Disabled Military Veteran To Entrepreneur

Everyday Heroes Podcast Network: This podcast is part of the Everyday Heroes Podcast Network, the network for first responders and those who support them.

Intro:  Welcome. The trials of first responders in their families aren't easy. Enduring the Badge Podcast is building a community to help them out. Introducing your host, back by 30 years of experience as a first responder, Jerry Dean Lund.

Jerry Dean Lund: Hey everyone! Before we jump into this next episode, I want to thank my sponsor Patriot Supreme, they make the highest quality CBD products that I know.  A veteran owned company with products made right here in the United States. I've used them in their personal life, because they work I've tried other products that they have not worked. And these do, I like the CBD oil, the CBD gummies they have melatonin gummies with CBD in them, have a deep freeze roll on that works for those joints that are a little bit sore or muscle pain. I love them all. You should check them out at patriotsupreme.com. And don't forget to use the code and EnduringtheBadge if you're a first responder that'll get your 50% off. And please go check them out on their Instagram and Facebook page at Patriot Supreme.

Let's jump right into this next episode with my amazing guests, Justin Elenberg.

How are you doing today Justin?

Justin Elenburg: I'm pretty good today.

Jerry Dean Lund: Good. That's what we got to you got to strive to be good just everyday, right? It's a it's a battle.

Justin Elenburg: It is it can be a battle, that's for sure. Some days are good. And some days are not so good.

Jerry Lund: Right? Some days just come easier. The good comes easier than the others. That's for sure. So tell the audience about you Justin.

Justin Elenburg: Um, so I was well, I don't know how far back you want me to go. But

Jerry Lund: Yeah, let's start at the beginning.

Justin Elenburg: I'll skip the high school stuff. I was pretty bad in high school. So I'm gonna skip that part. You know, I have a lot of fun in high school. So but then, you know, I joined the US Air Force, I went into the Air Force, a little bit late, it was almost like six to eight months after graduating. And when I went in, I was just kind of like, Well, whatever, I'm gonna do this thing. And I'm gonna go travel and have fun. And I had a few older like step brothers and, and a friend who went in and they told me a little bit about how it was going to be. So I did that. And they they give you this dream sheet, right? And I don't know if you know, the military, they're like, here's a sheet, where do you want to go? And I wrote down and I filled out every single country that was like, not the US. I'm like, I just want to go somewhere. And so I got chosen Italy, which was really awesome. So I get to travel Italy, I get to live in Aviano Italy for two years. That was a lot of fun. I traveled all over I really took up snowboarding which was kind of amazing. So me and a group of friends just went all over the place.

 And then I decided to come back to US. I knew that I needed an education or something I needed something to do right when I was going to get out. I knew for certain that I was getting out because there was no way that I was going to be stuck in this. Let me try to put a nice way to how it is. There's no way I was going to be stuck with all these people telling me what to do. I realized that there was not much of a future for me in the military because I wanted to do all of these things. And I wanted to do my way and I wanted to like excel. And in the government, the only way that you really seem to get ahead is by time. And so that was really frustrating for me. So immediately, I was like I'm out of here.

So I ended up trying to get back to the US and I knew that I wanted to go to college, but I didn't know where I didn't know like what I was going to do. I didn't have any of that stuff planned. But I heard ASU was a good party school. So I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go to ASU. So I ended up I got a position or I got stationed at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. I was there for a little while just kind of just humming along during my last year of service there and got all applied for ASU and I ended up moving to Arizona and I grew up in California. So I only knew like one guy in Arizona and I call them up and I'm like, "Hey men, can I sleep on your couch for like a month? While I figured out what I'm gonna do?" He was like, "Are you gonna pay rent?" I was like, Yeah, I was like, yeah, "Give me some money, man. I just, I'm gonna stick my stuff in storage. I've got to like find a place and I've got to figure out what I'm going to do here. So that was a that was fun. You know, that was like the young years of course and during that time, I was also kind of looking for work to so that I could pay for school because I knew that it was going be a little expensive, but I was I'm a pretty cheap guy when it comes down to it.

So I ended up working for Intel, which was kind of odd, right? And when I got out, they were like this company, Orion International. So I don't even know if they're still around. But they were they did a great job of placing me in all these interviews. I ended up going to them. And they were like, well, let us put you with these companies. I got a job at Intel and I was making at the time for me, it was like, 20, I don't know, 22 or something like that was like $60,000 a year.

Jerry Lund: That's good. That's really good.

Justin Elenburg: I was like, This is free money. I bought a truck. I started, I bought a house, I started looking at all stuff. And then I started to look around. And I was like, looking around all these people like, these guys are old. I don't want to work here. I don't want to do this for the next 20 years, like what am I doing? Like I, I kind of got out of the military. So I wasn't stuck in this. And it made me realize that I needed to be that I needed to do something else. So I ended up starting my first computer repair business. I was really into computers at the time. I was like, Well, what do I do? My guy told me that all these old people are working on computers, and they need help. And I was like, I know computers, that'll be easy. I placed an ad and like a yellow pages. And I just started fixing computers for old people.

