Hello, hello, and welcome to the Borealis

experience. I'm your host Aurora, and I'm very excited to

have Robert Riopel here with me today. He is one of the biggest

empowerment coaches here in Canada, I would say. And we will

dig a little deeper when it comes to his story and to find

out what he had to go through in order to become the leader, hard

driven leader that he is today. Thank you so much for making the

time and for being here with us today. Robert, share with us

where you're coming from, and yeah, how your paths look like?

Well, you know, I feel so blessed to be here are in and

being that you're an Albertan just like me, you're gonna

understand probably, there's that saying redneck. Growing up,

I was taught that here's the box, don't think outside the

box. In fact, don't question the box. And when it came to work,

it was if you are going to work, you support your family, even if

you hate the job, you do whatever it takes. And so, and

you work hard, and you stay loyal. And that's what I started

doing. And by the time I was 21, I had actually worked for three

different companies and been laid off on all three occasions

because they were shutting down. And the third company really hit

me hard because I had been working for that company since

they opened two and a half years earlier, a factory in Red Deer,

Alberta. And I had started working in the factory and

started making my way up to where i is now inside sales. And

I envision myself being a general manager, eventually in

my own factory with them working for 40 plus years. So imagine

the shock when I come into work on a Monday and and the general

manager calls me in an office goes, oh, I want to let you know

we're shutting the factory down. You were laid off as of last

Friday. And I just come from a week holiday. I'm like, you

couldn't tell me that before I left on holidays. And he's like

we didn't know. And I and that really, you know, and you know,

Alberta we go through our oil booms. We go through our oil

busts, and 1989. We are in the middle of an oil bust and I'm

going out and looking for that job. I'm still a newlywed, I

want to take care of my family. And I can't I'm looking for like

three months, I can't find a job. So I decide to do something

to take care of my family totally fine. And I started

delivering pizzas for Domino's Pizza. And when I started doing

that, because of my work ethic, I started working hard and I

started actually making more money than I did my real job

because I was working a lot of hours. And I ended up becoming a

manager and my wife becomes my assistant. And we go right back

into our programming working hard. We started working open to

close seven days a week. And we actually moved from Red Deer to

Calgary because my franchisee sold a store and Red Deer bought

two in Calgary. And that's where I wasn't that I was planning on

becoming manager. But I'm going, huh? Being a manager is more

secure than being a driver. And there's a guaranteed income. And

I said, Look, you have two stores now can I manage one of

all and we talked for a couple hours. And again because of my

work ethic. Two hours later, he went Yep, you'll move in two

weeks. And what's interesting, I'd been a driver, I'd done a

little bit of making pizzas. I said, okay, if I'm leaving in

two weeks, can I get some experience in store? He goes,

No, you'll have plenty of time to get experience when you get

there.

I got a hold of an aunt and uncle and asked if I could live

with them until we could find a place to live there and move on.

And so I did that because I am a whatever it takes kind of

person. And so I started managing my wife became my

assistant, we started managing seven days a week open to close.

And we were doing that for a year and a half when the fear

came back in again. Because my franchisee comes to us and says

I want you to know, I'm getting out of Domino's Pizza time

selling the stores. And we'd watched enough stores in Calgary

gets sold that we knew as soon as the store sold, the managers

were let go because the new owner wanted to bring in their

own team. And my theory was okay, we better start finding

some of the other franchisees and finding another job. And my

wife looks at me and she goes, Why would we do that? Why don't

we just buy the store? And I looked at her I'm like, because

we don't have any money. That's what we don't buy the store like

Hello, and Aurora I am very blessed because my wife and I we

met when we were 13 we started dating, we were 16. We got

married when we were 19.

And so we you know, because I was in the box thinker, my wife

her whole perspective is there is no box, you know, why are we

being held to something like that? And so we started trying

to figure out how do you buy a business if you don't have

money? And we made a lot of mistakes. I will tell you a lot

of mistakes. It gives an example one gentleman he goes

Well, I've got investors, and I guarantee I'll find you

investor, my upfront fee is $1,000. The moment we paid them

the $1,000 fee, all sudden, magically, none of his investors

want to invest in us. And it was a non refundable. $1,000, right.

