, when I went to go live with my grandmother, you know, we had just that special bond. My mom was living at home when she had me at 15 years old. So, you know, my grandma and me connected then. And then when I moved back in there, and pretty much every day of my life, my grandma would look at me with those big eyes and say, Nelson, you're gonna make something of your life. And she told me it so often. And she believed it so strongly that I wanted to prove her right. And so I think her believing in me, definitely helped me. And, you know, just living there and hearing that, and, she treated me like I was different. Like I was going to be something and, and I started to act that way. And I was a pretty good athlete. So I had that going for me. And I kind of, one day a counselor came to our school, I think I was in seventh or eighth grade. And they started talking about what you needed to do to get into college. And I remember starting to think of that, like, hey, what if I could go to college and get a college degree? I, you know, that would be, after I got a college degree, life would be easy, you know. That was what I was thinking. Now, of my mom's family, of those 15 kids, only two would ever graduated high school. None have even gone to college. And, you know, here I am, you know, I'm in special ed, I have dyslexia, I'd flunked the fourth grade. And quickly, I start, you know, hearing that negative self talk in the back of my head saying, Nelson, who do you think you are? Like, you're going to be lucky to get a, you know, graduate high school, let alone go to college. But, you know, I saw where I was heading, I saw what was waiting for me if I just stay on my path. And I didn't like it. I didn't want that for me. I didn't want it for my family. And so I'm like, you know, what, what do I have to lose? So I started doing the things that I thought I needed to do to get into college. And it was hard, you know, but eventually, you know, it took me 12 years. It took four different universities, you know, it took four years in the United States Air Force. But eventually I became that first person in my family to get a college degree. And that's when I realized, you know, what, I can do hard things. I can do things that are going to take a lot of time, that are going to take a lot of effort, a lot of focus. And as long as I stick to something, I can do it. No matter what my shortcomings were, because I have tons of them. Like, I still can, you know, I still can't spell. You know, I can read pretty well now, words still kicked me up where I have to really look at them. But I make it through just because I'm not willing to quit. I'm not willing to give up. And I think if you're not willing to quit or give up you can never fail. And I think that's kind of my superpower at this stage of my life.

Susan Sly 13:36
That is a good superpower. And what I want to say to everyone watching and listening to you, is if you know someone who's dyslexic, as I said, we have a lot of kids who listen to my show, probably because I have five kids and two grandkids. So it's like, you know, every tribe keep a PG, that the, it is really hard. My son, Nelson, he is on the autism spectrum, he went to an amazing school, shout out to New Way Academy, where a lot of the kids have dyslexia, they didn't function well in a normal school system. And, and it's really, really hard. But you know, we have computer programs for spelling now. And you know, no one's going to be able to spell in like 20 years. So it's all good.

Nelson Tressler 14:20
I'm so glad to be born in this day and age, because if I wasn't, you know, there's no way I could function, doing the things that I was. So I mean, I'm grateful to be born when I was so.

Susan Sly 14:32
So the dyslexic kid who failed fourth grade goes on to start write a book, you know, found 10 businesses. It's amazing. You really, in all of the research I did on you, you have a very interesting approach to the concept of goals. And I think that, you know what I'm very curious about, and I'm sure the listeners are too is, in your opinion why are people so unsuccessful in achieving goals?

Nelson Tressler 15:04
I think there's a lot of reasons. I mean, I think, I think one of them is is that, you know, we set, we set long term goals. And then, you know, we don't really have those small little, bite sized pieces, so that we can stay focused. And that's why I developed, it's called I Got Smarter. And it's an acronym for our program. And, you know, I think another thing is, is that we don't take complete responsibility. The "I", the "I" in I Got Smarter, lets us know that we need to be focused on that individual staring back at you in the mirror. Because every goal that you achieve, you need to first become that individual that can achieve that goal, you need to become the person that can achieve that goal. And we're always working on ourselves. And I think that needs to be the number one thing all of us need to do is work on ourselves each and every day. And that's how we're going to achieve our goals. And then yeah, I think you need to really take those big, hairy, audacious goals. I mean, we definitely want those big goals, those long term goals. But I think we need to break those down. And what we do in our program is we break those down into what we call four week sprints. And we all can kind of know where we're going to be in four weeks. And we even break those down further into, you know, milestones that we're working on throughout the week. So I think, you think about the last New Year's resolution that you set. You know, typically, within two weeks, definitely within two months, 95% of those new year's resolutions fail, because there's no sense of urgency. It's like, oh, I'll have time to work on that, you know, in February or March or June. And then you know, by that time, you've forgotten about it, there's none of that urgency. When you set that four week sprint, you know where you have to be, and you're always working on it. But that's why I've developed I Got Smarter. Each one of those letters is something that's patching those holes in those shortcomings in goal setting, and specifically goal achievement.

