Built Different ft. Brian Goldstein | Coffeez for Closers with Joe Shalaby

0:00He scaled multiple companies, had multiple exits, and built businesses across everything from e-commerce and healthcare to third party logistics. And oh yeah, he started his first company in high school. Brian Goldstein is a serial entrepreneur, brand builder, and scaling expert who doesn't just talk business. He tears it down and rebuilds it better. He's grown brands to over$100 million in revenue and helps founders scale past plateaus with no-nonsense strategy and zero sugar total. He's also a passionate advocate for firearm safety, a podcast host, and a dad who's raising his daughter with grit, creativity, and real-world experience.

0:43From surviving a traumatic childhood and a brain tumor to building empires, Brian's story is as real as it gets. Today on Coffees, we talk about scaling smarter, cutting the emotion out of decisions, and why peace sometimes comes from surviving chaos. Welcome to Coffees. Thanks for having me, bud. Hey, thanks, Brian. Thank you for allowing us to use your studio. I appreciate it. It's been great to kind of get to know you pick your brain and, you know, get the opportunity to hang out with you here in the studio. So, Brian, I like to ask everybody that comes on the show the same question every single time.

1:17And, Brian, what is your morning routine? Oh, that's pretty routine. Once I get out of bed, I'm ready for the day, meaning brush my teeth, do my hair, put on my clothes, load my pockets. And even if I'm sitting at my desk, I'm ready to leave the house. It's not, Oh, let me go grab this. So let me go grab that. But usually it's load my pockets, do everything. If I have my kid, um, get her to school or bring her with me and I go straight to breakfast. That's like, there's no crazy, uh, biohacking protocol at breakfast. They get pounded and then later there might be some injections right on well uh um you you have you're in like multiple verticals you you had multiple exits um so we'll kind of dive into uh some of your exits but you know what what inspired you to start your own podcast a friend introduced me to someone a couple years ago and he's like hey um i know you're in the gun space.

2:17You need to bring more awareness to certain topics. I was like, look, I don't really like talking in front of the camera. It was only a couple of years ago. I started talking in front of the camera before that it was just visuals. And that person passed away suddenly. And a couple months after I'm like, okay, it's time to pick up where he left off and kind of just do my own thing and never really talked about the gun space or the firearms or any of that stuff. So I kind of I just stayed out of that, but just went down the business rabbit hole and interviewing cool people or topics that I thought were interesting to me.

2:53And somehow it relates to business one way or another, because if your personal life's not in check, then your business life's not in check. And so having relationship coaches on, therapists on, lawyers, just different things that have interested me over the time and just kind of how it all meshes with business in a weird way. It does. It all comes back full circle. So you say you're in the gun space. You want to tell the audience exactly what you do in the gun space. I know you have a big show that discusses these various topics. I work with several brands on testing and developing and just trying out their new products and going to different training events and fun stuff like that.

3:31Like I said, it's more of a passion project. It's fun for me. Make a couple bucks from it, nothing crazy, but it's something I've always enjoyed. And that's kind of my, in a weird way, meditation. I'm turning off my thoughts and only focused on what I'm doing at that moment. You know, when you're training, it's, hey, if you're not 100 % in that zone, things can go south. You don't want to hurt someone. You don't want to hurt yourself. And it just allows me to disconnect from everything else and just focus on that. You're an advocate, obviously, for gun awareness. 100%. Firearm safety. and look, everybody's like, oh, you have all this stuff.

4:10There's not a loose gun in my house. Everybody's like, oh, don't you have a spare gun? I got little kids. I don't want that liability. I got a big dog.

4:23So you've been an entrepreneur for a long time, obviously coming from... 20, yeah, 20 years now. What was the first business you started? How old were you? I was in high school and it was a detail shop. You started a detail company in high school? Yeah. I was just passionate about cars and I was like, oh, all these car washes suck. I saw an opportunity to kind of take over a failing business and get it going and got it going really well. I was not a great student in school, so at least I know I can make a dollar. My grades dipped because they were already shitty, but they went lower because I was more focused on the business than school.

5:05And it was a pretty successful first business as a kid. For a kid, yeah. Yeah. Now it's pocket change. Of course. Of course. Now anything's pocket change. Even if you were making a ton of money back then, it's pocket change now. 20 years ago. Yeah. Man, inflation is really something else. I think when I graduated high school, gas was like$1.50. Yeah. I mean, it's not just the cost of gas. I mean, eggs were probably$1 for a dozen then. On the high side. Yeah. Yeah. So first business in high school, what's the best piece of entrepreneurial advice you've gotten? Hang around like-minded individuals.

