Neal Thakkar Lost $10 Million Overnight And His Comeback Strategy Will Shock You

From $10M to Bankruptcy: The Raw Truth About Losing Everything

Neal Thakkar built a $10 million supplement company, then lost it all overnight. Bankruptcy, 40 creditors, living at his parents' house at 31. But his comeback strategy will change how you think about failure forever.

What You'll Learn:

• Why being your own worst enemy keeps you stuck in failure
• How to "rewrite your past" and escape the shame spiral
• The superpower you gain when you keep promises to yourself while everything's falling apart
• Why most people left when he started winning again
• The exact process to transform trauma into wisdom

Key Quote: "There's only one guaranteed failure - when you die. Everything else is just preparation for your next chapter."

This isn't motivational fluff. It's the real playbook for rising from the ashes when life hits you hardest.

Connect with Neal:

• Instagram: @neal.thakkar

Transcript

Rob Pene (00:02.066)
Okay, it should be recording. Okay, great. So I wanted to say this on camera instead of like do the prep and be honest, dude, I appreciate you, man. Neil, you, you're a brave man. I've known you for a few years now and I've seen the Uber success. But then when you were so bold to share

even the downfalls while you were in it and then now witnessing the rise again. I know I reached out to you in the past as you were expressing some of those, the valleys and I secretly told you that, know what, I resonate with you and I'm living through your voice because there was a lot of shame that I, you know, in my failures that I was afraid of exposing.

but you were so bold, so gracious. It's left an imprint on me. And that's why I'm so grateful that we get to now share this in public, at least for me and the people that, few people that watch or whatever, because I want them to experience the power that you come with, you know, from your spiritual to your mental, to all that stuff, because boy, to go through what you went through, professional, personal.

and be where you're at. Like you're calm right now, you know what I mean? And knowing what's going on in your life now, just it's like, man, I so appreciate you, dude. So this is pretty special for me, because I've got some questions that I still need to figure out that I know that you've already, you know, moved on from and, you know, have built yourself up from there. So I appreciate you, man. This is going to be pretty special for me.

Neal Thakkar (01:50.99)
I you too, man. I do. I do. appreciate you seeing the value in that too. I appreciate you being receptive to taking those lessons. And I'd like to say that like, if it wasn't for the people in my close circle, either watching them, or perhaps people who I connect with through just the internet, through YouTube videos, through research and seeing how they've navigated storms and such.

I would not have been able to do whatever I've done or even fall and land in the way that I landed. I think it's in the power of other people's stories and the power in knowing that like other people have it way worse and other people have navigated more, more treacherous territories. That's kept me going. But dude, I just appreciate you giving me the platform here. And I hope even if just one person is able to rise from a tough time because they hear some of the

the wisdom or advice or story that I have to tell. know that we both did something really good here. So thank you for, thank you for allowing me to do that,

Rob Pene (02:52.5)
Yeah. No, this is great. Amen, man. Because I was very hesitant to reach out. And just to tell you that dude, I resonate. It was very hard for me. The ego and the shame, know, trying to work through all that stuff was crazy. So, you know, your story was so powerful. Now, let these guys know how freaking successful you were and how successfully, you know, it crashed.

Neal Thakkar (03:05.301)
Okay.

Rob Pene (03:20.714)
But a little bit of the background so the set so they can kind of.

Neal Thakkar (03:26.572)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I actually want to start way earlier than this chapter because so, okay. So the chapter perhaps that or the story perhaps that you're alluding to right now is when I had a company, a supplement company that had done about $10 million in lifetime sales, I'd sold about 250,000 units. I had one of the top nootropic supplements in the world really. And I lost the company. yeah? man.

Rob Pene (03:51.176)
It was great. It was great because I used it.

