How an Inventor Turned Setbacks Into Generational Opportunity

0:00It's really about entrepreneurship, taking control of your own destiny. You come out of the joint or you're trying to make a pivot in your life. There's only two ways there in a living, right? Work for yourself or work for somebody else. Philip Fairweather is a visionary, community focused, and accomplished entrepreneur in the founder and CEO of Entrepreneurs Academy, drawing from his extensive background in federal economic development and veteran leadership. He empowers underserved communities and aspiring business owners with cutting-edge strategies, creating sustainable enterprises and lasting economic opportunity. I started training with bodybuilders, and I gained 28 pounds and lost two tenths of a second off my 40. I was like, I just lifted myself out of a job. And I told them, I said, you know, the only thing that breaks my heart about doing this every single semester is that I believe in you guys more than you believe in yourself. Bring your kids to class. They might learn something. If they're out of control, take them outside, get them under control, come back in class. I don't want you to miss out on the opportunity because you don't have childcare.

1:01It spans the globe like a super high school. Internet Elvis. Ready? I am. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the ball. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy Podcast for those who live to leave a legacy. It's extraordinary. It's impossible. Oh, that is sensational. Open. She covered with the way you said. Fall is the box is not on the planet. You can leave your dream. Welcome back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy Podcast for Insight Success. I am Regus Heres. We're moments away from filming another episode of Operation CEO, and it's the eve of Thanksgiving. So there's good vibes. Joining me today is... I really forgot your name. That's the severe thing about... Don't see it. Well, I need to be so bad.

2:02Joining me today for his episode of Operation CEO is... Philip Fairweather. Philip, you come here with a mission with an operation. What is that operation, sir? That operation is teaching entrepreneurship to people from underserved communities, specifically veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, and folks that live in R3 zones. R3 zones are restore, renew, reinvest. They're the most impoverished communities in the state of Illinois. And it focuses on the communities that were hit heavily by the drug loss. Somebody has two strikes against them. They get caught with a roach in their car. They're going up for five, ten, eight years. Yeah, just like that. So our program is actually funded through the marijuana tax from Illinois. Wow. So we're telling everybody puff puff pass. I was going to say, R3P puff puff pass. The puns continue. I, sir, I medicate, but I have my car. I'm a Floridian born and raised here. But I actually do treat it as my medicinal. Like, it's a thing that I need to do what I'm currently doing now.

3:02Existing and being happy in the moment. A lot of folks don't get to the luxury of doing that. They traverse bumpier roads and they get in trouble for it. How do you deal with that? How do you educate folks on getting on the right road and medicating correctly? So we don't really talk about them medicating correctly. It's really about entrepreneurship taking control of your own destiny. Right. You come out of the out of the joint or you're trying to make a pivot in your life. There's only two ways there in a living, right? Work for yourself. It worked for somebody else. And you can go get a job if you want, but you got to scale up. And you're going to be under the control of somebody else. But if you want to start to take control of your own destiny, entrepreneurship to me is the best way to do it. For sure. That's how that's what drives the United States economy. This is how people get wealthy and create generational wealth for their kids and their family. So we focus on the entrepreneur from three perspectives. Financial health, physical health, and mental health. The mental health is the thing that's really unique about our program. So the financial health is starting your own business, getting your credit cleaned up.

4:07How to use insurance to create generational wealth, putting your money in trusts so that as the insurance rolls over, you're creating wealth for your kids. Absolutely. The physical health is urban farming. We have an urban sustainable urban farming program. So we're teaching people how to grow their own food. Food is medicine. Most people that are on public aid, they purchase all their produce in the first week. If they purchase produce. Sure. And for the rest of the month, they have nothing in their diet. It's canned goods, processed goods. It's high blood pressure, diabetes, all that sort of thing. And garbage in, garbage out. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, it's a marathon. It's not just a sprint. And you have to be healthy to be able to do that. Good food is going to keep your mind clear. Good food is going to get you up in the morning and not have brain fog. It's going to allow you to come in early and stay late. Yes, sir. And do those sorts of things. And if people only have produce in the first week of the month,

5:10their body is just going through this cycle. Correct. So if you can grow your own food, you can have fresh produce all the time and you can start adjusting your diet. The last part is mental health. Mental health, especially for people like me, old school, just suck it up. So what this happens, so what that happens. Same animal. Yeah, just suck it up and keep moving. It's a nice lecture. I'm starting crying about this bud. Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So, so the mental health component, it's just like you go to the gym to get a trainer to work on your body. You should be doing it with your mind. Your mind, your body follows your mind. Your mind doesn't follow your body. So if you take, if you start taking care of your mind, and it doesn't mean that you have bipolar depression or paranoid skits of freni or anything, you might just be procrastinating. You might have depression because you don't know how to meet payroll next week. You have to be able to fight through those things. So we wrap ourselves around the entrepreneur in those three areas to help them really be successful.

