Buried Gold, Hidden Trauma: The True Cost of Drug Money. Eric Canori

[00:00:00] Bob Wheeler: Okay,

Eric it’s great to have you here today. I’m super excited to jump into this conversation

[00:00:10] Eric Canori: Bob, thanks for having me. It’s an unexpected podcast, but, uh, I like talking about money. So what do you got?

[00:00:16] Bob Wheeler: So, hey man, well, let’s, let’s just start right out the bat. So you’ve got this book coming out, Pressure.

You wrote this book. Um, what inspired you to write the book? Um, I know there’s some life story in there. It’s a true story.

[00:00:29] Eric Canori: It’s a true story. It’s a true story about love, acceptance, and crime. When you’re broke and you’re a kid and you don’t have anything to eat or a safe place to sleep and you’re just searching for something, you’ll do anything for a dollar.

Yeah. And that, that was me. I, there was a time when I remember as a young kid where I was standing outside in the cold. I was like, if I just had some extra food and a safe place to sleep, I’d do anything for that.

[00:00:54] Bob Wheeler: So. And did you grow, like, did you? Single mom or my

[00:00:58] Eric Canori: mom, my mom had me with when she was 22 and she divorced my father when I was one or two years old and then she remarried and me to a small town in upstate New York called Queensbury, New York between Lake George and Saratoga Springs.

Okay, that’s where I spent most of my childhood.

[00:01:16] Bob Wheeler: Okay. And like, so as a kid, you’re seeing what other people have and you’re seeing these celebrities and the posters and you’re like, yeah, I’d sort of like some of that.

[00:01:27] Eric Canori: Yeah. I wanted anything. Listen, if I had the cool sneakers, I’d have a pretty girl look at me, right?

But if you have the, the clearance rack sneakers, nobody knows your name, right? Nobody knows who you are. And that’s a feeling of, uh, insufficiency,

[00:01:44] Bob Wheeler: right? And was that like, do you, I mean, like, what’s your earliest memory of that? Like, does that go back to like four or five? Do you, I mean, did you get into sports or did you do anything to sort of like distract

[00:01:55] Eric Canori: or?

My mom, my mom rarely let me play sports. She’s like, your grades aren’t good enough. But my grades weren’t good enough because I lived in a party house. My mom partied every weekend, rolling stones, cranking, partying, who knows what drugs. Yeah. Right. So that was her life was rage on the weekends. And then Monday through Thursday.

Pop aspirin and complain and yell, right? That was my roller coaster environment that I was raised in. And I didn’t really want a part of that. I just sat on the sidelines and watch it all happen. Right. Hoping some pretty girl would notice me, but a pretty girl’s not going to notice when you’re, when you’re wearing clearance rack clothes.

Right. And me being that dude, I’m like. I got something’s got to

[00:02:33] Bob Wheeler: change right and what so you went to college though you like most people

[00:02:40] Eric Canori: Yeah, my mom was good about push. She was really about education. Okay about she pushed me to go to college So I went to Plattsburgh State University Okay, little four year school graduated on time with business management degree.

Okay,

[00:02:52] Bob Wheeler: which comes in handy later on right so You had this, you had this vision when you went into business management, you still weren’t thinking like maybe cannabis is the way, right? You were like that sort of accidentally happened. Somebody

[00:03:07] Eric Canori: like, yeah, I mean, I started hustling at a very young age. I was selling candy starting in fifth grade.

I’d buy it for 5 cents, flip it for 10 in the lunchroom. So I started hustling, but That money would get confiscated if my mom found it. Sometimes teachers would shut down my operation if they knew I was selling it.

So I’d be more and more discreet and everything. I learned a lot about being discreet through my candy business and my other endeavors hiding.

My mom was like the tax man. She took, she took half of everything I made, put it in an envelope and saved it for a later date. Maybe need this for college or something like that. So I was saving. I was saving fives and tens and quarters for college starting in fifth grade.

[00:03:47] Bob Wheeler: Wow. Well, you know, that’s, but considering that she’s out there partying and like, yay, Rolling Stones, uh, save 50%, like that’s pretty mindful at least that she.

I mean, probably on your end, that wasn’t so great. Cause you’re like, Frick, I’d like some better shoes. But yeah,

[00:04:03] Eric Canori: my mom was really, she’s really good at saving money. She just doesn’t know how to make money. So, so she can, like our family dinner out every few months was we cut coupons for Wendy’s and we, you know, we’d go through the drive through and you’re like, yay, and you get the, or, or taco bell.

I remember specifically the 89 cent tacos, but I always wanted the Chalupa that was a buck 69 and I never tasted that. Right. Until I had my own drug money to taste. And when I, honestly, out of all the baller moments I’ve had in my life,

spending 50 grand a night at a party or anything like that, most baller moment I remember is sitting on the curb in Taco Bell.

And when I was like 16 years old and eating three chicken chalupas, it cost me like five, six bucks high as fuck. And just, and just embracing that moment, the taste. And I was just like, wow, this is living.

[00:04:49] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, yeah. Hey, listen, Taco Bell living. I, as a kid, I can appreciate that. Um, now did you have any brothers and sisters?

[00:04:57] Eric Canori: I grew, I had half brothers and sisters. I didn’t know my half sister that well. Um, my half brothers on my mom’s side came at a later date there once 13 years younger than me, once seven years younger than me. So I was kind of just like a lone wolf trying to figure out how to survive on my own. Okay. Well, the

[00:05:12] Bob Wheeler: reason I asked is I, we, I had a big, we grew up at a big family.

There were five kids and. If we went to McDonald’s, that was like, Oh my God, we’re going to McDonald’s. Like we did not go to McDonald’s, you know, people are like drive through and get some fries. We went to McDonald’s maybe every three months and we were on a budget. And so man, if you could get the Big Mac and a milkshake, woo, like it

[00:05:38] Eric Canori: was tough.

It was tough. We had to share the fries. I never got my own fries. Give me one, one pack of fries for the family. That was that was like there were no sodas. You never get coke. You get water, right? Oh, yeah So it was like even coke. I never even had coke

We had there was like the knockoff brand that you could buy the store brand coke for 89 cents Yeah, it was like that the coke the real coke was like a buck ninety nine.

Yeah, so it was just my mom was really like I said really good at saving money, but not good at making. Yeah, I learned how to make money though

[00:06:09] Bob Wheeler: and What was like so the first time you made like a big score When you were like, I mean, it was an incremental,

[00:06:17] Eric Canori: like it’s very intermittent incremental. I started at the bottom and I learned by losing 20 bucks, losing 50 here.

I learned from a lot of very incremental starting in my teens, working right up into my twenties, but like a big score. Once I finally hit a net worth of a million bucks, that’s when I felt like I kind of made it and I, I hit my net worth of a million between age 21 and 22. Yeah. While you were in college.

I was right after I left college. I kinda. When I was in college, they said, make a resume. And that was right around the time the movie, The Office Space came out. Remember that? In 2001.

Yeah. And I graduated and I’m in the, I’m in the college library trying to make a resume. Right. And I had a floppy disk and like this old Mac computer and like the print, remember the dot matrix printers?

Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. Yeah, yeah. I couldn’t get it to print or save on the disk. And I was just like, all right, this isn’t for me. So I didn’t even make a resume. I just got out of college and started my own business. Yeah. And did

[00:07:12] Bob Wheeler: you like, um, Like when you got into it, I would imagine if you’re trying to schedule helicopters and trucks and all these kinds of stuff Excel spreadsheets.

