BALAZS W KARDOSFULL STORY

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Dad was always working, and when he got home he was exhausted.

Just to show them “Hey dude, this is how life works”... my brother and I didn't get that growing up...

I want to be able to be here for my kids when they come along…

I wish I had more time to spend with my Dad growing up… it's a big part of why I design my life the way I do

now…

I learned a lot from my parents, both directly and indirectly….

There was no choice… they had sons to feed on minimum wage jobs.

They worked from the moment they opened their eyes till the second they fell asleep.

They did whatever it took, no matter the risks.

They are two of the hardest working people I've ever met… and I'm thankful to have learned how to “swing for

the home run” every fucking day from them…

They risked everything to bring us to Canada for the opportunity of a better life than they had with no

guarantee we would make anything of it.

They had to claw their way through every day to make 'life' work for my brother and me.

My parents took any job they could get, and that meant some pretty bad jobs... minimum wage labor,

cleaning… stuff that didn't involve interacting with people at all.

We had to start all over again.

They went to university and we were better off than the average Hungarian family... But in Canada their

degrees meant nothing, and none of us spoke English.

My parents were well educated and smart.

Chasing this “American Dream” of possibilities and opportunity that just wasn't available for most people in

Hungary...

We were scared shitless and excited all at the same time...

No money, no English, and leaving for a foreign country…

I could feel my parents uncertainty as we were packing up our lives into a couple of duffle bags...

We immigrated from Hungary to Canada when I was six years old.

FULL STORY

At the time, I felt like money was more important than me to my parents… I know how silly that is now, but I

was just a kid.

I became the class clown at school just so I could laugh with people who were laughing at me… I was craving

love and attention and I couldn't find it at home.

He was busy all of the time…

He'd fall asleep on the couch for a few hours, wake up, and do it all over again.

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I never got over how lightly my father took his word in those days.

I was 11 years old when my parents divorced.

They were working day and night trying to keep food on the table… they didn't have time for each other or

their kids... and they just kept falling further behind.

I don't know for sure what was going on, but from what I saw, the fighting was mainly about money.

Mom and Dad never saw each other... and when they did, they were fighting...

It was five years of absolute hustle, struggle, and barely surviving...

"Fuck, money. Money is the reason why I don't see my mom and dad anymore... It's causing all these fights

with debt collectors while the bills are piling up on the kitchen table… I fucking hate money."

I thought it was an evil demon who was keeping my dad away from me and my brother.

I spent many years hating money.

All the while my Dad kept making empty promises and throwing his word around to us and my Mom until she

couldn't take it anymore.

I don't take my word lightly… at all.

When I say something, I say what I mean... and then follow through on my promises… especially my promises

to my wife.

In the back of my mind I know that's what ultimately led to my Mom losing faith in my Dad… and I never want

to lose my wife.

It wasn't easy for my parents, and I don't blame them for anything...

They inspired me to become the man I am today, and I can't imagine how hard it must have been to struggle

like they did just to give me the opportunities of living in Canada…

If I'm holding myself back or I'm playing small, I always think "Balazs, you're letting mom and dad down. They

risked everything for you to have this chance. You can't let them down."

…

So just like that, my mom was a single mom… working three jobs and never taking a single day off to take care

of herself…

I knew I needed to help her.

I was still in school… playing football and failing math class… but I got a job after school hours to help Mom pay

the bills.

Cleaning up dead carcasses and scrap meat, blood and chunks of animal fat…

PART 2By grade 10 I was cleaning up a disgusting mess of bloody guts, scrap flesh, and leftover tendons and bones…

I was struggling with my digestive system every day ever since I was a kid… sometimes just a mild pain in my

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gut, sometimes an excruciating pain that would bring me to my knees… like a ditch-digger was inside my body,

clawing its way out…

I was sick, but I knew I needed to work to help my mom keep a roof over our heads and food on the table.

My parents were divorced and my mom was raising us on her own… an immigrant working three jobs at

minimum wage to keep me and my brother alive.

She had no time for herself and never took a day off… she spoke very little English but she was the hardest

worker out there…

So no matter how bad I felt in my gut, I was old enough to work, and I knew it was time for me to step up.

But I didn't know how to do anything...

I was one hell of a quarterback, but no one's going to pay a 14 year old kid to play football…

Didn't have a degree or anything like that and I was too young to do dangerous work like construction...

So I took whatever I could get.

I put my resume out all over the place and took the first job that called me back… a grocery store called

Safeway, in the meat department.

My job was to clean up after the butchers went home.

It was an interesting first job because I was cleaning up this disgusting mess of blood and guts… you can

imagine a butcher shop after everyone's done… they just throw the scraps wherever it lands... they don't even

aim for the trash can...

It was disgusting.

I would come into this mess at 4:00 PM, and by 8:00 PM it was expected to be spotlessly clean, organized, and

ready for tomorrow's savagery to begin.

I still remember my first day at the job… I was shocked!

I remember being trained by some dickhead manager guy walking me through the tasks and explaining how

long each step should take…

“Take this, hose this down, takes 20 minutes…. put the soap on... let it sit for 10 minutes, then you do this...

While that's happening, you go over here and multitask… do this other thing…” blah blah blah...

He had a routine for every minute of my four hour shift...

I remember wondering why I was being taught to work so inefficiently?

Some 14 year old kid, first day on his first job and I'm already thinking of ways to do a better, faster, more

efficient job...

The meat department was a long, narrow, cold room.

Maybe 75, 80 feet long and around 25 feet wide. All the equipment was in the middle of the room and there

was a big meat drain in the center.

(Imagine a 10 inch bath tub drain with a meat catcher inside it.)

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My manager taught me to take the hose and spray the ground from one side of the room to the other to spray

the chunks of fat, bone, scraps, blood, and all this disgusting shit towards the meat drain in the center of the

shop...

Obviously, most of the stuff goes flying right past the drain and straight to the other side of the room...

I'm watching him literally spray from one side to the other, back to the other, back to the other…

He went back and forth dozens of times until he finally had everything in the drain...

But this is the way it'd been done forever!

You can't use a broom because the fat gets brushed into the ground… so they spray it… but it was massively

inefficient.