6:11It's awesome that you're doing this. For a very long time, folks that were like thriving in the hustle culture or want to be in this culture, they thought that the point of entry had to be like very high or you had to be a live a fancy live or be a post grad. No, like the real stories come from the darkest shadowy, painful areas and it creates the brightest stars. Like, where can you talk about some journeys as some folks that have transformed or ascended? Because they will always end them. So, so part of what we do is we hold forums and we tell different stories. We had one last year that was turning pain into gain. It was five women who had experienced extreme trauma in their life and they turned it into their entrepreneurial costs. Oh, yeah. We had this one Latin sister that drove from Indiana, when she was 12 years old, put two phone books on the front seat of her car, drove from Indiana to Chicago with her mother in the back seat, bleeding the death from her dad, beating the crap out of her mouth, pulled over,

7:14land kings, scooped her up, got her mom saved. And by the time she was 20, she was in the gang and she was incarcerated. Wow. And so, in the past, when she was 24, she was out. And now she's got a food pantry. She's working with women that are coming out with babies that need diapers and formulas. And so, we teach entrepreneurship to that population for them as well. We've got 3D printers over there. We're showing them a different way. We're showing them opportunities that are out there that they can succeed in. I mean, just a 3D printer. You don't have to be a digital designer or anything like, you can make earrings, you can make jewelry, costumes, you can do all kinds of things like that. So, those are some of the stories of people that have really taken trauma and turned it into their entrepreneurial costs. Yeah, coming from Chicago, that's the city of, that's Gotham City, man. That's where Bruce Wayne was born. There's lore there. That's New York. Oh, yes, but I always think of Chicago. I'm from New York, originally.

8:14I saw it all day. You're not taking Batman from me. Oh, okay, great. Well, in that case, before I met Rudy, I was about to sell my house and move my butt to New York. I'd meet him, man. I was just going to sell my house and live in a closet and be like, I'm going to figure out how to, how to intern. I thought 30 Rockefeller Center and just lived this other dream of being an SNL. You would have to live in a closet. Oh, no, no, I was ready for it. I was like, here's my purchase. I sold the house. Whatever. I don't care. It's getting ready to be ultra rich and homeless. That's what it'll cost. Yeah, I know. And that's just like, figure it out, Ray. I was like, I was ready for it. I was like, I'm in my 40s. This is a new thing. I've, I've, I've, I've achieved my other dreams. Okay, now I'm on a New York tangent. I'm, I'm already mad as vesting. Let's slow down here. Um, so let's talk about your work day to day. Like, where, where does this, where did, where did it inspire this, this new adventure for you? What inspired this? So I'm a patent and inventor. Right on. I invented, I've been an athlete all my life. And I invented a sports training product that built speed endurance and vertical jump.

9:15Awesome. When I was in the Air Force, I had gotten an opportunity to play for the first time in the world. I needed to play for the Jets of the New Orleans Saints. I was getting ready to go into training camp. And I felt like I needed to be bigger and stronger and faster. Air Force. But, yes. And I was playing overseas in Europe. Often. And I felt like I need to be big in short. I was six foot three, a hundred and ninety pounds. And this is 1985. Oh. That was a big receiver back then. But in my mind, I was still the skinny kid that came out at a corona. And I started training with bodybuilders. Yeah. And I gained twenty eight pounds and lost two tenths of a second off my forty. And I was like, I just lifted myself out of a, out of a job. And I designed these, I don't even remember the, the night that I thought of it, but I knew that I didn't want to use ankle weights because ankle weights tear up your knees. And I want to wear a weighted vest because it was every time I tried to catch the ball, it would choke me when I'd landed, be forty pounds of compression stress coming down on my spine.