I mean, are you doing like you’ve got business management experience. So are you Actually tracking this stuff or do you have to do it all in your head? A lot of it was in

[00:07:32] Eric Canori: my head because I didn’t want the feds to ever really understand my business and I learned a lot About drug dealing believe it or not as a kid In the early 90s watching Miami Vice on VHS tapes that my mom recorded.

Oh wow. So I would just watch that show and I would just watch how they’d get the coke kingpins in Miami and how they’d watch them living a flashy life and Don Johnson going after them. I loved that movie. Yeah. It’s like that show I should say.

I understood how the judge put cases on these people because that’s, well, everybody else was playing soccer and t ball.

I was sitting there alone as a little kid watching Miami vice. So, yeah, yeah. So as far as accounting for my business, it was usually in a small little ledger in my wallet that was encrypted and like it wouldn’t have the real person’s name and it would be like for lumber, but like whatever X amount it was an encrypted ledger.

Yeah, and I never saved them. I would just reburn one and then make a new one the next week I just so there was never like a compound list of everything I’d going on financially in my life

[00:08:32] Bob Wheeler: But well and it’s pretty much cash business. So you’re not doing a lot of 30 day net payable Yeah, it’s

[00:08:39] Eric Canori: cash on delivery.

No, actually my whole business thrived off of consignment Oh, really people I got up to a point where all my customers had credit lines of a million bucks Wow. Yeah Yeah, and that started obviously in college, it was small, because I’d have a, somebody would have a credit line of 10 grand, somebody would have a credit line of 20, 30, but as you learn to judge character,

you can kind of see who’s a flight risker now, who’s going to run away with my money, or who’s going to come back for more, and most of the time, people are going to come back for more, they’re not going to run away.

Yeah, what’s the

[00:09:10] Bob Wheeler: most you lost in one of those situations where somebody, uh, Ended up

[00:09:15] Eric Canori: running. Well, honestly, I had such a great track record. Most of the money I lost was after I got arrested. Okay. I was robbed for a good chunk, 600 grand. Wow. But I wasn’t even at home at the time, that was my own fault. I was, there was a couple other people that I lost small amounts with because the feds seized it.

Right. And they came up to me and I kind of just let it slide because they didn’t talk about me. Yeah.

[00:09:42] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Um, so I know, um, you ended up getting to dig up all the gold to get your freedom. Uh, you probably overpaid.

[00:09:52] Eric Canori: Oh my god, I paid way too much bro. You know the amount I paid, right? Millions. I paid them, uh, close to 12 million.

Wow. Okay. Did you, you know I dug up the golden shackles? Yes.

[00:10:06] Bob Wheeler: Okay. I mean, that’s what they, I’m like, come on guys, take off the shackles at least, right? I would have, you know, I probably would have made sure I had like 12 locations and told them seven. But, um, I, yeah, that’s a, that’s 12 million. That’s a lot.

But let me ask you this. When you, so when they first caught you, like, right. You’re. Almost girlfriend, sort of like substituted somebody out and sort of messed everything up and some massage therapist, like basically, you know, three under the bus, definitely not a happy ending massage. Um, did you know they were coming for you or like they showed us

[00:10:43] Eric Canori: what’s really unique about my case.

So there’s a lot of big drug dealers. I was, I was a nine out of a 10. A 10 is when you take out the witnesses and it’s when the feds know about you and they have a surveillance. They’re just always trying to get you or they let you go and work as long as you feed them information about your rivals, right?

For me, I was a ghost in the underworld. There’s very, you, you. Hard pressed to find anybody running 50, 60, 70 million dollars worth of business a year without the feds even knowing you existed and that was me. So when I first got arrested and they laid eyes on me, they didn’t even know my name. They just stumbled upon me.

There was a load coming to me and I noticed before I unloaded a GPS tracker on it. So it got pulled over in the middle of the country. They put GPS brought to my property. Once I saw a GPS tractor, tracker, I didn’t even unload the merchandise. I just told it to leave and I took off in a separate direction quietly.

And then once I was out of their sight, I punched it and I lost him at over a hundred miles an hour. And I was ready to flee cause I could get a passport for 60 grand and there was a lot of different things running through my mind at that time, but they had no idea what my name was. But I, uh,

A couple hours later, I decided to come home and face them and I drove back and they cuffed me up and said, basically said, tell me your name and everything, you know, and what are you doing here?

And nobody needs to know about this. If you cooperate with us. Right. And I didn’t say a thing.

[00:12:04] Bob Wheeler: Wow. And what was that like when you made the decision, right? Because you know, it’s not going to be quite as much fun and you’re probably not going to get him Taco Bell or any fancy meals. Like things are about to get.

[00:12:20] Eric Canori: Real serious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But for me, the pain that I’ve experienced in my life, it was almost another just roadblock in my life. Yeah. It’s not like I didn’t prepare for this. I had known from day one, eventually the cops are going to come. They’re going to cuff me up and say everything. Tell us what you know.

You got to work for us. And I needed to say. to myself. When that day comes, how am I going to handle and how will I prepare it? And what type of war chest am I going to have to fight them? Because that’s really what it comes down to. How big is your war chest? Yeah. So that’s what I prepared for.

[00:12:51] Bob Wheeler: And when you like, you get coughed and they’re like, okay, you’re going to start serving day one.

What was day one as

[00:13:01] Eric Canori: like your Uh, day one, believe it or not, was a relief for me, bro. Tonight, I had 14 prepaid cell phones, I had 3 PGP encrypted BlackBerrys where we had our own servers. The feds couldn’t even open those, they sent them to Washington and couldn’t even access the data. Um, so when you’re carrying around 14 cell phones…

All day beepin buzzin ringin Like, I was just a robot. Yeah, granted, I was making a lot of money, but I wasn’t enjoying life. I was non stop on call, because I couldn’t… One thing that kept me under the radar for so long is I didn’t have a ton of lieutenants around me to manage things. Right. Because people fuck shit up.

Right. And I had a 99. 99% success rate. Right. Because I was the boss and I was hands on. And, uh, I could watch things. And if anything ever went down, I’d be able to isolate. And stop, uh, uh, infiltration of an investigation. That’s why I like being hands on. Yeah. Uh, so when that, when I got cuffed up, that was the best night I had slept all month in that prison cell, in that jail cell.

I passed right out, bro. Nobody calling me. Nobody needed anything from me. Right. And keep in mind, I had eaten a lot of shrooms for like three days the day before, like three days. I was at Bonnaroo Music Festival. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So this was in 2009 and I was tripping every day for three days straight.

So I was exhausted. Right. And after shrooms, you sleep peacefully. Yeah, so when they cut me, it was just a peaceful sleep. And then the next morning when I woke up in jail and splashed the water on my face from the little steel sink and looked in that scratched up mirror, I’m just like, fuck,

[00:14:39] Bob Wheeler: I guess I won’t be doing mushrooms

[00:14:40] Eric Canori: for a while.

I was just sitting there. I was like, man. Alright, I need a phone call. That’s what I really needed. And that’s, that’s, I didn’t know anybody’s phone number. I can’t even remember how I found my lawyer’s phone number. Somehow, they didn’t give me any phone numbers. That’s good, cool. Yeah. I’ll think back on that one.

But somehow I got a hold of a few people on my team. Family, lawyers, and… Eventually got bailed out in the minute. I got bailed out. They were on me like white on rice, bro. Really? They were tails five six cars behind like they were gonna watch and they the only reason they gave me bail in my opinion Is to follow me because I wouldn’t talk to them, right?

