What would you do if societal expectations wanted you to become a doctor or a lawyer, but you felt an entrepreneurial spirit calling your name? Our guest this episode, Sky Sunner, faced this conundrum. Skye, the owner of Happy Place Eatery and Happy Place Craft Beer, will inspire you with his journey from selling CDs and candies as a young boy to running a successful food and liquor business. His story is a testament to how carving your own path, fueled by hard work and dedication, pays off.
In the world of entrepreneurship, the journey is often as significant as the destination. Sky's journey, complete with the struggles of undercapitalization and overhead, has played a vital role in the growth of his business. His passion for food and beer culture led him to take risks, opening a food truck against all advice and navigating the complexities of the food industry. Not only did he thrive in the face of challenge, but he also encouraged empowerment within his team, leading to a bustling business and an incredible 5,000 square foot liquor store and family-friendly container park.
This episode isn't just about Skye's business journey, but also his personal growth throughout the process. He discusses the importance of remaining passionate even in the face of adversity, building meaningful relationships, and learning to become more resilient, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Sky's insights on goal setting, networking, and resourcefulness provide invaluable advice to budding entrepreneurs. His story, along with those of other out-of-the-norm entrepreneurs like Reliant Fitness and Faceless, will inspire you to push boundaries and achieve your own success. Tune in to this episode for a dose of inspiration, understanding, and motivation.
https://linktr.ee/Thehassleofhair
What would you do if societal expectations wanted you to become a doctor or a lawyer, but you felt an entrepreneurial spirit calling your name? Our guest this episode, Sky Sunner, faced this conundrum. Skye, the owner of Happy Place Eatery and Happy Place Craft Beer, will inspire you with his journey from selling CDs and candies as a young boy to running a successful food and liquor business. His story is a testament to how carving your own path, fueled by hard work and dedication, pays off.
In the world of entrepreneurship, the journey is often as significant as the destination. Sky's journey, complete with the struggles of undercapitalization and overhead, has played a vital role in the growth of his business. His passion for food and beer culture led him to take risks, opening a food truck against all advice and navigating the complexities of the food industry. Not only did he thrive in the face of challenge, but he also encouraged empowerment within his team, leading to a bustling business and an incredible 5,000 square foot liquor store and family-friendly container park.
This episode isn't just about Skye's business journey, but also his personal growth throughout the process. He discusses the importance of remaining passionate even in the face of adversity, building meaningful relationships, and learning to become more resilient, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Sky's insights on goal setting, networking, and resourcefulness provide invaluable advice to budding entrepreneurs. His story, along with those of other out-of-the-norm entrepreneurs like Reliant Fitness and Faceless, will inspire you to push boundaries and achieve your own success. Tune in to this episode for a dose of inspiration, understanding, and motivation.
https://linktr.ee/Thehassleofhair
hard work, energy your soul into it. If you're not happy, you're not gonna do that and this brings me joy. I love this. I love my bottle shop, you know, happy place, crappy wine and spirits and the eatery like I fucking love it.
Speaker 2:Before you go on to the episode and before you watch, take two seconds out of your day and press subscribe. It goes a long way, guys. I want these stories to go as far as they can and reach as many people as they can. You subscribing that's how it's sat, tremendously. So take a second out of your day, press subscribe or give us a review or give us a comment. If you're on audio platforms, give us a review on the audio platform. If yeah, thank you guys. And if you know somebody that loves listening to podcasts, just send them a text message, share it, press that share button, send it to them. Thank you for listening, guys. Hope you guys enjoy. Welcome to the Hasselvair podcast.
Speaker 2:The Press, the Flesh podcast tour number one, where I take the podcast on the road, traveling to find interesting stories, people that are living outside the norm, underdog stories, entrepreneur stories, people doing great things. I want to highlight them and show their story and give them a platform to tell their story so people can get inspired. Right, I'm not inspired Me. I wasn't me quitting my job at a late age and going after my dreams. I wasn't inspired by people talking and motivating me with words. I was motivated with people in action, people showing things that they're doing rather than saying. These are the things I was motivated by and we're on episode three of me trying to find people like that and the guest is Sky Sonner, owner of Happy Place Eatery and Happy Place Craft Beer. The man comes from entrepreneur parents came from India and now he's he took over his dad's business and he's not just settling for just the liquor store that his dad started. He's trying to gross this thing into something that's generational right. He's building something and I'm motivated by it. You know like it was refreshing to hear him talk, because I was in a mode where a guest had pulled out on me, a guest had canceled on me and I was trying to find somebody to interview.
Speaker 2:I'm driving through SoCal, I'm an Oxnard and I couldn't find anybody. And I'm hitting people up and left and right, going on Instagram, finding people's stories, and I find this guy there who's first off I had the chance to eat his burgers the Happy Place Eatery Ah, I probably ate too much, but it was amazing, right. I had the chance to sit down and watch a little concert, because it was at a food truck, a little rally thing, and I had the chance to watch a little concert and eat his burgers plus the pretzel with cheese Very good guys. So if you're in the Oxnard area, go check him out Happy Place Eatery. But he stepped up. I asked him to do the podcast and we set up in front of his food truck and it was that easy right. He did me a solid. So Skye is. I'll forever remember him because of that, because he helped me out in a moment where I was in need.