10:18Yeah. And so I said, you know what? If I could figure out, I'd put some weights on my thighs, then I could do my sprints and everything. I had someone stitch some pockets on. I went to the bait and tackle shop, filled them up with fish weights and started doing my speed training. Wow. The weights bounced around. It bruised up my thighs. I had to pull my pants up after every sprint. But not only did I gain the two tenths of a second back, I gained another tenth of a second. So instead of being 190 pounds running for six forties, I was 218 running for five. Wow. And I was like, I'm going into the NFL. You're going into the NFL. And three days before I got into the Air Force, the USFL folded. And they fulfilled all their needs with the crossover players. Sure. And this was a, this was a time when you could try out for the NFL. Right. You know, it wasn't all drafting. And so I lost my shot. And I loaded up my van drove to California through the pants and the closet didn't even think about them for two years. And a friend of mine came by and I'm cleaning out my closet.

11:19And she says, hey, what are these? And I said, ah, something that I created a couple years ago. And I explained to her and she was a figure skater. And she goes, oh, wow, I could probably use these for figure skating. And I'm like, yeah, she says, you could probably use them for martial arts and aerobics. That was when Jane Fonda had the leg warmers and everything. And you could probably use them for these. I'm like, yeah, and she goes, probably fire and rescue and military and police. I'm like, give me those. And I snatched them back. And the next week I called, I was living in California at the time. I called the USC and UCLA, the strength coaches. And I said, can I talk to you? I went down there. It's all high told them what I had. They said, if you can figure out how to stabilize those weights, we'll buy them. We've been trying to figure that out because anatomically speaking and biomechanically speaking, all power comes between the knees and the navel. When you swing a baseball bat, it's your hips first. When you swing your golf club, it's your hips first. When you throw kicks, high knee lifts, triple jump, long jump, high jump. I'm like, what? So I took two years going back and forth with prototypes.

12:21And they finally saw the one. They got it on their players. And then they started opening me up. Jackie, Joanna Cursey became part of the equation. She was on my advisory board. I had her husband, Bob Cursey was coaching at UCLA. Right on. And they got it to Mike Powell, who broke the world record in the long jump. We got it on a Vanderholy field, Mr. T. Julia Roberts, Wayne Gretzky, the Knicks, the Bulls Raiders, and we blew up. All the night. Yeah. But I'm selling this all out of my house, out of my garage. That's crazy. And I never had full blown manufacturing. I could only order 50 at a time. I didn't have a financing. I was 28 years old. I didn't have any Etsy for those. That's right. Right. But then I realized I can come up with something out of my head that other people need. If I needed other people, other people needed. And that's how I started on the entrepreneurial journey. And I knew over the jobs that I had over the years, the abuse, the disrespect of supervisors,

13:24the no coaching, the no training, the expecting you to know things when you come in, when you're just a kid. And I'm like, I'll do this. If I got to figure it out over there, why don't I figure it out over here and make a bunch more money. Yes, sir. And so I got rid of the company after six years. And that's when I moved to Chicago. Next year will be 30 years. I've been in Chicago. Wow. And my program is ex everything that I didn't have. Yeah. And I've been in this program. And it's been going now for almost 30 years. Gosh, I'm listening to your vision here. I'm like, I want a program too. Like, I'm in my 40s going, all right. I'm on my next ascension. But there's a lot of unanswered questions. There's a lot of things that you're designed to find out on your own, which is the entrepreneurial CEO adventure. But gosh, if there was just like a little handbook that kind of gave me like their shortcuts here and there. Without having to struggle and find, you know, mentors that are going to charge you an arm and a leg just to be around them or give you a PDF. How are you really giving these last chance?

14:24Or is what we used to call them an art institute? Because I was I was head of video there and we would do recruitment videos. And our number one folks that we recruit in artists who were left last folks that were out of prison or dropouts that their last chance to become something. You're you've not only defined it, but you've essentially created the path. How does that feel? The stories are unbelievable. I can imagine that that come back. We had one gentleman guy look like Kimbo slice. Oh man. He's just jacked up his beard just thick came into class with his ankle bracelet on. Wow. We got with his probation officer and said, look, he's coming to class to learn entrepreneurship. Our classes are from six to nine at night. He was supposed to be in the house at seven. We talked to the probation officer and said, look, he's coming to class. You know, we can vouch for it. He said, okay, we'll give him till nine thirty to get home. Yes, sir. The class was going on the long were like, go ahead man, get out of here, get get home. He came every he was by far the the sharpest person in the class. He was really educating himself while he was in prison and he was bringing his fiance to class every week.