Susan Sly 17:17
Yeah, I'd love that. I want to ask you, because you mentioned about taking responsibility, right? Like this concept of radical responsibility. If it's meant to be, it's up to me, and I often will talk about, you know, trending issues. And there's this, you know, there's a lot of people saying that, you know, people just aren't taking responsibility. I want to get your take on that. What's your, what's your sentiment on that,you know, right now, in this time we're living in.

Nelson Tressler 17:47
I think we're all exactly where we choose to be. I'm exactly where I choose to be, you're exactly where you choose to be. I mean, are there like minute situations where maybe somebody isn't, maybe, but I think for the most part, I'm where I choose to be. And you know what, I love that because if I don't want to be here anymore, if I want to be somewhere else, all I have to do is choose to be somewhere else. And the way that I do that is by making different choices. You know, if I'm not happy where I am financially, then I need to go out there and figure out okay, what do I need to do to make more money? If I'm not where I'm at, want to be in my relationships, then I need to go out there, maybe I need to get some knowledge on how to deal better in relationships. Or maybe I need to put more effort or more focus in my relationships. But if you're not where you want to be in any particular area of your life, you get to choose to be somewhere different. And if that's a better place, then you get to choose that. And the worst thing that you can do is assign, assign blame somewhere else, because now you've given away all that control. You can't do anything now. If it's someone else's fault, something else's fault, now all you can do is put your hands in your pocket and wait for someone else to change or something else to change. You've given away all that control. But when you realize that you have 100% responsibility for your success, now you're in control. And now if you want something to change, you're the one that's in control. You're the one that starts making those decisions. And then you're the one that's going to, you know, covet that change.

Susan Sly 19:29
That's powerful. You are exactly where you've chosen to be. And you know, it's interesting that you say that because I remember there was a point when I was in grade three, and I did not want to live with my mother. And back in the 70s, the mom always got custody. So I decided I would, I don't even know, Nelson, where I got the idea. I would stage a hunger strike. And I did. So I refuse to eat or sleep and my mother kept saying eat, eat. I said no. Until you let me go and live with Dad, I am not going to eat, I'm not going to sleep. And it took three days of striking and she finally relented to let me go. And there I was seven years old taking responsibility thing, I have to do something to change this situation. And I think, you know, in my opinion, the world we're living in today, we all need to. You know, the student loan crisis, like, oh, the government's gonna pay my student loans. Like pay your damn student loan, right? Like, don't go into debt, you know, like, just be responsible, be a responsible human. Let me ask you this, you started 10 businesses, writing books, real estate, all these things you've done. At this stage in your career, what drives you?

Nelson Tressler 20:52
You know what, I want to help other people, you know. I've gotten to that point in my life where, you know, I've gotten the passive income. Like I had this plan, I knew where I wanted to be before I hit 50, or when I hit 50. And I reached that. And, you know, I remember selling one of my businesses, and, you know, for more money than I ever could have imagined. And I remember thinking, Okay, what do I want to do with the rest of my life. And that story that I told you guys at the beginning of the show about my grandfather, and all of that, nobody knew that story. I never told anybody except for my wife. And I figured I owed it to her to tell her before, you know, she said she would marry me, but never told my kids. I never told my in-laws or my friends. That weakend to me. I mean, I struggled with it all the way through school, because everyone kind of pointed at me, they knew who I was, they new I was at Tressler kid from the trial. And so I hated it. And so that's when I joined the Air Force and got out of that town. I never went back because of what it was. And then I started to reflect upon that. And I'm like, you know what, I lived this life for a reason. I went through that as a child for a reason. And I started to think you know what, I need to share that story. That story can help other people realize that they're not a victim of their circumstances, that they're a product of their choices. And now that same story that weakened me, that I hated to tell, that I cringed if anybody kind of knew it, now, it strengthened me. Now I'm going on shows and sharing it so that other people can realize that it doesn't matter where you start, it doesn't matter what's happened to you, you cannot be a victim of that. What you, what will happen is, you are a product of your choices. You get to choose where you end up, you get to choose where you're going, what direction you're going. It might not be overnight. One choice might not get you where you want to go, but one choice can change the direction you're going. And that's what I want to do with people. That's what I want to do by sharing my story. That's what I want to do with six months to success, and I Got Smarter, and my book, The Unlucky Sperm Club, is I want people to read that and be inspired to know, you know, what I'm going to take control my life. I know, maybe it was hard in the beginning, maybe I'm falling on hard times now. But I want to, I want people to realize that they're in control.