Neal Thakkar (03:55.15)
After this send me your address. I still have a bunch of bottles that I'll send over to you, you know, but yeah, it was it really I was proud Thank you for saying that I'm glad that it helped you. I really was proud of quantum mind, which is the nootropic I was really proud of what I had done what I had built now the inspiration behind that was to really just scratch my own itch So I want to start the story back in college, right and I was I was 20 years old when I had my first like really darkened under the soul. So I was a college athlete

you know, mentally I was not good enough to go pro physically. actually, I think I was, but mentally I didn't, I didn't have it. And when I look back at the chapter, I, I say, I lost my professional dreams and that I was not never going to go pro. just, I just wasn't good enough up here. that that's post reflection, but at the time I really did have an ego death when I was a college athlete, right? Division one, division one athlete ended up getting cut for my team. Okay. The cop, my college team. And, that was very tough for me because my whole identity was wrapped up in.

in being an athlete. And so when I lost that, I just lost myself completely. I was a young boy walking around feeling like I had no talents, nothing to offer the world. And so I got into drugs, you know, and I got addicted to drugs. And for about two and a half years, my life was chaos. was just, I just couldn't get out of it, you know, and it was because the shame and the guilt, right? And yeah, a lot of it was the shame.

And I bring that period up because I pulled myself out of it, right? And you know, I went and got help and I pulled myself out of it and you know, got into bodybuilding and got into entrepreneurship and I had made Quantum Mind. Thank you, sir. I had made Quantum Mind to scratch my own itch, to come up with a safe alternative to Adderall, right? But I bring that up because I, you know, fast forward about 10 years later, I have another season of, you know, existential, existential crisis where I lose my company, I lose my identity.

and had a crash and burn. But fortunately, fortunately for me in that season, because I had had another dark season in my life before, I drew upon so much wisdom from that season, right? And so one of the first things that I kept telling myself during this season, we'll say, or most recent season of failure was, you're gonna get through it. Like, I don't know how, I don't know what it's gonna look like. I don't know what's gonna, I don't really know exactly what's gonna come of this. And this season, I would say, was much more intense.

Neal Thakkar (06:19.542)
in terms of the pain, right? Because that season I was just me battling myself, pulling myself out of something. Whereas in this season, it at least felt like it was not just me against myself. It felt like it was me against a whole bunch of other forces. And so what I'll say is this, is that overnight I lost my company and I had a good deal of debt, a good deal of debt that I had, right? And I had to file bankruptcy. And because it was a business bankruptcy as well as a personal bankruptcy, I had to file.

A lot of loans were personally guaranteed. I had about 40 creditors that were coming after me. And so the legal process of that was very, very intense. You know, I had bank accounts getting tapped. Just all my money got taken from me, you know. Just everything got drained, you know, and you felt like you getting attacked from all corners and like letters from all these lawyers, letters from all these attorneys, all of that. Now, it was scary, but then I realized like this is going to end. This is just going to end one day, all this.

And then it was interesting because then it did end, right? I had my hearing, I had my court case, everything got discharged, and I was left with basically no money back at my parents' house at age of 31. But then you realize, okay, what is the lingering trauma that is within you and then what is an external attack, if you will?

I would say about 50 % of it was just me attacking myself, me hating myself. And I'm like, you know, if I'm in a hole right now, right? I'm in a hole right now and I'm trying to climb out of it, like imagine I have a twin brother who's outside of that hole throwing dirt on me. Okay. Throwing dirt down on me as I'm trying to climb out. Why, why, why, why are you going to do that to yourself? What are you already down? Right? So now if your twin brother throws a rope to you and starts pulling, helping you pull yourself up.

Rob Pene (08:14.098)
Neal Thakkar (08:14.702)
That's gonna help expedite that process. So I said, you know what? Let's let's just start with this Let's just start with being my own best friend, right? Because I look back at a previous chapter where I was going through darkness and that was the same realization It's like dude, like why are you kicking yourself? Why are you kicking yourself? And um, I have to say that I wish that this was my own discovery But I also I have this guy this this this random guy I saw on YouTube. His name is Tom Cummins actually and um, he's got a company that's doing 250 million dollars right now

and he just started getting into content, right? And that nobody knows who he really is, but he started to do content. And he told us his story, how at age 30, he filed bankruptcy. You know, in his early 20s, he was addicted to drugs. And then he lost everything at age 30, and then he lost everything at age 34, and then he lost everything at age 39. And between the ages of 39 to 43, he was beating himself up, beating himself up. And so I showed him a message, and he recorded a nine minute video talking to me, directly to me, giving me all his wisdom.

Rob Pene (09:13.046)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (09:14.338)
And the first thing he said was at age 43 was when he started his most recent venture, which is now he's had for about 25 years. He's doing a quarter million, quarter million dollars a year. And he said, the one decision he made at 43 was that he was going to stop talking poorly to himself about himself. And he's like, that's the first thing you need to do. Right. Because when he lost everything, the fourth time, which was at age 39, he said, for four years, I couldn't get ahead of Steve. I just couldn't get going. And the reason was because I'm the worst. Why am I doing this? I don't deserve this. I'm a piece of shit. I'm this, I'm that. Right.