15:28And they were working on this business together. He would not tell his family anything until the graduation. And he brought his entire family his kids. Everybody first time they seen him graduate. Wow. That's amazing. That's powerful. That is very powerful. The primary is we had in our first semester a young Lee pass away and it shook up most of the class. And so at the graduation, we wanted to have a honorary certificate of completion for her. We wanted to give it to the husband, give it to the daughter. They're like, now we're still broken up. We're going to fall apart on stage. We're going to send our cousins down to accept it. Like, okay, they sent their cousins down. The cousin was a student of mine from ten years ago. Who was bringing her 12 year old daughter to class every week. Because I tell the students, if you got child care issues, bring your kids to class. They might learn something. If they're out of control, take them outside, get them under control, come back in class. I don't want you to miss out on the opportunity because you don't have child care. All right. The 12 year old comes to class. Now, fast forward ten years to give this honorary certificate, the daughter is now 22.

16:31And she turned around on the stage and said, Mr. Fairweather, I know that you think I wasn't paying attention when I was doodling in my book. Yep. But here's my mom's binder. Wow. And I'm never going to work for anybody. I just opened up a nail salon last week. I first nail salon. It's going to be one of ten. And she was just beaming about what she was going to do. That's the generational stuff. You can't be something if you can't see something. Yeah. And her coming to class and seeing her mother going through what it took to be an entrepreneur, she followed in that suit. I was going to say as an entrepreneur, there's no such thing as a small job. An entrepreneur runs a nail salon or a boutique or a cleaning homes. You're really searching for peace. You're not really looking. You shouldn't be searching for, yes, money is always good. But once you understand that you're searching for peace and that fulfillment and that your appetite is being fulfilled, it's such a great feeling. I come into work and I understand the hustle, but that hustles my reward. And the more I hustle, the bigger the reward, the bigger the reward, the bigger the hustle. So forth and so forth. And you attract energies like yourself. And it's just like I sit in this podcast and I'm, you know, it's an honor to hear these stories and just do the golf.

17:35Man, I just asked their key questions and kind of nod and say, man, that is amazing. I wish I had that. But the fact that it exists because of you is magical. Well, I appreciate that. Absolutely, my friend. For Operation CEO, what will we learn about you in your story, which we're about to film in moments? I think you're going to hear a bunch of challenges that I went through throughout my life. Although I had a very, very stable childhood to, to great amazing parents. Really tight intellectuals on my father's side, very loving, caring folks on my mother's side. The, the combination of the two in spite of all that, I was a problem child. So when I look around and I see people that don't have what I had growing up, I feel like there's so much more at a disadvantage than I wasn't.

18:36I fought all the support that I had growing up as a kid got kicked out of college after I graduated high school at 16 years old. What is that about? Yeah. All right. Going, going left when I should should have gone right. I was never a mean-spirited kid, but I was a mischievous kid. And I was always seeking adventure kind of doing the wrong thing because I knew it was wrong. Yeah. And so getting to a point of self-realization and turning that corner where I said, okay, I'm not going to be my worst enemy. I already got a bunch of things in society that's against me. Why do I need to be against myself? And it changed a lot of things. Sure. It changed a whole lot of things. And being able to see folks that are less fortunate at me than me with this drive, with this desire, but no belief in themselves. That's what I'm there for. I mean, I just said it to my, we're graduating in class next week.

19:39Wow. And I told them, I said, you know, the only thing that breaks my heart about doing this every single semester is that I believe in you guys more than you believe in yourself. That's not crazy. That's awesome. Yeah. And so we try to wrap that support around and we let them know. You all might need to get rid of some of the people that are in your circle. Oh, yeah. I know the people that came with you, can't go with you. So, and the people that you think are cheering for you are your biggest haters. Yes, sir. It's in the by-boy system. People will cry for you. Ram, like, no, your job is to look away and move forward and just walk in the light. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Speaking of light, how much of it is in the classroom and how much of it is just divine calculations? Like, you just feel it. Like, even you spoke of your early mischief, but I almost feel like that was just your intuition acting up and letting you know, you've got a superpower. You somehow can tell time before it happens. But you're, we're going to let you have fun because you're in your 20s. But once you realize that superpower is honed in for what you do today, you'll figure it out.