So think about we’ve got to let this guy Let’s see who the fuck is this guy running around with a million and a half in cash For back then weed was a big thing in oh nine, right right now weeds nothing, right? Right, but it was valuable back then weed is not valuable right now, right,

[00:15:32] Bob Wheeler: right I mean, legal cannabis is struggling.

[00:15:35] Eric Canori: Yeah, there’s a little money for a few

[00:15:40] Bob Wheeler: people. For a few people. But do you, like, when that money was coming in, Um, and thinking about your childhood, was it ever going to be enough? Like, could you have ever just said, yeah, I’m good, I got 10 million, I’m good, I can stop or it’s like, a little more, a little more.

[00:15:58] Eric Canori: The problem with me is all my income was derived from fear, right? It wasn’t like I was passionate about how I really, I’m an architect, I love designing beautiful homes. It makes me feel good. My income was. Is this going to be enough? I need more. I never want to be in a position where I can’t eat or have a safe place to sleep.

So it’s all fear based. Every day, make more. You’re never going to quit. Just keep riding the wave no matter how painful it is. Because I didn’t enjoy looking over my shoulder every day. I didn’t enjoy wondering who’s wearing a wire on me. I didn’t enjoy being in bed with my girlfriend and not being able to tell her the truth that I just did a 2 million deal.

I’m wondering if these guys are gonna pay back. Like I just couldn’t talk about my shit. Right. Right. So it’s just, it’s a lonely, it’s a lonely profession in some ways. Right. And that’s why a lot of times I’ll just call escorts. I honestly, I wouldn’t tell ’em what I was doing, but Right. They’re good therapists.

Yeah. Right. You know, for me it wasn’t just about the sex. I mean, I probably only had sex with a small percentage of ’em. Right. It was more about scratching my back. And relaxing me. Yeah,

[00:17:02] Bob Wheeler: but they gotta be Ukrainian. Fuck yeah, they

[00:17:09] Eric Canori: I miss those days sometimes. They know how to listen. You know, like the whole I tried, I’ve done some of the online dating stuff, and it’s just too much work for me. I’ve done that in the past, and it’s not as easy as it was. Like, you go to the they just show up to your room, An online date, you have to go to a restaurant.

Right. That’s a lot of work. That’s right. Unless the food’s going to be killer or something. But anyway, that’s a whole other story. And did

[00:17:32] Bob Wheeler: you, like, so now you’re making all this money, you got a million plus in cash, all this stuff, eventually got lots of gold bars under the, under the earth, because it’s definitely doesn’t mold like, uh, real money.

Um, did you ever feel fulfilled? Did you ever start to go… Oh, that little kid that wanted to have all the things that these celebs had. Did you ever felt like you got there? Did you ever have that moment of like, all right, I got some 5, 000 hookers,

[00:17:58] Eric Canori: but. I never, I was never in a position where I felt I had it all.

I felt stressed. I was just burying pain, bro. You have to understand every single person you look at, you’re look at the little child in them. Age one to seven. Like you are 90% of who you are was programmed by age seven. Absolutely. So you look at me. Yeah. I have millions of dollars. I’m making millions. But I was just a little boy with pain still, you know, I’m just sitting there like afraid.

Who know afraid of not having enough, you know, and they like just that that that and that really helps you that prevents you from living a blissful life if you’re afraid and that’s a No amount of drugs can fix that you can just keep taking drugs and you can cover it, which I did yeah, many a lot but you know drugs are drugs can really

Cover a lot of pain, you know, there’s some benefits to them like listen if I’m there with the right people There’s there’s some benefit that I shouldn’t say there’s man.

I have no authority to talk on drugs

[00:19:09] Bob Wheeler: Everybody says they’re bad. But sometimes the reason people do them is they feel good Even if it’s

[00:19:14] Eric Canori: temporary. True. True. You have a battery. Like, if you don’t drain your battery completely and you know how to recharge it, you can take a little abuse here and there. Right. Particularly, like, psychedelics have profound effects on my well being, really helped me mentally with a lot of roadblocks, so.

[00:19:31] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, and I mean, you know some people that are selling end up getting addicted and then they end up losing the business because there’s They’re self indulging in their product right just like any business. You can’t use up all the inventory Like how did you make sure that you didn’t go like was it just hey, I’d rather have money in the bank And skip smoking.

Um, how did you keep yourself from

[00:19:59] Eric Canori: like, you got, I had some scares. So in college, somebody wore a wire. I mean, the feds were watching me and they wanted to pinch me before I graduated. Wow. They had, there was a Coke bus, they said I was financially backing a Coke ring, which I didn’t even know I was. I never really touched, I didn’t touch Coke because there’s too much heat involved.

Right. But people were taking my money from the weed business and using it to bring Coke up from the city to my college town. I didn’t even know that at the time. And it kind of entrapped me in this Coke bus and after they got busted, they wore wires on me. So after that, when I left Plattsburgh State University, I moved to a small town and I Um, I’m not going to do drugs and uh, I’m going to start a legitimate business and I’m going to make sure I don’t sell any drugs within my town.

It’ll be all out of state. So I use my new town as a hub. And, uh, I just kept really focused on my legal business during the day. And at night is when I take care of all my shipments.

[00:20:54] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. That’s gotta be a little crazy though. Just 24, seven, never knowing if somebody’s gonna turn on you or if somebody’s watching you or you one thing psych is shrooms.

[00:21:09] Eric Canori: Shrooms were the one drug that kept me sharp because that gut instinct, the way, when you walk into a room, you pick up on vibes. It really goes from gut to heart, to brain. So we got to listen to your gut, those little be all that little tingling. That’s real. It’s energy. So that’s, that’s really what kept me aware of who was wearing a wire.

There’s a lot of people that I turned down meeting that would want to meet me like, Hey Eric, yo, I got a buyer coming into town. They’re looking for X amount. Can you, can you meet them? And depending on the circumstance, how people were talking, the vibe, I would just turn things down a lot.

[00:21:42] Bob Wheeler: Wow. I, even if I like, it’s too funny for me, I’m like.

I’m always worried I’m going to get caught like I’m not a good liar, um, I usually get like I turn beet red. I’ve been in a couple situations. I’m like, oh man, shouldn’t have made this choice. Right? So I, even if I wanted it, like I would just go for the money. I wouldn’t like, it would be like, yeah, I want that.

But there’s a part of me is like, I gotta be the good boy. I don’t, I don’t want to get caught. Like I’m too afraid of getting caught more so than I am of like, man, I could have 10 million bucks. I’d be like, Oh, you know?

[00:22:19] Eric Canori: Yeah. The, the only thing that kept me going is it might, it’s kind of sad to say, but my childhood was scarier than going to jail or prison.

Yeah. And then when you’re in that situation, it’s kind of like ride the wave to get caught.

[00:22:34] Bob Wheeler: No, that’s, I mean, yeah. I mean, and when you’re operating from childhood stuff or operating from the little kid, uh, You’re just thinking different than an adult might be thinking or going, wait, that’s pretty not the best decision or, you know, maybe it was right.

Like we’re all going to take the path

[00:22:53] Eric Canori: we take. Yeah. I don’t know if it was, I still don’t know if it was the right decision. That’s one question. I haven’t, that’s one question I haven’t answered. I don’t, I don’t know. I don’t know what I, I don’t know where I’d be without it. I’ve learned a lot. I look at everybody else’s life around me.

I wouldn’t trade mine. There’s certain things I’d pull from other people’s lives and bring it into my life, but. Pretty centered. I’m pretty centered. I’m at peace with what’s going on in my life. How did your mom react? She was just embarrassed. Just me being in the news. Oh, okay. Seeing my name in the news.