Speaker 2:And so thank you, skye, and I hope you guys are inspired by his story. I hope you guys find something out of it. So yeah, episode number three Rest of Life podcast tour, the Hasselhead podcast. Hope you enjoy. Before we start the podcast, I wanna say thank you to my sponsors that made this trip and these interviews possible McKinnon Corporation, casuals, pool Service and Repair, pasta 209, la Gloria Restaurant and Desserts and Santa Cruz County Life. Thank you guys. I appreciate you guys. If you guys wanna check them out, click the link in the description of the YouTube episode or you'll find them all over my social media. So thank you guys. If it wasn't for you, this wouldn't be possible.
Speaker 1:So I was actually. I'm an immigrant as well, so I came to this country when I was two. I was a baby, so I'm damn near born here. So. But when my parents came here first, before they even had a business, they worked. My dad actually worked for a 7-Eleven, which is a trip right Like don't think hello please come again.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much. He started out at 7-Eleven, built his way up and learned the system and he bought a store and after that store became successful he was able to bring a lot of his family members from India and help them get started in their own stores. So I was around a lot of family that was in the industry, in business, yeah.
Speaker 2:And how was there a different expectation of you growing up?
Speaker 1:I would say I had a different expectation of myself than other people had of themselves. Like I expected. Like when I see my parents and I see what they did, one thing they did is they worked really hard, right. So I expected myself to work hard. I expected me to not have a nine to five work five, six hours, eight hour days. I expect myself to work hard. My parents expected me to be, maybe a doctor, a lawyer. You know, that's a typical thing, right? Like beta beta, you need to be a doctor, you need to be a lawyer, you know. And then when I saw them follow the business life, it inspired me as a kid, right, but I didn't think I was gonna get into that business in particular. So even as a young kid, I was hustling CDs, burning CDs at school, sold candy, did all kinds of stuff. So I always had the entrepreneurial bug because I saw my parents be entrepreneurs.
Speaker 2:I know a few of my friends are kids of entrepreneurs farmers, business owners. When I talk to them they have this kind of like, this resentment. Their parents were immigrants too. They kind of had this resentment of like, hey, you're not really doing it right, cause they come from not from business backgrounds, they come from hard work backgrounds now. So their parents didn't really know the business aspects. And there's this resentment like hey, you're not really doing it right, and so I think that's what tears steers them away from it. Was there any resentment growing up towards your parents? You?
Speaker 1:know there's always that right. It's not like it's created because we have different views, we have different opinions, we think things should run differently. Right, and I have my opinions. I have my views, my parents had theirs. But what happened is, instead of me stopping and saying you know what I don't like this, I don't want to be a part of it, what I did is is I stuck it through. I kept working hard and I showed them that hey, I can do it. I can do it my way and be successful. So I think what happened is in that process. I did it my own way and they saw I was being. I was doing better sales numbers, I was advertising marketing better, the store was doing better when I bought it, it just everything was better. Right, and because I showed them that, that I was willing to put in the work, I didn't have the resentment from them for that reason.
Speaker 1:Now, obviously, there's always like with my dad right, he's like his way, this is my way, or the highway Like you do it my way, or that's it. I'm like, no, I'm gonna do it my way. So, instead of me being able to get as much information and knowledge from him that I could have. I was not a very smart kid. I should have just shut up and listen. I could have learned more through his information than me learning through my failures, right. But that's me being a kid that's too proud to be like hey, I'm right, you're wrong. Even if I'm right and he's wrong in that particular conversation, it doesn't help us as young entrepreneurs. It's better for us to listen and learn what we can from them and apply what we like in our business and take what good that they bring to put it in our business as well. And when did that click through?
Speaker 2:Because after that I'm maintain that same position. I have some friends that they're going away from the entrepreneurship and they're just, they're like. I don't want to do that. I don't want to spend time learning. You decided to learn, but it wasn't always like that.
Speaker 1:The thing is, I always wanted to learn, but it was hard for me to learn from my father. It's always harder to learn from your own father. Sometimes you butt heads, right, and you want to speak to each other as equals, but he's never going to see me as an equal. When you're younger, he's 21 years old, owning a liquor store, buying the store and it's like in that whole process it was like it was butting heads because I had my way, but I wanted to learn his way right. But going back to, going back to what you're talking about earlier, one of the most interesting things that I learned later on in life is my dad had this ability to be able to locate properties, buy them and then turn them into businesses or renovate businesses, and I wish I spent more time learning that side from him, because I was able to build multiple great businesses and the real estate and all that. But if I'd learned that earlier, my trajectory would have been a whole lot faster.
Speaker 2:And where did your dad learn? Because that's a certain skill, like what's your dad. Did your dad grow up in a business mindset in India, or where did?
Speaker 1:that come from. They were farmers in India and they own farmland and they did business. He has a master's in English and business so he already kind of like did the knew the work. But then when he came here he worked under a family member who owned the 7-Eleven and he learned the system. He was literally running the store working 16 hours a day, right. So he learned the business by working for somebody. I think the problem with a lot of people when they work for somebody else, their mentality is I'm only going to exchange that $8 an hour or $5 an hour for the time, and that's it when his mentality was different, and that's one thing I appreciate. That's how my mentality is. If I'm going to work for somebody, I want to work higher than I'm getting paid, because you can never get paid more unless you're willing to work harder, right? So he was able to do that work harder, work harder, get more responsibilities quicker and learn the business without owning his business. So it gave him the confidence to go open his first business.