I decided to try a new method of spraying the room down… I unraveled the hose off the wall and used it to

create a barricade on the ground, then put a weight on it right where the drain was.

Then I just sprayed the scrap meats against the hose from one side toward the drain… all of the meat slid

along the hose and into the drain in around 30 seconds…

It was hilarious.

One small adjustment saved me more than 25 minutes from my tasks alone.

After two or three weeks of working there, I had got down my four hours of scheduled time to two hours.

Just as good, just as clean, no shortcuts that actually hurt the end result… just twice as efficient.

It was the first time I said “Screw you” to authority and took my job and life into my own hands to make it

better...

(50% better if you go by time and work invested to get the same or better outcome.)

Sure, it's a small feat… but to me? Then? I was ecstatic.

It gave me permission to believe in myself and make the world a better place… one small win at a time.

Now I had 2 free hours on my hands to give twice the value to the shop in the same amount of time I was

hired to do one job.

And I had the availability to interact with customers...

They would ask me questions about where to find things or if we had certain products... and I loved the

interaction with other people.

I loved getting to meet new people and help them solve their problems, no matter how small those problems

were...

It was an amazing feeling of helping another person in a small way. But when I did it many times within a two hour window, it filled me up. I felt good about helping these

customers much more than all the dumb stuff that I was doing in the back.

I was getting satisfaction from the human interaction I didn't get a lot of as a kid.

So I decided to pursue jobs involving more people. I didn't want to spend half of my shift in the back of a meat

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section cleaning up a bloody mess (literally) any longer.

So I left the blood and meat in pursuit of greener pastures…

Greener pastures ended up meaning a bunch of odd jobs until my working life came full circle… (and my hand

became the blood and meat all over a shop)…

PART 3The day I chopped my hand into pieces...

After cleaning up dead animal parts in the butcher shop in grade 10… I went to work a bunch of odd jobs.

I needed to help support my household, along with my Hungarian single mother who was working 3 full time

jobs to keep us afloat and barely spoke any English…

In grade 12 I got a job through a temp agency where you basically leave your resume with them and they

contact you and say, "Oh there's this temporary job. They need extra help for a week, two weeks, a month.”... it

varies.

The pay was a little bit better than minimum wage, usually around 15 bucks an hour instead of eight or nine

bucks, but there was no stability.

I never knew if I had a job coming up or what I would be doing next...

And all of the temp jobs were really, really shitty jobs...

We were basically sent out to do the stuff nobody else wanted to do.

One month I was shipped out to work in a sawmill. We were all working 10-hour shifts, four days a week.

We started at 4:00 in the afternoon and finished work at 2:00 AM… which was difficult for me because I was

still in high school... but I made it work.

It was a pretty dangerous job...

There were four or five of us on a crew and each person had their own station…

Every person there, besides me, got paid based on what they produced, not based on the hours they worked…

so it was a very high paced environment where all these guys wanted to do was produce, produce, produce.

Everybody on my crew was earning $40, $50, $60 per hour based on how much we could produce in a day, and

I was only earning $13 because I was a temp worker.

It was basically commission based labor with dangerous tools and uneducated men and women… it was a

recipe for disaster…

I've always been into sports, especially football, so it didn't take me long to get into the groove of competitive

teamwork… it was us against the clock in a physically demanding environment and I loved every second of it at

the time.

I started getting good at this stuff within a couple weeks.

We had fun. We would set goals on how much we're trying to produce before the end of the day.

We were a real team.

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It was all saws… loud machinery… wood… and sawdust everywhere…

We were cutting wood to certain lengths and shapes then stacking it onto pallets for delivery… strapped her in

and forklifted it out of the way...

We were basically counting how many bundles of wood we could produce during one shift and then that

would determine how much everyone got paid... except me...

No matter how much we produced, I got a flat rate.

After a month I asked my foreman,

"Hey listen, what are the possible chances that I could earn my way onto the crew permanently to earn this

type of money? I'm making 13 bucks an hour doing the same hard, fast, physical work these guys are doing...

and they're making four or five times more than I am."

I liked the job and didn't want to leave.

I just wanted to be paid my fair share.

He told me I had to work out my 90 days from the temp agency at my current wage and then we could talk

about it…

I thought “Cool, I'll just work 60 more days and I'll get paid like the rest of the crew.”

Fair enough.

I kept on working away and I liked the job, so I didn't mind the $13 an hour for now… but I never did get that

raise or become part of the crew…

There are 2 shifts at the sawmill… the morning crew and the evening crew.

One of the morning crew members needed to leave a little early one day, and I wasn't told he didn't have time

to change the saw blade on my station like the morning crew is supposed to for safety reasons.

The saw blade was about 3 feet off of the ground and probably span at 100,000 RPM… this thing was a beast!

My first task of the day was to take all the scrap wood that was too long to fit into our sawdust machine…

I would take these long pieces of wood, cut them into reasonable sizes and throw them into a bin...

But I didn't know I was working with a dull blade on the saw…

I pulled the trigger and went to cut my first piece of wood for the day... halfway through the cut the saw

started kicking back and the wood shot upward on each side like a giant “V” shape...

“What the hell is going on here?”

I didn't know what to do, so I clicked the emergency shut down button and the blades started to slow down…

but it was too late… the blade sucked the wood into it and my right hand with it…

It ground off the top of my right index finger, middle finger and thumbnail before the blade finally stopped

spinning...

The tip of my index finger is still gone today… (luckily my thumb is completely normal again).

That moment changed my life forever...

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I went into hiding for months. I barely saw any of my friends anymore… I was embarrassed. At only 16 years

old I was already missing part of my hand… I felt ugly and ashamed.

I ordered my food and noticed the managers of the restaurant were looking at our table and whispering to

each other…

I was happy to see my friends, but I was shaking in my boots being out in public again.

I tried to be the life of the party at the table, but it was all a lie… I was scared someone was going to notice my

hand when it happened…

I was shy and uncomfortable, but I put on a show anyways… just like I always did.

I didn't want to, but my friends came to my home and dragged me out to my favorite restaurant in

Vancouver… “Cactus Club” on the beach.

It took me almost an entire year to crawl out of my hole and socialize again…

It's amazing what the mind can do it to mess with you…

It was all in my head, but I felt so ugly I refused to go out in public.