And every every turn when we got shut down, I wanted to quit. But

thank goodness, my wife would not let us. Because if you knew

me when I was younger, I was very limited thinker. There was

a lot of things I didn't believe in, because I didn't know. And

if I didn't know, it can't be true, I was very close minded

that way. And she kept pushing. And I'll openly admit, I would

not be doing what I do today, if it wasn't for her, because one

of the gifts she gives me if she's not willing to let me play

smaller than I am, even if it means kicking me in the ass,

which she's had to do a number of times.

Right. And of course, I'm always open to it. I'm always like,

Good idea, honey.

We've opened, but she's not willing. And now it's a gift I

give her as well. And so we made a lot of mistakes. But we

learned something every time. And after about four months, we

had the confidence now where we went to our bank, and we

couldn't get a

time to sit down with the business manager. Because back

then, especially here in Alberta, you had to know someone

who knew someone to talk to a bank business manager. But

because we had great relationships with our bank

manager, she'd helped us buy her house. She loved our work ethic.

We're sitting in our office to one day, and she says how's it

going with the store? And we're like, it's not going good? And

she says why not? We said well, we can't find a loan. And she's

well have you talked to grant the business manager, no tank

and appointment with him. Now literally and for your audience,

keep great relationships with your banks. And that don't be

the customer that the only ever hear from you if there's a

problem. Because that day she literally stood up, took us by

the hand and said Come with me. She walked us across the bank

knocked on his door and said, Grant, this is Robert and

Roxanne real pill to hard working kids that run a Domino's

Pizza and they want to buy it. Take care of them. Now, had we

been able to see him four months earlier, we probably would have

bombed because we didn't know what to say. I'm a big believer

Aurora that everything happens for a reason. And I'm gonna ask

you a question. Have you heard that statement before? That

everything happens for a reason?

Do you believe that statement? Oh, yeah. Did you know it's not

the complete statement? Hmm. Tell me more. Yeah. See, this is

where people get stuck on this everything else for reason. The

complete statement is actually everything happened for a

reason. And that reason is there to serve Me.

And see when you understand the full statement, it puts you into

curiosity mode. Yes. The, to me, some of the greatest lessons

come from the biggest struggles we've gone through. And

everything I've gone through I know asked that question. And

it's not like you get the answer right away. Like as an example.

Have you ever had something happen in a couple years later

on since like, that's why that happened all that time ago.

Yeah, because, but when you're in that curiosity mode, if

you're looking for lesson, then you can take any situation,

learn something from it, to take your life one step further

forward. I'm a huge believer in that. So had we seen him four

months earlier, we would have blown it because we wouldn't

have known what to say. But because of the struggles we'd

gone through and learning what to say what not to, we sat down

and had a conversation. And he ended up not giving us the

financing for a store. He gave us 100% financing for both the

stores. My franchisee had for sale. And we became franchisees.

And I was like, Oh, we've got me now. But unfortunately, we knew

how to run a Domino's Pizza. But we didn't know how to run a

business. And there's a huge difference between the two.

Thank goodness ignorance was bliss, because for the first two

years, our whole running attitude was if there's money in

the bank, we're doing okay. But of course we weren't and we

didn't even know that. But our upbringings both coming from

poor families. We knew how to make it work, even when times

are tough. And also a couple years later, when CRA, you know

Canada Revenue Agency is knocking on the door going,

hello, you're in business, we haven't seen any tax returns. We

had to get caught up. We thought we couldn't afford an account.

And here we are working seven days a week 7080 plus hours a

week thinking we'll do our own accounting bad mistake. Like

today in business before I buy or start a business. I have my

accounting team on the phone with me so we know what we're

doing. So we have it all set up from the beginning, because a

great accountant will save you way more money than they ever

ever cost you. But I didn't know that at 23 Young and Eagle

right. So when we finally got caught up our accounts actually

looked at us and they said how did you

Guy survived the last couple of years. See, we ate a lot of

pizza at the store. We slept at the store a lot, actually,

because I like to I'm an entrepreneur at heart. We had

every restaurant in the area on exchange, I need food tonight,

would you guys like to exchange pizza for Chinese food or

chicken or burgers. So we were eating a lot of food at the

store, not a healthy way to do it. But we made it work. And

once we got the numbers and start figuring it out, we

started doing pretty well. But because again, of our

upbringing, our programming, we started spending more money than

we're earning.

And I know you've probably never heard of anybody that's ever

done that before, right?