Speaker 2:You're saying work, the money will follow. If you work your ass off.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I would be stupid not to pay one of my employees more if the business could allow it, and they're showing that they deserve it. But the problem is most employees, when the cameras are watching, we're watching, we see what you're doing, but they just want to kick back and relax. They just want to make their little bit of wage. But that's what's going to separate them from the people that are willing to do more. Right, and the thing is, is the people that do more? You put them under your wings and you give them knowledge that's worth more than anything else.
Speaker 2:You're finding those ones you can mentor, build them up so they could do good, and then your business thrives as they do good too.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. We're getting ready to expand Happy Place Craft Beer, wine and Spirits into a new location and I'm going to bring one of my managers that's been with me for 10 years, loyal, hard worker, and he's going to end up becoming an equity partner in that new business. And that's just because his hard work and loyalty and the fact that he's always done everything he could to help the business.
Speaker 2:That's cool. I've been at a few jobs where I just didn't feel like wanted, even though I was working my butt off, because I've always been the same way worked my butt off, and things will happen sometimes. It doesn't work that way. You have a story of working at Circuit City, a store that a lot of people don't know about. It's a long time ago. It was the old Best Buy. Yeah, best Buy. You put that work ethic into something that didn't end out. Can you take me back? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1:Can you take me back to that story? I was a commission salesman at the time, but for me it was like number one. My whole thing is I sell things that I believe in, that are right for the customer. So the one thing that I've always had is I will never sell something to somebody unless it's the right fit for them. And even in Circuit City I worked my butt off. I helped the company a lot. I was always one of the top salesmen. There's always me and one of my buddies, marco. We were always neck to neck and every month and presidential club, this club, that club.
Speaker 1:But it was because I was willing to put in the work, to learn, to educate myself, to become a better salesperson, to listen and learn from everybody else and put in the work. I wasn't like I clocked and, clocked out, I'm gone. If I had customers I'd stay an hour. Another customer I'd stay and I'd stay long. So I built this work ethic.
Speaker 1:Now imagine if I never built that work ethic and now I own my own business. How the fuck are you supposed to work for yourself and bust out for yourself when you've never learned how to bust out for anybody? You can't just switch it on and say now, all of a sudden, I'm ready to work 16 hours a day and that's what I had to do for my own business to make it successful. 16 hours a day, seven days a week. I did that shit for like 10 years.
Speaker 1:Imagine if I only knew 40 hour work weeks. There's no way I could fucking do it. I would gave up. I would have threw in the towel. The problem is our older generation is willing to work their ass off. The newer generation. They want this lifestyle balance. But lifestyle balance is great, but it comes out of sacrifice, and that sacrifice is what kind of lifestyle do they want to live? I want to go on four or five vacations a year. I got to work my ass off. I got to work harder than somebody else because if I'm gone for four months of the year, the time I'm here, I got to kick ass and I got to elevate, not just me and my team. Create systems so they can be successful.
Speaker 2:And what were some of the hardships building the company? Because the liquor store was your father's. But you, what you did was take what he did and now you're expanding it to another level. That's hard in itself, because you're not just a small business owner anymore, you're a business owner with teams and expanding it to bigger things, absolutely. And what's the hardest thing about that?
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of hard things, right? So when I got in the amount of sales we do in a month, right, like in a month in the old store, like we literally do in two days, right. So what we did a year we'll do in a month in the new business, it's like we'd be able to expand it and grow it. But in that whole process I would say the biggest there's a lot of hurdles. I mean I'm trying to like locate one, but I would say one of the biggest ones is I think it was in this business I was in a lot of debt. So because when I bought the business, I had this deal where I have to pay so much a month and for me to do that and grow the business, it was really hard.
Speaker 1:And one thing that a lot of entrepreneurs need to know is like being under capitalized, having too much of an overhead. It can really destroy and burden you. I've had times where we used to do check cashier. We lost like 10 grand two times and that devastated me because I'm already tight in cash, because my cash flow is not amazing, right.
Speaker 1:I think those were the hardest struggles at first, but I think later on the struggles became creating a system, because, coming from a mom and pop small store, there's no systems.
Speaker 1:It's you, your buddy is running the store. You don't have systems in place, and any good company that wants to grow and wants to be successful you have to put the right systems in place, and it took a long time for me to do that and also took me a long time to realize for me to grow I need to step back, step away and support my team and empower them to make the decisions Versus me, micromanaging and me being the guy that says I'm gonna do everything because I'm better at everything, but I can't be the best cashier, stalker, inventory person, everything all at once. So when you get the right people and you train them correctly, and even if they're doing it to 70% to 80% of what you can do, that's better, because now you can build a team and grow and with that it's allowed me to open up Happy Place Eatery, the new food truck and other businesses as well.
Speaker 2:Let me take a break, because that might be, oh okay, yeah, so you're talking about things that you're 40, right, yeah, I don't mean to age you, but that's what I heard. Hey, I'm a sexy 40, baby.
Speaker 1:I feel good for floaty. I feel great for floaty. Yeah, float is a new 20, baby?