He's like, as soon as I stopped talking poorly to myself, as soon as I started betting on myself again, as soon as I started taking risks again, as soon as I started believing in myself again, I, um, that's when I was able to pull myself out. So I think that in any season that you're in, if it's a dark season, if it's a dark season of adversity, you have to be unrelenting about being your own best friend. You have to be unrelenting about being your own best friend, because if you're going to kick yourself when you're down, if you're going to kick yourself when you're down, well,

Rob Pene (10:05.75)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (10:14.612)
no one else is going to build you up, right? And so now everyone, including your own self, is kicking you. And so that's, think, like, you know, anyone watching this who's in a tough time, you have to be your own best friend. So. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (10:28.126)
Hmm. Yeah, it can be hard, you know, because you're left with the guilt and the reality that a lot of the decisions that you made actually created that reality of the failure. Now, obviously there's external, you know, factors that contributed to that. But because we made the decision, it didn't work. It's a fact. So it's hard to get over that fact, right? When you're trying to build yourself up.

How do you get over it? Because it's the truth, right? You can't fight that truth, but that's tough to go against if it's true.

Neal Thakkar (11:10.798)
Yeah, you know, I think that I think it's like a big part of it's just all about reframing all of it's about reframing because like, you know, back when the whole thing with soccer didn't work out, right. I consider myself, you know, a failed soccer player, right. But then when I was, you know, I when my company was generating a bunch of revenue and it was working, I looked back and it all made sense. I wasn't a failed soccer player. I was just a soccer player that learned a lot of skills about discipline, about teamwork, about being a leader.

about, you know, pouring into yourself every day. And those were what was necessary in building my next company. Right. And so like you could accept the fact that your company failed, which I suppose that that is one fact. That is one truth. But there's many, many truths. Right. And so I think when when you frame things as so rigidly fact, like it is a fact that I failed. Well, then yes, you did fail. But if you frame it as it is a fact that this is going to make sense looking backwards and perhaps you just don't know how exactly it's going to make sense.

Rob Pene (11:54.326)
Hmm.

Neal Thakkar (12:10.434)
Well then, you know, then that's the fact that becomes true. And I'll tell you this, the company that I'm building right now is a funding company where we help help business owners get low interest, zero percent interest funding for their company to help it grow. And for Evolver, when I was growing that company, I raised a lot of funding for myself and I raised good capital and I raised loan shark money as well. And if I had known what I know now, I would not have made the same mistakes. And so now what I'm doing is

Rob Pene (12:37.482)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (12:39.63)
I'm helping entrepreneurs raise money, you know, the bank from banks and from institutions and just positive types of financing that's not going to ruin the cash flow of your business or anything like that. And everything in the last chapter makes sense again, because I had raised, you know, 350 to $400,000 for my company at the time. And now I'm helping entrepreneurs do the same thing. So now the last chapter makes sense again. And now this new company, you know, we I was discharged on January 17th of this year and of November of 2025.

this company is going to surpass the highest month of revenue that Evolver did in such a short period of time. And the beautiful thing about it is like, I genuinely felt like I was in such a rush to get back to that point. And the second that I let go of those timelines, the second that I said, there's no, I don't need to restore order to the kingdom, right? I don't, I don't need to validate myself by generating more revenue than I did previously. I don't need to get back to anything. I just need to forge a new path and

Rob Pene (13:22.496)
Yes.

Neal Thakkar (13:36.886)
I happen to be one of those people that's gotten fortunate to have that success start to accelerate. But it's when I let go of that need for that to happen. And I said, just get back into it for the love of the game. But the only way this any of this could have made sense is if I reframed the last failure as not necessarily a failure. So I think that when you hold on, when you cling on so tightly to the fact that you failed or when you cling on so tightly to the fact that things went wrong, that's when it,

Rob Pene (13:44.437)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (14:05.536)
it actually manifests itself to be true, right? But when you reframe that chapter in your own journey, So publicly, it's a cool story to say, hey, I failed, I rose back up. But internally, I don't consider myself having failed. And I think that when I let go of that idea that I even failed in the first place, that's the thing that really drives me. Because at the end of the day, there's only one guaranteed failure, really, in my opinion. And that's when you die, because now you failed living anymore.

