Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow
☕️ Coffee, Chaos & Cashflow 🎙️
Fueling your business journey with real talk, laughs, and a dash of caffeine! Join Eric Griffin, Aram Street & Yemi Ogunbase as they share wins, missteps, and candid advice on turning chaos into cashflow. Real stories, real lessons—entrepreneurship, unfiltered. 🎧
Coffee, Chaos, & Cashflow
002 Meet a Founder - Eric Griffin
Eric's journey through fatherhood and entrepreneurship reveals profound moments of love, trust, and purpose. From catching his child at birth to navigating the emotional waves of fatherhood, he emphasizes the importance of presence and trust in the process.
In business, Eric leans on faith and intuition. He shares stories of financial breakthroughs, such as a real estate success and a timely AMC investment, viewing these as guided by divine intervention. His approach centers on gratitude, alignment with purpose, and creating businesses that foster family-like care for employees, prioritizing love, transparency, and kindness.
So Eric.
Speaker 2:What's up?
Speaker 1:What's up?
Speaker 1:What's popping, you know for this episode, man, we wanted to just dive into, just talk about you. We want to find out about you, as Aaron likes to say the man, the myth, the legend. I have no one to say these things. Yes, so definitely want to find out about you, you know, first question, man, like we're going to dive into the entrepreneurial journey, of course, and everything, but I'm going to find out, like man, what is the one of the craziest things you've ever done and I'm not talking about jumping out of a plane or something that's like personally resonates with you. That was absolutely just breathtaking resonates with you.
Speaker 2:That was absolutely just breathtaking. Uh, the craziest thing that I've ever done would be catching my daughter and being a part of that birthing experience. I think that would definitely be the craziest thing because obviously I was. I mean, I was a part of just yeah, just Sia's experience, but I wasn't on that side, I was more supporting my wife throughout that, which is obviously, you know, that's still something You're still doing that but I've never. But to actually catch my daughter and see her and hold her and be the first one to do that and look at her and have her face be the first face that she sees, is something that is so special and unique. It's a once in a lifetime. You know, I'm never, that's never going to be able to. I will never be able to. That's not going to be experienced, and for her too, wow.
Speaker 1:Wow, man we're recording and man, just the place we're at needs to change the air filters. I'm getting a little dusty in here.
Speaker 2:A little busy out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so catching your daughter, I mean, you know you talk about like it's such a poignant moment but like, like, dive a little bit more into that like. And then obviously like, if you know, if it's highly personal, you know we don't have to do that, but it's just having been. You know, having been part of some birthing stories and everything with my own children, I always like to get these takes from just other fathers, at least from my perspective. It's the woman and the baby, the mother and the baby. That's the focus and everything.
Speaker 1:But as a dad, you're going through all kinds of things because the person you love most is, you know she's there, she's hurting and it's like there is nothing you can do to ease her pain. There's nothing that you can do. And then on top of that, just the you know the dangers of childbirth anyway, you know it's gotta be a perfect process. You know gestation, all that, all that stuff. But it's like the concern about the baby too, like there's this person who you love with your life that you haven't even met yet yeah, that was actually the reason why we went to the hospital versus having a home birth.
Speaker 2:so we had a home birth for our first, our first kid, and, um, you know, it worked out and everything. But there was like fourth, third degree tearing and we had to have, if it wasn't for the mentor of our midwife, who just happened to be in the area, he came by and stitched her up because our midwife didn't feel comfortable, she didn't feel like she had the ability to do it, and so she just texted her mentor and the mentor came over and did it. But it's scenarios like that where it's like, okay, you have all the comforts of being in your own home, but scenarios like that where it's like you need to be out of hospital, you know, to have this kind of care done. That's the stuff that can get scary, I think, as far as feelings and stuff. You know, when you're in situations like that, you don't have time to be worried or scared or afraid or um, you don't have time to do that.