But I have a different last name than her, so she was kind of protected.

[00:23:30] Bob Wheeler: And you were, you know, from what I read, you know, some of that money that you were saving, that was sort of for her in case anything happened, you could sort of go, Hey mom, if you go over here by like, like, uh, like George, you can, uh, I

[00:23:44] Eric Canori: had different stashes kind of buried for different purposes and I had one particular stasher was like, I don’t know, around 1.

5 million buried in the back of her house that she didn’t know about. Wow. But if I, if I was on my death bed and she came to me, I could say go back here 10 paces and dig and she would find it which I’ve been in a position I’ve been airlifted to the ICU twice once caught on fire another time collapsed lung broke ribs.

I’ve done reckless shit Yeah, I don’t do it anymore, but right i’ve slowed down but i’ve had those chances like shit if I die tomorrow I gotta be able to somehow

[00:24:24] Bob Wheeler: Unbury the stuff unbury.

[00:24:26] Eric Canori: I got a point somebody or else it’s gonna get found 500 years from now in some alien, uh Metal detection equipment, right?

And then it’d be like, we found

[00:24:36] Bob Wheeler: gold, gold in them, their hills. Well, Eric, all right. We’re going to keep the conversation going, but we are going to take a moment. to go to Test Your Nerve, uh, which is sponsored by MoneyNerve. And we’re going to ask some questions, fast five, um, but I’ll say to the listeners, if you want to test your MoneyNerve, go to testyournerve.

com for a free quiz on your relationship with money. Alright, so here we go, just down and dirty. Oh, okay, it’s called what?

You know, whatever, they won’t, okay.

And also, just quickly, I don’t know if our audience

[00:25:21] Eric Canori: already knows his story about burying the gold. Yeah, yeah, we didn’t really say that. I was wondering.

[00:25:32] Bob Wheeler: Well, you, you asked me if I knew about the gold being buried. And I said

[00:25:35] Eric Canori: I did. Yeah, but I don’t even know if people… Yeah, yeah, that’s what I was wondering. Because you didn’t even really say that I was a… Cannabis dealer. Well, that will be all in the intro. Oh, the intro. Okay. But I would like

[00:25:47] Bob Wheeler: that because the gold buried story, if you could talk

[00:25:50] Eric Canori: about that, you just tell us what to do, we’ll do it.

Okay. Got it.

[00:25:57] Bob Wheeler: Cool. All right. So Eric, we’re going to keep this conversation going, but for the moment, we are going to jump over to Test Your Nerve, which is brought to you by The Money Nerve. Uh, if you’d like to test your money nerve, go to testyournerve. com for a free quiz on your relationship with money.

All right, here we are, down and dirty, just, uh, let’s see. Um, when will you know you have a safety net?

[00:26:21] Eric Canori: When I have enough money to keep up with inflation so I can eat and sleep in the accommodations I prefer. And do

[00:26:29] Bob Wheeler: you? 10 million, 5 million, 100, 000, any idea what that number might be? Or will you just know

[00:26:35] Eric Canori: that’s embarrassing to say on here really if I had if I’m in a position, I mean, I’m 44 50

[00:26:42] Bob Wheeler: million.

All right, that’s a good number that works. I can work with 50.

[00:26:47] Eric Canori: Um, listen, I don’t need that to be happy, bro I can you know 50 million is kind of like where I don’t need to look at price tags and I can just wake up and say what am I gonna do today? I’m good. I’m coming. Yeah. Yeah, I don’t I don’t need that bro.

That’s just kind of like I’m going to regret saying this. I’ll get brutal. If people see this thing, I’m going to get cut up on that one. That’s all right. That’s all right.

[00:27:07] Bob Wheeler: Keep it rolling. All right. What was your last impulsive purchase? Um, impulse purchase and was it worth it?

[00:27:19] Eric Canori: I can’t talk about that, bro. It was worth it. It was. Yeah. Impulse purchase. You know, it’s an impulse purchase for me is just buying a vehicle because it only, it only satisfies me for like a week, right? And then it’s dirty, right? It’s dirty. And it doesn’t really, I feel no different driving in a Toyota Camry.

versus a Mercedes S 500 or something. It’s the same. I don’t notice the difference, bro. You know what I do notice the difference? If I eat a shitty breakfast or not. That’s when I notice the difference. Yeah,

[00:27:55] Bob Wheeler: cause that, that rides with you all day. Exactly. Um, would you say you’re a saver or a spender?

[00:28:02] Eric Canori: I’m an investor.

Okay. I’m an investor. Um, I like to put my money in places that’s gonna feed me down the road. Yep.

[00:28:13] Bob Wheeler: Nope. Absolutely. How do you cope with financial stress?

[00:28:18] Eric Canori: I haven’t had financial stress in a long time, thankfully. But the way I coped with it at a young age was I broke the law. Yeah. That’s straight up. Oh, but hustled, hustled, right?

Like I sold candy. I mowed lawns. I shoveled driveways. I dug ditches. I pushed wheelbarrows till I had calluses practically bleeding on my hands. And I’ll do that again tomorrow if I have to. I actually prefer doing manual labor than sitting behind a computer any day. Yeah, right. I just sleep better. Yeah, right.

Like that’s what we were meant to move. We need to start moving more bottom line We need

[00:28:51] Bob Wheeler: to move more. We need to move more. Oh, yeah And sometimes if the law’s chasing us, we need to move a lot

[00:28:58] Eric Canori: You know, I outran them right? Yeah, I told you yeah, that’s

[00:29:01] Bob Wheeler: pretty trippy. Um, yeah, I Um, that would, for me, that would be pretty scary.

I would, I would not do well. Um, I would not do well in

[00:29:09] Eric Canori: a rush. Yeah. Time went by so fast in that hour because I’m looking in the rear view though. I lost them. I built up a traffic jam on the highway to block them. And then once the jam was created, I took off at a hundred and I lost them. I did dipped off the next exit, got to a gas station, talked to my stepfather, told him where I had some money hidden.

I was, I was ready to leave. Wow. But then I, I said, you know what, I’m going to come back and face the law. It’s just weed. I didn’t kill anybody. Yeah, I’ll do my time. It’s just weed. Yeah,

[00:29:41] Bob Wheeler: it’s just weed. All right. Last question. What emotion do you most experience when it comes to money?

[00:29:50] Eric Canori: Money is safety. You don’t ever, I don’t ever want to be in a position where I have to eat bleached bread. Yep. Right? I want, I want some good bread. I want to eat the sourdough dank bread and that costs money, right? Yeah. That’s, that’s 8 a loaf and the other stuff’s 90 cents a loaf. Yep.

[00:30:16] Bob Wheeler: That’s right. All right.

So, you know, organic, the good stuff, the good stuff, the air one. Uh, so how, what’s the most, um, so just jumping back in, um, to this conversation, what like, and, and jumping off of this childhood stuff, what’s the most money you spent on something? And you went, yeah, or it was just no even big deal. Cause you, you know, money to burn money to burn.

[00:30:41] Eric Canori: I blew a couple million bucks on this little hobby of mine, creating this, uh,

Docu series in 2006, where I had somebody, I had this idea where I was going to travel around the country and interview hundreds of women about time, money, and sex in the relationship. Cause I was a little boy in my early twenties, didn’t know anything about women. Yeah. So I spent a couple million bucks traveling around interviewing these girls and yachts and fancy hotels and being chauffeured around in Rolls Royces and stupid stuff like that.