Rob Pene (14:07.786)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (14:35.0)
I don't think there's anything between now and that last breath you take that you really should consider a failure, right? I think failure is so overrated anyway. You know, that's just my personal view and belief. you didn't, like whatever it is you're going, you didn't fail. You just didn't accomplish the original goal that you may have set out. But I mean, is that a failure? I don't, if it's constructive to frame it that way, go by all means frame it that way. But if it's not constructive to frame it that way, don't, you know.

Rob Pene (15:02.9)
Yeah, there's a lot of hope in that approach because now you're essentially rewriting, you can erase that memory and then you recreate it with a different storyline and then you live from there. So there's a lot of hope there. Yeah, there's a lot of hope there. like that. Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (15:17.56)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. You know, one thing that if someone listens to this, I would hope that they don't take from it is, you know how I said that my company is going to be doing more in revenue in November projected, right? From accounts receivables and all that. Then my highest monthly of all there. I hope people don't look at this and say, Hey, like I can do that too. Sure you can, but I don't think that ought to be your goal. Right? I think the thing that had brought you to that first success was presence.

Love for the game, love for what you do, right? I think that when you can focus on getting that back, everything else will fall in place. Everything else will fall in place, you know?

Rob Pene (15:56.384)
Hmm. How did you navigate relationships? Because I imagine that the business is also tied to your identity that also attracted different people in your relationships. when that kind of went haywire, I imagine the relationships went haywire too. How did you navigate that part? that's the glue, right, between your feelings as people.

Neal Thakkar (16:02.542)
you

Neal Thakkar (16:20.854)
It's a great question. and you know, definitely, definitely a bunch of gold diggers during the during the peak that I, you know, like, that was the reality. You know, and I'm with my current girlfriend right now, who I genuinely believe I'll probably be spending the rest of my life with. She saw me at what I consider to be my lowest. But when I talked to her about it, she's like, I don't really see it as your lowest. You know, I do. I do think that there was like a lot of trauma that you were dealing with and all that. But she's like, I saw you for you.

Rob Pene (16:21.949)
Bye.

Rob Pene (16:30.07)
Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (16:49.902)
You know, and quite honestly, she's like, I want it to be a part of it. You know, I pay my own bills. I she does her own thing and she's building her own business. And she's like, I was just more so inspired by by you than anything else. yeah, she's like, I she always wanted someone who could handle big problems. And I think what's cool is that like, I don't think I would have met her in the last chapter. I think that she was more so attracted to the resilience that I had, the guy that kept going.

Because in her head, like if in the future we ever deal with a big problem, she knows that she can rely on me to get us through it, you know? So for her, she just saw a warrior, you know, she just saw a fighter. She doesn't need millions of dollars or anything like that. Plus she believes that I'm going to get it again. And I think she just loves me for me, which was when you don't have any material things to offer.

That's what you're left with. And then that's when people can see you for who you are. So, you know, and it's funny because I always made it happen with the two of us. Like, I love her very much. And I was like, you know what, let me do whatever I need to do to see her and to give her a great few days whenever we get to see each other. And it's actually set the foundation up for a beautiful relationship. So the other thing that happened was like, this is kind of dark. This is kind of the darker side to all this. But a lot of people fell out of my life.

A lot of people fell out of my life. And I wish it was because they wanted to kick me when I was down, but that's not actually what happened. What happened was they got so used to me being down. They felt like they had a role when I was down. And so when I started to pick myself back up, that made them very uncomfortable because I was setting boundaries again. So I lost a lot of people in this chapter. I lost a lot of people in this chapter, And I think it was like, there was a lot of constants.

Like our friend Chris Bolger, he was a constant. He became one of my closest friends, even closer now than ever. Because I saw how supportive he was. I got close to a few people during this chapter. And then there was other people that they just got used to me being down, you know? And I think one of the things that I recognized was when I had ascended up with my business success, I didn't realize there was a lot of resentment.

Rob Pene (19:13.76)
Grrrr

Neal Thakkar (19:17.57)
from some of these people. when I was down, it made them feel better about themselves. I think that my ascension up in a lot of ways was a reminder to everyone that they could do it too and that they weren't doing it. Because that's what I hope whenever anyone sees someone who's succeeding, that's my hope is that they see that, hey, like, like I can do that too, you know, not.