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. That's what I'm hoping because I'm getting close, but I'm 33, and these are things that I'm starting to think about. Like what you're talking about, you've already learned? Yeah, I'm hitting those things and learning as I go, if that makes sense, and that's why the average age of a successful entrepreneur is like 40. It's not in the mid-20s, and nowadays people think, like all these there's TikTok, famous people. There's Instagram, famous people they're probably not making any money yet and because they don't know how to strategize their money, absolutely yeah. And so, with doing this, like we haven't even talked about what you're doing, right? You, your father, started the liquor store and then you're doing this restaurant business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I started a food truck. Yeah, so in a few years, in about three, four years we should be completed with a major build out. So where the liquor store is now, we're actually creating a 5,000 square foot liquor store with about a 5,000 square foot to 7,000 square foot container park, restaurant, tap room, bar, fun, amazing experience for families to enjoy. So when I came, when I knew that I was building that, I said, hey, instead of me just getting a tenant, let me learn about the food industry. What better way for me to learn about the food industry than to start off with a food truck? So I started off with a food truck just to try to figure out if. Number one do I want to be in this business? Cause I want to be in the alcohol side of a restaurant? Right, like we know, the bars, the restaurants, they make a lot of money. The food side is where everyone gets hurt. So I was like, let me challenge myself to open up a food only mobile truck where everybody told me not to. And what's crazy is, within months of opening it up, we received an award for award-winning smash burger and the business has been growing. It's just been killing it and it was all because I had to bet on myself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and why burgers? I fucking love burgers. There's too many taco trucks everywhere. Yeah, right, and we named it eatery. It's not happy place, smash burger, because the bigger dream is to have restaurants, eateries, all over California. Right, we're just starting. We'll have three locations within the next two to three years and we're building this brand around food and beer culture, craft cocktails. So that's really the vision of it. We will be adding tacos, we will be adding chicken sandwiches and a lot of other cool stuff, but with a flair of my mom's cooking and it like the thing is like I lost what I was gonna ask.
Speaker 2:I had something really good. Um, when it comes to when it comes to burgers and when it comes to food, did you like you said people were telling you not to do it? Hmm, did you have a game plan before you started the restaurant? Like, how long did it take you to figure this out?
Speaker 1:This is interesting. I had a meeting with a chef. That's a really like culinary. Went to school, went to cordon blue, boom, boom, boom. An actual meeting, or was it a hangout? It's always a hangout. Every hangout's a meeting. It's also a tax deduction. Remember that those meetings are tax deduction. So, going back to that meeting, we sat down, we vibe.
Speaker 1:He liked this idea that I was trying to do and I'm like, well, let's open the restaurant. And I was like, wait, I got a food truck. Let's start with a food truck. I can buy one right now. I know one that's available. We went and so I hated the truck. A few days, about a week later, I found another food truck that I liked. I just bought the truck.
Speaker 1:I didn't know what we're gonna cook. I didn't know what food we're gonna do. I didn't know shit. All I knew is I can cook in the kitchen. So if I have to cook, I'll figure it out. But between once we bought it, we started the business and we called it the eatery because, also, we didn't even know what the hell we're gonna cook. Yeah, we figured out along the way. There's a lot of amazing talent that worked with us along the way and within everybody. Everybody chipped in and it just became the happy place, you know. So we were able to build our menu and slowly, slowly, add on stuff. Before we didn't have Philly cheesesteaks, now we have some amazing Philly's and eventually we'll keep adding on to that. But all of this happened just because I wanted it to happen and I was willing to put in the work and the meaning for this trip.
Speaker 2:It's to get out and get life experience and get perspective. But it's really to figure out what drives people Like there's this thing that I'm seeing in different people that are motivated, that there's one. They're a little bit. I'm not saying you're crazy, but you're willing to I'm fucking crazy.
Speaker 1:I'm fucking crazy.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1:My wife thinks I'm fucking crazy, but she loves it.
Speaker 2:There's no line with people being entrepreneurs, with people with going being elite athletes. There's no line they're willing to cross it. What do you think it is that drives you?
Speaker 1:For me. It's a lot of things that drive me, but one of them is I wanna know that I'm doing everything I can to keep bettering myself, so I wanna be a better business man, I wanna create more jobs, I wanna help the community and I wanna build a big empire, so I can build something so big that I can get back to the community. Only way you can do that is be successful yourself.
Speaker 2:I see that you're going towards the young crowd and helping them. You had like a social media gathering, like a meetup network. What was?
Speaker 1:it that you did so. It was just to bring influencers together, whether they're DJs, promoters. I have a really good friend of mine. His name's DJ Mambo. He's on the. He used to be called the Rico Mambo show. Now it's Mambo in the mornings and he's one of my best friends and me and him are always talking regularly, lunches every week, and we were just talking about how fucked up the whole the scene is where all these people are stepping on each other's toes. They've never even met each other. So what we did is we reached out to everybody and I know everybody on separately right, not as a group. So I brought a lot of people together. Mambo put it on the radio. He brought a lot of us together. So it was just amazing network of what me and Mambo created to bring all these great people together to like see face to face and learn that we can all work together. And by working together it's gonna create way more opportunity for everybody.
Speaker 2:And what is it about the influencers and being like are you helping everybody? Absolutely yeah.
Speaker 1:What is that? There's food trucks here that help out regularly. They need a spot to park. I'll refer them to place. Hey, go to this room, talk to this person. To me, the only competition there is is myself.
Speaker 2:Why do you think that works? Because it's I don't know the right word. Is it paradox, not paradox, I don't know. It clashes with each other. Helping everybody is gonna help your business succeed, like helping your rivals is gonna help you succeed. Why do you think that works?