Susan Sly 23:28
That's beautiful, Nelson. And that, I can relate so much to that, because I didn't, there were a lot of parts of my story, I didn't tell. And that, that whatever we suppress ultimately becomes expressed. And you see people hiding their pain, shoving it down, whether it's with food, with alcohol, with drugs, you know. You know, it's just this, you know, this, this dark hole inside us. And it's, we can use our pain not to be a victim, but to be vulnerable enough to inspire others who are in similar situations, to really go out and expand their lives. And that's, that's huge. And I'm so grateful that you're doing that. Now I have a fun question for you. When we build businesses, they're kind of like our children. And we would never say we have a favorite child. Although as parents, sometimes our kids drive us a little crazy. Of all the 10, is there one you kind of go yes, I learned from that, but if I could look back in hindsight, I might not have done that one?

Nelson Tressler 24:37
Yeah, you know, I got involved with children's learning centers. And it's when I was in commercial real estate and I invested in it. And I never really wanted to be running the business. I was just like, here's some money and I was getting checks and I write about this in my book, The Unlucky Sperm Club, and then come to find out during The Great Recession, we come to find out that the guy had embezzled a million dollars from us through this business. And my father in-law was an investor in the business with us, he was going through kidney failure at the time. He was a dentist, and he had invested a lion's share of his retirement in there. And this guy, the operating partner, hadn't invested any of his money, he was just sweat equity, and was pretty much willing to just let the business die, because he had no money in it. And anyhow, we eventually had to buy him out of the business and take that business over. And it's a humbling thing to pay somebody who's embezzled a million dollars from you , more money, but anyhow, I got involved with that. I was in commercial real estate, I wasn't running businesses at the time, I didn't know how to hire or, you know, do any of that type of stuff. But I was thrust into it to try to save our investment. And I remember I was hiring people, and in children's learning centers, men have a target on their backs. You know, there's about 2% of men work in daycares, or learning centers, and, you know, one of my directors had quit, and my regional director came to me with this man, and said, You need to hire this guy. And I'm like, Oh, I'm like, I'm not hiring a man, it might be illegal, but they've got a target on their back, you know, parents aren't comfortable with it, I'm not doing it. And, you know, she kept, you know, pushing, and I couldn't find anybody. And the guy had already worked for a national daycare business. And I'm like, Okay, you know what, I'll interview him. I interviewed him, he knocked my socks off, he was incredible. I ended up hiring him. Long story short, three years later, my friend calls me and says, you better turn on the news. And I turn on the news. And there's a picture of him in my daycare, and under his name says, child molester, working at a daycare center. And, you know, that's when I quickly found out that it's not a myth that you lose the use of your legs when you see something. And you know, so anyhow, and I talked about that, this in my book, The Unlucky Sperm Club, but yeah, that was one of the business, I didn't have a passion for it, I kind of was thrust into it, I didn't really know what I was doing at the time. And you know, that would be one that I definitely wouldn't want to do again and live through that. It was stressful on my family, on my marriage, on every aspect of my life dealing with that. And the guilt of hiring that man so, but at the same time, you know what? I learned so much from it and was able to recover from it and learn so, but I wouldn't want to go through it again. I'd rather learn those lessons another way than I did but yeah, that would, that would be one I wouldn't do again.