Rob Pene (19:25.11)
Mm.

Neal Thakkar (19:43.682)
they have something different than me because all of us, all of us can be successful to whatever capacity we wish to be. So yeah, I think that, you know, and Trump has said this before too, you know, whatever your take on Trump is, Trump has said before, he's like, hey, like, I do wish I would lose everything so I could see who's actually close to me and not, and lo and behold, about.

A few years after he said that, did lose almost everything in the early 90s and he was able to see that. So it is kind of a beautiful, beautiful experience in that regard too, to see who's loyalty and who's not, you Have you experienced a lot of that?

Rob Pene (20:21.14)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (20:27.382)
I think for me, because I'm, I'm not from the States, you know, I'm from Samoa and then I'm not from California. spent the majority of the early parts of my, you know, adult life or I guess after high school in Michigan. And then I moved around the world with baseball and then I came to California and then planting myself here. I always had different pockets of people. I never really.

shared the other parts of my life with different parts of it, like the church people only knew me for church. They didn't know that I played baseball. And then the baseball and the church people didn't know that I would do business stuff. So I kept myself exclusive, which is good because I only had friends that were seasonal just for that time, which means when I went through stuff, I didn't really have people there unless I invited them to

Neal Thakkar (21:01.71)
Mm.

Rob Pene (21:26.144)
to kind of walk with me and that was a different pocket. So I think I'm grateful for everyone because at the highs and the lows, the people that needed to be there were there. My biggest issue was me. Chris, Chris Bolger, he talked about the amygdala the other day and how it's that pestering negative, and it's supposed to be one of the tiny little parts of the brain. I think that's probably the biggest part of my brain.

I do a really good job at keeping, you know, the front kind of looking good and feeling good and all that stuff. But deep down inside, there's some real, real dark places my mind can go. And a lot of it is from guilt. And I was going to ask about identity because I think there's things that I grew up with that I experienced that's probably affected the way that I think and still continue to think. But the hope is...

What I'm hearing is I can rewrite that past and almost erase it.

Neal Thakkar (22:28.908)
You can. Yeah, let me give you a little equation that I figured out for this whole situation. So when you feel like a winner, when you feel like you're succeeding, it's so much easier to keep your promises to yourself. It's so much easier.

Rob Pene (22:40.852)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (22:48.992)
That's my biggest struggle. That's my biggest struggle. I can't keep promises to myself. I suck at it.

Neal Thakkar (22:54.188)
Right, right. When you're winning, it's so much easier to keep promises to yourself. Because you feel like a right? When you feel like you're losing and you make a promise to yourself, there is a resistance in keeping promises to yourself. And what happens is a why bother, right? I call it the case of the fuck it's exceeds the profanity, but I call it right. Where you say, you know, screw this. There's no reason for me to do this, right? It almost feels like there's a wall.

Rob Pene (22:57.406)
Yeah. Yes.

Neal Thakkar (23:20.96)
And whether you're in the gym and you say you're do 10 reps, you only do eight or nine, right? Because that identity is so rooted in you. I call it the loser identity. I call it the inner bitch, right? Where so closely resonate with that, okay? Now.

It's like, this is the way I'd look at it. If you're running, if you're sprinting, right, and you're running down a hill, you're gonna run faster. Okay, right? If you're running up a hill, it's gonna be slower, right? Now, if you're in a race, right, you have one version of you that gets to run downhill, one version of you that runs uphill, right? The one that's running uphill is going to say, wow, this is unfair. This is an unfair race, right? Okay, I have a disadvantage. And that disadvantage is all the voices that are talking against you, right? But I said to myself, said, how epic would it be?

Rob Pene (23:43.371)
We should.

Neal Thakkar (24:06.678)
If the guy running uphill, right, with all the disadvantages, with all the chains, with all the shackles, how epic would it be if he actually won the race? Right? Now, even better, what if he won the race? Because of his own will. Meaning, you were looking across at that other version of you that had the advantage, right? And you were looking at him and he's getting tired, but he's like, shit, like I have an advantage, I'm still losing. And this guy is like, yeah, I'm running harder and harder and harder. And his legs are burning up and all of that, right? But he still wins the race just because of his own will, right?