Speaker 1:You know what there's? This misconception that there's not abundance of everything. There's an abundance of everything Love, money, sex, fun, party, vacations. There's abundance of that. But when you live in a mindset that it's not in of abundance, you start restricting other people from growing or not helping them, because you think that by helping them it's gonna hurt you, but in return it doesn't. What does it do? It builds better relationships. And what do we do? We end up helping each other out. Right, let's help each other up. Let's not be like crabs and when one's coming out you wanna pull them back down.
Speaker 2:It should be like your region against everybody else. If you help people in your region grow, then it's just like fighting. So with fighting, it's so hard for someone to get to the UFC. Right, there's a collection in each region sparring and training with each other, and the regions that come together and work together, they create one great fighter, absolutely. And that's the way it should be. Not everybody is gonna have a like how many restaurants fail? If we're a lot, yeah, a lot. If everybody just comes together, everybody can get the small pieces, but then there's gonna be one great person and that's rare. That takes a whole different level One. It takes time. It takes a different kind of mindset. Yep, like speaking about that, we're taking time. How's your relationship? And then building the business at the same time, because I struggle with it big time. It's like look, look everybody does right.
Speaker 1:And the thing is, this is what your partner wants and what you want. There's a lot of overlap, but there's a lot of differences. Right, she's comfortable where we're at, but she wants to grow. But then the thing is is, if she wants to grow, you gotta be able to. You have to put in the work, I have to put in the work, but you have to find time to make sure that you communicate well with your partner and let them know why you're doing what you're doing and make sure when you can make time, you make time. And that doesn't mean that now your boys wanna go out.
Speaker 1:If you haven't spent time with your wife, you fuck your boys. I love my boys, right, I love my boys. But if I haven't spent time with my wife, because if you have an unhappy relationship in the household, it really destroys your ability to grow Because it's clashing Last thing you need is walking in home and you got that negative energy. You need a positive energy to keep you going, because as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you get kicked in them. That's every fucking day. The last thing you need to do is just fucking get kicked in the head when you get home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I'm being completely honest to you, I set this podcast up months ago, not with me and you, but with, just with guests. I'm driving the Burbank and a guest canceled them and I, literally I talked to him plenty of times. If he would've canceled with me Sunday, I would've been fine. He canceled with me two hours before I was going to him. Wow, yeah, and I just hearing you right now is inspiring me because it's letting me know that everything that I'm going through right now it's right. You should be, I should be going through that. Yes, right. And so I hopped on my phone. I was like I'm near Oxnard, I'm about an hour out of Oxnard and I'm doing something illegal, but I'm on my phone. I'm literally messaging every person that's posting on their stories and then I'm like, if they're about it, they're going to reach back out to me and right away I get a message from you. So I just want to thank you for that.
Speaker 1:Hey, you know what? I had so much respect for you to do that there's people that have podcasts, that are in this town, that know me, that won't ask me because they're afraid of asking to get me on the podcast. The fact that you had the balls to just go to a random stranger because I don't know you, I've never talked to you before, right, and I respect that. And I was like you know what. Honestly, right now there's this event going on over here. You know my family's over there and enjoying, and I was like you know what, just for the fact that you did that I respect that, because too many people are too afraid of asking and the fact that you were just like, hey, I'm like, fuck it, let's go, let's do it.
Speaker 2:It's crazy, because I see what you're doing and the more I travel, the more perspective I get on things. And there's always that one guy in town that's just like what the fuck are you guys doing? Get up and go do something. Yeah, it's just you're that guy, and I'm not trying to build your head but make your head bigger, but I'm just saying, like you have something a lot of people don't have.
Speaker 1:Let's see the thing is there's a lot of people need to really understand what I've gotten, or where I'm at in life right now, or the experience I have is experience, it's time, it's patience. It was a lot of years of failing. It was a lot of years of building relationships. I couldn't be where I'm at today with all the relationships I have. I have amazing relationships, from the city council to the sheriff, to our club promoters, to our DJs, to our community, to everybody. I respect and love everybody. And when you work your ass off on building that, it takes time but when it gets built, people see that and it benefits you.
Speaker 2:And how do you deal with the negative talk, the doubt, the things you say to yourself when things are going right, or even when they're going right? How do you deal with it?
Speaker 1:I don't, I just don't, I don't even think about it. Yeah, like when I'm sitting down with somebody who I respect a lot At the food truck we were at topa-topa brewing and inventor, and he tells me he's like, he's like, bro, I can't believe you're opening a restaurant, I can't believe you're. I kind of give him a little synopsis of my master plan and and he was like, he's like, I don't think you should do it. And I said I Respect and I'm thankful for you to share that with me, and this might not be something that you would be successful in, and and I get it, but I love this, I'm passionate about it. I love our food, I love what we're doing. I fucking eat the burger. I just I fucking ate the burger right now, before we sat down.
Speaker 2:I love that fucking burger. Right, I was like is this the guy that owns it? Because you were like sort of eating a burger in line.
Speaker 1:Bro, I got a way like to. Yeah, I wait in line, but you know, make sure my customers away line. I'm a way like to. So for me it's like, hey, when you love something and it brings you happy.