And man, one of the I'll tell you one of stories. I went to this lady's house, and she could not figure out how to install this software in the computer. And so I was there for maybe like 30 minutes. And I was kind of chewing with some stuff. We'll get a drink real quick. I'm like, well, what's going on with it? Like, well, every time I put the CDN it won't it like starts to activate and then it shuts off. And I'm like, alright. So I opened the train. I'm like, well, there's like chunks all over the CV like, it doesn't work with the chunks. And oh, man. Yeah, my kid thought that that little drawer was like a cookie drawer for the computer and was trying to feed the computer. I'm like, Let me blow this thing out, I fixed and lo and behold, these are the type of repairs I did for the better part of maybe two years, I kind of just fix computers and people paid like $150 an hour for this stuff. Because back then computers were really expensive.

I hope I'm not going too far back here. This is because a lot of story. So I moved on, I ended up like building that business up, I ended up kind of getting into real estate, I was just doing all these different businesses and kind of figuring things out and sort of figuring out what I wanted to do as a person. I I ended up buying 13 homes. This is like in from 2003 to 2008. I just went into major debt, like millions of dollars. And this is the time where anybody can buy a home like they're like, can you breathe? Yep, yeah, you can buy a home, buying home after home. And I got to like 2006, I think and at the time, I think I own like 16 homes, I own them in Austin. I own  in Arizona. I own some I can't remember. But it was all over the place. And pretty soon it was like I couldn't keep up with the debt service. I was like I was renting them out and the money was coming in. But this is when like the whole housing bubble started to like form and come apart, right. And so 2007 or so I ended up having two foreclosures. And I short sold like nine of the properties. And I still have one left, which is the one that I'm living in right now. But I even short sold my own home. And that's a longer story. But I short sold it to my wife before we got married, which was a good thing because I got a better price on it.

At the time at about that, and so this leads into this business that I that I made most of my money in which is actually in lead generation. So it's the name of it is Hitfinity It used to be called Mobile Fuse or at one point in time I own a company called Mobile Fuse, but I ended up going off on my own and creating Hitfinity. And what we do is we pair people that are looking that are on their mobile phone. And we pair them with like companies that have call centers. And so somebody goes and types in like get health insurance by phone. And this seems very intuitive. Now right click the call exists. Everybody should probably use click to call right. This happened to be in like early 2000s And this is before iPhones even existed that I somehow stumbled upon this. But this was just me kind of like, I've always been just messing things. You know, I'm kind of like that. That guy that just screws with stuff and take things apart just to see what they look like inside. So I ended up like finding WAP phones. WAP phones were like the Blackberries with the little rollerball camera.

Jerry Lund: Yes, right. Yeah, yep, I do.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, those are the like the best keyboard on the planet. Right. So before they had touchscreens and all of that stuff, I actually was able to pair people who were going to Google on these, like random BlackBerry devices and flip phones. And they would go to Google, and they would type in something like get insurance. Well, I realized that these phones weren't even usable for the internet, right? Like you would go to a website, there's no way you could like fill out things it take you like three hours to feel, right. But what you could do is you could actually do a click to call on this. I paired that with these like giant call centers like Allstate State Farm, I had kind of small relationships there. I was like, let me send these phone calls to you. And you just pay me a commission for it. Turned out to work like really well, and have been doing, you know, anywhere from a million to $10 million a year in this business for I don't know, maybe 10 or 12 years now.

Jerry Lund: That's impressive.

Justin Elenburg: So, yeah, thanks. Thanks. And so since then, I've kind of started businesses here and there. Of course, one, you know, that have now I can probably, like you talk now.

Jerry Lund: No, actually just kind of wanted to go back to something, you know, we're in, you're in the military, and you're feeling like stuck, and maybe are trapped type in where you're like, filling just stuck and trapped by you didn't have the ability to, like you're saying to have the freewill to do things to like, I mean, the military didn't allow you to like, Hey, I have this great idea. We should try it. was any of that type of stuff happening?

Justin Elenburg: No, not really. Like, I mean, it did it did in a sense. So I'll go back to like one specific problem I found in the military. So we had these target, I was an F16 Avionics. So I worked on the F16. Mostly like the computer systems attack communications, controls, and but we'd have these targeting pots, this is how they would drop bombs, right, these big giant laser, I mean, they're actually huge but, and these these laser pods that you would mount to the bottom of the F 16. And that would shoot the laser down which the missile would then actually, you know, go right towards that laser, which is a laser laser guided bomb right or laser guided missiles.

Well, when we take those things off the planes because they're they're not fixed on the plane all the time only when the plane is actually has all the cars, sometimes it configure it for air to air, and sometimes it configure it for air to ground. When it's configured for air to ground, it gets a laser laser pod. But when they take these up, they store them in a rack like over just in a hanger. Right? Well, I noticed that we were having issues with them, because there was no no caps on the cannon plug, which is where the plane actually the electronics mount to the thing. And so they would have these caps that were all sometimes they were lost or whatever, they would go everywhere. So I I called them and I said, Hey, can I get a budget for this, and I created these caps for the targeting pods. And then I like chained them to a remove before flight tag so that they would not get lost anymore. And I made a board for them. And I'll be like sorted and a numbered and go on each one.