And it was, uh, It was a waste of money. I, I, I look back at the videos and I’m embarrassed by some of the stuff I was doing, but, but it was a good experience for me. I had to grow up one way or another.

[00:31:25] Bob Wheeler: No, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, and 2 million is 2 million, but did you, like when you spend it, it wasn’t all at once.

So it wasn’t like, Oh my God, 2 million. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:31:33] Eric Canori: One day purchase. Like I blow maybe 80 grand a night, maybe doing, uh, throwing a party that I didn’t even go to. Cause my girlfriend was in the other room crying the whole time, right? So I had to sit in the bedroom with her for four hours telling her everything’s going to be okay.

Meanwhile, she’s on uppers and downers. And I’m just like, I just blew 80 grand on this event today. Like, I should be there. It’s my party.

[00:31:57] Bob Wheeler: Yeah.

[00:31:58] Eric Canori: Yeah. Yeah, that was a waste of money.

[00:32:00] Bob Wheeler: What would you say to people that are out there who are listening that they don’t feel fulfilled? Uh, they’re feeling the lack.

Uh, I mean, maybe not, you know, go major distributor for illegal drugs. Even though they’re not illegal now, but like what would you tell somebody that’s out there like looking back and having done some ayahuasca and having some Psychedelics and done some reflection like what would you say to people out there now, or what would you say to yourself?

[00:32:33] Eric Canori: If you have nothing and you’re in a position where you think everything’s crumbling around you, I would say the best thing you do is step into nature alone. You really have to get barefoot and literally dig your hands into the bottom of a stream bed, somewhere where there’s fresh water, and really just understand the source of life and realize that you don’t need to follow all the clever marketers.

These marketers went to school for five, four, five, six years to learn how to sell you shit you don’t need. Right. You don’t need any of that shit. Go into the woods, touch the dirt, touch the ground and say what am I good at and how can I provide value to the world? You might be sweeping floors, you might be a janitor.

How the fuck can you make the best mop, the best mop that’s not gonna leave streaks, a better mop to competition and start making that and come to me, maybe I’ll invest in you. And say I wanna make a mop that’s not gonna leave streaks. So figure out what you’re good at alone in nature without your cell phone.

Yeah. And that’s where you build with nothing. You only need a few hundred bucks really to get started.

[00:33:35] Bob Wheeler: And with the book, what do you hope is the takeaway for people? Like, you, you know, you wrote this book. Writing a book is not easy. Um, at least it wasn’t for me. But like, what, what did you want people to take away?

And, and what do you want your legacy from this point on to be?

[00:33:56] Eric Canori: All right, those two questions. First one, the takeaway is, the takeaway is be loved for who you are, not what you have. Like, you can keep following the trends and getting the newest thing every year, and then it’s gonna be out of the date by the time you even have a chance to wear it.

Yeah. And then you’re gonna need to get a new thing. And yeah, you’re gonna get a lot of compliments. People are gonna say, Oh, I like your new jeans. I like your shoes. I like your car. I like all that. But do they like you? Right. Or do they like everything that you have? So, really try to be loved for, uh, who you are rather than what you have.

That’s number one. Really, I, I, I did that, bro. And it worked for a little bit, actually. Believe it or not, I got the new sneakers and the girls kind of noticed me and they loved it. They love that. I don’t know how much they love me. And well, they did a good job. I thought they loved me. They may have. Yeah.

So fuck it. Maybe you kept the shoes on. Hey, I got kept those shoes on in bed, bro.

Oh fuck. Hey, so So that, in answer to that, the takeaway is, that’s the takeaway of the book. But there’s so many threads within the book, bro, about real life, man. The greener grass on the other side, and chasing the fairy trail dream, and the Barbie and Ken. And like, I spent a lot of time chasing that, and I was hollow inside.

And listen, money’s not a problem, bro. Like, I wanna make a lot more, money’s a great tool. For sure. Do a lot of great shit with. So, tell me, what was the second question?

[00:35:22] Bob Wheeler: Um, what do you want your legacy? What do you want, at this point, you’ve written the book, you’ve had this journey, where do you go from here and what do you wanna leave behind?

What’s the imprint?

[00:35:36] Eric Canori: At the end of the day, you know… When you’re creating a business model, my business is to find a problem, create a solution. I mean, my, my thinking is find a problem, create a solution. And the problem I see right now is when you really boil it down is everybody just wants to feel good at the end of the day.

So the next business endeavor that I create, it’s going to be a model revolved revolving around helping people feel good. And I haven’t fine tuned what that looks like, but it revolves something around creating retreats or dwellings or places where people can come and reset and recharge. Because I feel like at the end of the day, we plug our phone into charge, we plug our car into charge, but the human body really isn’t being plugged into spaces that charge us.

We’re just constantly, as the year is going out, a little more drained and drained. More and more energy as I age and time goes on. So I’m going to create environments where people can reset and recharge or just escape, escape from the grind and come and plug into my spot, even for a week. So that’s kind of my vision.

We’ll see, we’ll see how it pans out, but it needs to be near freshwater sources. That’s the first thing. So I lock in the land and then I’ll build the model around that. And the model is probably going to be something tokenized on the blockchain. I haven’t ironed out all the details, but we’ll see. Yeah.

[00:36:55] Bob Wheeler: And do you think some of that comes from that reflection or the plugging in or, you know, just vegging out for a little bit? Was that from. Sitting around in prison and having lots of time to reflect or was that something that was already going on anyway?

[00:37:11] Eric Canori: It was from I grinded so hard and having all that money I wasn’t happy like you can go to the Mandarin Oriental and get a hot stone massage for 800 bucks, right?

But those hot stones aren’t going to be as real as the free ones in the river, right? They’re just not you’re gonna feel way better and it’s free Yeah So me having a bunch of money and I always wanted to feel better and I tried all these things the saunas and the spas and it really Nothing like being barefoot in nature, but I want to create that space and teach people about living in that way

Lost my train of thought fuck. You know what bottom line is. I like money and nature That’s what I like I like it all man. Yeah, why not? Yeah, I want to teach people through through different mediums I’m gonna do another book, but this book’s gonna be more audio visual like a course a course for People feel stuck in a position where they don’t know where to go.

And I’m going to teach them how to get out of that position in a very user friendly manner, because I feel like a lot of the education, a lot of the teachers I had in my mind be like, why do you have poor grades? And the teachers didn’t inspire me, but there’ll be that occasional teacher where I’d pop off.

I get an a. Why’d I get an A? Because the teacher loved what he was doing. He wasn’t reading from the syllabus. He was like, jump up, sit on his desk. What are we going to learn today, guys? Yeah. Let’s talk about this. And he was interactive. He was passionate about it. A lot of the teachers come in because, you know why?

They say, ooh, what can I do where I’ll get the summers off? That’s how they choose to be a teacher. We need better teachers for the children. That’s the bottom line. So I need to create something that’s going to teach kids how to really thrive and make it through the madness. Yeah, we

[00:38:56] Bob Wheeler: have to engage them.

We have to engage them. Because right now I think it’s just like, just do, just do, just do. Um, let me ask you this. I want to go back to a couple pieces. Um, so, When you had to go dig up gold while in shackles, right? Um, what, like, how did that conversation come up? Whereas like, Hey, if you give us all your gold, we’ll give you your freedom.

Like, was it something you offered? Was it something that they had an inkling like? How did you negotiate that deal to be like, yeah, I’ll take you to the

[00:39:31] Eric Canori: gold. Yeah. So my case had been going on for a couple of years. They had a weak case on me the day they busted me, they seized all my assets. So I had to launder money to pay my legal fees, which between my legal fees, my private investigator, all that.