Speaker 2:No, in my like, to me that's a, that's a selfish thing. If I go take the time to be afraid, well then, who am I? You know, I'm looking after myself, so I can experience this feeling instead of looking, instead of like, getting like just not letting it, not letting it affect me, and getting through it and going and helping my wife and figuring out how can I be useful, how can I help. You know my? I think another thing too is that in every situation there is, in every situation there's, an opportunity for your Father to be in the room somewhere or in your mind, or you could pray. There's always room for prayer, there's always room for that.
Speaker 1:And at some point you just have to trust.
Speaker 2:You have to trust. It puts your faith at risk. You know it's challenging that At some point you just have to trust him and trust him that he knows what he's doing, he is, he has a plan for you and you have to be okay with the outcome. You have to give up the outcome and be okay with it, and I don't mean you're not allowed to be emotional about it, you're not allowed to get upset, upset, but you got to just recognize that the outcome I, I trust that it's in your hands and I think that's uh. If you're able to do that and you practice that enough times, a lot of situations become a lot easier to go through.
Speaker 2:But in this, this scenario, you know it's just you don't have time, it's action time and so I'm watching the monitor, holding her hand, you know, giving her encouragement, saying that you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. Watching the monitor. Make sure they don't put any more Pitocin without letting us know, because that was a big fear that she had in doing hospital birth was the pitocin and someone sneaking it coming in, pumping it up and sneaking, pumping it up and like and like, even though she's naturally going like okay, so anyway. Um, yeah, and then when I had the chance, I went for it. There was no room for fear. You just have to do it it's go time yeah, it's go time good stuff.
Speaker 1:So now I'm quite possibly the most awkward subject transition ever little fourth wall break in there yeah, I went off in the weeds a little bit there for you guys.
Speaker 1:No man, it's like I said we want to get to know you, you know. So now that we, it's back to your burst. Yeah, what have been some of the most like? I mean, obviously you know the entrepreneurial journey probably pales in comparison. It definitely pales in comparison to that. You know the entrepreneurial journey probably pales in comparison, definitely pales in comparison to that. You know, when it comes to things that have been maybe intimidating or kind of like, oh man, I don't know what I'm going to do, would have been some of those moments in your own entrepreneurial journey.
Speaker 2:Like what do you mean? Intimidating?
Speaker 1:Things that are intimidating, things that are like you know, things where you had to really trust your father as far as entrepreneurship went, I would say Intimidating.
Speaker 2:I would say intimidating. I think one of the biggest one big kind of hard thing was when the my e-commerce supplier ran off with 20K and then proceeded to also ship off the rest of his contents to my customers, which he had actually been doing a week beforehand. I just didn't know it because the customer support some of the people didn't ask for anything because they just thought they got scanned, and then other people eventually did. So how are chargebacks and stuff like that? I think that was really really hard. But again, you just have to go into action mode and you have to pray. Ask the Lord what do you want me to do? What's the answer to this right now? And just get it done. Go out and try to figure out how to make it right. You know you have to get a loan. No one loans you any money. Okay, where do I go, lord? What do I need to do now?
Speaker 2:And he's like go to your parents. I don't want to go to my parents, why? And he's like so you're going to let your pride get in the way of doing what's right? And that's what hit me, because that's where I'm learning. You know he turns things into good, he just turned it around. So I'm like fine. So I went to my parents and I got it to them. They prayed about it. They're like yeah, lord says to do it and it's his money, so we're going to give it to you. And so, um, yeah, well, the Lord knows what to do. Just saying, you know, know, he can solve, if he built a world, that he probably can solve for a petty little issue pretty easily yeah man still though it's still that.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't know. In my case he probably would have been that way and I'd be like, well lord, you know who you made, you know me, but in the end, yeah, so your supplier ran off with 20 grand. You had to make it right and own, your parents, and you know it was blessing you're able to find some help there and everything I mean just I know that your relationship with God is very important and everything. What are some of the ways that God has shown up for you?
Speaker 1:And obviously you know there's too many that we would be on this call for too long, so what are your, what are some of your, what are your three favorite ways that god has shown up for you?