It was kind of like good job. Yeah, that was it. Like, I was like, Okay, well, I mean, I didn't design this stuff. But you go, I went like above and beyond what I felt like, I was kind of like, Hey, I'm going to take on these like bigger things. And I kept taking on this stuff and doing more than my share of stuff. I was really excited to like I was just just a Dewar. But then it was always kind of like, Oh, well, good job. Thanks for the hard work. And then when I left, you know, when I left that post, or when I would, you know, I would kind of like be like, be up for promotion or something. I go, Okay, well, you got five out of fives. Here's your promotion. Here's your piece of paper and but you don't get a promotion. You don't get a raise. You don't get anything for that. You kind of just get an Attaboy. So for me, I saw that writing on the wall that in so yeah, I did feel stuck.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, it seems like a lot of people these days don't stay in the military as long as people use to stay in the military like that. Stay in for 20 years. I'm sure there's plenty of that. Still do but I think there's probably a lot of people like yourself that feel trapped. And then you've got a little bit of maybe education and then want to jump forward to something bigger and better. And it sounds like you are you're you're like your, your entrepreneur for sure testing and trying things. That's what you you enjoy to do. So I could see how that's very like limiting. But you started this other great company Patriot Supreme. Let's learn a little bit about that. Why and why Patriot Supreme?

Justin Elenburg: Did well, I'm kind of goes backwards to I didn't know. So it is a CBD company but I'm going to go backwards before like an understood so that you can kind of understand where it came from. Yeah, I didn't. I'm an I'm in the internet marketing world I have done fairly well with the businesses that I've buil  so far. I was looking to start something else that was more geared around the community I'm a part of.  I'm a veteran, proud disabled veteran actually. My back and I get migraine headaches. So they gave me a 40% disability rating for it. So but um, I wanted to get back to an industry I was a part of.

And so the way that I kind of was watching my mom, my mom has struggled with arthritis and back pain and a lot for many years. One day, I went over to her house, and she pulls out this like little vial of stuff. And she's like, all this stuff really helps with pain because I have a bad back too. That's part of what my disability is. But she's like, try this. I'm like, What is that? Like? It's CBD. And this little vial, you know, I mean, this thing's grab one real quick so you can see but like, she grabs it wasn't my product at the time, but she grabs the vial. She's like, Oh, it's CBD. Try this. It's free back. It'll help you. I was like, how much did you pay for that mom? Oh, like $140 I was like, Oh my gosh, you got robbed like, that's kind of a snake oil. So she had been taking it for a while. And she'd bought it like several times. So I tried it. I was like, wow, this really does help. Like I'm I'm actually surprised like so I dug in, I started to kind of learn a little bit of science. I won't pretend like I'm the Science Guy cuz I asked other people for that. Right? Yeah. And I started asking other people around around my office. And I was like, Hey, what do you know about CBD? Oh, man, my mom loves that stuff, sticks it all the time. And I was like, Really? So I read this big long, like, 150 page report about CBD and the, the mechanics of it and like the science and, and what the markets gonna look like. And I was like, well, this is really interesting.

And one thing that I learned about it was that it was really good for PTSD. It was good for I can't see that like a better backup because they're some sort of legal claim. I can't say that it is good for it. Some people told me it was good for PTSD. Some people told me it was good for pain, I can't see that my this product is going to do anything, it's a supplement. But I started to find out the benefits that other people were telling me about, I was like, this could be really big. And I want to take this to the community that I'm a part of. And so that was kind of how I started patriot supreme It was like very focused, I said I want to take this to the veterans to the hard working frontline workers and say, Okay, I need an edge from a marketing standpoint, but I also know that I know my community and I thought well, I can serve my community more specifically with products that help them with on their daily lives, then I can make something cool and that was kind of how Patriots Supreme was born.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, that's a it's a great company. I use the products a lot as it's sitting here on my desk it can seem hard to see with the thing but this the roller like that's, that's my go to like I use it several places several times a day, you know, you just when you get older you get nicked up and stuff like that, and it does bring relief. I think that's been one of the things I've really loved about your company in the products is I find they actually work for me when I've tried other CBD stuff it has not. Why do you think that is?

Justin Elenburg: Well, I one of my one of my guys who helps me he put up a really good Instagram post and he said, "Where did you buy it? at the gas station?"

Jerry Lund: Yeah, I did see that one.

Justin Elenburg: So I would say that would be like number one. If you're buying it like at the gas station or the grocery store or just like you're not even doing any research whatsoever. That would be number one of why it doesn't work. But a lot of a lot of the science behind it is is more than it doesn't work for everybody. Like I gave some to my neighbor, and he had surgery and, you know, it didn't help him. He said, You know, it didn't help my knee at all. And I'm learning some more of the science too is this is is good for inflammation and inflammation. And a lot of people have a lot of inflammation issues, which is what CBD helps a lot with. Right? It doesn't really help with like nerve issues. It doesn't really, I can't say it doesn't help with them. But it's not like some people expect like a Percocet, right and right, like right locks your brain from sending the signals that say, hey, that hurts. It's more of a band aid. Right, then it is like underlying repairing the issue, right. And so I think that's a lot of people have this expectation of like, I'm going to take this.