I felt disgusting...

I felt like a monster… there was no way I'd ever do construction again, but I had no other skills… what the hell

was I supposed to do to help Mom now?

I was 16 years old and I just hacked off part of my hand with a saw because I was trying to earn extra cash to

help my mom with the bills…

I didn't want to see anyone, I didn't want to get out of bed or go do the things I loved anymore…

But I didn't want to do anything.

Not crying myself to sleep every night depressed…

I was depressed.

PART 4

I thought everybody was looking at my hand and the kids would yell to mom and Dad, "Oh my God, there's a

monster, and what's wrong with him?"

I wasn't thinking anything at all when it happened because I was in a LOT of pain…

But after all was said and done, my finger gone but healed, I decided "I'm never fucking doing any physical

labor work ever again.

Not touching a power tool. I ain't doing construction. I ain't doing anything my dad ever did. I'm fucking done."

I probably would have been working at the mill for $50, $60 an hour for who knows how many years, if not still

to this day! I don't know.

But now I was deformed… I was a freak.

I hated going out in public…

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But I was 19, ripped my finger off in a saw and was officially terrified of power tools and construction… I

needed a way to help my single mother keep a roof over our heads.

I never thought I'd be serving tables in my life…

I was hustling full time as a server at Cactus Club on the beach…

PART 5

Maybe a little too competitive…

And just like anything I've ever done, I got competitive…

And just like that, I went from unemployed and scared to leave my house to serving at a very busy restaurant…

Had they not offered it to me, I would have never applied for the job.

I never thought I'd work in a restaurant...

So I took the job.

The front of the house was literally all girls... and they were all smoking hot... there was maybe one other guy

that worked there who wasn't in the kitchen.

And they're like, "No, no, we want you to serve or bartend in front of the house."

But I'm not a chef... I don't want to work in the kitchen... And there is NO WAY I'm going near any knives or

deep fryers or anything dangerous.

They wanted ME. The Balazs on the inside.

I didn't realize yet that no one really cares about a damn finger...

All this time, they were talking about how I had a great personality… they didn't even see my hand yet!

But I was the center of attention and the managers noticed it.

I was just being funny and doing my thing like I always did…

It turns out I was actually the life of the party with my friends… I was outgoing. I was making jokes. I had a

couple of drinks so I had that liquid courage in me…

In my head, I was like, "Are you kidding me? Like work? At Cactus Club? This is my favorite spot!"

The lady said to me “We noticed how much fun you're having here, maybe would you consider working here?"

I had no idea what they wanted… were they just going to mock my hand? Did I do something wrong?

“Yeah... sure."

We finished our food and started to head home when the managers stopped me at the door and said: “Hey,

can we talk to you for a minute?”

I was so convinced they were making fun of my hand I started hyperventilating quietly to myself at the table…

I thought "Oh my God, they're talking about my finger. They noticed. They're making fun of me… This is

messed up. It's my first time in public and it's happening already, I should have just stayed home.”...

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So I asked, "How can I influence my tables to get something that they weren't planning to buy?"

They'd sit down and be like, "Oh yeah, I want to get the chicken caesar salad." And the other guy is like, "I want

to get the burger."

I didn't even know the power behind 'influence' at the time. I was just a kid! But I was accidentally training

myself on the power of sales and leveraging people's emotions to create actions...

It's the luck of the draw at that point! You have no idea if they want a salad or burger… I needed these people

ordering $30 - $40 - $50 dishes and a bottle of wine to wash it down.

I quickly realized if I just let my customers order what they wanted to eat, I was just an order taker... I would

never win...

The winner would win a steak dinner or a bottle of wine or whatever… I didn't care about the prize, I cared

about the victory.

I really made myself at home when Cactus Club announced they were going to hold competitions for who can

sell the most Entre dishes every Friday and Saturday night.

Ever since playing football as a kid, I loved to compete… and more than that, I loved to win.

I did it all.

From reorganizing stations to selling more food… creating more regular and loyal customers and racking up

the highest tips…

I always wanted to find ways to do my job (and everyone else's job) more efficiently.

Just like every job before this one, I got competitive…

At first, I was going to say, "Okay, great.”

And maybe something along the lines of “Would you like something to drink?"

But if I did that, I'd lose the competition… and if you haven't noticed yet, I hate losing more than I love

winning… and I really love winning.

I gotta win this damn contest.

So I looked at the table and said, "Really bro? You came to Cactus Club to get a burger?"

Over and over again my tables looked at me like they'd never heard a server say something like that before...

(To be fair, they probably hadn't)...

I'd continue "If you're going to come here, you've got to get the Jack Daniels ribs with mashed potatoes and

garlic prawns. That's the meal you need to get tonight."

The guy just looks at me with drool coming from his mouth in anticipation for his new meal and go, "Yeah,

yeah, okay, yeah, I'll do that."

Once I sold the guy on what he needed to order I'd return to the wife and say “If your man is getting the ribs,

you HAVE to get the Salmon. The salmon is to die for this season."

The more I tried it the more comfortable I was just changing people's dinners for them… they'd sit down

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expecting a $15 burger and leave with a $45 rack of ribs…

I got good at describing dishes in a way you'd be stupid to go for the burger and the salad...

If they wanted a burger, I sold them the ribs or a steak.

If they wanted a glass of wine, they bought a bottle instead.

It was the full experience.

My average table went from $50 to $150 bucks within a few days.

I'd say 80 - 85 % of my tables were taking the upsell. It was incredible!

I was giving these tables the night of their lives!

People would compliment me and say, "You know what? We came here for an average night on the town and

you've made it an experience.”

They got a good experience and tried something they never would have ordered without my influence... and I

won the competition.

Plus, since they were happy with the experience, I got great tips...

Win - Win.

I never thought of myself as a salesperson, not even then. I thought I was a kick ass waiter!

Growing up, I believed salespeople were evil… like right up there with criminals.

I watched my parents scream at salespeople on the phone or slam the door in their faces if they came

knocking…

I thought it was the salesman's fault… but in reality, they were just reacting to not having the cash to afford

whatever they were being sold…

...And here I am... kicking ass at sales for this restaurant.

I kept winning… every single shift for months.