Speaker 2:If you made it this far, you're basically in the middle of the podcast. You're enjoying Sky Center's interview. Please take one second, two seconds out of your day. Give us a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify podcasts if that's what you're listening on, or any audio platform, or if you're on YouTube. Take a second out of your day and press subscribe Again. I want this story to go as far as it can and reach as far as many people as it can use. Subscribing, putting reviews, putting comments all that helps it to grow. So, and if you guys do like the content and you guys are gonna you guys got more time after the, the next 30 minutes. Watch the, the other episodes with faceless and reliant fitness two great stories, and I hope you guys enjoy the content hard work energy.
Speaker 1:You're so into it. If you're not happy, you're not gonna do that, and this brings me joy. I love this. I love my bottle shop. You know, happy place, crappy wine and spirits and the eatery like it.
Speaker 2:I fucking love it and how do you so? We talked about the bad talk that that some people have that do to themselves. How do you stop yourself from getting me? How do you stay humble? How do you not build an ego? For what?
Speaker 1:What is it? An ego is just to make up for your insecurities. Right for me. I'm very secure of who I am as a human being. I love people, I'm nice to people, I take care of people, I'm I'm a community member. I'm I'm the chair of our council in Sadakoi. I do everything I can to help out, and if somebody doesn't want to be nicer, they want to be mean to me. I'm not gonna let it get to me and we create this ego to To make somebody else feel a different way. I feel good about myself, who I am, and don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:We may have insecurities where, oh, I start gaining weight and I'm like, oh, I'm down on myself because, hey, fat ass, get your ass in the gym, you know. But then I need to go to the gym, right, I take a small period of time. When those thoughts even start, I say I don't think about, I don't think, continue to think about the problem. What's the fucking solution? We focus too much on a problem, we don't focus enough on the solution. And when you focus on the solution, the problems gets solved.
Speaker 2:And what's? What's the end goal for you?
Speaker 1:End goal. That's a big question. Is there an end goal? Um, there's not. It like an end goal, like necessarily, where I'm gonna stop, because If I told myself I would be this point in my life, maybe this could have been my end goal. But once you get the end goal, that goal just keeps moving Right. Every single time you get towards where you want to be in life, that bar just keeps getting bigger. You surround yourself with other people that are successful, that are doing great, and and then you start trying to level up. Right, you all just kind of level up and then when you hear what they're doing, it kind of inspires you and you want to keep growing. I think it's this.
Speaker 1:The most depressing time of my life was coded Right. Yeah, I'm making more money. I'm sitting at home. I'm drinking too much. Right, I drink a lot, but I was drinking too much sitting at home, depressed, I'm not around people, I'm not out there, I'm not doing anything. I don't feel like I'm doing anything to contribute to my businesses, my family or society. You know, making money sitting at home good money sitting at home, probably the best money I've made sitting at home they didn't make me happy. So to me, it's about growth, constant growth.
Speaker 1:Well, how can I do the? What's the fucking next thing? Right, first it was getting the truck. Now we're gonna open a location. Now it's. We're gonna franchise this. We're gonna create Happy place franchises for other people to experience a franchise like they've never experienced before. That has full support. That's what I'm gonna do next with a happy place either. I didn't know I was gonna do that before. A year ago, a year and a half ago, I didn't have a truck. I didn't even have an idea I was gonna buy the truck. So for me it's like those goals change, life changes and you got to keep growing. You got to be better tomorrow Gotta be better tomorrow than you were yesterday.
Speaker 2:But then so at 28 years old I was driving a FedEx truck and all I thought about was like of one day there's retirement. Now I'm entering in this, this, this entrepreneur thing, and I Think about retire. I don't even think about retirement, I just like there's no retiring. Why is that a good thing?
Speaker 1:Or it's like it's great, yeah, the thing is is you need to set goals for yourself, right? Yeah, like, hey, I need to get this right. And then you have to say in one year I'm gonna get this. In that process you got to put in what am I gonna do this month, next month, for the next 12 months to Get there next year? So set goals for yourself, hey, you know whatever they are, but you got to make little small little ladders Along to that end goal for that year, right? Because if you don't do that, you're not gonna get there either.
Speaker 2:Cuz I. I do set a lot of goals right, but it just comes from nowhere, like I don't know what. What taught me that? I think it's because of the, the failures I had when I was younger with fighting, with, with sports, with, with everything.
Speaker 1:But see, that's a problem. You're calling them failures. They're not failures, they're experiences. Yeah, those are what makes you who you are today. Yeah, I feel that a business I love what happened. It made me understand things I never understood and now it's making me a better person. It's making me like be ready If I get kicked in the balls, I'm okay, I'll be fine, I'm gonna figure it out. And it makes you stronger person. And let me look at this. You went through COVID. You went through all the dramas and headache when you launched your podcast, figuring it out, not even feeling like why am I doing this? I don't want to be a bad person, I don't know if I'm good at this. All those thoughts that you have in your head. You kept fucking going. Now you got over 170 episodes. Respect, that's what it takes. It takes somebody who's just willing to put in the work and then one day, all of a sudden, it's something happens.
Speaker 2:I'm in Oxnard Oxnard interviewing someone. I have no idea who he is, but he's an entrepreneur and he's doing stuff that's wild.