And since my stuff's broad spectrum, it doesn't have any THC at all right? So there's no you don't get any feeling except for the like to aim for what I did was the relief that it provides. And so people are expecting to feel something right away. They're expecting to feel this like overwhelming sense of like, Oh, that's so good. But it's more like what I feel. And what I tried to tell people and set expectations is more like when we take ibuprofen, we have a headache, and you take ibuprofen, it's not like, Oh, it's gone. It's kind of like subtle, right? It's a less of a headache, if you don't feel it as much. The other thing about CBD is, is it's not a one time use, you don't just take it in it like you're cured. It's more of a building block type of mechanism. So you have to kind of consistently take it on a consistent basis to really feel the benefits of it. If you're just taking it once and then you're not taking it. It's not really building up those benefits. Yeah, yes.

Those are some of the reasons I really find and I actually do have a lot of you if you guys go to YouTube video, all of that stuff, I explain a lot of it. And I did those videos probably like a year and a half ago, maybe. So I know, I've learned a lot more over time and talking to people and try to give that information. So maybe I need new videos. If you guys have questions, you know, shoot them over, because I'm more than happy to make more videos for the community.

Jerry Lund: Yeah. Now that it's all the products have been really great. Like the other product I use is like the drops that you have in your hand. And I've really found because I had COVID and then I had that terrible brain fog after COVID. And it would just be I just be like, like I am now like, ah, I don't really know what I'm gonna say like this. I can't put it into words together and just like function through the day very well. And it's and I found just taking the drops that would clear up that brain fog just for me and it gave me energy. That's the one thing that I've really found with the your with Patriot Supreme is the energy I get from the drops. And I have to personally that I have to be careful because I can't take it after two. Because then I won't sleep at night. Do you find that type of effect with that people have different reactions to different things, right?

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, I do actually. And I find each of the products people give me different some people react differently to each of them. Some people get more energy, some people get, you know, no feelings at all. Some people some people have less energy. The one thing that this is really good for that I know for a fact the CBD oil is really good for post workout. So I don't know if you've tried that yet, but it worked out really hard. If you work out really hard and you actually use the CBD afterwards, it gets rid of a lot of that because that pain is in our muscles is like the muscles rebuilding that like lactic acid build up, right? CBD actually helps get rid of that like it's a super it's, it's amazing for that. A lot of people told me that feedback. Yeah.

 I was gonna ask you as far as like so with people you know feeling different things is a lot of people these are the regular so I have two different CBD gummies I was trying to make and I mean I did make I shouldn't say try I made some that have melatonin because I realize a lot of people want it to be able to take some and then go to sleep. And a lot of people use melatonin as a kind of a simpie. These CBD gummies people were also telling me that they were they weren't putting them to sleep but they would take one like you know, after they got off work or something like that. And it would really relax them. It would take off that anxiety feeling. I gave you some of these. Yeah, yeah. Did you did you feel the same thing? I so these don't give you energy?

Jerry Lund: Not no, not like not like the drops? Yeah, yeah. Okay. That's and the other thing, they all taste incredibly good. If you could, you could find yourself eating um like candy. Like that's how good.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, they are. They're pretty tasty. I've definitely gotten good feedback on that. And like these things. Yeah, I'm getting close again, they are they have a little sugar coating on them. So but man, they, they do taste good, but I would not recommend eating more than two of those at a time.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, I let my niece try when she goes in the evening and she's getting ready to go to bed and I let her she's 18. And she tried just sitting there and like 30 minutes, she's like, I have got to get to bed. I am so tired. And that's the that's the results that you know, most people are looking for. How is the community responding to the Patriot Supreme? How's the military? And people outside that like other first responders like myself? How are they responding to your products?

Justin Elenburg: Um, you know, we're not that big yet. So I don't have like tons of response. I have a firefighter friend who is in California, from high school, and he he absolutely loves, like, absolutely said the taste is amazing. Like, like, helps him immensely sleep because you know, this, I'm sure you know, the sleep schedules, right? It's hard to, it's hard to do what you do, like changing sleep schedules like that is actually I think, when I did it for a little while, it was very difficult to like, try to sleep through the night and stay up all day or something. So that I think helped them. As far as like people that have severe back pain, or, like, they tell me that it helps them tremendously. Again, it's a supplement, it's not telling you that it's going to cure your pain. But the feedback that I get from friends and family and the community has been fantastic.

Some of it not so good. Like, I'm not gonna lie, like I've had some challenges, you hold up that roll on. So we changed. We've had a lot of these that have leaked, you can see there's a crack right here in this bottle. But we had to put like tabs on here, because it was there was unscrewing and it was like a safety seal. We've had, we had to start bubble wrapping these because they are glass and then they were breaking them. The stuff was going everywhere in the boxes. But I've tried to really, I have several people to people in customer service, and I really tried to be good about customer service, we're in the early stages have not made any money. In fact, I've lost him, I've donated more money to this business than then probably I'll make in the next three years. But you know, I'm learning I'm kind of still in the learning stages of this thing.

And so going through that I like I try to have really good customer customer service. So if one broke or something, I just make sure I replace all of it for anybody that anybody has issues, because we are going through those those learning stages. And we have, we've had challenges with that. But I always appreciate the feedback that I get it because it helps it helps the company be better. And it helps me like create better products for the community.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, this roll on, I've had it for, I don't know, several months now. And it this thing lasts for a long time, like a really long time. Quite a bit.