Nobody ever came close to out-selling me on entrees.

I remember one evening before my shift started, we had a pre-shift meeting in the back with all of the front of

house staff when my manager said:

“Balazs, you have to let somebody else win tonight.”

I was like, "Excuse me?!"

I was so rattled, I wanted to punch this dude in the face!

“I have to LET someone else win? If someone wants to win he or she can beat me. I'm not going to bow down

and let someone else win. That's not how this works."

They were having none of it.

They took me aside privately and told me if I didn't let someone else win “It wasn't going to work out”.

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I knew the managers and staff didn't really like me anymore. I was beating them left right and center all day

long, but I didn't care.

I was winning! And winning put a target on my back.

And now my competition was over for no good reason...

So I quit.

There are plenty of restaurants just like Cactus I could work in… and I did.

I got fired from 12 jobs within a few years... all for different reasons, but mostly for being entrepreneurial...

trying to suggest how operations could improve.

The same sort of thing kept happening over and over again… 12 times!

Sure, I could have tried to “tame” myself… but I wasn't going to bend over and become what some manager at

a restaurant tells me to become.

I'm me.

It was an interesting few years...

My father would come to visit me while I was working… he'd have a few beers and we'd chat.

It was nice for me because my father always worked when I was young. It was one of few times we could have

some sort of quality time and I loved seeing him.

He had been quietly battling cancer for about a year but he always made it seem like it was no big deal.

It was September 2007… I had no direction in my life, I didn't know what was next… I didn't have any skills

(besides bartending).

My future was just a bunch of questions marks…

And then it happened… my Dad died.

We never expected anything like this, and we never could have guessed how fast he would go…

I was completely crushed…

I went through the whole experience… denial… shame… guilt…

I was an emotional wreck.

I took time off from work so I could get high and drunk all night then sleep all day…

Life was just 'whatever' after my dad passed away…

I was just a kid… I never got to make him proud of me… I'm sure he was proud, but I was just a bartender who

always got fired from my jobs…

I never had the chance to hear him say the fucking words…

Of course, I'd never change anything… but if I could see him today just for a minute, it'd mean the world to

me… for him to know the man I've become…

For months I was just stuck in dark depression…

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I had no idea what the hell I was going to do… but I was hungry for change.

No idea where to find it, but I was finally looking...

They say “When the student is ready to learn, the teachers will come.”

I was finally ready to learn something new… to start thinking and behaving differently.

I started taking risks and remembering who I wanted to be back in high school before life beat me down…

I didn't know where to start, but I was going to find a path or create my own…

PART 6My gut has always been my worst enemy since I was a little boy…

No one knows exactly what's wrong with it, not even the doctors, but I was never able to fully digest food

properly, and I was always in pain…

Sometimes it was just a little stomach ache… other times I was bent over in excruciating pain, unable to cope

or deal with anything…

It was hard for me because I was always working… but I had no way to deal with the pain in my gut.

It was literally my kryptonite.

How much of my Dad's potential died with him? He was only 54… we all thought he had nearly half his life left

to bring his potential into fruition… he did too.

And what was I doing any different?

I had no goals… no direction… no mentors…

I didn't even know what a mentor was!

I was living the same kind of life… I had no idea what I was doing and I wasn't even trying to do anything

really…

I was scared.

I'm going to die one day…

I want to leave something more than “Bartender and funny guy” on my gravestone when I die… I want to leave

a legacy for my kids…

But how the hell do you even start becoming 'successful'? What does it even mean?

I had no degree… no experience… nothing!

I was Balazs, the talkative bartender.

THAT was my identity… a far cry from 'successful'.

My Dad gave me the gift of knowing I don't wanna go out that way… I mean no disrespect to my dad, he did

the best he could do with what he had… and he gave me a better shot at life…

I can't disrespect him by living the life he gave me in a first world country as a bartender forever…

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My mother and I went to the doctors so many times we lost count...

We had all kinds of tests done, tried every diet known to man, supplements, you name it.

Every single thing that could be recommended to us over the course of a decade, we tried it all and nothing

worked.

I even had my gallbladder removed when I was still in high school. Three different specialists told me that's the

solution because I apparently had a condition called 'gall sludge'. It's kind of like gallstones except it's a lot of

little tiny sand particles as opposed to a big stone.

Each time one of these little particles would try to go through the bile duct and it would get stuck, and that's

what would cause inflammation, pain, and a build up inside my body until eventually, it passed.

Then they took out my gallbladder…

And nothing happened.

My symptoms came back worse only six months later… I was thinking “Great! I'm missing part of my body, and

my stomach is still messed up.”…

We trusted the medical system to know what the hell they were talking about… it turns out they were just

making a wild guess and decided it was cool to cut out a body part from a 17 year old kid…

My Mom was pissed… she started reading a bunch of books, finding out the top doctors, nutritionists and

natural cure based medicine.

Basically, everyone who was in the preventative health space...

One big resounding thing she noticed from just about all of them is the importance of water, and how not all

water is created equal depending on where it's from and how it's created.

It's all a clear liquid, but it's different.

No doctors had ever told us during that 10 years of trial and error trying to figure out what was wrong with me.

Not one doctor ever brought up the importance of water and that was really strange because we're mostly

made of water… like 70, 75% water... so why the fuck won't the doctor, who's going to school forever, have that

knowledge to bring that up to our attention?

We had been focusing on the 30% for the past 10+ years, but never considered the 70%.

So she started researching water specifically, and ironically she found a website (more than one website

actually) that was bashing Enagic and Kangen water.

“It's snake oil! Kangen water it's a scam! There's no proven real science!”...

You name it.

All the negative things you could say about a company, these websites were saying it… but at the bottom of

each site bashing Kangen, they were peddling another product!

Luckily for me, my mom was smart enough to think, "Well, this other brand has another company's brand on

their website directly comparing their products to it. And you only compare yourself to the best. You're not

going to compare yourself to the worst or some average shitty product."

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My mom saw through it... she started researching Enagic specifically. Turned out it was a product from Japan

that was initially used as a medical device for hospitals.

The company started in 1974, had a crazy track record and all the certifications you would really need to feel

comfortable investing the money into a product… but there was a big problem…

We were flat broke.