Speaker 2:um, the latest one was clean space. The one before that was amc. The run for amc literally told me to I, yeah, I uh, josiah had just been born, we had just moved, I was walking down e-commerce store, had just um, sat down walking down the street, uh, just asking, lord, I don't know, just felt like the holy spirit, asked me randomly what do you want to do now? And I just said I want to be an investor. And I and then I heard, okay, well, get out your phone, download, uh, download an app. And so I picked, chose, weeble. And then I literally heard go invest in amc. Like, okay, I don't know what am is, I've never invested in anything before except Bitcoin. So I just downloaded AMC, did that.
Speaker 1:And then- You've got a divine stock tip.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty good, right? Insider trading there's every insider trading. It's pretty good, it's pretty good. And then next thing, I know, know, I get a call from don blair, um, who, I don't know. It represents some guy in some rich neighborhood who wants to buy my real estate land which another story which I bought for five grand, um, and I bought it because god told me to buy it and I held it for two years. And then I get this random call and the guy wants to buy it for 50K. We talk about it and then I come back and say 80K. He comes back with 70.
Speaker 2:And then I felt like the Holy Spirit told me not to be greedy, so I took the deal. And then the Holy Spirit told me not to be greedy, so I took the deal. And then the Holy Spirit told me to invest it all in AMC, which I did, because you don't go against what you know the Lord. If you know 100% that he's telling you to do something, don't ever go against it. Most of the time you don't know 100%, but every once in a while you know 100%. So I did it. And then five days later it went up 356%. So my 70K went up 356% and that's how we survived, that's how we lived. For the whole rest of the year I didn't have to work. My wife, um, he didn't have to work and that was that was our first year with one, with our first child. That was a good time. That was. That's definitely up there selling the land and having that experience, that's up there.
Speaker 1:Um, the commerce thing, making 100k in a week, that's cool, yeah, okay, anything else like you can dive into any of those if you want more specifics well, I mean, you know what's another way that you just know for certain, like you know, without a doubt, 100%, that it was the Lord who showed up for you because I prayed and asked him and the result, the track record is so well good.
Speaker 2:You can't argue with the track record. It's kind of like in the Bible when it talks about a prophet, and you know a prophet is a prophet if what he says is true. It happens. You know that's one of the ways he can spot a false prophet, which is an obvious one, right? So if I pray and there's okay, so there's this.
Speaker 2:I don't know how to explain. It is literally I cannot, I cannot, I cannot, um, uh, what's the word? It's like I cannot disbelieve that it wasn't him, if that makes sense. Like I can't convince myself it wasn't him, cause it was, I knew it. I know it's not my own thought, I know it's not coming from someone, somewhere someone said cause I know I can hear myself and it doesn't like this voice, doesn't sound anything like that, and but it sound anything like that and um, but it's not just that, it's a. It's like this overwhelming feeling of just, it is like it, it, it, it's, it's re, it's as real as like this chair. And I've only gotten, I got, I've only gotten like 10 of those in my life. Um, maybe more than that. I've only gotten like 10 of those in my life Maybe more than that and every single time they always come true.
Speaker 2:There is not a once that it hasn't and I can't explain it to you. I don't know how else to say it. What do you mean? Walk you through half, Walk us through. You're here now and we're doing Clean Space. Give us the inspiration behind that.
Speaker 1:Why are?
Speaker 2:you doing that specifically? The inspiration behind that was so you, aaron, wanted me to help him with his website, and that just Aaron and I meeting was actually. The Lord told me to go to that church, believe it or not, and so just us meeting was a result from me feeling like that's what we're supposed to do. But he wanted me to help him with his website. He's running his cleaning company. He doesn't have a website yet. We go out to eat many times because that's the way I charged him and we got talking and everything and I was we're on his website.