No, no, not at all. I'm like, yeah, and by the time we were

franchisees, for eight years, we're over $150,000 in debt,

personally, and going down quickly. And that's actually

when we were introduced to personal development. And, you

know, we'd been someone who tried to introduce us years

earlier, but it was like, I don't need that stuff. I'm good.

I'm, you know, again, that eagle, but out of necessity, we

end up going to a 3d training, where they taught us why we were

in debt, like how we handled our money, why, where it came from

the understanding, but more importantly, it took taught us

to take ownership to actually take ownership, we were the ones

responsible for the debt, quit blaming other people. And that

lesson there, I've used in other areas of life as well, because

I've noticed a moment I play the victim, where it's someone

else's fault, I'm giving all my power away. But if I actually

just own it, then I can make a correction, I can make an

adjustment. And so then we also learn some specific skills that

if we didn't want to have debt, how to get out of it. And I

won't say I'm brilliant, and that we had it all planned to do

what we did next, it came from necessity, or $150,000 in debt.

And the statistic in North America is only 3% of people

will ever use new information that they receive only 3%. And

when we left that training, because we were so stressed out

financially, I've never experienced stress, like

financial stress before. And it becomes an all consuming, not

wanting to answer the phone, because you know, it's someone

trying to collect the debt. And it just it you know, when that's

running your life, it's it mentally, emotionally,

spiritually, and physically, it drains me. And so we knew we had

to take action. And so out of necessity, we decided we're

going to take what we just learned, put into action, see

what we can do. And also we were able to go from being over

$150,000 in debt to actually retired completely financially

free nine months later at the age of 32.

And our minds when Wow, that worked. If this much information

gave us that result, what would more information do and that's

where we started just learning from as many people as we could,

I will never quit learning now. i I'm you know, I work on my

self awareness. I work on what holds me back what works for me,

I even though I train around the world today, all over the place.

I'm still a student in as many audiences as I can be in all the

time. Because I know the moment I think I know it all. I'm done.

Yep, I'm completely done. And so while we are learning, I found

my passion. My passion wants to teach. And here's how the dream

started for me Aurora, it wasn't a huge dream, like, I want to

travel the world it was if I can help one person, one person, do

what my wife and I had been able to do go from being in debt to

financially free, it make it all worthwhile. And especially like

your listeners listening, that one person you start with is

sitting in your seat right now. Start with helping you because

if you don't help you, you can't help others. And so, because

we've been able to do some stuff I wanted to teach. And for the

last 18 and a half plus years, I've been blessed now to travel

around the world several times, and personally taught over half

a million people how to create financial freedom in their life,

amongst other things as well. And I'm living my passion. And

it just I love to be able to one of the greatest feelings for me

is when a student will find me or see me and they'll go you

remember when you said this? Here's how it changed my life.

And I get one arm to arm our whole body goosebumps. So that's

kind of the back behind story of who I wasn't to get me to where

I am today. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing all this and I

feel on one side I learned so much. And on the other side. You

know how so many people often say Oh yeah, that person is

successful. They were born into a rich home and they never had

problems. And this is why they're rich and with with my

podcast here I'm proving that no

We all had to struggle really hard, if not for life, to make

it where we're at right now. And what you kept saying was,

I remember the word work ethic. Yeah, you said, You guys had

both great work ethic, you had an awesome partner. So you

surrounded yourself with, even if it's just one person who

kicks your butt who cuts through your bullshit, and who keeps

like pushing forward, and connection with people, like you

shared with people what your struggle was about with your

aunt and your uncle in Calgary, and then with the lady at the

bank, and she open up the big door for you. And then now you

say you have a whole team of accountants, right next to you,

right? Like it's only possible to rise as a team and great work

ethic is, is, yeah, probably a huge must or Plus, when you want

to reach your goals. Yeah, have to have desire to want to have a

great life. Yeah. And you have to know you have to know that

you deserve it, too. I feel so many people say, oh, yeah, but

I've done mistakes in the past. And I'm not deserving and no,

like, just push for that desire, and doors will open and mistakes

will happen. But then new doors will open. And wow, thank you so

much. Like I feel I'm I'm growing as I'm listening to you.

