What realistically happened, was in that moment that I said, You know what, I need to make this real, I had no idea my business was going to be where it's at today, I can tell you that I had this small vision of having my dope set up in the corner of my bedroom and editing and traveling and doing it, you know, seeing a lot of what I saw on YouTube, I was like, Oh, this guy's doing this, I'm gonna, I want to be in that same room,
you know. And, realistically, that's what led me to this, but that moment of getting that money, I just did not feel that that was the end. It kind of in my mind, I said if Jaguar and Land Rover, appreciate this photography when I'm an amateur, what I consider an amateur, and they love this, I got potential.
This is The MindShift Podcast where we share real stories, real strategies, that will help you find real success. This is the place to hear from people just like you who have taken their ideas, goals and dreams from a point of inspiration to realization or when life knocked them down, from a point of breakdown to breakthrough. I'm your host, Darrell Evans. Let's get started with today's episode.
Hey, my friend, welcome to another episode of The MindShift Podcast. I'm really excited to have you here today. First of all, let me say if you are a returning listener, I want to thank you for continuing to support the work that we're doing here, the amount of energy and effort we put into bringing you great guests who have entrepreneurial backgrounds, from small to mid to large, with all the diversity, the feedback I've been getting is just fantastic. So thank you so much for
returning. If this happens to be your first time here, welcome to The MindShift Podcast and Business Show. You're in for a real treat. And our goal here is to talk with entrepreneurs about their journey from inspiration to realization when life knocks them down from breakdown to breakthrough. I hope you're an entrepreneur, and if you're not, you're still in for a great discussion around personal development and mindset and
growth. And if you enjoy today's show, I would love for you to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening to this show. And if you really enjoy the show, we would love a rating and review over on the Apple podcast network so we can get your feedback to know what we can do to improve or what of course you love. My guest today is Edgar Sierra. Edgar is the founder of E.Sierra Media, a media company that specializes in photography, videography, digital design, and
entrepreneurship. His team at E.Sierra Media strives to give everyone the quality creative messaging and production that they deserve to expand their business needs. His company brings a unique, simple and elegant creativity to the work that they do for clients like Jaguar, Land Rover, AAF Reno, Reno Philharmonic, and United Federal Credit Union. He's also the host of The Daily Entrepreneur Podcast, which is
how we got connected. I was a guest on his show a while ago and let me tell you about this guy. He interviewed me to make sure I was a good fit for his show. Because he's like, Hey, Darrell, I don't want none of that old school talk. I've got a young crowd here. I'm a millennial man, and you got to keep it real with my people. And I made the cut, so I'm super grateful. But I'm really excited
to talk with him. Last thing is, he is currently working on his Masters in Information Technology, with an emphasis in cyber security. Edgar, my man, great to have you on The MindShift Podcast How you doing, brother?
Doing great, brother. Thank you so much for having me on your podcast. First of all, yeah, you've made the cut. There have been some people that didn't but I'm thankful that you did. And I'm thankful that we had that pre-meeting because that was a great lead way to having you as a guest on
our podcast. But you did a great job and it's only been out for a couple of days as of this recording but, you know, I can't wait to see the numbers because you brought such a great message and I think we had such a great conversation. And you brought so much to our audience and I'm very thankful for that. I was also thankful for you for coming on and taking the time to spend time with us and talk to our audience as well.
You're welcome and again, the gratitude is mutual, my friend because listen, I appreciate an entrepreneur who has the intentionality to say listen, I don't care, and I know this isn't maybe how you were thinking about it, but be like I don't care how much money your company is generating. I don't care how long you've been in business. I need to make sure that what you've got to say
resonates with my crew. And I love that because, you know, a lot of times you're just happy to get a guest, you know when you're just starting a show or you have a young show and we all want to make sure that it's worth both of our times and so I just appreciated that first phone call. The episode we laughed, we had a good time. I remember saying something and we just died laughing. We'll leave it for the listening audience to hear but listen, this show today
is about you. First of all, you're a young entrepreneur, how old are you right now?