Speaker 2:I was laying in bed. No, I was sitting. I was either in bed getting ready to go to sleep, or I was in a chair and I was praying and asking lord, um, uh, something like what do you want me to do? Uh, uh, it was like what? What do you want me to do? Where do you want me to go? Do you want me to create, um, another e-commerce store? Uh, like, what direction should I go in? Because I need money, like I we need, because at this point we don't have an income? Um, and he told, and then I got this huge down. It was like this huge vision of what is now clean space, but originally I thought it was for alex clean. Well, I'm like, where could this go? And then I get this giant. I don't know how to explain it. It's in my head, it's like a vision of it's like fast forwarding, like all these things happening, and I got this huge vision. I thought it was for Lexley.
Speaker 2:And yeah, basically that, and yeah, and so I thought it was for LexClean. But I knew I was going to be a part of it, like I knew I was going to own, like I knew that was a business, but I didn't know, like I thought maybe LexClean, like somehow we would get a partner up with LexClean and turn that into something, but anyways, let him know, you know, gave him the vision and everything, and he wasn't interested for Lex clean, because he has his own timeline. You know, wanting to have, wanting to do that, but so, yeah, so I was door dashing because you know I it got turned down. Well, I should have remembered that I was praying, or what do you want me to do next? And he gave me that vision and I should have just went ahead and just started working on it. But I didn't get that because you know I don't get everything all the time. But anyway, so I was, I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll door dash, but you have to.
Speaker 2:So I was dashing and then it was it's a terrible day. It was terrible dash day. The most I had made, like I was at 60 dollars at the end of the day. I don't want to dash at night? Uh, just because I can't see the car that I'm driving. It's just so terrible to drive at night.
Speaker 2:But at the end of the day, I'm coming through downtown and I'm asking the lord lord, what do you like? What do you want me to do? Can't like we're not earning anything. I want you know what I said is you promised me uh, you have fulfilled all of your promises to me, except for one, which you promised me that I would have unlimited resources, and my resources are limited. I know you're going to fulfill that promise. What do you want me to do? Is there anything you need to do?
Speaker 2:And then his reply was I already told you what to do, and it was instantly the clean space idea. It wasn't named clean space at the time, but it was. It was like that vision, like chunk, like you already told you what to do, and I'm like oh well, okay. Um, then I called aaron up and I said I'm gonna do this idea. Are you in or not? And he's, and he probably just falls, and he's like I'm in. So I drive home and I start working on the idea and I start working on the name, and there you go, beginning of clean space that was that.
Speaker 1:That was it. Wow, good stuff, dude. So, speaking of clean space, what does your life look like with the fulfillment of that process of unlimited resources? And obviously we're not talking, it's not just limited to financial wealth, you know, there's resources in relationships, resources in people, resources in the abundance of time, good health. What does that look like for Eric Griffin?
Speaker 2:Well over time. That unlimited resources thing how do you know you don't already have? The Lord showed up for AMC. He told me what to do, you know? How do you know you don't already have unlimited resources? And that's a. That's something that in the last couple of months kind of dawned on me and it was like, yeah, it really as far as your fate goes. It really challenges that point of view, like it challenges you. How do you know you don't already have it and I already have unlimited resources. So what does it look like?
Speaker 1:I don't know.
Speaker 2:Whatever God wants me to do, wherever he wants me to go, what he wants me to start next, and my life is His. So he's blessed me with beautiful family and my life is his, you know. So he's blessed me with beautiful family, a really great life. I have shoes. I have a shirt, you know, I think one of the things I think what it looks like for me is building more companies that help people break, building more things that bring love into the world, kindness into the world. Bring things that you know is not so focused on customer-facing companies, but employee-facing companies, like because you know, those are the people that, in a lot of ways, matter more than the customer. I already treating your employee family and you know that's super important. Yeah, I want to do more. That's what it looks like.
Speaker 1:I love that man, I love that. Well, man, I just I appreciate you just giving us a peek behind the curtain, like just being just transparent and honest with us and, you know, just just being very, very open. So you know, this has been a great episode.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fantastic episode and we will see y'all for the next one.