I want to ask you now. So you are an empowerment coach today

and a spiritual leader and so many more things. What is what

is the number one or maybe two things that you observe? That

keeps people in that little box like that, that keeps repeating

all over the world? You see people from not only Canada, but

all over the world? Do you notice like a red line that

connects? Well,

and that's what's interesting is, you know, until I became a

trainer, I hadn't been outside of North America. Okay, I've

gone on a Caribbean cruise. So you know, I traveled. But in

2007, I went to Singapore for the first time. And one of the

fears was, do people there think the same way as we do? Do they

have the same things going on in their head the same crap. And it

only took the first couple of hours of the training, I had

6000 students in front of me for three days. And in the first two

hours, we knew they had the same crap going on. And now I've

experienced that all over the world. So and one of the biggest

ones that and it's something that still plagues me a little

bit Aurora, self doubt. Yeah, that's one of the biggest ones

is Who am I to have this greatness. And as Marianne

Williamson said, you don't you have greatness in you is? Who

are you not to be great. And so people won't, but if I'm great,

that means I'm Eagle I'm arrogant. No is owning your

greatness with confidence, not arrogance. And so I would say,

low self esteem and self doubt, are probably the biggest ones I

see all over the world. And it comes from Why don't think about

it like this. One of the things reason I wrote the my first

book, success left a clue is my first step is Dream Big, not

just a dream, but dream big. Because think about as a child,

what was possible. Anything and everything was possible. I can

be a truck driver, one day, a lawyer the next day and

astronaut the next day, whatever I wanted to be, I could be the

energy start to grow up. Society comes in to tell you to be

realistic. You weren't born into the right family. You don't have

the right education. Really, no one's done that before you and

Olson these messages come at us. And unfortunately, and I want to

be clear, it's not out of maliciousness. But

unfortunately, some of the greatest things that hold us

back are the messages we hear from our family. And it's not to

be mean, it's to protect us. They don't want us to get hurt.

But if you understand again, there's no such thing as a

failure. It's only feedback. Because when something doesn't

work, that's where the greatest lessons come from. So if you're

never willing to try something in fear of failing, then you'll

never get the lessons. Someone asked me a while ago they on a

pod cast interview. They said Robert, if you could go back to

18 year old Robert give yourself a message for the future. What

would it be? And now what I struggled with, until my answer

was just keeping you

see everything I've gone through the good, the bad and the ugly

is made me who I am today. I wouldn't change any of that.

In 2009, I went through two back surgeries, I was over living my

passion. And I wasn't standing properly on stage, only at home

on average two days a month. So I ended up herniating A disc.

And I end up getting two back surgeries, where at one point I

was in bed at home couldn't move for over six weeks before I

could get the first surgery. And people go, you wouldn't? You'd

want to go through that, again, the lessons I've learned.

You talk about humbleness, when someone actually has to wipe

your ass, because you can't you learn to be humble very quickly.

And so I look back and I go, No, I don't want to change anything.

Because I am who I am today, because of

thing. I've gone through everything. Yeah, yeah. Oh, and

humbleness is such a huge thing.

People can sense that right away. Like if you're not being

humble, if you're being ego driven only, you can be as loud

as you want, you will push people away, and they will not

want to follow you.

And so also think about it, because it goes back to the

question you ask. Most people who are so arrogant, are

overcompensating for their own self doubt. Yeah. And they're

trying to hide it. Yeah. But see, and that's because we've

been taught vulnerability is weakness. But no to me, and what

I've experienced, Vall and build strength, and you're willing to

be vulnerable and ask for help when you need it. Yeah, that's

huge for a lot of people. Yeah. Yeah, vulnerability, and what

I've learned the other day, fierce self compassion, to go

for your dreams, your desires, and to take really good care of

yourself, and to be vulnerable with other people for them to

see you and to be able to relate and

know, this is so precious. Thank you so much. Like, that's been

so wonderful already. I have I have one more question. I would

say.

If if we think about personal development, if we think about

your personal development, is there things that you still feel

to this day,

you want to learn more about like, some people have stage

fright, and they keep pushing through? You know, some people

have still intense fears.

Although they're up there at the top, but they still learn to

push through it every day. What is it with you that that you are

still learning to this day? Well, it's exactly what it said

is, I love to teach others. One of my specialties is to train

trainers, and I've trained 1000s of trainers around the world.