That’s laundering the money. I was up over 700 grand just to fight. This is pre trial that I had to spend and the lawyer wouldn’t take cash. So I had to launder it and get it. Well, allegedly launder it to get it into the system, into the system to pay the legal fees. And they re arrested me a second time picking up a duffel bag of over 400 grand at a house while I was out awaiting trial on bail.

They re arrested me a second time saying I was laundering money. And, uh, put me in a jail cell, this time no bail. They kept coming to me. Eric, just, they, they want you to work for them. That’s what they want. You can get out of here tomorrow. And I wouldn’t do it. Right. So, after about four months, my lawyer comes to me and he’s like, Hey Eric, listen.

Give them the rest of your money and they’ll let you get on with your life. They know you’re a good kid. And I go, well, can we get it in writing? And you’re like, that sounds too good to be true. And he’s like, you can’t buy your way out of jail. It’s just a form of cooperation. .

You know? So I, I, uh, mulled it over for a little bit and eventually sat down with the DA and the prosecutors and, well, I’m sorry, the prosecutors and the DEA, the guy that was following me around and knew more about me than probably myself.

You know what I’m saying? When the DEA is on you and the feds are following you, they know what you eat for breakfast, they know what type of laundry detergent you use, they know everything. They spend like, I think it was like 1. 4 million following me around. Wow. So, um, this was after the first arrest, but, so, my lawyer comes to me in the cell, he’s like, give them the rest of your money.

So we sit down, they’re like, we know you have a lot more money, give it to us, you don’t have to see any more jail time or prison time. So, eventually after a few weeks, we write up some type of contract that I’m going to forfeit X amount of dollars, we agreed on 5 million. I went out in the shackles, dug up the, between the 2.

5 they already confiscated me and another 2. 5 in gold bars I dug up. That’s, that’s uh, met my obligation of the forfeiture. Right. They put me back in jail and they said, alright, tell us everything you did. And I didn’t want to give them everything. So eventually I led them in that first proffer session to kind of let them realize there was more gold because I wanted to show the judge that I was cooperating further.

Right. So I was like, I kind of insinuated there’s more gold, but I’m not giving it to you. Right. So they threw me back in jail, sat in there for another three weeks. They already had five and a half million. Right. Um, my lawyer’s like, listen, they think you have more gold and they want it. So I went out and shackles again, gave them another six and a half million, took them to two other spots, six and a half million gold bars.

And that you should see four of them lifting up the chest three feet from the ground, digging this thing up in the, in the rain. And I’m all shackled up. My hands are pale from sitting in a cell with no sunlight. And, uh, so now they had between the money they found in my house, the on all they had close to 12 million bucks in gold and they, they let me out the next day, golden cash, 12 mil.

They let me out the next day, went back to my Ukrainian girlfriend, maybe nice, nice dinner. And I sat there and awaited my sentencing for a couple of years. My lawyer’s like, well, not a little less than a couple of years. And I ended up still getting time. Wow. I couldn’t believe it. I was kind of like floored, but it’s because I wouldn’t work for them.

I think, you know, if I, if I really sat there and. Did what they, everything they wanted to do, probably wouldn’t have seen any more time, but doing that time was good for me, man. To sit there with the basic needs in a cell, I mean, that really, that really beats you down and shows you what’s important.

[00:43:24] Bob Wheeler: Totally. I’m curious, did they try and come at you with IRS stuff? Did they try and come in and say you owed taxes on all the money? Did like, cause sometimes they do that. They’ll use tax evasion or you’re supposed to report any like illegal drug money and stuff. Um, extortion embezzlement on the tax return.

There’s a line for you to do it that they purposely put in there to prosecute people for not reporting. Did they try and come at you from any legal

[00:43:50] Eric Canori: standpoint? My lawyer came to me at one point I recall and he said something along the lines of he’s like, listen, if you don’t give up your money, they’re going to come after you with tons of charges.

They’re going to come up to your family tax evasion. You’ll never see the light of day again. So part of the agreement was, I told my lawyer, I go, if I pay up this money. I want in writing that they’re not going to come back after me for anything, anything, any type of criminal charges or indictments from this day.

You know, obviously in the future, if I could do things, yes, but anything backdated

[00:44:25] Bob Wheeler: and, you know, it’s, it’s interesting that you chose. Weed as your drug of choice, right? For business, but it wasn’t like cocaine and it wasn’t like you weren’t killing people People just getting a little hungry

[00:44:40] Eric Canori: Yeah, yeah, we it was for me.

It was I could I started because I couldn’t afford the weed right in high school I smoked weed because that helped me socialize, right? I didn’t have to talk about my truth when I’m high I could just laugh right somebody really asked you about your the reality of your existence Yeah, if it gets to the you know questions like that, you just laugh like you’re high Yeah.

You don’t have to answer shit when you’re high, but when you’re sober and you’re hanging out with all the cool kids and they’re like, Hey, can you do this? Or can you do that? And you have to say, I can’t afford it. Right. That’s a shitty, that’s a shitty feeling and not be able to afford to do what the cool kids do.

And I didn’t sit at the cool, cool table in the cafeteria. I looked over across the room at the cool table. Right. They invited me there eventually, but I felt even awkward going. I felt awkward going. Cause I didn’t have the right backpack or the right this and like, so. I sold weed because I couldn’t afford to buy it.

So I would smoke it 30 a 8th and then people, everybody would ask to smoke with me and I’d be like, fuck, they smoked the whole bag. I just spent 30 bucks on me for me, for me to make that 30 bucks. I had to mow fricking six lawns after my mom took half the money. Right. So I was like, Hey, I need to start selling weed.

Everybody wants to smoke my weed. I’m going to sell it.

[00:45:53] Bob Wheeler: And when, like, I’m thinking, because I totally relate to this piece, like, I was in high school and didn’t get to go on the biology field trip, because we didn’t have any money, right? And there were certain things where I had to go, yeah, I’m going to sit this one out, it doesn’t look fun.

But the truth was, didn’t have any money. Like, when you think into that right now, like, you feeling into that, like, yeah, I can’t afford that. Like, I can’t, I can’t. Play with the cool kids. Like, can you, do you still feel a little bit of like that little kid? That’s like, fuck, I can’t play with the cool kids.

Yeah, there’s like,

[00:46:29] Eric Canori: yeah, I actually felt it today because I rolled, I rolled this little beach, this Airbnb, I’m saying they have a beach cruiser bike I could rent and I rolled by shutters on the beach and I remember staying at shutters on the beach. Like I was like, yeah, I heard the Rolling Stones used to stay there a lot.

So I was like, fuck, I was, I was in love, I love the stones growing up as a kid. So I’m going to stay there. So every time, well, not every time, but the last time I was in LA, I stayed at shutters. That’s an expensive bill by the time all the shit I spent like 10 grand there, right? And I was sitting there on my bike Yesterday look at all the people going and I was like, I mean I can afford to do that But I’m not wasteful anymore, right?

Like I have to be smart. I don’t have buku bucks I’m rolling in like the old days and I was just sitting there and I did for a minute I felt a little inadequate. I was sitting there. I was like fuck. What did I do wrong? Mmm, you know and I’m like But actually where I’m staying in this little Zen cottage is actually way more baller than staying in that shutters Yeah, because I walk out my doors and right there.