26
26. A young entrepreneur. And you've already done business with some pretty major brands, right? Yeah, let's introduce you to the audience. Give everybody a little bit of backstory, how you got here and tell everybody what you do, who you do it for, and let's get the party started.
Of course Darrell. My name is Edgar Sierra. I am the owner of E.Sierra Media, as Darrell said. A little background about myself. I was born in California, I moved up to the Reno Sparks area when I was about five years old, went through high school, graduated. A little bit about high school, I was never the best student, I think I barely made it with the 2.3 GPA. I actually am a first generation high school graduate in my family. So I'm Mexican, my
parents are from Mexico. I went on to college and didn't know what I wanted to do. So I went to community college. And at the time, I really wanted to pursue criminal justice and so I got my Associates in that. Soon after, I kind of just didn't know if that's where I wanted to go anymore. So I moved on to the University of Reno, Nevada, and did my Bachelors in Photography with dual minors in Entrepreneurship and Business
Administration. Now, I graduated during this whole pandemic, so like my last semester, we went fully online, the last half of it. And I graduated in what should have been June of 2020. Well, the world had completely stopped, right, we're all kind of quarantined, everybody was locked up. So I didn't really get to celebrate that graduation, which really sucked.
But at the moment, it caused me to rethink, not necessarily about wanting to do this business but if I wanted to continue in that field of study, because I had already captured enough information, studied enough, done enough, built my business enough to where I felt confident that a college degree in business administration or something along those lines just wouldn't be for my thing. So I switched over to do a Masters in IT and I emphasize on
cybersecurity. And the reason for that, I had two customers that were in that field and really kind of guided me into that area. And that's where I'm at today. I look, when I was younger, I was part of what's called the Reno Police Explorer Program, which is basically an
ROTC for law enforcement. And there's this officer, Eric Kafe, and I always give this guy a shout out because when I was younger, I remember being in a black and white, overnight, going on a ride along with them and he told me one time, he said, Hey, whatever you do when you grow up, make sure you are always marketable. I never understood what that meant until I graduated with my associates.
You know, some people go into criminal justice and get a degree in criminal justice and want to go into law enforcement, do all this kind of stuf and they stick to that but when they leave, they have no retirement plan. They don't know anything else other than law enforcement. And that's really what he was getting at, and so ever since then, I decided that I wanted to do something different. And as you can see, in my degrees, they're all over the place,
right? Some people like, follow up, you know, they do like photography, then they'll do like journalism, and then they'll do like international relations, because that lines up to what they're doing. I never saw it that way. I became, I actually, when I went into my bachelors degree, I was teaching the teachers how to shoot, how to do photography, and how to teach students because there's a lot of huge disconnect there. And it just kind of worked out.
I built my business back in 2017 while I was in college, while I started the university side of my studies, and I want to be real with you. The reason I did it, because I didn't want to call in anywhere, I didn't want to have to like, you know, call, call my manager and say, Hey, I have a last minute exam tomorrow, can I call off and then get yelled at, like I really did it.
Right.
And so what I did is I, kind of in the corner of my room, had a little desk, little editing area, I started doing photo shoots and that's where it kind of went. Funny story. I tell this to everybody and we talked about this last time. I went out to do a photo shoot out at Moon Rocks, which is like a desert area out here in Reno. Like you have to drive a good maybe 20, 25 minutes to get there. And there's nothing there other than what we consider moon rocks because they look like a moon landing.
Okay.
And we're doing this type of photography called light painting where basically you open the shutter of a camera, you can wave around a bunch of lights and create this painting. And this lady approaches me. I'm still an amateur photographer. I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just out there having fun, trying new things out and she goes, Hey, can I see your camera? I said, Yeah. What's up? She goes, Hi, I just want to see your photos. All right. She goes wow, this is really good. I'm
like, Thanks. I appreciate that. She's like how would you like to be my head photographer? And that took me back. I was like . . . . . . in my head. I'm like, Ma'am, are you seeing
Wow! the same photos I am? Because this is not good, right? So she hands me her card. And I said, I don't know about this one, whatever and I kind of let it go. So this was like a Friday night. So come Monday morning, I said, You know what? I'm going to take the chance because you never know what can happen. So I took the simple chance of texting her and she's like, Hey, let's meet up on Friday and let's have some coffee. Great. Friday came, we met up at like, 9.30 in the morning, had some
coffee, discussed it. She talked to me about her publications. She talked to me that, you know, she's never had a head photographer and she was really looking for somebody to take on all this work. And I said, You know what, yeah, I'm gonna do it. By the end of Friday night, so like Friday at like, maybe 5.36, I get a message from her assistant and telling me, Hey, you have a photoshoot with Jaguar and Land Rover in two weeks. I was just, just taken back. I'm like, Wow!