Even though we believed in giving it a try, we were spending money from next month's paycheck this month…

But the company has a philosophy to give the water away for free whenever possible.

If you go to their corporate offices all over the world, you can walk in, bring your jugs and fill up the water from

the machines they have on display, and take it home… even if you've never spent a dime on their company.

And the reason they do it is because they know the water will work… they know the water will start having

improvements in your body and your health and then you're going to buy the machine.

If it wasn't for that, I don't know what would have happened. We couldn't get it any other way at the time.

My mom found someone in my city who had a machine and lived kind of close to us.

We phoned him up, told him the situation. He said, look, "I'm not a doctor. I can't diagnose you. I can't promise

you anything, but you're welcome to come by my house and pick up free water to give it a shot."

We were shocked by how compassionate of a person this guy was.

I was very skeptical.

I told my mom, "Mom, it's water. It's bullshit. I've tried everything else, how the hell is water going to work?"

I was really giving her a tough time… but my mom is a tough Hungarian immigrant so she basically told me,

"Shut the fuck up, I'm your mom. We're going to try this. That's it. End of discussion. Drink the damn water."

I replied, "Okay, well good chat," and drank the water…

Not as much as I should have… I drank about a liter and a half when I should have been drinking around four

liters per day.

Even though I was drinking less than half of what I should have, within two weeks my symptoms suddenly

vanished...

A decade of my problems all of a sudden felt like they never existed!

It's hard to put it into words without it sounding like it's made up because I'm not making this up.

It was literally like it was gone.

I remember one day my mom walked into my room and asked me, "How are you feeling?"

"Good!" I replied...

I stopped and took a moment and I was like, "Wait, what? I'm good?"

I've never said I was 'good' for as long as I could remember because I was never good... my mom's eyes lit up…

I don't have any pain. I'm going to the bathroom like a normal person. Everything's cool. It's normal. There's no

16

buildup, no gas, no nothing. It's like everything's operating as it should…

My mom couldn't believe it! 10 fucking years of searching all over the place for any way to fix my gut… and my

mom did it with water of all things… I'm sure she was happy to say “I told you so!”...

Enagics marketing plan had worked… the water fixed me and now my mom was on a mission to get our own

Kangen water system.

Within a week she found a company willing to finance the machine for us for $100 a month. We were able to

pinch pennies and make it happen.

I had been such a mess since my Dad passed away, but now that my gut was feeling better, at least I had

something to be happy about…

So I got off my lazy ass and put myself back to work where I met a DJ who invited me to a penthouse party to

pick up chicks…

I'd never been inside a penthouse before!

My parents were divorced and I was always working to help my mom pay the bills… I never really did “fun”

stuff.

I said yes… I've never even stepped foot inside a penthouse before. This was going to be awesome!

I'd finally get to look at 'rich people'... they felt like a treasured zoo animal to me at the time…

Plus, hot rich girls? I'm there. (Not anymore Margaret come on! You know I'm only yours ;) )

It was Christmas, 2007. I was around 21 years old.

I was allowed to bring one friend with me so I brought my buddy, Aaron.

When we pulled up to the building there was a guy dressed up to the tee in a custom fitted suit with a guest

list at the front door… inside was a beautiful foyer and lounge area… it was like something out of a James Bond

movie…

Marble decorations, beautiful chandelier, just gorgeous luxury everything… and I wasn't even in the penthouse

yet! This was just the front lobby.

“How the hell was I invited to THIS place?”

All of a sudden something inside of me shifted…

I didn't care about hooking up with a girl tonight… I wanted to meet some of these people and see how they

created enough wealth to manage THIS!

I was inspired for the first time to become successful… I'd love to live in a place this gorgeous one day… and I

had a feeling someone at this party was just the person to help me start.

We stepped into the penthouse to see girls everywhere… this guy definitely had connections somewhere…

Aaron was immediately in bliss and he disappeared to go find a lady to chat with…

But I noticed a group of guys in the corner drinking whiskey or scotch on the rocks…

They were wearing jeans and collared shirts with blazers and nice expensive designer shoes...

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They were dressed like I was, but my clothes were from Winners…

So I said screw it… let's go talk to these guys and see what's up.

I walked up and said something like "Hey, what's going on? My name is Balazs, what do you do?"

These guys all had real titles… Stockbroker…. Physiotherapist… Marketing Director…

Everyone was earning 6 figures minimum, and I was… a waiter…

Fuck yes, I'm in the right place. I just need to hang out with these guys and make a good first impression, make

a friend.

I had never read the book “How to win friends and influence people”, but I was already doing it.

I didn't know why I wanted to know these guys, but something told me to go talk to them and befriend

someone.

I became friends with a guy who ran an investor relations company.

We chatted and hung out a few times and one night we got to talking about work, and how I didn't want to be

a bartender any longer.

I didn't ask him for a job, but he turned and said to me...

"You have no experience. You didn't go to school. You've never traded any stocks. You don't understand the

stock market. You don't know shit about what I do.

However, I like you and you seem sharp, you seem like you're a quick learner. You seem like you're super

motivated and driven, and you want to get someplace in life... so I'll give you a shot, and I'll mentor you...

But there's a catch…

I'm not going to pay you anything.

You have to show up every day and act like you're getting paid... if you do a great job, we'll take you in as part

of the firm.”

The hours are 7 AM to 2:30 PM… my bartending hours were 4:30 PM to around midnight at the restaurant…

sometimes 2 AM…

But I couldn't lose this chance.

I took the job and accepted my fate… I will not sleep for the next few months until I figure this thing out and

become part of the firm.

The industry is technical and analytical… It wasn't really my thing...

But I was in investor relations so I did a lot of talking on the phone, setting up meetings, and trying to close big

packages with other investors.

For four months I worked for free every day to learn the ins and outs of the business, and I did it.

I was getting good at it and I liked my work.

After four months passed, they took me into the office and said they wanted to bring me on with a $3,500 per

month salary plus a commission if I close investor relations packages….

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I was RICH!

At the time, $3,500 felt like $30,000 to me. I had never made any money like that before… plus I had the chance

to earn commissions…

By the end of the first month, I had sold enough packages and brought home about $10,000.

I was so happy. Everything was going great.