When you are in a season of losing or feeling like you're losing and you're able to keep those promises to yourself, the resilience that you gain from that is so much greater than when you're winning and you're keeping promises to yourself. This is why people after a rough season, some people, very few, but some people are, are able to hit crazy, crazy amounts of momentum because not only did they keep promises to themselves,

Rob Pene (24:50.047)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (25:03.63)
but they had to fight against that counter force of their own psyche. They had to fight against that counter force of their own mind. And so there's like in a special power, there's like a special power that comes as result of conquering that. And I'm feeling it happen now, right? Like there's still a lot of that shame and guilt that I'm working through, but I'm hitting momentum and I feel a quantum leap happening right now, which I never thought was gonna happen. I genuinely, when you're in it, you feel like you're stuck in that forever.

Right. But when you can muster up that willpower, right? When you can, when you can really listen to Holy Spirit, that's the biggest thing is that Holy Spirit gives you wisdom. You just listen to it. You say, don't care how hard this is. I don't care how painful it is. I don't care how much resistance there is here. Right. It's just Holy Spirit gives you instructions and you just follow and you say, I'm just going to blindly follow with obedience. don't, I just like, this is from God. I know. Are you right? And it happens in little moments and a big moment in big moments. The little moments is on the day to day, the little things you should do. You know that you have a call and you should give your best in that call.

Rob Pene (25:49.333)
Mmm.

Neal Thakkar (26:01.1)
You know that you're having negative thoughts and you should change those thoughts to truth and love. You know those things, right? And in a season of losing, it's so much harder. It's so much harder, right? Because your brain is working against you. The flesh is working against you, right? But when Christ was crucified, He disregarded the flesh, right? That's the thing. It's the flesh didn't... So, yeah, I think that being the guy that's sprinting uphill, right?

Rob Pene (26:12.694)
Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (26:29.474)
There's so much power and advantage to it, but you just have to allow yourself to see that, you know?

Rob Pene (26:34.578)
Yeah, I like that you said, and I appreciate this. think I'm gonna hold on to it. You said there's a superpower that kicks in when you keep the promises as you're fighting against what's naturally there that's trying to push you back, and it could be yourself. Because secretly I'm looking for that superpower and I see the Holy Spirit that way because I know me in and of myself, I'm just...

not there, you know, it's just not there. So I need something. You have to tap.

Neal Thakkar (27:08.046)
Yeah, yeah, you know, it's like the thing with trauma in general is you have the experience of it and then you have the emotion associated with it, right? And when you're able to remove the emotion from the trauma, then you're just left with the experience. And what I call that is wisdom, right? But as long as the emotion is tied to the story of the experience, you're not going to see that as wisdom.

you're going to see that as a roadblock, right? And the only way to get rid of the emotion is to meet it with a stronger and opposing emotion. So, the emotion is defeated, when you feel defeated, you have to use your own will, exercise your own will, to generate an emotion that's the opposite of whatever defeated feels like to you. So, what is the opposite of that? It's feeling triumph, feeling proud, feeling joy, feeling unstoppable, right?

Rob Pene (27:44.704)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (28:00.82)
No.

Neal Thakkar (28:04.59)
So it's like you have to engineer that emotion, counterbalance that feeling of defeated, and now you're left with just the story behind it. Because think about it. In my case, you lose everything that you pour your life into. So the prevailing emotional experience was defeated. You feel like a loser, guilt, shame, fear, Not wanting to take a risk. So what do I do is, courage, generate courage, generate wherewithal, generate awareness, just generate all those emotions and counterbalance this. And now what's left is the story of what happened.

without any negative emotions. And so now that's wisdom.

Rob Pene (28:38.39)
So you do whatever it takes. So essentially you're manufacturing the positive, strategically, and you do whatever it takes to compound that positive effect and it'll naturally overpower that negative.

Neal Thakkar (28:42.68)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Neal Thakkar (28:50.126)
It has to. You know, it has to. Right? If you're in a positive state for long enough, you eventually become positive. Right? I mean, this is the way people go on upward spirals and downward spirals. You start with a mood. When the mood is there for too long, that mood turns into a temperament. And when that temperament is there for a few days and it's too long, that temperament turns into a personality. Right? So when you feel like a loser, That feeling like a loser is just a mood, which then turns into a temperament. It's a disposition. You're carrying yourself as if you're a loser.

