From Pizza Truck Driver to Millionaire (Interview)

Do you want more? More money? More freedom? More enjoyment?

Of course you want! Now the question is how?

Robert Riopel is certainly one of the best to tell you.  A few years back he was a pizza truck driver who had a vision. Today he’s a millionaire who teach people how he did it. On his way to success, Robert even managed to become financially independent in 9 months while he was $150,000 in debt. If you wonder how he did it, read the following interview, you will be blown away.

1) Could you introduce yourself?

My name is Robert Riopel and even from an early age I have been an Entrepreneur.  One of the things I was taught as a child however is that “if I work hard and stay loyal to a company, that company will take care of me” and so that is what I did.  By the time I was 21 however, I had worked for 3 different companies and had been Laid off from all 3.  At first I was pissed off, but today I realize that it was one of the greatest lessons I could receive and that is “If I want any kind of control over my life, I have to be at the steering wheel and be in my own business because no matter how big the company is, I was just another number”.

Today I travel the world teaching others how to go for their dreams and create the financial freedom they desire.

2) Could you talk about your story ?

When I was laid off from the third company I could not find another “Real Job” as we were in a bit of a depression.  I believe in supporting my family any way necessary (legal, ethical and moral) and I decided to start delivering pizza’s until I found that “Real Job”.  

While doing this, I started making more money and having more fun than I did in my last job and when my franchisee decided to sell his store and buy two more in a different city I asked if he needed a manager.  We talked for a couple hours and he made the decision to promote me, so two weeks later I moved in with my aunt and uncle in the new city until I could find a place for my wife and I to live.

When I started managing, my wife became the assistant manager and we started working open to close, 7 days a week.  We really loved what we were doing and started to envision becoming franchisees ourselves and so when, a year and a half later, our franchisee said he wanted out of Domino’s Pizza, we wanted in.  The only issue we had was that we did not have any money, but we did have the passion to learn and go for our dreams and in a few short months we were able to buy both of his stores with no money of our own and we became franchisees.

3) When you were driver for the pizza company what was going on in your mind? Did you have a clear vision of what you wanted to accomplish? Did you doubt yourself?

For me it has always been about doing what I enjoy and I love to meet people.  So as a driver I was able to meet people while driving around listening to music and make money at the same time (what could be better?)  I am also a person who dreams a lot and dreams big, but I break it down and always ask myself “what is my next step?” and by doing this it allows me to move forward even when times and situations are tough because yes I do doubt myself, everyone does at some level in my experience.  The key is to create the habits that allow you to move forward in spite of the doubt.

4) You started with nothing, what did you do exactly to get to the top?

In real estate they say the 3 most important keys are “location, location, location”, well for me, in success it is “learning, learning, learning”.

Since we did not have any money to buy the stores, we learned as much as we could about how to buy a business with no money.  We would learn something, test it, learn, adjust, test, learn, adjust, and test.  From doing this, we were able to put a management agreement in place on the two stores which allowed our franchisee to walk away without worrying about the operations and profits or losses of operating the stores, while we worked on putting the financing in place.  We eventually were able to get the bank to finance both stores 100% and by the time we got to that point we had put enough money in the bank from operating the business to pay for all of the inventory on hand.  There was a lot of trial and error (or learning) but the big key to our success is that we do not give up.

5) I read that in 9 months you went from being a 150,000 dollars in debt to financially independent, how did you do that?

Again this comes down to learning.  We were willing to look at what was not working in our lives and learn what we needed too to move forward.  We discovered at a training that there are 5 critical factors to financial freedom:

1 – Working Income

2 – Savings

3 – Investment Income

4 – Passive Income

5 – Simplifying your life

I knew what 1-3 where but did not know what 4 and 5 meant.  Passive income is money working without you having to do it and this is important  because, as we learned, the definition of Financial Freedom is “You are financially free when your Passive Income is greater than your expenses”.We did not have any Passive Income, so again, we learned and created 2 Passive Incomes very quickly.

The other main thing that was holding us back was that with success, we started to have a rich lifestyle with all of the toys.  This meant that our expenses where very high.  We were taught that if we started thinking long term instead of short term, we could reach financial freedom quicker.  We took a hard look at how we could simplify our lives and get rid of expenses we did not need (the boat we did not use and all its costs).  Couple this with creating Passive Income and it did not take long for our PI to go up and our expenses to go down to a level where they passed each other and we had FF.  To be clear, at this point we were not wealthy, we were FF but now we did not have to work if we did not want to and that freed up a lot of time to learn more and focus on creating wealth.  Imagine taking the 40-50-60+ hours a week you spend earning a living to just get by and use even a portion of that time to focus on creating wealth and you will see that it becomes much simpler to do so.

6) What resources helped you succeed?

Our number one resource became the courses taught by T. Harv Eker and his company Peak Potentials.  The Millionaire Mind Intensive started it all off for us and it had such an impact that I now teach his material around the world because if I can help even one person go from being in debt to Financially Free, it is worth it.

Also, because I believe in learning from as many places as I can, I love to read and my favourite type of books are biographies.  This allows me to understand a persons journey to what they achieved because that is where some of the greatest learning come from, not the final destination its self.

I am also a big believer in having mentors or coaches to hold you accountable and guide you. Instead of reinventing the wheel, find someone who has achieved what you desire and model how they did it.

7) What have you learned on your path to success?

Believe in yourself and take one step at a time.  Find what you are passionate about and learn how to make money doing that so that you will enjoy life more and when times get tough you are less likely to give up and instead you will continue to move forward.

8) If someone asked you what it takes to become a millionaire, what would you tell him?

Tenacity and willingness to learn

Source: The Becomer