I’m barefoot on the ground. Yeah, like instantaneous. So it’s actually a better vibe Yeah, so I’m actually made out actually Well,

[00:47:36] Bob Wheeler: I would think a lot of people at shutters or a lot of places and this isn’t a jet Well, I mean, it’s an observation I won’t say it’s a judgment, but I think a lot of people are out there presenting right?

So if you’re at shutters You gotta behave a certain way and you gotta look like you belong and you gotta look like you at least drive the right car or travel in the right circles, right? It’s a lot about presenting. Yeah.

[00:47:57] Eric Canori: Yeah. I couldn’t walk out of my room at shutters and curl up on a ball and mushrooms and melon to the ground.

Right. You know what I’m saying? I could do that at the Zen cottage. Exactly. Not that I do that, but you know what I’m saying? It’s more. I feel more myself where I’m at right now, actually.

[00:48:12] Bob Wheeler: Is it as important today as it might have been for the little kid to present well?

[00:48:19] Eric Canori: No. No. But there are moments when I feel inadequate.

Like, there’s certain people I know that, let’s say they own horses that race at the track. And they’re dropping, these people drop big money on it. Like, just spend a million bucks on a horse. You know, just like that on a whim. And I’m sitting there like, damn. You know, um, you know, expensive dinners to 10, 000 dinners.

Like that’s, that’s to me. I, when I, if I, when I sit at that table with that crew, I feel a little inadequate, I feel a little, little uncomfortable, like, but I don’t, I don’t miss it, bro, because 100, 000 watch is dead weight to me. Right. Why the fuck would I want to wake up in the morning and take the extra step to put on a watch?

It’s going to take me. You know, 30 sec the way I look at it is 30 seconds to put it on times 365 days a year. I just lost a few hours of my life putting on a fucking watch that’s gonna weigh down my left arm. I wanna be free and move. Like, especially if I gotta outrun something, right? Like, you know what I’m saying?

Like, I wanna be I like to be agile, light, and I like to coast through life feeling light. Yeah. And that’s, that’s why I really like food exercise. Good shelter to me is the most important. Yeah. And actually those people that are balling out like that still, that I kind of want to help them in a way. Cause when I look at them, I know when they go home at night or they wake up in the morning, they’re going to have a headache.

Yeah. They’re going to have a fucking headache and I’m not waking up with a headache. Yeah. I’m waking up feeling good. So, and I know, but I, I kind of don’t want to tell people what to do. So I don’t, I don’t open my mouth. I don’t say shit, but in a way, deep down in my heart, I’m like, fuck, if I can just.

Pull you aside from the party for a minute. I could probably tune you up a little bit and then you could just coast even higher. Yeah.

[00:50:09] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. But let me ask you this. So little kid, man, I wish I could have the nice tacos, right? Uh, wow. I wish I didn’t have, uh, you know, the discount shoes. Is there any part where at any point where you’re like, this is my mom’s fault, like, or something’s really wrong with me.

Like, was there some exterior, either her or them or life that you directed any anger or resentment towards? Or did you always feel like. You know, this is my shit,

[00:50:49] Eric Canori: bro. I have to be honest. It’s the only thing I’m wrestling with in those ayahuasca ceremonies is the relationship with my mother. I still have pain, bro.

And I don’t like to blame because she’s my mother. She obviously loves me. Right, right. But something happened in her life. That’s really set her perspective in a way different direction than mine. And I don’t talk to my mother anymore. Okay. Like I just don’t, I don’t see them. They, they, every drug dealer that’s smart.

Has a legitimate business on the side, right? And I had a legitimate business, but my name was never anything and my family kept it So I came out of prison without my legitimate business and that was if that was a fucking knife in the heart Wow, if somebody else did it like you or somebody else would be like you fuck face, right?

You know, but family to do it That’s just heart wrenching bro, and I haven’t healed man. I still I still there every day at fuck man It’s like the only reason I haven’t gone off the deep end is that because I don’t do I don’t drink like if I drink And really run myself down. I’d probably collapse Well, I stay healthy so I can handle the fucking pain, you know, so yeah, that’s, that’s real deal bro.

[00:51:59] Bob Wheeler: Yeah. Uh, parents always a work in process, always a work in process.

[00:52:04] Eric Canori: Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I, I can only relate to what I’m experiencing, so if you, if that’s what you say, I believe you. Yeah. Totally.

[00:52:14] Bob Wheeler: Totally. Um, the three minutes is, oh, so why? So let’s do it now because then, yeah, now, man, the parent stuff, fuck, it’s just, yeah, it’s, it’s always a work in process, always a work in process.

All right, we’re back on. We’re back on. Um, yeah, no, I, I just, I, look, the parent thing, it’s, it’s, it’s, uh, we needed something when we were kids. we got it or we didn’t get it. A lot of us didn’t get it or we didn’t get it in the flavor we wanted and and then we spend a lifetime, most of us trying to figure out how to reconcile that, right?

Because we’re not going to get it now. And even we got it now, it’s not going to freaking make any difference because we needed it or we thought we needed it when we were four when we were seven or whatever it was. Um, and I, and I think there’s a lot of people out there Um, that don’t have a safe place to go home to, like my place, my home, that was not a safe place.

Like, if I went home and said, hey, they’re beating me up at school, or, hey, I’m really scared. They were like, well, I hope, I hope you work it out. Like, good luck. Like, I, I didn’t have a safety net either. I didn’t have somebody going, I’m going to go and fight your battles for you, or I’m going to be with you when it’s like, oh yeah, that sounds tough.

Hope it works out. So, I always knew I didn’t have a safety net, but still reconciling with, you know, I’m glad to be alive. In this moment, right? There were moments, um, but I think it’s hard sometimes. And, and there are a lot of people out there that didn’t have safety or didn’t have parents that are like, Oh my God, you got this.

Or maybe they tried, but they didn’t quite have the skillset.

[00:53:55] Eric Canori: Yeah. You know, at the end of the day, I try to remind myself to be thankful for what I have because there’s so many people that had it way worse than me. My mom did the best from her understanding of life. You know, I look around, even just cruising around on these streets on the bike, you know, watching the homeless people and stuff.

I’m like, these are people that have been in positions that I can’t even relate with, right? Like a pain where, you know, I had the pain, but don’t get me wrong. I just had a little more, like I was at a point in as a kid, I was going to jump. I stood at the fucking edge. 180 foot drop. And that’s when I actually said, fuck it, I’m gonna deal, sell weed.

I made the choice, actually, that day. I talk about it in the book. But, there’s other people that don’t do that, you know. Part of the reason I have a little more strength too is because my, my biological father, which I don’t really know that well, I remember visiting him for, for the visitation rights as a kid, and he was a really, like, we’d watch the Rocky movies.

Right. And the fucking, you’re gonna make it, bro, like, fucking running through the And that shit pumped me up. I would watch those on replay. You know, so that, that, that inspiration right there, I think is part of what’s kept me alive.

[00:55:09] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, I mean, I, look, I, what I’ve really love about this conversation is like, I haven’t heard a whole lot of blame, right?

And even if there’s blame there, you sort of, you know, keeping it to yourself or taking ownership of it. Right. And not trying to put it out in the world that it’s everybody else’s fault. Right. I don’t hear you saying like, wow, I can’t believe this happened to me. Oh my God. And I, and I ended up going to jail and this people ratted me out.

I hear like, yeah, I knew it was coming. Um, I knew the risk. Um, and like, Hey, I, I went in head, you know, facing it head on and like whatever reasons that we have that propel us forward. Um, I think that lack of not having or the lack of security fuels a lot of us. Like I know it fueled me because I’m like, holy crap, I don’t want to live in the streets.