Right? And then that temperament when carried on for too long becomes your personality, becomes your identity. So now if you're just reverse engineer that, where does it start? It starts with a mood. So if you have enough positive moods, pockets of positive moods through the day, well now eventually that will turn into a temperament where, okay, you have a more positive disposition. You're open with your body language. You're open to talking to people more. You're smiling a little bit more. You don't have those negative thoughts in your head as much. Right? And then that temperament, when you carry that for long enough periods of time, eventually turns into your personality. And then you see yourself as that winner again.

And then, and then when you see yourself as a winner, you don't look at that losing season as losing anymore. You look at that as that's part of my story. I'm a winner. I came back from that. Right. Not that I'm down from that, but I came back from that. Right. And everything like, like, like, like, and this is from the book. I was called be be your future self. I think it's called be your future self. People that have a positive view of their past will have an optimistic view of their future. So when you can engineer that

that winning temperament and then it becomes that winning personality. When you look back at your past, the story is so different than when you were in the losing temperament. So it's almost as if like you can look at your past and see it in a positive light. And that all happens by engineering those positive emotions. So.

Rob Pene (30:33.78)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's how you rewrite it. And those are the steps. It stops at the mood. So in the algorithm, a signal that points to success is called a time on site. So if you want to write on Google, one of the big signals right now is time on site. So it sounds like to experience success in rewriting the past, we need to have a positive time on mood. Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (30:39.022)
Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (30:47.512)
Okay. Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (31:01.026)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (31:02.378)
The longer we stay in a positive mood, then it builds to the temperament. That's what it sounds like. So the longer I stay negative, I'm gonna be negative. Gotta snap out of it.

Neal Thakkar (31:12.366)
Yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, and let's like think about it here, right? It's like, do we feel emotions first and then we have thoughts or do we think thoughts first and then feel emotions? It's generally emotions first, right? So no matter how positive you want to tell yourself to think, if you feel negative, those thoughts are going to be negative, right? But when we feel positive, no matter how negatively we want to think, the thoughts are just going to be optimistic and positive. And so with trauma, trauma will like, like, like, like the devil loves trauma.

Because that's where demons start to come into the mind and into the heart, right? But it's when we're able to say, I'm going to feel positive. I'm going to feel optimistic. I'm going to feel grateful. I'm going to feel loved. I'm going to feel truth, right? Like, when we make that decision that that's what we want to feel, this starts to work in your favor. No matter what, no matter what, you know?

Rob Pene (32:00.438)
Mm.

Yeah, do things that make you feel happy, make you feel whole, make you feel safe and secure. And then the rest will follow basically, but you still got to do the work to keep it and then to rewrite the past. Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (32:15.884)
Absolutely, absolutely. And that's why like things like in this season, like my friends were very important. Church, church was super important. know, this season I was saved by Christ. know, I really developed a relationship with the Lord. You know, I think like things like music are so important. You know, I think art, I think nature, nature is really important because it just, like the synchronicities and the seren- like the synchronicities happen.

Rob Pene (32:29.877)
Mm-hmm.

Hello? Hello?

Neal Thakkar (32:44.152)
when you're able to be in that emotional state because then connections get drawn, relationships get formed. And that's the other thing I'll say too is when you're in a tough spot, it's so easy to isolate. It's so easy to put yourself in thought, right? yeah, yeah, but nobody judges you negatively except for yourself, right? Most people, honestly, most people, whether they are or not, wanna be helpful. Most people...

Rob Pene (32:56.79)
Yeah, That's me.

Neal Thakkar (33:10.958)
You know, and this is perhaps an optimistic worldview that I carry. It could be delusion. I don't know. I don't really care. I like that I carry this view. But I think most people want to be helpful, right? Most of your friends really care about you. Most people can, especially that are close to you, can see the king in you. They can see the goodness in you. And when you allow yourself to be around that and allow yourself to receive love, it propels this forward. The only reason that I'm getting out of this season now too is because

I met some great people, really. Because in the season, I met some great people. So that's, think, the other thing is when you allow yourself to receive love during the season. a lot of guys like you and I are so used to giving love. We forget that we have to also receive it. We have to. Whether we want to or not, we have to. So yeah.

Rob Pene (34:01.654)
Mmm.