I was earning around ten grand every month for four more months, so I took my family on a trip to Hungary in

the summer of 2008 for three weeks.

I told my mom, "I'm taking us. I'm going to cover the trip. I'm making good money now and I want to pay you

back for all the hard work you've done."

We had it all planned.

We went to Hungary as a family and I was finally man enough to pay for it all!

It meant the world to me to see my mother proud of me and watch her visit home and family for the first time

in years…

I didn't watch TV, I didn't look at my computer… I didn't check the markets.

It was family time and only family time.

Little did I know my entire career was collapsing with the 2008 stock market crash…

I didn't even know it was happening until I got back from vacation and into the virtually empty office to find all

of my coworkers had already been fired…

PART 7“We had to let everybody go. Everyone's fired.

The only reason you're not fired yet is because you weren't in the office, so we had no way to fire you.”

That's what my boss told me when I entered my office the first Monday after taking my family on vacation to

Hungary…

The stock market had everyone freaking out in 2008.

Everyone was sitting on their capital, scared to make any moves… that's not a good market to sell investor

relations packages...

By luck of the draw, I was on vacation when everyone was fired, so I got one “lucky” chance to stay alive if I

could handle the heat.

The company I worked for was called Vantage.

They couldn't dip into any of their money to pay salaries during the crash because nobody was buying

anything from anyone at the time.

My boss gave me a choice...

I can stay on with no salary and work purely for commissions BUT I needed to earn at least $40,000 in closed

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I knew it was possible for me out there… but I didn't know how to start or where to go… so I went back to

serving tables and living the poor man's life for a while.

business each month for them to have a reason not to fire me…

It wasn't ideal, and I was scared… I didn't know if I was capable of closing 40 grand in business while the

market is going to shit…

But for the first time in my life, I was finally making good money!

I finally had the time and the funds to take my mom on vacation for the first time ever… I finally started tasting

“success”... I can't lose it after only four months...

So I was ready to try and save us...

I was calling, and calling, and calling.

I got cussed out daily from all these people in investor relations and all these stock market companies.

They would literally ... like "Hey, it's Balazs calling from Vantage. I want to set up a meeting to help you guys out

during this tough time in the markets. You know, we've got these really cool special is going on right now..."

They'd respond "Are you fucking kidding me? Have you lost your fucking mind? How dare you call us right now?

Do you even know what's happening you fucking idiot?"

*SLAMS OLD PHONE DOWN*

…everyone was drooling, spitting in anger and just cussing me out.

Back to back calls like this, over and over again every day for a month...

It was nearly impossible to make that $40k…

The only way I got it was by offering some guy two years of ALL of our top services… email blasts, banner ads,

promoting all the gold mines they had… whatever this guy wanted, I gave it to him for two whole years.

I got shut down and cussed out so many times over the month and this guy was the only person who was

ready to close… he closed for $40,000 exactly and my job was “saved”.

Until I told my boss excitedly that I did it and he demanded $55k the next month or they had to let me go…

I said screw that. I was losing sleep and hair over this job...

There was no way I'd try and do that again... no matter how much I wanted the money, it wasn't worth it.

Funny enough, I never worked in the financial space again… but I finally tasted success…

My time in investor relations was far from a waste of time… I realized I AM capable of making real money… I

knew I could achieve more.

I was surrounded with business owners and marketing agencies from my work…

I knew how to sell and somehow, I actually LIKED IT.

I realized… people… connections... networking and relationships can take you places.

Because the only thing that took me from a poor bartender to earning $10k per month was ONE connection I

met at a party.

20

I was basically broke again, and just like before, I kept getting fired from every serving job I took…

(I just can't keep my opinions to myself lol…)

It was during this time I met the woman of my dreams…

She was everything in a person I wanted to spend my life with…

I wanted to impress her so badly... I knew she liked me, and I knew I loved her… but I was FLAT broke…

I remember dates where I would have to pretend to forget my fucking wallet at home so she could front the

bill… it was bad.

And with a smile on her face she always just said, "It's all good. I got it. No big deal."

I felt like such a bitch… like I had no balls! I can't even take my girlfriend to a $50 date? This is embarrassing...

I remember it very clearly…

It was New Year's Eve when she came over to watch the clock countdown on the New York Times TV channel

together with a $10 bottle of fake champagne in my tiny little 15 x 10 foot bedroom…

I remember this overwhelming feeling... a combination of inspiration for a new year and shame for all of the

years leading up to this…

I knew the man I was capable of becoming… and I knew how much more this amazing woman deserved than

what I was giving her…

Just before midnight counted down, I took her by the hand and looked straight into her eyes and told her

"Listen, Margaret… this is the last year. Right now... this year's coming to an end in 10 seconds. This is the last

year I'm ever going to be this broke. I'm going to make this shit happen, and I'm going to provide us with an

amazing life.”

There was no chance in hell I was going to survive working in restaurants anymore… and I sure as hell couldn't

provide her the life she deserves with a bartenders wage and lifestyle…

I knew sales is where the real money is...

So I decided to take on a sales job at Telus.

I thought I was going to be sitting in a comfy office taking sales calls, just like I did with the investor relations

job…

But I was tricked… it was a door to door sales position.

My first day on the job I was trained by this awesome little Chinese lady who could barely speak a word of

English!

I came in expecting to learn for an 8 hour shift, but this little hustler cleaned up $300 2 hours and sent me

home early...

21

PART 8I was working door to door sales being trained by this awesome little Chinese lady who could barely speak any

English.

I was watching her earn around $150 per hour consistently every day…

She set a daily goal of $300 each day and then go home to hang out with her family.

$300 was more than enough for her, so she'd typically work for only 2 hours per day.

The package we were selling was too easy...

I was working for Telus, an internet and TV company in Canada.

Our package included a free HDTV or Laptop, better internet and TV services, plus the package saved people

anywhere from $30 to $100 per month if they were using our competitors, PLUS… the company would buy out

the rest of their contract as long as they switched to our package.

The thing basically sold itself…

As long as the house was using our competitors, we closed them at around 90% conversion.

I was 24 years old at the time and still living at home with my mom to help her with the bills but it was time to

get out of the house.