Um, and I got to figure this out. And, and I know a lot of people, uh, make that decision of like, do I leave? Do I just jump? Um, cause sometimes it feels. Insurmountable, right? And then some of us are fortunate enough to have some little voice in going, don’t do it. Or maybe in my case, I was just scared. Like, I’m like, I’m too chicken to do go through with what I thought I wanted to do.

Right. But like we persevere, we keep showing up. And I feel like that’s what you’ve done, even though, uh, maybe everybody else hasn’t been there. Like you keep showing up. Um, and maybe it’s for the Ukrainian women. I don’t know. Um, you know, cause they’re hot, but, um, just really that focus of like, I want to pay it forward.

There’s a reason I’m here. You wrote the book not just because like, Oh, I’ll just write the book. There was because you wanted to inspire the people because you wanted to let people know, Hey, this is my story. Maybe you resonate with the story. Um, and you’re out there trying to like make a difference in whatever way you can make that difference.

Right. And, and I hope that some people from this. Today, hear this and go, Oh, wow. You know what? I’m going to get inspired to actually do it a little bit differently because I’ve been hiding in the shadows or I’ve been afraid to step up or I haven’t felt that self worth and, um, and they get a little bit of inspiration from this conversation.

[00:57:27] Eric Canori: I hope that too. I hope that too, because there’s a lot of people. I know there’s people out there struggling, especially nowadays. I couldn’t even imagine growing up as a kid with social media. Yeah. Imagine having a picture and then a heart underneath it. And your validation hinges on how many hearts you get.

Oh my God. Fuck bro. Yeah. I thought, you know, before the love just came from what they’re thinking. Now it’s actually registered on a counter. Right.

[00:57:53] Bob Wheeler: Three likes.

[00:57:55] Eric Canori: If I had three likes, I might jump. I don’t even want to, listen, I hope somebody didn’t hear that and only got three likes and want to fucking jump.

There’s something you can do about that. If you only have three likes, maybe you just shut it down and don’t buy into their little fucking game. Yeah, just shut it down and go sweep floors. Because listen, sweeping floors, you can make a lot of fucking money if you do it right. Yeah. I know somebody that’s making, uh, 18 to 20 grand a month cleaning houses by herself.

Yeah. That’s good money. And then if she wanted to hire employees, she could scale up. So, just shut it down. Yeah. Shut it down. It’s honestly, it’s a… I’m a pretty wise dude and mentally strong, but sometimes it even fucks with my head. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:58:35] Bob Wheeler: Life is a challenge and stuff comes at us and we’re human.

That’s what makes us human. Uh, question is, can we find the whatever, the wherewithal to say, fuck it, I’m going to keep stepping forward anyway, no matter what shit comes my way. Yeah, so where can people find your book? Where can people find you on social media? I’ve actually

[00:58:55] Eric Canori: brought a book for you right here too.

I brought a couple of them here. Alright, pressure, pressure, pressure. Pressure, it’s a memoir by Eric Canore. Uh, you can find it anywhere online, Amazon, there’s the ebook and the paperback. Uh, I need to get, I need to do an audio book at some point here soon, but I haven’t had the guts to reread these words again.

Yeah. I read them so many times writing it myself and editing him and like, it’s just, so I’m going to do an audio book eventually here, but not yet. Cool. Canore.

C A N O R I. If you really like it, send me a message. I try to answer. I’m not famous or anything like that. Well, hopefully the

[00:59:34] Bob Wheeler: second book will be not as much pressure.

[00:59:37] Eric Canori: Oh, shit. The next book, the next book’s not going to be so much about me. It’s going to be about you. Like, I’m going to teach you how to win and get whatever you want in life.

Nice. With nothing.

[00:59:46] Bob Wheeler: Nice. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And where can people find you on social

[00:59:51] Eric Canori: media, social media, Instagram? I need to start being more active on there. Uh, that’s the best place to find me online. Eric Connori

[00:59:59] Bob Wheeler: on Instagram. Well, we’ll make sure we share all that in the notes, but I always like to just let it be heard in the universe.

Um, and so it has been. Um, Eric, uh, any final thoughts, um, as we wrap this up, like, as we’ve talked, and anything that just comes up that you just want

[01:00:15] Eric Canori: to put out there? Um, no, I’m really thankful to be, to be on the show. Everything that I want to put out there is in the book for right now. Yeah, like there’s a lot of threads in there that are going to help you reflect on the choices that you’re making right now Yeah, like because I don’t care who you are Like there’s something that you can relate to in there whether you’re a soccer mom a drug dealer A corporate attorney, a CEO, fortune 500 exec.

There’s something in there that you can relate to. And the, and I know so because I’ve, I’ve, I know. So Ben done, done. Thanks for having me on here. I hope you guys have a great day and, uh, thanks Bob. Yeah, thank

[01:00:56] Bob Wheeler: you. Appreciate it. Right.

[01:01:05] Eric Canori: Oh, were you supposed to say something about the gold bars?

[01:01:07] Bob Wheeler: Oh, yeah. So, well, I did say the gold bar. I’m going to, I’m going to, I did say the gold. Yeah, that got brought up. So, it’s fine. Oh, okay. Can we do something? Alright. Yeah, there’s a segment we call. Yeah, I forgot. I forgot. Um, so, we’ll just do it. And I just cut it and put it in.

Alright, we have time, right? Yes. Okay. So Eric, we are at the M and M moment, the sweet spot, the money and motivation, peace, money and motivation, M and M. Do you have a practical tip or a piece of wealth wisdom you could share with our listeners? Something that’s worked for you.

[01:01:39] Eric Canori: Uh, live beyond your live below your means that you’re going to say, live beyond, live, live below your means.

That’s something that’s really worked. for me, right? Like I don’t spend what I have. I let my money work for me while I’m sleeping. And that’s how I really was able to scale up is you have to find places to put your money that can work while you’re sleeping. Otherwise you’ll never be able to keep up and you’ll die working.

[01:02:02] Bob Wheeler: Yeah, no, I think that’s, I think that’s a great piece of advice. I know it’s, I remember when I was financially struggling and, and You know, I like, I’m, I’m smart enough, but like, I was always the exception to my own rules. Right. And so it’s, well, I can’t, it can be done even if you don’t do it, like. If even if you don’t do it all in one sitting to be to just start to like I had to go from credit card to cash and I just froze off like I literally froze my credit cards and I couldn’t take money out and oh I didn’t die like oh I didn’t go to have a meal with these people I lived right but in my mind initially probably that FOMO right I don’t want to miss out and nobody can know um but living below your means Yeah, it’s so much more enjoyable and a lot less pressure when you’re not like stretching every dollar out of your wallet

[01:02:57] Eric Canori: Yeah, you can’t you don’t need to make every party you can skip the parties and honestly Sometimes a quiet weekend at home alone is one of the best weekends ever Yeah, just to reset and really get a perspective on where you’re going and where you’ve been yeah, like you don’t want to if you really want to be a leader and in control of your life and You can’t follow everything that’s going on and you can’t say yes to every text message invite No, it’s a two letter word and you got to know how to use it And it’s a great two letter word Yeah, you don’t need to explain why either

[01:03:29] Bob Wheeler: and that’s I think an important piece because a lot of people have to oh no Well, they’re yeah, no, no

There you go. There you go.

Good. Yeah, that’s you know it It’s so hard. I work with a lot of clients. They’re like, well, I have to go to taco Tuesday with, with my friends. And I got, I was like, then have one drink. You don’t have.