Speaker 1:And what I love about them. So I have a podcast called Siphon with Sky, which I dropped the ball. I wasn't being consistent because of my lack of ability to schedule it correctly. That's all it was. It was my thought. No matter how busy I am, I can always take two hours of my day to go make it happen if it meant enough for me, to me and it did mean a lot to me. But I didn't put in that effort, didn't schedule it, didn't make it happen, right? So one of the biggest things is like I respect the fact that you were consistent, you went out there and you kept fucking doing it. Yeah, we'll all relapse a little bit. We'll stop, stop recording for whatever small time period, but it's fucking difficult. A lot of people I know they start with five, six, seven, eight, nine, then 10, 12, and then they're done.
Speaker 2:I think it's a curiosity. I really do think it's a curiosity. I'm really curious about what people like you, what drives them, what makes them different from. Because I grew up in the poverty. I grew up in East Side, San Jose, in the Bay Area, and there was no hope. I've seen people throughout my childhood not do anything and then I come across people like you who are like, have this thing in them, where they look at people like that and I was like what are you doing? Get up, go do something. And it's like what? I just don't understand what makes people like you and me? Because I'm doing the same thing, but what makes people different? What is it Like?
Speaker 1:Because there's lower class, middle class, and I would say I'm privileged. The reason I'm privileged is I was raised in a household where I took pride in my culture. We took pride in who we were as people, no matter what anybody said, right? So I said, oh look, it's your Kwikimark guy. Oh, hello, please come again. And they're trying to talk shit to me, right? It didn't faze me as much as it could have, because I was proud of who I was and that was because of my parents. I learned hard work because of my parents. I learned to save money because of my parents, so I had guidance from my parents.
Speaker 1:If I didn't have that, I would have spent anything and everything I had. Like, what do we do? We make 20 grand a year and we spend it all. 30 grand, and we spend it all. 50 grand, 100 grand, we spend it all. What do rich people do? They're taught the right things to do to be successful Save your money and then you can spend it. Pay your expenses, save your money, then you can spend it. So is it luck? It's not.
Speaker 2:It's Because you were just born into that.
Speaker 1:But so it's not just luck. Everybody has an opportunity to learn from somebody. We all have a family, friend or somebody who we can learn from. But it's our need and desire and want to learn. If you've Robert Kiyosaki rich dad, poor dad his dad was poor. His friend's dad was rich. He learned from him and look at him. There's opportunities out there. But if we keep blaming ourselves as I'm the victim, I'm the victim. You're not going to fucking get anywhere in life. Victims always going to be the victim because they're not willing to put in the time and energy, because they believe, no matter what they do, they're the fucking victim. It's not true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's. How do you separate, like I'm getting to an age, I'm getting to an age and to the part of my journey where I'm separating myself from those people? Yep, like is that? Do you, at 40 years old, do you knock that right in the butt? Like, do you cross, like, do you take them out of your life right away once you start seeing that?
Speaker 1:If somebody has negative energy, you're not in my life, yeah, anybody, you're not in my life. I had years I didn't talk to my dad because the negative energy I was getting I couldn't handle it. I need positive energy, right. So I need positive energy, positive people. If you ain't positive, fuck you. If you're successful or not, I don't care, because I want to help people that aren't successful to be successful, especially for friends. But I'm not going to hang around negative energy, energy transfers, whether it's positive or negative, and I don't want no negative shit around me and who?
Speaker 2:Who was your mentor? Like I know, your dad had a lot to do with it, but who was your?
Speaker 1:My mom had a lot to do with it, but so my brother-in-law, rupi Chima. He's a huge mentor of mine. He's like a bigger brother to me. Yeah, it's my wife's cousin, but he's like a brother to me and like anytime I've ever needed somebody to talk, to learn about stuff. I've had times where he wired money into my account because when I told you I had one time I lost 10 K and I was like, bro, I need like 20 K, otherwise I'm going to be fucked right. And I've never bounced a payroll check in my life and I was like this ain't about to be the first time. How did that feel, having to ask someone that it felt like shit. But he didn't make me feel like shit, yeah.
Speaker 2:Because that's a lot of money, that's a lot To anybody, to anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, to anybody. But he was good for it, yeah, and I paid him back as soon as I could, you know. But and those are the things that it's that relationship I built with him that I chose to build with him and he chose to build with me because he saw the effort I was putting into it, right? So if we're putting all our energy in I want to go to club, I want to go pick up girls, I want to do this but you're not willing to put in the energy for your own future by talking to people that you can learn from, educate yourself and build those relationships, I mean you're not going to be where you want to be. Or I don't know if somebody expects themselves to be there or not, but if you expect yourself to be great and be in a better position and be an entrepreneur where your businesses run themselves, and you're not running your businesses, you got to learn, you got to grow and you got to surround yourself with people that are smarter than you.
Speaker 2:You have to. I got I just got two more questions for you and thank you again for doing this Absolutely my daughter's 17. She's going to school next year, I mean after she graduates. It's hard because I come from not going to college. Yeah, and I see everything the way it is like you're a business owner. Are you telling your kids to go to college? Are you telling them to go get an?
Speaker 1:education, or my wife's telling my son to go to college. What I'm saying is if you don't have a passion, you don't know what you want to do. You want to go to college and learn, or there's something you want to learn? Go to college. I want him to do what he wants to do. I don't want to force him to do anything. If he does what he loves, he'll be great at it. If he truly thinks he's going to be a video gamer and he's that fucking good, I will support him in being a video gamer.