5:44Don't hang around the naysayers saying, oh, dude, you shouldn't do that. You know, unless it's somebody that you look up to and you want to live in their shoes and you like all the aspects of their life, don't take advice from those people. And same thing with personal relationships. Don't take advice from single friends and other stuff of, if you're not living the life that I want to live, I'm not going to take advice from you. And I wish I learned that earlier on. Yeah, when did you actually learn that and adopt that into your own life? Probably 25-ish. I feel like that's something we always strive for, is just trying to find like-minded individuals to just fill the room.

6:23And that's the great thing about podcasting, right? It's just you meet like-minded people. This is almost like the only platform to meet people where you want to meet them at the time you want to meet them. Correct. And it's the only time now where people aren't on their cell phone. That's absolutely correct. The only reason you're keeping your phone in your lap is for notes. Outside of that, you don't need your phone. Yeah. And a lot of people don't know how to have a conversation for an hour now without staring at their phone. it's that's that's one of the things i i've said multiple times it's like it's the only it's like the the most unobstructed date you can have with someone 100 it's like unobstructed eyes gazing at the other person 100 undivided attention yeah like you're not getting out of it yeah and the only reason you said that you you i do have my phone is like so i'm on course with my conversation like i do the same thing yeah like unless i like really really know the guest which then it kind of doesn't make it as fun for me.

7:26So it's just those notes of, oh, I forgot to ask this. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that's what's cool, kind of just getting to know you, your story, your heritage. You know, we have kind of a similar upbringing, similar heritage. You know, you grew up, you're half Indian, very similar culture to me. I'm Egyptian. So what was it like for you when you told your parents, like, yo, I'm going to go be an entrepreneur? My parents were entrepreneurs. It was no issue. They were good with it? They were good with it. No pushback. That was awesome. Well, because they were already assimilated to American culture, American heritage.

8:01My mom is first generation, though.

8:06But she started her own businesses at a very young age and said you've got to earn your keep. And so she's not opposed to it.

8:18I don't know. I feel like our school system kind of directs you to live a different mold, and anyone that breaks out of it is like, oh, that's not normal. Yeah. Yeah, you experience academia. You walk down the academia, and it's definitely not a profitable venture. It's like you're going to be broke in that world. Or just, you know, you want a simple life? Get a job. And everybody's like, oh, you're so lucky. how many times have you failed personally and in business? I've failed hundreds. And it's learning from every time and improving. And if I wanted to just get a job and have a guaranteed paycheck, I feel like life would be a little too simple.

9:01You know, you just said something that every entrepreneur just needs to hear and embed in their mind. Get used to failure. Like, just get used to it. because failure is just the process where we just improve. And people are so scared of it. It's not even failure. It's education. What are you going to do with that knowledge? Yeah. Okay, that didn't work. How can you modify it so it does? You know, even on the drive up here, as I'm coming to the studio, I'm like refining and adapting and learning from my failures. And I failed on the way up here at something. You know, it's like we got to refine this.

9:39We got to change that. We got to implement this. like we're failing here and my team and I even realized on the drive up here that we were we need like a third party to come in and just like we can't do it we just got to get a third party so we called the third party booked it on the spot like just because we realized like we hit like we've plateaued in terms of our ability based on the team size we have so it's you know and it was a failure on the way up here we realized it you're also a scaling expert what would you tell an entrepreneur right now to like what's some practical advice that an entrepreneur can take right now to skim a current friend that I'm helping in business I predicted where he'd be at currently and he let his emotions get the best of them and we could have pulled the band-aid four or five months ago, maybe even longer.

10:33And now he's pulling the bandaid now of making the hard choice and making the changes I implemented. Remove emotions out of your decisions. You got to do what's best for the company, not for what feels right. You got to do what's best for you and the company. A lot of us get stuck in that rut of being personally attached to the people, being personally attached to, you know, the product, being personally attached to whatever it is. And it's really disruptive for business. Well, people still think they can operate like mom and pop when they've passed a certain level of sales. You can't. Mom and pop worked at the beginning.

11:12Now you're a million dollars in sales, two million dollars in sales. Okay, so what have you changed? Nothing? Well, that's why you're hitting the wall. What have you delegated? You're still doing the day-to-day operations? What are you focused on instead of that? Now, I want to kind of turn things around and talk about some of the biggest struggles. I want to first off talk about what I feel would have been the biggest struggle you faced, which was when you were faced with a brain tumor. How did that impact you as a youth when you were diagnosed with such a scary reality, and how did that kind of shape your character today?

11:52Honestly, that didn't really scare me. It was being in special ed. It was coming from a household filled with violence and substance abuse. You grow up that way and you survive. Everything else is a cakewalk. Special ed. And like your parents were violent? We'll get into the specifics, but there was some violence and some fun stuff involved. Yeah. Yeah, you know, when you grow up in a disruption, and people have this stigma with like divorce. Okay, would you rather grow up in a divorced household where your parents are happy, or would you rather grow up in a violent household where your parents are like...