Justin Elenburg: One thing, one little tip you can do that you might not know is you can actually take this little lid off. And if you take this lid off, you can apply more. In case the baller because for my mom, actually, she loves this thing, and she uses it a lot. And so you can take the ball off to get a little bit more out. Obviously, you're using a lot more. So if you're going to do that, you know, know that you're going to go through it a little bit quicker. But yeah, it does last a long time. And that was you know, by business from a business perspective. You don't want products that last a long time like that, because you don't get a lot of reorders. Right, right. But I realized that, you know, it wasn't about like, you know, creating something that ran out immediately or something. Yeah, we had a different product that you had to like, it was like a paste and you had to put your fingers in there and get this paste out and then put it all over and you have it like all over your hands and stuff. And I just didn't like it. Like it was actually a good product. And people liked the product itself. But the messiness of it and all of that and a little bit of that feedback just made me go Well, I'm not going to keep that one.

Jerry Lund: Yeah. Talking about your good customer service and like what what's the guarantee? Or do you offer something like that or with your products?

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, so we offer a 60 day money back guarantee. All you have to do like what we actually set? Mostly, we don't even ask people to return it. A lot of times, we'll just say, you know, if you can return us the bottle empty, or if you return it, you know, we'll give you your money back. I don't know, not too many people take me up on like this 60 day, like there's not a lot of it's either they get the product and they're not happy with him, like a few days or something or something leaked. And that's the issue, or they never return it right? Like there's very rare instance that like they use the full 60 days, because by the time I mean typically, you either like something or you don't right, you're not going to sit, keep it for 45 days, and then go oh, I don't like that anymore. I'm going to send it back now. Because people are kind of just like, either like it or don't. Yeah, but yeah, it's 100% money back guarantee. We don't currently we don't refund the shipping. I wish we were like Amazon, you know, we just aren't that big. actually afford to ship it out and ship it and take the shipping back at this point.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, I think most anybody that's been an entrepreneur can understand the challenges of not being, you know, a big company like that, and having that the shipping is extremely costly going both ways. And, you know, I, my businesses that I've had doing that that's the thing that will eat your money out faster than anything is shipping.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah. And they keep raising the prices right?

Jerry Lund: For us. But a little guys do.

Justin Elenburg: They call it gas and inflation fees. And it's like, well, yeah, yeah. A little bit more, a little bit more.

Jerry Lund: Yeah. What do you have any other products that are going to be coming out?

Justin Elenburg: So I don't I, I've actually been working on this one for like six months. And so I was trying to make a better roll on since that one was in class and kept breaking. I was trying to make this one. But as you can see, like, I don't know if you can see that in the camera. But the thing is, this is not it's not readable, because it's heat shrinking to this tiny little bottle. And I wasn't impressed with the quality of this product. It's the it's the exact same formula. So there's no difference in what's in here. But you know, from the feedback I got, and from the people that currently buy the product and like the product, I didn't get good feedback here. So we're still working on that. And actually what the whole premise of this is that it's got a cool story, I thought would be a little fun. It's actually 556 milligrams, which is five times six, right, which is from being in the military. I don't know if you know that. That's a NATO round. Yeah, yeah. goes in goes into M16. And so we were kind of trying to make something that was that fit that motto of 556. And so we're still going to work on it. We're still kind of trying to fit that much product in the bottle, call it 556. And it be really, you know, patriotic themed, we're actually trying to get a bullet shaped one. But that didn't pan out, it's really hard right now, this all happened. The reason this took six months is because of the pandemic, they stuck these on a boat, it got stuck in some crate somewhere off the ocean, and like It took months and months and months for this to come in, we'll need to find out that I wasn't in the mic at that much. But that's, that's what we're looking at right now, we have been working on more of like a, like a hand cream, either hand sanitizer, or some sort of cream. But I'm all ears. So if there's a product out there that you like, or can suggest, you know, either you or anybody listening, you know, shoot it over. Yeah, love ideas.

Jerry Lund: Right? Right. You have to like you're the idea guy, like you want to take action and discover something new. That's that's what I really, really like about you. So they can find all this stuff at on your website. And then I noticed on the website, too, you offer a discount on their to the first order.

Justin Elenburg: We do we do. Actually the there's a 20% off discount on your first order. If you're a veteran or a frontline worker, you can go all in when you get to the cart, there's actually a spot we use a service to bit to verify people that they're veterans or I think they use a DD 214 or an ID and their service actually does all the verification but for those people, you get 50% off. I don't know how long we'll have that because we're not really making money there. But it is something that you know, I'm trying to get the word out trying to get the product out trying to make sure people try it like it love it. And eventually, I probably won't be able to offer that forever. But yeah, definitely 20% off the first order patriotsupreme.com is the website.

Jerry Lund: That's awesome. That's pretty incredible to offer something I know you're like giving this stuff away at that those prices for sure. So Justin, I'm gonna shift gears a little bit and and maybe some people listening in like, oh, I'll Justin's like, I dig I he's like always looking for something new and to be an entrepreneur like how, where he just did you develop that mindset in a certain time? Or have you been like that, since you're a kid always trying to like, discover new things and go after him?