. . . huge brands, Jaguar and Land Rover. I'm like, it can't be, but it was and that, that was kind of a defining moment for my business because I went into the photoshoot just saying, You know what? They're not going to like them. That's cool. I'm okay with that. But I'm gonna take my chances no matter what happens.
That's right. That's right.
And the model that was there. Her name is Shelby Foster, she's a big person in the offshore racing in the Baja races and we did the photoshoot. It was great. We had a great time, edit them, and next thing I know, I turned in the photos maybe a week later. The very next morning, I get a response from the publisher. She said, Hey, Jaguar, and Land Rover loved your photos. I was like, all right, that's great. She goes, By the way, they're gonna
pay you. I was like what? She's like, they're paying $500 an image and they want five of them. And I just was like, taken back. I've never . .
Game changing.
Yeah.
That's a game changer, baby. Yeah.
I'm gonna tell you, when you compare it to my first family portrait shoot that I did. I charge $30 for that. So compare that to $500 per photo. Jaguar and Land Rover ended up running it as an ad in the publication. I was front page for Jaguar and Land Rover, and it was awesome. But because of that, I kind of sat down and I told myself well, do I really want the IRS coming knocking knowing that I'm making this money without having the proper
licenses or documentation? And that really was a turning point for E.Sierra Media because I said, You know what, I need to get an EIN. I need to get an LLC. And at that time, it was hard because a lot of people that were around me that were in the photography, videography, creative industry, closed their doors on me because they're like, No, you're going to become competition. So they stopped talking to me. Nobody wanted to
guide me through that. Luckily, I had a friend by the name of Ron Cotts and he really helped me out. He sat down with me, walked me through the entire paperwork, got it sent out and it was a game changer. I actually, I got it two days before Mother's Day and I waited to tell anybody and I presented it to my mom, as a gift for Mother's Day. And I said, Mom, thank you so much for everything that you've done for me. This is what I'm doing. I'm starting my business. So that's really where
E.Sierra Media started. Because of those publications, you know, I started generating clients that I never thought I would generate. You know, we started talking to a company here in town called Urban Market. And then at the same time, there was a photographer that was supposed to show up to this AF Reno organization. I didn't even know who they were. And he didn't show up so they were asking for another photographer. And they're like, well, we don't really have a budget but can we
like, buy you lunch? Can we like, you know, exchange the luncheon for your services? And I didn't even know what the luncheon was. And I found out, what they would do is that they would bring in guests to speak to these large advertising marketing companies in town. And I said, You know what, I'm gonna take a chance on this. And at that moment is when I really learned, when you're starting, it's not necessarily always about making money, but when can you make money down the road?
Right, right.
So I kind of, I don't want to say I like, stalk people but I definitely went on to their website and wanted to find out who was involved and what is AF Reno. And I found out that they have large companies, Charter Spectrum, which is a big company here in Nevada. Then you had companies like the Reno Philharmonic, Three Sticks Productions. There's a lot of these companies that who just like, wow, I want to be part of
this. So I took the chance and I was giving them free services in exchange for, for lunch and getting taught how to run a business, how to be a business person and then market myself and sure enough, that led to working for the Reno Philharmonic. AF Reno constantly backing me up, constantly push business my way and now I am actually on the Board of Directors for AF Reno.
Come on. Come on, man. Listen, man, let's take a pause really fast, dude. This story is, I didn't even know all this. For the listening audience, let's key in on a couple of thoughts here. Let me just tell you what I thought I just heard and I just love it. You said it multiple times. I'm gonna take the chance.
Yeah.