Speaker 1:Right, these kids are making fucking millions of dollars off of playing a video game while people watch them on all these damn live streams. So to me it's like do what you want. But the one thing I do tell my son make sure you build relationships and you network. You're going to be in a mechanic shop, learning from your classes, working in any field, whatever the fuck you want to work in, you got to make sure you network. You go to school.
Speaker 1:Network Because when you're going to school, you're going to school with the more elite kids Because not to say elite because they got money, but I'm thinking they have the better situations in their life to be able to be in that situation. So if this kid is going to Berkeley, and for him to go to Berkeley and my son to be at Berkeley, they're they're part of that smaller percentage that has a higher chance of being successful. So you want to make sure that you network with all those people. You help each other right. All tides rise together, help each other out, and just the amount of knowledge and the network you're going to build is going to be your future. These days, a lot of these kids will burn bridges to get ahead in life and that's going to fuck them up.
Speaker 2:I had. I burned one bridge and I'll be. I burned one bridge and when I first started this, those whole entire thing, and it taught me everything and I did, I, my uncle, my uncle was pretty successful and and he told me that a lot, don't burn bridges. Same thing you say, and it really like it sets you back. That's the number one thing that will set you back. You burn a bridge. It'll set you back 10 times.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, yeah, and it's, it's, you're right, you can't, and word of mouth is everything, whether it's a business and yourself. Right, if you go around and you ask you know oh, who's sky? You guys know sky You're never going to hear anybody saying anything back. Very rarely If somebody's another liquor store owner and they just hate my guts because people talk about my store in a store, maybe my customers are my friends. We help each other out when we know things that are going on. We call each other, support each other. It's all about network. It's all about growing together and as a community. That's what you need and this whole mindset of I need to be better than everybody else. Work harder and you'll be better.
Speaker 2:And last question, and you already gave us gems, right, you already gave the listeners gems, you already gave me gems. Is there any? Not just entrepreneurs, but is there any advice to people just trying to to make it in life Be?
Speaker 1:resourceful. Be very resourceful. Set your goals high. Find how you're going to get there by being resourceful. Now you have chat, gvt. You have all these sources to help you build a business plan of the business you want to do. Whatever the fuck you want to do in life. All you got to do is be resourceful. You'll find a way if it really means enough to you and if it doesn't, don't, be an entrepreneur. Don't be an entrepreneur. Be an entrepreneur because you love being an entrepreneur. You love the hustle, the bustle, the hard work, but at the end it's very rewarding. But you've got to fucking love it and if you love it, like anything you do in life, you'll be successful. Because you're going to fucking persevere, you're going to be persistent, you're going to keep fucking going. You're not going to stop Sky.
Speaker 2:I just want to say thank you. You're, honestly, the first person. What happened between now and where I was to Oxner, me trying to find somebody and me finding you? That is going to take my podcast to a whole different level, because before I was planning it out, I was trying to find people and what I want to do with this travel show is get true stories and get it genuine. Where I don't know them, I have no connection with them, and I think that the game plan of how this works is what I'm going to be doing when I'm going to California in October, up North in California, in Oregon, and I just want to step into places and just meet people.
Speaker 1:It's awesome and, honestly, while you're doing that, you're going to gain so much knowledge. You're going to absorb so many gems from so many different people, and the opportunity that you get when you are in a podcast, when you are the host of the podcast, is you get time with people that normally you wouldn't be able to get time with, to sit for an hour or two hours to pick their brain, and now you're able to do it, because it's a platform for both parties that helps both parties and the amount of knowledge you're going to absorb. This is going to help you in your entrepreneurship and in your journey, and I think it's amazing. I respect you for the fact that you literally just fucking hit me up right on the ground. I'm like who's this dude? I'm like, I'm like you don't fuck it. The fact that you asked me. I'll make it happen.
Speaker 2:Fuck yeah, my wife thought I was crazy. She's like what are you doing? Don't get. She's all like my wife goes, be safe In the background, my daughter goes, don't die.
Speaker 1:I'm like what's on California? It's beautiful over here it is, it is.
Speaker 2:I want to thank you. I appreciate you. Sky, absolutely. Yeah, if we just get some pictures and oh yeah, oh, no, no, no, no, working people find you.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so you can find me on Instagram at a sky center, skysu, and then ER on Instagram. That's my personal Instagram and once you go there, you can find all my businesses right from there.
Speaker 2:Awesome, I appreciate it. Awesome, boom, you made it to the end of the episode. Thank you so much for listening to Sky's story. Sky's full of energy, super motivated, and if you have a chance and you're in the SoCal area, ontario, go check out Happy Place Eatery, happy Place Craft beers and follow them on Instagram and see where they're at and go eat a burger. And if you could take one second out of your day and just press that like and subscribe button, it goes a long way of sharing these stories, sharing a sky story and get it, getting it out there so people will listen.
Speaker 2:And there is two other stories that I just interviewed that I just put out. It's Reliant Fitness and Faceless. Two interesting people living outside the norm, especially Faceless, faceless character man, very different from your normal life, right, wearing a ski mask, artist, art villain. Go check them out. If you haven't checked them out, go check them out. Reliant Fitness the man quit his Cal Fire job to become an online coach and he's successful at it. So go listen to those stories. If you guys really love them, subscribe, comment, like all that stuff and, most importantly, if you know somebody that listens to podcasts, share it with them. Send it to them. It's that easy. All you got to do is press that share button and send it over. Subscribe guys, I love you. Have a great day. There's more to come. Peace.