Justin Elenburg: I think it's definitely some I wish I could say that it was something that like I forced myself to have. I think it came from my mom actually like, here I was. And so now I'm going to go back to high school, we weren't going to go there. But at the age of 16, or maybe it was 15 I started selling candy in school. And I didn't know like, you're not supposed to sell some you know, you're not supposed to buy stuff. But there's all these people like the school says, okay, you're not allowed to sell things. But if you're doing it for baseball, or basketball, or whatever the thing is, then you can sell candy. You can't sell it for yourself, you can only sell it for these like charities. Well, I took it like Well, I'm a business guy. Like I'll just take, I'll just say whatever it is, you know, if it's baseball season, I'll say it's for baseball. I got to the point where I had like four people working for me in high school. And I would bring sacks like sacks of candy. And during the summer, I'd have to shovel that in the freezer the night before and prep it all. Stick it in the freezer, make sure it's frozen, so it didn't melt, pull all that out, stick it in my backpack with some like cold packs, right to keep it cold hand that out in the morning. And I would pay the guys that would help me in candy. So they would sell a bag of candy different, like, you know, four or five candy bars or something like that. It got like it got it got crazy. It got to the point where my mom got a phone call from the principal and he was like, if you don't stop selling candy, he's gonna be suspended permanently, like we're gonna kick him out of school. She's like, they can't stop you from selling candy. This is this is the American Candy, you want to be an entreprenuer I think from that point on, it was like mom's encouraging me to go sell candy and make money. And at some point, she was like, you know, you need to get your own Costco card, you need to buy your own Ziploc baggies because I'm not paying for bags and Ziploc bags anymore. But she was kind of encouraging in that. So I think from there, like I didn't do anything during the military time. Like when I left high school. I stopped that. And from when I left the military, I didn't really sell a whole lot and do a lot in between that time. But I think it just kind of was in me it was like, I needed I had this desire and I realized I wanted to do something I wanted to do something more than just be told, go over there and sit or go over there and do that. I was like, let me problem solve and I think that's the biggest thing that I have like, like the under desire that I really have is like I'm a problem solver at heart, like if I see a problem, whether it's math or some sort of thing I need to solve that problem is, and that's what really kind of like, drives, I think this idea of entrepreneur is into me, I'm not the greatest like I've done. I've failed in a lot of businesses. But I figured out how to create value from solving problems.

Jerry Lund: Yeah. How did you handle those failures? When you're going through something like this, these challenges?

Justin Elenburg: Well, when, when I was going through the real estate thing, and when I had 16 homes at one time, right, I'm like handling all of that the rents stopped coming in, I had a business partner at the time as well, who sued me for because I, I owned some houses with him, I tried to sell the houses so that I could close the mortgage. But he ended up, we ended up transferring the deeds. And so it's a big long story. And so I went through that at the same time that I was going through all of these short sales and military that are not military, but the short sales and foreclosures. And I also had a business that was doing horrible. And this was kind of early on, when I maybe in my first few years, my wife, and I'm like, Hey, we got to sell the car, and we got to sell this and we get to some and she's just like, What the hell are you doing? Would it be what have you done to us like, this is horrible. I don't really know how to say how you go through it. But you kind of like what you said at the beginning, you know, some days are good, and some days are bad, you just got to endure what you're given, right, and you just kind of like, keep moving forward. And you're like, Okay, you you get up and then you get kicked, and then you get knocked over. And you as long as you kind of like, maybe it's just you keep your eye on the longer term picture here, there's, there's always something better at the end of the rainbow. It might not be tomorrow, it might not be next week, and it might not even be next year, right? Like, we look at COVID. And you look at all that stuff, like we're still dealing with the issues, and we'll probably deal with them for a few more years, but there's going to be better years, not just for us. But for our kids and our community and all the other people around us we have to we have to persevere to lift them up. And so at the end of the day, you go, I got no money, I got nothing to lose, I'm gonna get back up, I'm gonna do this again.

Jerry Lund: That takes some courage to get up. And after you've been beaten down a few times and get up and start other companies. Did you ever have like, second thoughts? Like, why am I doing this? Why am I starting this another company I like I've had some successes, I've had some failures.

Justin Elenburg: For sure. There's a good documentary on HBO, about like the music industry, and all of the failures that a lot of the musicians go through to get to the point where they finally are like, good at making music, right? Like, they have to go through horrendous, like, have a horrendous life. And usually they say like, both their parents have to die for them to become like, really good. And I think it's those challenges. It's those things that like, knock us down. And it's the time that we get back up and do something about it that builds the character in us to make us who we are. Right? We have to, if you don't get back up, it's called a failure. You if you literally don't do anything with that, that that's a failure. But I always tell my team and my people, and anybody that asked me that question, I say it's a it's a learning lesson. And if you learn from it, and you make you make yourself better, then all it really is is learning lesson, it's not really a failure, and you keep going. And that's what I think probably really keeps me going is I tell other people that I got to live by that.

Jerry Lund: Very, very true. So many people probably don't know, listening, you're also doing something else outside of Patriot Supreme, your other businesses that are pretty challenging as well. You're racing.