20:41For them comes in the classroom because that's the only, that's really the connection. And then the one or one coaching. Those one or one private sessions are, are really personal. Oh, absolutely. For, for me, I grew up in the Catholic church, but I'm not a religious person. I had a lot of challenges with that. Sure. A lot of contradictions. My mother was very religious. My father was not religious at all. So it wasn't forced down my throat. But when I started challenging the church with questions, I'd get rulers across my knuckles to label it. Right on. Back in the day when that was, what was supposed to have, but I guess. But now I, I say it's okay to believe, but you got to put in work. Yeah, you definitely got to put in work. You got to put in the work. Yeah. And that's actually a thing. People, I'm sure you hear it all ton. Oh, he's done the work. He's done the work. I'm like, yeah, I've come from a dark place in depression that's still very much there, but I've turned that darkness into something positive and turn into light. But I also hear just leave it to God, which is, which works per se, but you've got to be, you got to take action.

21:47You've got to take action. Or if not, you're just more noise figuring out. Like you mentioned all these people that don't have a purpose. So that you can be animated. You can walk, wake up every morning every night, but without a purpose, without the, your North Star. It's very a difficult journey. And that is fun. Let's put it that way. And as I told you, entrepreneur, feeling that grit and that grind and seeing your work result into actual positive affirmations is quite magical. It's, it's like being a Jedi and a Sith Lord all at once, being entrepreneurs. Pretty hip and cool. Would you, would you agree, sir? It is the most challenging thing that I've done outside of taking care of my mother. Wow. It will test every fiber of your character. It'll test every fiber of your resilience and strength and tenacity. It'll throw you into spinning pools of depression, anxiety. All these things. Exactly.

22:47But when I, you know, I don't have any kids. And I always tell my students and all my students are from 18 to older than me. And I just say, you're kids. Yeah. And I tell them, you guys are my legacy. I'm not leaving any kids behind. But you and your business and your kids business and your kids' kids' business. That's what I get to leave behind. I'm not going to get the credit for it. I don't need the credit for it. Yeah. I just know that that's what I'm, that's my mark on on the earth right now. It's amazing. You said that because I too, I'm 42. I have no children. But people are like, well, you're extra cranky most of the time. I'm like 42 without children. So I'm using that energy and using it into leading with, with, with fire and, and being an entrepreneur. You know, it's, it's this energy that can be replaced and used somewhere else. And that was part of the reason why I didn't have kids because I knew that I was going to probably be spending more time doing my entrepreneurial change and spending with my kids. And I don't want to leave that legacy behind. For sure. You know, as a matter of fact, I, I talked to my students all the time.

23:47If you only spend one hour a week with your kids, what do you think the kid is going to look like? Yeah. You only spend one hour a week working on your business. What do you think the business is going to look like? Yeah. But if you just spend a half hour a day at dinner with your kid all week long every day, just that little bit of time, that kid is going to be completely different than that one hour kid. For sure. Same thing with your business. If you just research websites, look up your logos, do a little bit of market research. You don't have to do everything in the same, in the same day. That's right. That's leading up to the business. Once you get into the business, you're in the right. Right on. But figuring it out and, and, and getting your business plan set up and everything takes that kind of work and that kind of time. So depending on what kind of kids you want, what kind of business you want. It depends on the time you put in. Often. I love it. The ROI, as they say. My friend, how can folks learn more about you and get ahold of you and be part of your program? www.entrepreneurs academy.net.

24:50That's entrepreneurs with an s academy.net. Not.com.net. We have, I can't think of all my social social media handles right now. That's what I might direct your operations. I love it. Is there folks? How can folks find you? Philip? Like, is there a personal account that you use? Yeah. I'm on, I'm on LinkedIn. Okay. I'm on Facebook. Cool. So just type in Philip. Fair weather. Right on. Cool. And that's the budget. There isn't another one out there. I love it.

25:53I love it. I love it.