Susan Sly 28:16
That's a, that is a really, really, deeply traumatic one, right? And you for sharing that. And I want everyone to read your book. My gosh, like talk about raw and real. I promised you it was gonna be raw and real today, guys. And this is about as raw and real, as it gets in business. And the big thing is trusting your gut. I was just being interviewed on a show, Nelson, and they were talking about how do you hire right? Because in Aadius, our AI company, we're in the process of hiring 60 people right now. And I am glad that I'm former law enforcement because there's a part of me, so I use software to do background checks. That's not, like I have an eight step process that I go through but there's a process at which point there's a background check and you know, sometimes Okay, you had speeding ticket, Okay. Well, I'm not, as long as I'm not hiring you to be a driver then Okay, I can be okay with that. You know, people aren't perfect, right? But it's that, there's certain lessons that only come with time, right? That's why there's a difference between knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom is the application of knowledge. So let me ask you this, final question for you. And I want everyone to go to NelsonTressler.com. I want you to go, Nelson's book is everywhere. Like it's literally everywhere. So you know, wherever you like to buy books, go get The Unlucky Sperm Club. I know exactly, I'm gonna give it as some gifts, actually. I've got definitely some people to be buying that for. Nelson, you know, you're this expert in the area of looking at achievement, right? And I've, you know, I've worked with a lot of, you know, many of the people from the secret. I know these guys have done speaking events with Tony Robbins, all these different people. And I think one of the things that a lot of people say is, you've achieved so much, you know, you have this passion for helping people. What are some fun things that are on your goal list right now?

Nelson Tressler 30:27
You know what, my biggest goal right now is, I want to be married for 50 years. That's my number one goal. I just was married 25 years, this last year. So I'm halfway there. You know, you ask my wife, she says it feels like five minutes underwater, underwater. But you know that's my, that's my biggest goal. I mean, I have a lot of goals. I want to help. You know, I want to help so many people out there. You know, one of the great things, as I've started this new business, my sons are in baseball, and they're off becoming men themselves and in doing things, and so I have three boys. And right now, my oldest two sons have graduated from high school and are off to college and doing those things. But I have a, still have a son in high school. And we were at a baseball game one time, and a guy came up to me. And he's like, Hey, can I talk to you? And I'm like, yeah, and he's like, you know, our older sons played baseball together. And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I remember him. And he's like, you know, I remember looking at you and your family, and thinking, you guys had it all together. And then I read your book, and it, in my book, I really pulled back the curtain. I mean, me and my wife, were probably two arguments away from being divorced. And he's like, I read your book and I realized that, you know, everybody has to work it out. And everybody has trouble. And he's like, I went, you know, I went home after finishing that chapter. And I started treating my wife better and realizing that everybody has trouble. And that right there was like, the goal of writing that book. Like if I never sold another copy of it, or anything, like, I knew that writing that book was worth it because of that one, family. So that's what I want to do right now. I mean, my biggest, my biggest goal is to help people. I know, there's so many people out there struggling. And, you know, I want to help people reach their potential. I mean, that's the one thing that I see is people don't realize how powerful they are, how much potential is in them. And, you know, you show somebody how much potential is in them, they'll never be the same again. And that's what I want to do. I want people to see that potential. And then I want them to realize that they can reach it, and I want to be able to help them do that.

Susan Sly 33:09
Well, firstly, I love that goal. We've got a similar goal there. And I'm very transparent. My husband and I almost divorced. And, you know, and one day, you know, we're so committed to health, right? Often, people who've been unhealthy and they get healthy, they're very committed. And I said to my husband, every single day, Chris, we work out, you know, we're not working out our marriage, right? A muscle only gets stronger under stress. And a marriage can get stronger under stress. We have to prioritize it. But you know the story of the couple who was married 75 years? They were being interviewed and the reporter said to the gal, he said, what's the secret of being married 75 years? And she's like, oh, when we got married, we went to Australia on our honeymoon. It was so beautiful. And she goes, and 75 years later, I went back and picked him up. I'm not a joke teller, but that's my one joke I got. Well, Nelson, it's been amazing honor to have you here. And guys, listen, if you're on YouTube, right, drop a comment below. Make sure, I'm the one who, I don't, it's not my staff, it's me doing the comments on our YouTube channel. If you're on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you're listening, we'd love a five star review. Please share this. Here's who I want you to share this with. If there is a child, I know my son listens, a lot of his friends listen. If there's someone, a young person who's struggling with dyslexia, learning challenge, they need to listen to this. Someone who's going through a tough time, a single parent, someone who's gone through poverty, someone who's lost a business, gone through divorce. Basically anyone who's had a challenge going through a challenge, share this show with them. We would absolutely love it. Pick up a copy of Nelson Tressler's book, The Unlucky Sperm Club, best title ever. Right next to you, Brandon Steiner's You Got To Have Balls, that's another good title. Anyway, Nelson, again, thanks for being here. I so appreciate you. And this has been another episode of Raw and Real Entrepreneurship with Susan Sly. Thanks, everyone. God bless and we'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, Susan.