I just lost my car... 'cause I have a need for speed and I kept getting speeding tickets… so I needed to be close

to work or public transit.

I wrote out everything I wanted in my new condo and within 2 weeks I found the perfect place directly across

the street from my work with every single thing I wrote down.

It was perfect…

I moved out of my house to the condo right across the street from my new job with $600 in my pocket.

Every Saturday, Telus had a special workday called an “Opportunity Meeting”... it was an optional meeting you

can attend if you want to, but no one expects you to… however, if you attend the meeting, you can work that

day, but if you don't you're not allowed to sell on the weekends.

I was basically broke, so of course, I attended the meeting and was excited to go make some money on a

Saturday.

When I walked into the meeting, my manager there was drawing on the whiteboard what was possible when

you got started as an entry level associate...

How many products you would have to sell per day to earn X per week.

And then once you did that consistently and you proved yourself, you can become a manager.

As a manager, you train new people in the field and you get an override off of their sales as well as your own

sales… kind of like Network Marketing.

There were many positions on the ladder to climb... associate, manager, sales manager, and then director of

an actual office.

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As an office director, you could make $250,000 or more per year!

I was practically drooling...

The most I had ever made was like $30 - $40,000 in my four months working in investor relations…

"No fucking way. I can make $250,000 per year training people how to sell this irresistible offer? The thing

sells itself!"

I don't have to do physical labor. I don't need a degree. I don't need college. I don't need all this shit that I

always thought that I needed to make that kind of money… it was done.

I decided that day I was going to become an office director.

There were about 15 people in the room... I looked at each one of them for a minute and I just asked myself,

"Is that person going to be office director, or am I going to be office director?"

The answer for each and every one of them in my head was “Nope”.

I was going to do it… it wasn't a competition, but I was gonna win anyway. ;)

I knew it in my bones. I was so confident I even told my mom! (I was so scared she was going to slap me

when I told her I was going to make $250,000 per year soon, but she believed me and supported it).

Once I told my mom, I had no choice. I wasn't going to be like my father… I stick to my word.

So I did it.

It took me 3 years of hard work, but I became the director of my very own office.

I was making great money for the first time in my life! $250k / year or more… and then I realized it…

Money doesn't make me happy.

At least not money alone…

I wasn't fulfilled. I was just teaching people to sell TV and internet packages every day of every week…

It was all the same thing…

30 minute sales training in front of the room…

Every Monday was the intro.

Every Tuesday was the body of the presentation.

Every Wednesday was closing.

Thursday was objections.

Friday was goal setting.

And every Saturday was the opportunity.

I was working 6 days per week and I had no freedom…

Don't get me wrong, I was proud of what I accomplished and I was loving having extra cash to enjoy my

Sundays, but I wasn't fulfilled.

23

I wanted time… freedom… impact… leverage… I wanted to feel like what I was doing with my life was worth

more.

I wanted something I could start quickly and easily without laying down hundreds of thousands of dollars to

start a business, and with minimal risk… it was a lot to ask for, but I knew I'd find it somewhere.

I wanted a “launching pad” to create passive income before I started my own company.

So I looked into network marketing.

My parents had tried network marketing in the past, never with any success, but it was something in the

back of my head nearly my whole life.

I knew it was there, I saw it work for some people… just not for my parents.

I read seven books on network marketing before I decided on any company to start with.

I became obsessed with different models and systems.

I studied compensation plans...

What are the good ones? What are the bad ones? What are the pros and cons? What are the benefits and

drawbacks? Why is there such negativity around network marketing?

I wanted to understand everything… and in the end, I realized it was a win-win for everybody involved if it's

done right, for the right company… and I loved the concept.

Initially, I started working with two different companies and did relatively well.

My door to door sales experiences transferred over into direct sales in network marketing.

I did two companies for six months each.

One of them was a 90-day health challenge and health shakes, supplements and vitamins.

The only reason I really joined that company was because they had a black BMW as one of their awards

when you hit a certain rank… and it was the exact same model and color as the BMW I had on my vision

board at home.

I wanted the BMW so bad, I made the rank in my first month… I was good at selling, and I already had a big

network of people who trust me and I trust back… so it only took me 30 days to get my beamer.

But the problem was, I was selling a 90-day challenge with supplements for only 90 days… which means

after the 90 days were up, I had to rebuild the whole business.

If I'm going to be in network marketing, I don't want to have to rebuild my entire downline every 90 days…

that's kind of against everything to do with passive income, so I had to find something else to do.

At the same time, one of my friends told me about this PH balanced healthy coffee he was selling in another

network marketing company.

I thought “Hey, everyone is addicted to coffee, why not help them at least have healthy coffee every

morning?”

I freaking love coffee, and this stuff tastes great, too.

24

“Then why the fuck are we talking about the coffee? That water is amazing!"

I had already been a happy customer of the Kangen water system for over five years, but I never thought of

selling the system…

They're expensive to buy and for some reason, I thought no one would afford it… I thought it was just too

much for people… even though my Mom already got it for me when we were totally broke…

To top it off, once I hit a certain level in the company, they would fund me a Mercedes…

This time I got my car in 17 days and I just took the cash equivalent to pay for my BMW. (Sorry Merc fans).

I was going door to door selling my coffee when a co-worker at the office asked if she could take a sample to

her husband at home because he loved coffee.

He liked it so much he set a meeting to meet up at Starbucks, ironically…

It turned out he wasn't interested in joining my downline at all, he just wanted to try and sell me into his

MLM…

His pitch was awful and I didn't even know what he was trying to sell me, so I got pissed off and just left him

there at the coffee shop.

A couple of weeks later he called me apologizing for how he acted and said he wanted to make it up to me

over a beer… I reluctantly accepted his offer and we met up at Cactus Club near the beach where I used to

work when I was a kid…

He was genuinely interested in joining my coffee business this time.

I was in the middle of building a website to showcase the company, my team training and our downline...

While we were chatting over a few beers I was showing him the site… everything looked all flashy and cool…

whatever… it didn't matter, because I was about to leave the company anyway... Remember the Kangen water I told you about earlier in my story that finally treated the gut problems I had

suffered with since a kid?