Justin Elenburg: I do own a race team. Yes. And that is where I have definitely spent a lot of money and my wife is not always been the happiest and supportive of that. Because not only does it take money, it actually takes a lot of time. But it's been a lot of fun. It's I started in 2014 racing in Baja. And I started building up to racing the ball 1000 and it's taken me g osh, what is that now? That's a six, seven years I think to end we finally have one, two in my class and the UTV class that I'm in. It's a pro open UTV class. I've won two races in a row this year, and so we're on a double winning streak. Yeah, we have another race coming up in September. And like, I have, like some of these metals and stuff taken, it's taken a while to like, gather these and put them all together and like build this team. And it's not just me, there's like 20 guys that helped me with this, like almost every race I have to have in the United States, messaging, I have to have teams on the ground driving trucks everywhere. And like, I just get to drive the car because I pay a lot of money for it. And I also have another driver who helps me. But um, yeah, that's been, it's been a challenge with this definitely one of the best hobbies. And now I can actually call myself a professional racecar driver, because they send me checks, which is kind of awesome. Because like, you're not a professional until you get paid. And I'm like, check this out. A lot less than I paid to race but Right, right.

Jerry Lund: Right. Right.

Justin Elenburg: They sent me a check. Yeah,

Jerry Lund: Yeah. You gotta be hanging those metals up, come on, like you can't just how

Justin Elenburg: They are the camera. There's a map of Baja, you can see there and then the metals next to it.

Jerry Lund: That has had to pose some challenges of your mental toughness to race those types of races? Where do you get the mental toughness or race of 1000 miles?

Justin Elenburg: Oh, man, it kind of like, It stems back to the business thing, I guess. And the whole like, you know, endure  this thing, but I don't do the whole 1000 miles when we had when we raced down the Peninsula, you start into Nada, and you end up in La Paz, and that's about 1200 miles of racing. And so the car actually goes to 1200 miles without stopping or just stopping for fuel is the goal, right? But I started and I do the first on that race, I did the first 400. And then I did like the last 200, so about 600 miles over a two day period. And then I had two other drivers that did the in between 600 one of them did like 300 and another did like 300. I don't know if that math adds up to tell us

Jerry Lund: That's a lot of miles in a side by side. And on smooth roads. I know a little bit about side by side racing.

Justin Elenburg: So yeah, it is a lot of miles. And I mean, and so you're wearing a catheter and a fire suit and it's hot, and then you go over mountain and it's freezing cold. And then I mean, I've spent the night out there in the desert. I've had bobcats run in front of me. And then and half an hour later the car breaks down and I'm stuck in the desert and it's 30 degrees out and shivering in the car waiting for the team to come get me in. But you know, some people say Why? Why do you do that? When you go through that? Where do you put yourself? How do you put yourself through that right? And like when you're in the car, I guess it doesn't seem like that long. Like you're when you're driving for 12 hours and your goal like you have one goal in mind, which is win this race drive this thing as fast as I can without crashing it. That's it like everything else is just faded away. Even life and life's problems are gone like you're you This is it. This is my goal. I'm getting in this car and i'm i've got tunnel vision. And I'm just going to go as fast as I can towards the finish line. I think after your mind does wander and like to the point where it's like, let's say called two o'clock in the morning, and you've been driving for 12 hours. And you start seeing the cactuses waving. There. They're like, Suarez don't wave. Yeah, don't move right there. They put they look like they're and they're doing this and you're like, What is going on? I don't even know. And you're just like, Okay, I gotta focus, focus, focus. Make yourself a little bit. Okay. Okay. That's what it's like, I don't know how to describe it.

Jerry Lund: But you love it. Right? That's the that's, that's why you do it. Dude, love that does that probably the, I like to do some things like that, too, that are just like a single focus where your life just kind of blurs out and you're just in the moment being present. Doing whatever it is you do. And I'm sure everybody listening has something that does that for them. If you don't, you've got to find it.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, you know, definitely like, I tried to prioritize those three things like you kind of hit probably the three things that I really prioritize in my life. One is family like I you know, I gotta take care of family right and like that. If you have a family, if you don't, then you take care of yourself because you are your family, right. Number two is my business. I've got to take care of the business because the business takes care of the family but if the family's not taking care of it doesn't really matter what the business is doing as her because the family is more important than me spending all day on the computer, whatever it is I'm doing right. And then the third thing is my racing and the racing is me, it is the thing that I get to do. It's my, it's my hobby, right. And so that's me time like, and I think that people, it's too easy to obsess over one, right? Like, you could be obsessive about family. And if you don't ever give yourself time, and energy and like effort, like if you don't focus on me time at all, you actually end up hurting the family, I think more than you do. If you give yourself that me time, if you can take away a little bit of me time and go do something. And hopefully your wife or spouse is accepting of that. But they kind of have to be you kind of have to tell him like, my wife did not like racing. But she realized when I left, and then when I came back, we as a family would have a better relationship, I would be a better person because of that. And so each of them, I think, needs a balance. You can't have too much of me time. You can't have too much business time. And you can't have too much family time. Like you could almost can but not why, wife would say that. But I think there can be and if you if I balanced these three, right? Then usually, like life is good at that moment. Right? Like life is better in that balance.