I like that. That's good. It's non-negotiable. It just has to happen.

Neal Thakkar (34:10.238)
Yeah, it does. does. know, God loves us. We're all made in His image. So if we receive love from God and we're all made in His image, then we also are spiritually obligated to receive love from all of those that have also been created in His image, right? And who are we to obstruct the love that those people desire to give us, right? Who are we? That's not our will, that's God's will.

Rob Pene (34:14.07)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

Rob Pene (34:37.406)
Yeah, and it is the enemy that creates the insecurity that messes with your mind to put up the walls, to hide behind the shame, allow you to not open up and not embrace that. Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (34:51.608)
There was a, he's like a deliverance minister who, I mean, I'm in like a prayer group. And one of the things that he said that really stuck with me was that God cannot reach you when you have a hardened heart. God cannot reach you when you have a hardened heart. And that stuck with me so, so, so much because I'm like, when I'm being overly transactional, when I'm being overly logical, when I'm trying to be right instead of do what's right, because there's a big difference and we all know what that is, right? And the walls are up.

Rob Pene (35:16.918)
Yeah.

Neal Thakkar (35:20.396)
That's when I can't really fully hear Holy Spirit in the way. And we kind of always can. Like, He's always there. We always know what's right and wrong. It's, you know, but it's harder to hear it fully, harder to hear it in its true, truest, most authentic form, right? So, yeah.

Rob Pene (35:24.896)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (35:38.176)
Dude, this has been amazing. Yeah, this is definitely gonna be on repeat for me. I really appreciate you. And I know people are gonna wanna follow you and stuff just because the wisdom that you kinda dropped on everyone. What's the best place for them to stalk you?

Neal Thakkar (35:44.558)
you

Neal Thakkar (35:57.484)
Yeah, for sure. Instagram's good. Neil.Facker. Neal.tha.kkar would be great.

Rob Pene (36:06.1)
Yeah, yeah. And that's also where the funding.

Neal Thakkar (36:10.422)
Mostly creative verse. I have my influencer agency as well. Neil.funding is where they can find information on funding on Instagram. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (36:17.812)
Yeah, yeah, a little bit into what those companies do actually just so on the professional side, they know like, yeah, I could actually use that.

Neal Thakkar (36:25.826)
Yeah, yeah, so we have, I have two companies. One is a funding company, one is an influencer marketing agency, an e-commerce accelerator really I should say. So with the funding company, we help people get 0 % interest capital from larger institutions, from banks and from larger lenders. And ultimately my goal with that is to help business owners get capitalized in a way that really helps their business, right?

As it is, funding is hard to get. And then there's just so many loan sharks and merchant cash advances and just bad types of funding out there that we don't want people to get themselves involved in. And so this is a financial consulting business where we also help people get really good types of capital. And then the e-commerce marketing accelerator is for e-com brands that are doing over $10,000 a month in revenue. We help scale you up to get enterprise value. I take my experience with growing my last company and

We'll run your ads for you, we'll set up your demand forecasting for you, we'll do your TikTok shop for you. And it's basically a through and through accelerator where you come in, we set up all the systems and structures, we get you influencers, we have about 7,000 influencers in our database and then we basically help you grow your e-commerce brand. So that's what we do, man. Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (37:40.02)
Nice. Yeah, yeah, that's great. Because you put all your experience from the last venture and now you're accelerating and growing the other stuff.

Neal Thakkar (37:48.62)
Yeah, yeah, it's fun, man. It's fun. It's Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah.

Rob Pene (37:51.04)
Dude, I appreciate you, man. I really do. Yeah. And I'm so happy to know you and to be able to hear God through you. know, so everything that you're doing, dude, it's amazing. Yeah. And I'm grateful that you're working with me. So.

Neal Thakkar (38:06.23)
Yeah, appreciate you, Rob. I do. Thank you. Thank you for this conversation. you know, we'll stay in touch and just keep your head up, man. Just keep going. Just keep going, you know.

Rob Pene (38:13.94)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm excited to rewrite some past. Yeah. I'm excited to spend more time positive in the mood and then see happens from there.

Neal Thakkar (38:25.048)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I'm here, man. Anytime you need anything, I'm here.

Rob Pene (38:31.946)
Yeah, I appreciate you, dude. Thank you, Cool, cool.

Neal Thakkar (38:33.484)
Yep. Thank you.