And my goal is to help them become more authentic and more

connected to their audience. reason is because that's the

journey I'm still on. You know, that old adage that which we

need to learn the most we teach. Yeah. And so because I want to

keep learning to be even more connected with my audience, to

be more authentic to be me, because I believe the greatest

gift anybody can give this planet is to be themselves.

Yeah. And you know, it was your because the Olympics just

finished. and Canada, you know, did I think our best showing in

the Olympics we ever have, you're looking at an aurora,

you're looking at a world class people pleaser right here. I'm a

gold medalist and people pleasing gold medalist. And how

tiring that was. Yeah, because I was trying to be someone

different to please people. And when I went through, years ago,

training I went through where it was three days as a student,

where it kind of to sum it up what a monk would sit in a cave

for 40 years to do. We went through that same energy in

three days. And when I went through that, and that's where I

really realized, I'm me, that's all I can be. And I started to

own it. My life shifted and changed. Because, you know, the

amount of energy I wasted on people, like if, if you're

someone I wanted to like me, and especially if you're successful,

I'd become like that last little puppy dog, I'd be like,

please, please like me. And it'd be like, so annoying. People

would be like, Get away from me, you freak. Because I was over

trying to please them. And the moment I realized that, here's

who I am. And either you're gonna like me, or you're not.

And if you like me, that's awesome. If you don't, that's

awesome. Because now I don't have to worry about wasting

energy. And I can actually be me. And as I'm always blown away

by the people that are attracted to me for who I am not wanting

to me to be someone else they want and like me for who I am,

instead of the people that are saying, well, you know if you do

this or if you

Do I wasted so much time and energy on that? Yeah. And I'm so

blown away today to the quality of people, the authentic people

that come into my life. Because they're like, Robert, I just

want to know you more. You know, there's something about you. And

so that's why I tell people, you know, be you just show up and

watch, who and what gets attracted into your life, when

you're being yourself. If even if you're a jerk, if you're

authentically a jerk, be a jerk, because at least the people who

like you for being a jerk, they're not going to be

surprised when, and it's a kind of a dirty secret of the

training industry. It blows me away and frustrates me how many

times you see someone on the stage. And everybody's like, Oh,

my God, they're amazing. They're so charismatic. They seem so

kind. But the moment they step off stage, they turn into an

asshole. And it's like, so my number one rule with my students

that I trained to be trainers is, and it was a lesson taught

to me by a mentor. He said, Robert, you can never when you

start getting to this level, you're gonna meet students all

over the world, in the strangest places, and never be afraid to

have to try and figure out who to be in that moment when you

meet someone. Because if you're yourself on stage, as well as

off stage, you are as crazy as you are on stage. Yep, that's

me. Yeah. Do have a terrible sense of humor. Yep, that's me.

Because that's all. So that's been a big one for me. Yeah. Oh,

man, I got so much respect for you. Because to, to hear that

from someone who is yeah, very confident and teaching others

is? Yeah, it's so refreshing. You know, it gives people hope

that are not quite yet there yet, and makes us relate to you

even better on a deeper level. It's, yeah, it's been

incredible, a wonderful to spend time with you.

Can you let us know like Facebook, we can reach you and I

will make sure to have the book your book in the show notes.

And then all the links that I find on on pod match.

Is that is that the best way to your and you know, Aurora

because you were fact that people have taken time to

listen, what I'd love to do is my book success left a clue. If

they go to Robert, real pill.com, just my name, Robert,

real pill.com, they're actually able to download the full

digital copy of the book as our gift to them for taking their

time to listen. And I will say it comes with a caveat though.

And the caveat is, I didn't write this book, too, for

someone to read it and put it on the shelf and make it shelf

help. That's not why I wrote it. Step number three in the book is

taking action. And so I wrote it as an actual manual, where it's

a workbook and all the way through their action steps. And

as you do the actions, when you go to read more, it'll say, Did

you do the last action? If not stop reading right now. Go back

and do that action before you read further. And so that's the

way I've written the book. And so I'd love for them to be able

to go and download a copy for themselves. And you know, enjoy

it. Yeah. Oh, that's such a super idea and very cool

approach. Like to make it interactive. And yeah, and with

exercises. Thank you so much.

Yeah, it's been wonderful to connect with you. And yeah, I

will make sure to put everything in the show notes, and then we

share our episode all over the world.

Perfect blessing to be here. Thank you so much.