I'm gonna take the chance. If you're listening to the show right now, you're listening to this young man, and if you're not 26, and you've got bills, and you've got life, and you got kids in piano, and soccer and football practice and debt and mortgages and car payments, you're probably saying to yourself, yeah, but Darrell I can't take a chance. I'm not 26. And it's just a bunch of bull. Because he took a chance, not even knowing he was going to get
paid. And another thing I heard you say that I'm so excited to hear you say it the way you said it. You were actually critiquing your own work, from your eyes, and didn't think it was good enough.
Nope.
Yet. You knew you were working towards it. And she said, I want to hire you. And not only hire you, I want to make you the head of photography. You guys have the coffee, and by five o'clock, you've got Jaguar and Land Rover. I mean, most people would have for lack of a better phrase, they'd of pooped in their pants. You know what I mean, like are you crazy? These two big old brands. Can I do this school first or something, you know? So listen, man, I want to salute you because (a) . . .
. . . I said, I'm gonna take a chance not once but
Thanks. twice. And you've probably done more, I definitely want to unpack some more of this. Number two, you could have easily gotten scared and cheesed up. And then you also could have done something else that I see a lot of times entrepreneurs do, is when they get the check for $500 a photo and they want five, which is a game changing scenario. Yes
We could easily self sabotage ourselves by saying we're not worth it. We're not worth it, because I just did the photo shoot for $30 for the Joneses.
Yeah.
I'm making names up.
Yes. Yeah.
Right? But the gap, right? And so what do you think it was in that moment, because your next steps were, Oh, this is a business now. Oh, I need to get legitimate. And we're going to get to the closing of the doors, because I definitely want to talk about that because I know exactly what that's like. But before we go there, just take us to the moment, not just the moment of elation, when you realize they're going to pay you $2500 but talk to us about that sort of defining moment, when you're
like, this is a business. I know what I'm doing. And guess what, even if I don't know all of what I'm doing, I'm gonna figure it out. Because that's what I've heard from our discussions. Talk to us a bit about that.
It's kind of weird, because I'm a first generation entrepreneur, in my family. Nobody has been in business. Everybody has been blue collar and, you know, work these hard, labor intensive jobs. And to kind of go a little bit back to understand where that defining moment came. When I was younger, my dad used to do what's called geotech drilling. So you would drill prior to
construction. You would take samples of soil, and then a geotech or geologists would take it out and you know, they'd test it before construction can even start. My dad used to take me when I was 16 and to 18, and I would spend the summers with him and let me just tell you that, it was hard work. I mean, being up at three, four in the morning, not knowing if you're going to get back until
midnight. I had sunburns on top of sunburns because we would go out at 100 degrees, 110 degrees and we would be out at negative two degrees. I learned hard work when I was young. That wasn't never an issue for me. Those moments never led me to go away from hard work but those moments led me to know that I could implement this type of work somewhere else that benefits, profits me, that I can see a success in. My dad has always
been a hard worker. There was never a day where my dad you know would take a sick day unless he absolutely just could not get up.
Right. Respect.
You know you'd see him with snot and coughing and we're still working it out, right and . . .
From the old school.
Yeah, and geotech drills is not lightweight. I mean we're, we would pick up the augers which are you know, 50 to 80 pounds sometimes and toss 'em and you know, you're getting your, your hands are hurting, you're wearing gloves and you know, two degrees you hit the metal the wrong way.
Yeah.
I'm telling you it was just not great. And my dad put up with that.
Let me tell you. I've never done that work but I did help a friend a long time ago help his family dig up their pool in the backyard. And I'm not even going to compare and contrast that they're even similar but I can tell you we were working with jack hammers and let me tell you, it took us out on a weekend, maybe two weekends, whatever it may have been, I hung up that jack hammer and said, thank the Lord. I was like, this is tough work. That's just one pool. Anyway, back to your story.
Yeah, no, no. And you do have point. A lot of people will give it up. And I did it. My dad really taught me hard work, right?
Yep.