Jerry Lund: Yeah. And it's sometimes that balance looks different, right? At times, sometimes the balance of it's not always 33% in each one of those happening all the time. Do you have to shift the balances at times? I know, I told my wife likes, you know, like, I'm not working on the podcast. Nobody is. I'm just like, you know, it's just me in this business. And, you know, in doing things like that it's like and hard to balance the family time. You know, I miss events and stuff like that. And it's tough. I know, I know, everybody listening is like, Yes, I know what you mean, it's so hard to have this balance, but it's just what you continue to strive to do.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, write it down to is another important factor. I think like, you really do have to either have the I mean, I do have written goals. And I believe that written goals, you know, do get accomplished. Like I've gone back and found pieces of paper, I'm like, wow, I have accomplished that. Like I bought a commercial building. And that long time ago, I wrote that down and I didn't even realize it. That was one of my goals. But like, if you write these three balances down, wherever you want them to be, they become more real, because if you write them down and you see them somewhere on your desk or whatever, you can kind of wake you back up and put you back into that. Oh, that's right. I shouldn't be sitting at this desk for 12 hours without taking a break. Right? Like Yeah, yeah, it kind of wakes you back up and says, Okay, I do have to focus on and give the kids time or whatever.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, no, that's that's true. There's something magical that happens when you write things down.

Justin Elenburg: I agree with that.

Jerry Lund: Something about it. Yeah. I think like you said, you focus on it your mind doesn't wander is not maybe so wishy washy about things like that.

Justin Elenburg: It doesn't make any commitment to.

Jerry Lund: Yeah, you are you definitely make a commitment. Justin, what's what's ahead anything ahead of you like any, any challenging things you're looking at doing?

Justin Elenburg: Um, you know, one other little hobby that I've been doing is cryptocurrency. I've been spending time with that. That's kind of fun, you know, just paying attention to what I think might be the future, you know, down the road, and kind of, that'd be really cool to incorporate that in my businesses. But I don't see that happening. Like, in the next year, anything. You know, I'm focusing on building Patriot Supreme. I'm focused on building my Legion company and continuing to make that thrive. Bucket list item would be to win the Baja 1000 this year, that would be absolutely amazing. You get to get to see Yeah, smile.

Jerry Lund: Hey, wait, wait, wait, is that written down somewhere? Is that written down?

Justin Elenburg: That is that is yeah, actually, like verbally told a lot of people you know, like, that is one of my bucket list items is to win the battle 1000. So my wife knows she knows how that's important to me. And it's frustrating for her. But she also you know, I think spouses want to see their other spouse, live, whatever their dream is, even if it's not perfectly aligned with theirs. They understand how important it can be. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And that's it for me. I think that you know, and you know, my kids are getting older. I've been spending time teaching one of my kids, I don't know programming, but I believe that programming, you know, computers, and we are on a zoom call. Right, right. What's technology look like in five years from now? And I think that I'm trying to just help my kid do better at what, you know, he's only seven or eight. I'm sorry. Yeah. So I just got him like some coatings and basic stuff. And he's actually coding games like Roblox and Minecraft and some of those things. I'm like, this is awesome. So now I'm into it. And I'm into it, isn't it? Yeah, it's kind of Yeah. Sort of a hobby, right?

Jerry Lund: Yeah. Yeah. I think sometimes in our goals or dreams, they're often too small. That's kind of what I've been thinking about lately, just like how artificial technology is coming in, and how so far advanced it is, if you like, kind of start digging into it and see really what's out there. And it's like, man, how does this apply to my world? How, how can I dream bigger and make, make myself and my family and the things I want to do more successful? I don't know. It's it. It's out there. I'm just thinking about it's, it's on my list.

Justin Elenburg: Yeah, I didn't. I mean, people said, a one on one of the guys that I went to when I did when I started racing. I never even drove a UTV until 2014. And now I'm winning races in it, but he was like, you want to do the Baja 1000? Why? Why would you pick the most difficult race in the world to go accomplish? I'm like, right? Because it seems like a big goal.

Jerry Lund: Because it's the most difficult one. For that aim high.

Justin Elenburg: If you're going to take on a challenge, like make a big one. I don't know.

Jerry Lund: Right now, I totally agree with you, Justin, I really appreciate your time today and the digging into your life and the education on the CBD. And I appreciate you being a sponsor of the enduring the badge podcast and I'm looking for more great opportunities for both of this to succeed.

Justin Elenburg: Awesome. Sounds good. Me too. Man's a lot of fun. And I look forward to you know, hearing more of your podcasts and seeing more. Maybe we'll do this again soon. 

Jerry Lund: Yeah, yeah, I do want to make a trip down and go for a side by side rides sometime.

Justin Elenburg: Let me know when.

Jerry Lund: All right. Thank you, Justin.

Justin Elenburg: Thank you.

Outro: Thanks again for listening. Don't forget to rate and review the show wherever you access your podcasts. If you know someone that would be great on the show, please get a hold of our host, Jerry Dean Lund through the Instagram handles at Jerryfireandfuel, or at enduringthebadgepodcast. Also by visiting the show's website, enduringthebadgepodcast.com for additional methods of contact, and up to date information regarding the show. Remember, the views and opinions expressed during the show, solely represent those of our host and the current episode's guest.