12:30I'm going with divorced house all day long. You know, because... Safe space. Yeah. It's funny because there's a lot of similarity, you know, even in the household, like in many, many households, even in my household, we felt we dealt with a lot of, you know, fighting, extreme fighting. and uh and i felt like you know it was like eminent like we gotta go we gotta fix it we gotta pick a lane here you know we gotta pick a lane because this is just this is disruptive right so it it it's traumatizing to children to to live like that so you know we we're dealing with same things and it's just like that's just the way it is you know it's just the the ideology of this perfect household is a dissipating reality for many.

13:23I'd love to see... I think it could exist. It just takes a lot of work. It does. A lot of sacrifice. But on that note, it's hard for entrepreneurs. I see many entrepreneurs, unfortunately, have so much to do to keep a relationship together and build an empire. And it's harder on entrepreneurs than a manager at a restaurant or a doctor or whatever it is just because you know you have finite time work. Entrepreneurs were like just always working. Yeah, you just got to learn to balance. What's some balance advice? Yeah. Give me some balance advice. Give the audience some balance advice. You balance well.

14:12You're split households now. Right. Do you feel your kids get more attention now? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I call that balance in my book. Yeah. And you know those days that it's your days. It's dedicated to them. Yeah. And the days you don't have them, your ball's to the wall with work. Yeah. That's my version of balance. Why can't one do that during marriage? You know, it's like when you're not. It can be with the right partner. Yeah. One who's understanding. Correct. and I think a lot of things need to be talked about prior and that's faults on both ends I'm not going to point fingers at anyone um hard conversations need to be had things need to get stops stop getting swept under the rug and you know talking about how you want certain things done in the future need to be discussed before that time

15:09yeah you know it's funny that you identified balance based on because right now my time with my kids is so intentional it's like dnd mode all in eyes gazed at you like you ain't getting out of this like what do you guys want to do and before i don't know why i didn't do that i think it's one of those things of you don't know what you got till it's gone in certain situations and not having that constant touch and it now being broken, I think is better for everyone because now the time is quality. Yeah. You've been through so much hardship in your life. What do you think some of the bigger adversity is that you faced?

15:55Look, growing up how I grew up, everything else is just a cakewalk. Do I get angry? Sure. Do I get upset? all the time.

16:09You just got to take everything as a learning experience and just go with it. I'm sure there's been adversity. I'm sure I could say, hey, this wasn't fair, that wasn't fair. Pretty sure on a Tuesday, I'm wearing basketball shorts and gym shoes, sitting in a comfy chair, having a conversation about business with you. I built the life I've wanted to build, and sacrifices come with it. And like we said earlier, if I wanted a simple life, I could have gotten a job at Walmart. You have this very still demeanor, this still acumen about you. It's just like, you know, it's cool. It's collected. It's not like, it's like you don't have a worry, you know.

16:53It's an incredible demeanor. It's also scary at times. And most people don't know how much violence it took. to be this calm. I don't talk about that with anyone. And things can always be worse. You got to stop, you know, nobody cares about your problems, your problems. I learned that from my mentor. He just, it's like, my last meeting with him, he's like, nobody cares. You think that you're over here worried about what your community says about you. or like nobody cares. I do not care what people think on social media. What I care about is how my kids look at me. That's the only thing that matters.

17:45They're like the life and joy that we do this for. Yep. And you know, some of my friends are like, why do you take your kid to school? Why don't you take your kid to school? It's my favorite part. it's not my favorite part because school's kind of pain in the ass and traffic and i'm not a morning person i think last night i slept three hours and it was from 1 a.m to 2 a.m then 5 a.m to 7 a.m oh man i don't know if you're tracking your sleep but that's a horrible score oh i'm 30s aura ring 30 no between 30 and 55 you're kidding me that's how i've been since I've been an entrepreneur 30 to 55 then you I wouldn't even track it at that point it's depressing some days I wish it would like increase I don't know you know uh I've been tracking it and I'm like I love it when I score an 80 I feel like a champion I I haven't gotten an idiot yeah I don't know how people get up like Brian Johnson touts he gets hundreds every night you know what that's not normal how is that even possible i wake up and i'm like i'm still tired but i can't go back to sleep yeah my kid sleeps fucking 12 hours i'm like wake up they're sleeping they're getting 12 they're getting hundreds yeah my daughter gets 100 every night my son's still feeding so he's nowhere close to 100 um but yeah my daughter's like a log when she's out she's out so you're dealing with do you have a nanny that helps with uh are you doing like the feedings and No, I don't do the feedings.