Well, I was such a believer in the product I had a complimentary link to their website for anyone who visited

my site to go check out the health benefits of Kangen water…

It was only there as part of my journey…

I wasn't an affiliate and I didn't expect to make any money from them. I just believed in the water and I

wanted to help spread the good gospel of Kangen water.

He stopped me while I was scrolling through my new website and asked “Wait… you have Kangen water?”

“Yeah?...” I replied.

“Are you a distributor?”

I wasn't technically, but my Mom was. Kangen also sells their product in a network marketing style… but I

never thought about selling it before...

25

I had this weird limiting belief that no one else could afford it, until now…

This guy was so excited about Kangen water just by seeing on my damn site! I wasn't even promoting it at all.

My mom was trying to sell the system for years, but I never thought of joining her company.

A few days later I had my little brother over for a barbeque and he had a few too many beers and got slurry…

nothing wrong with brothers having a good time… but he got angry at me!

Then he smacked me with some harsh truth…

“Balazs, what the fuck are you doing? You're being an asshole…”

I was like “Dude, what did I do to you? Relax…”

He said, “You're already successful with your door to door office and now you've been in network marketing

for a whole year… what the hell are you doing with this stupid coffee? You should be selling the water that

changed your life with Mom.”

I already had 600 - 700 people in my coffee downline, but I quit that day.

My partner, Mike, was so confused when I called him… we were building serious momentum and already

earning a few grand per month when I dropped it.

He was upset for a while before he joined me with Enagic to sell Kangen Water too...

At the time I was still working at the office for Telus selling internet and phone packages door to door.

I became obsessed with selling Kangen water… I loved the product, I loved the company and the water fixed

the digestive problems I'd been fighting my entire life…

So needless to say, I was passionate.

But I was doing all of these meetings with people selling them on the dream…

The free time, the money, the lifestyle… all the while I was still going to my 9-5 to make ends meet…

It felt disingenuous and I knew I needed to change something…

I put all of my spare time after work into building my Enagic business to at least $10,000 per month… I was

earning $20,000 per month with my door-to-door business, so I needed a certain level of income to replace

it… my goal was $10,000.

It took me 7 months of busting my ass 18 - 20 hours per day to finally hit the $10,000/month mark and quit

my day job.

It was crazy… I trained up some industry leaders and started earning an extra $2,000… $3,000… $5,000 per

month... and I had nothing to do with the transactions!

It was the kind of shit you read about in books, but I had never seen anything like it.

I was making all of this money without doing any extra work!

October 5th, 2013 I quit my job.

I was finally FREE.

26

Now, 6 years later, I'm still free.

I was doing the typical network marketing model… EVERYONE was my prospect.

It was home meetings… 3 way skype calls… one on one coffee shop meetings… walking up and pitching

strangers at Starbucks… you name it, I did it.

Sometimes I felt a little sleazy… I loved the model but every now and then I didn't like being a walking sales

pitch…

But I didn't care. I was going to do whatever the hell it took to build this thing into a multi-million dollar

machine that can serve me for the rest of my life and help build my legacy.

I did whatever I had to do to grow the business.

Then something amazing happened…

I started seeing ads on social media and opting into email forms…

I got pushed through these amazing, elaborate systems designed to sell me on products and follow up with

me to push me along and buy a product…

I didn't know exactly what it was at the time, but I was being introduced to internet marketing.

I loved everything about it but it was all still foreign to me.

“There's something here…” I thought… I couldn't connect the dots on how this could fit into my model with

Enagic… but I was going to figure it out.

I was still doing all of the old school tactics to build my business and they were working.

The business quickly scaled up past $20,000 per month… but I became obsessed with internet marketing.

Something about it just seemed so smooth and effective. Deep down I knew if I mastered the game of

internet marketing, I could easily scale my business to $10,000,000 per year or more.

I told my wife we were going to create a “Laptop Lifestyle” and keep building the business WITHOUT annoying

our friends and family… without hosting all of the in house parties or selling people on the street ever again…

I could smell it… there's a better way to create leads and pre-sell them on our opportunity nearly on autopilot.

I didn't know anybody in internet marketing, so I went to work creating connections with everyone in the

industry on social media.

Within a year I had nearly everyone I wanted to connect with on my friends list and they knew me by name.

I met a mentor and friend who helped me create a system to get rid of all of the crap network marketers

don't want to do… like lead generation… explaining the concept of direct sales marketing systems... leveraging

your work AND the efforts of your downline… while creating sustainable numbers to make your business

explode… while freeing up a LOT of time.

It was insane… within two years my income tripled... I had full control over my freedom of time, location…

relationships… Everything.

I thought this was going to take at LEAST 5 years to build, but it was all completed within two.

27

My wife and I were blessed to be able to build our dream home… 5,000 square feet, 5 bedrooms, 6

bathrooms… home gym, theatre, study, massive kitchen, everything state of the art.

We've had time to travel the world constantly in top-tier luxury, pay off all debts and taxes while earning

millions of dollars per year doing LESS WORK. (Sometimes I feel weird making so much money without

working 12 hours per day…)

All because we unlocked one missing piece of the puzzle on a nearly perfect business model by connecting it

with another…

Internet marketing gave us lead generating tools and 'attraction marketing' that was missing in the

traditional network marketing model.

With attraction marketing, we discovered how to find your ideal customer and have them come to YOU,

instead of always chasing everybody trying to explain your model.

The combination of the two made us virtually unstoppable.

In the past 6 years, we've been able to impact tens of thousands of people's lives all around the world and

helped over 1,000 people quit their jobs once and for all with our system…

Including over 150 people in our company earning $250,000 - $500,000 per year with our system and

training.

It's been so cool for me to see people on my team take their lives into their own hands and create the life

they've always dreamed of… all the while helping more and more people do the same.

These days, my life is full of these amazing stories and messages of inspiring people changing their lives and

changing the world together…

All while meeting great people, building magical relationships and lifelong friends… doing what I love with

the people I care most about… with enough time to travel the world and spend time with my dream girl and

earn 7 figures every year, virtually on autopilot…

It's crazy to sit down now and think about it…

A poor Hungarian immigrant who could barely hold a job as a bartender can make it here… and I'm just

getting started…

BALAZS W KARDOS | WWW.BALAZSWKARDOS.COM

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