19:24Yeah, that's a whole other thing to manage. Yeah, that's a whole other. But, you know, that's the way the cookie crumbles. Yeah. So, you know, right now, what's your favorite venture, your favorite entrepreneurial venture that you have going on right now? Scaling. Helping companies grow. And walking in and just... demolishing their business protocols currently yeah and it's kind of this sickness of dude i'm gonna break it down and you can follow the map you cannot follow the map you want a refund here you go i don't really care when you call me in six months first words out of my mouth they're gonna be i told you so well like what's a good use case like you you you help you help companies build their brand scale rip them apart internally what are some of the the things you're doing for one of your clients right now crease sales by 400 % and how are you doing that changing the policies they're trying to do the day-to-day stuff why aren't they outsourcing certain things weren't they having employees doing certain things why don't you have a 3pl managing your inventory instead of having a warehouse staff that you have to manage sit with the 3PL company for a month, train them, let that be their problem.

20:46What's the 3PL? Third-party logistics.

20:51So what's some practical advice that you would give an entrepreneur right now? What level? Entering entrepreneurship and then someone at like seven-figure sales. Entering, don't quit your daydream. until your entrepreneur income has passed substantially your paycheck. That's good advice. Some people just dive full in and look, it works most of the time, but it couldn't. Yeah, and then your SOL. Yeah. And I don't like working with clients that haven't gotten to high six, low sevens. I'm not going to go through the infancy phase, and I want to see where you're truly stuck. That's just my, I don't have the patience for lower.

21:50What's the biggest sales client that you've helped get to their largest amount of sales?

21:59Myself, I passed 100 in a year. 100M? Wow. That's amazing. And then second to you?

22:14I think 30. What were you selling to get to$100 million? Some stuff. Oh, yeah, that's right. That's incredible. That's incredible. And$30 million, what did they do? E-commerce.

22:34so you're known for your candid unfiltered approach which is like it's amazing how do you think entrepreneurs can leverage authenticity to build trust and loyalty I think in life you gotta be authentic

22:55but people are very quick to let their guard down gotta feel it out and not everybody needs to know what the fuck you're doing. Nobody needs to know what your kids are up to today, issues with your wife, ex-wife, whatever it might be. Keep your personal shit personal. Nice. I'd like to conclude this show with a couple last questions. One is, this is a three-pronged question. What's a personal goal that you have for yourself, a family goal that you have for the family, and a business goal?

23:34personal goal would be health wise cutting out seed oils and processed sugar processed sugar i'm a fat kid that's hard we are all fat kids at home well i used to be 270 260 oh you actually were fat i was a fat kid um but i still love sugar um so that's definitely uh when were you 270 2020 this was recent yeah that was a bit when we get off i'll show you a photo um yeah just more honed in on my health and just eliminating certain things and um instead of drinking out of plastic bottles glass bottles reusable i have the filtration at home i have no excuse but i'll be out and about 7-eleven market wherever so yeah just cutting that out so my kids see that habit as far as my kids are concerned being more involved with my daughter's homeschooling and really building on that curriculum of how I want it to be getting more like-minded individuals into her school and you know like I said earlier I'm not a fan of waking up early I want my kids school starting at 10 a.m.

24:55Gives me time to wake up when we wake up, eat breakfast, and then get her to class. And know what the weekly curriculum is, know what she's doing every day, dropping her off, picking her up on the days I have her, and enjoying that time. And she goes to meetings daily.

25:15In business, probably having 10 monthly scaling clients. just to keep the mind active. I just enjoy the different projects. And each business comes with different hurdles. So what kind of businesses are you working with? You got e-commerce. Full gamut. Healthcare, e-commerce, longevity, brick and mortar. It's full gamut. Full gamut. now uh you've been fortunate enough to grow up in a household that kind of forced you to to be a high achiever to have grit you started your first business in your early early stages of life how are you going to instill the same level of grit that you have in your kids i've already started with my daughter she gets dragged to work whether she likes it or not if we gotta go build something, Daddy on board.

26:20Cool. Hang out. Find something to play with, we're not leaving. That's awesome. And her favorite saying lately is, Daddy on board. That's nice. There was no iPhones when I was a child. There was no iPads. You're not getting YouTube. You might get Netflix later. Once you behave. You wanna draw, wanna run around like a crazy person, go for it forcing them to be creative my daughter is not afraid to get dirty like she will yeah I'll have to baby wipe her and strip her of her clothes and then put on new clothes in the car love it one last question when you're in front of the pearly gates what do you think God's going to tell you it's okay to accept you don't always have to give Brian Goldstein thank you so much God bless you man Thank you.