And one of the things that my dad always talked about is having his own business and this but you know, he has four kids to worry about on top of taking care of my mom, taking care of himself, you know, I understand them. And what realistically happened was, in that moment that I said, You know what, I need to make this real. I had no idea my business was going to be where it's at
today. I can tell you that I had this small vision of having my dope set up in the corner of my bedroom and editing and traveling and doing it, you know, seeing a lot of what I saw on YouTube, I was like, Oh, this guy's doing this, I'm gonna, I want to be in that same room, you know? And, realistically, that's what led me to this. But that moment of getting that money, I just did not feel that
that was the end. It kind of in my mind, I said if Jaguar and Land Rover appreciate this photography when I'm an amateur, what I consider an amateur.
Come on, come on.
And they love this. I got potential.
That's right.
But even then, I still doubted myself. But the thing was that, always take those small chances. And what that actually comes back from is, we're going to go even further back. When I was actually never supposed to be born. So my mom had blood clots when, when she was pregnant with . . .
Wow.
I was actually born three months, three and a half months early. Actually, they kind of give her the decision. Either we save you or we save your son.
Oh, wow.
When my mom told me the story, it was a huge defining moment and has been for my life. And my mom made a decision. She said, No, you're going to save my son. Whatever happens to me, happens to me.
Damn.
And I'm thankful to whatever's out there, that we both were saved. You know, thanks to God, thanks to a higher power out there that saved both of us. My mom's here with me. And you know, I just had to spend some time in an incubator for like, three months while I got healthy and you know, got to the level I had to be. I was actually born three pounds, three ounces, like . . .
Oh, geez.
. . . tiniest thing ever.
Geez.
I think there's hamburgers that weigh more than that, I'm just saying. Right? And when my mom told me this entire story, it kind of defined a lot of the decisions I made through my life, and especially in entrepreneurship is, you always take that chance, right? I never wanted to live a life of
regrets or what ifs. If I did something, and I had two choices, right, and one was 100%, secure, it would get me that little bit of jump, or this other one would be super unsecure, and it gave me a bigger jump, I would take that bigger jump just because of that fact that if you don't take those chances, you never know. You're gonna wonder, tomorrow, next week, when you're down the road, what if?
What if?
And I never wanted that. And so thankfully, I made those small decisions that led to what E.Sierra Media is today. I mean, those were huge defining moments that I never believed were going to happen. And to kind of even circle back to that same time period of when I actually opened up my business. I was a Federal Officer for the Department of Homeland Security. And I was making great money. I was overnight shifts and the extra pays and all that, I was making like $23, $24 an hour,
right? I was only like, what 21, 22, making that kind of money, federal benefits. I had it all. I was like hell yeah, this is the dream. Realistically what happened was, I fell out of love, out of that job and I was there for two and a half years and at the moment that I quit, Darrell, I, I'll tell you this right now. I had no idea what I was doing. I quit because some issues happened within the organization, with management, with myself and I just quit.
Like, I kid you not! It was a Friday, I'd had enough of people. I said, Here's my two weeks. I have enough sick leave. Go have a good one.
Peace.
Yup. A week later, they wanted to turn in my uniforms, my badge, took all my credentials, everything I needed to turn in. I didn't know what was gonna happen. I kid you not. I spent the next week waking up early mornings, sitting on my bed, just contemplating, what was I going to do? And realistically, that week that I spent just contemplating really kind of led me to say, You know
what? It's now or never. If I continue waiting to be happy, if I continue waiting for somebody else to please what I know is my drive and my determination and my dedication, then I'm never going to get anywhere. And you know what, I am thankful for my now fiance because she paid my bills for the next three months because I still had some debt that you can't do that on an entrepreneurship salary you know? And sometimes you only make enough to pay the bills.
And that's how it went. My fiance took care of my bills,
Shout out. Shout out to your fiance.
100%
Shout out to every partner who's with an entrepreneur, shout out.
Yeah.
Right now to every one of them because no entrepreneur gets there without one.
Exactly.
It's just true. Someone believes. Someone had to believe in what they saw in you, and I, man, there's so much to go here. Let me just throw a couple things in because man, this is such a rich story. You know, if you're listening to this right now, it doesn't matter what your age is.
Yeah.
It sounds like it's easy. It's not easy. He walked off a job because there was something saying that this is not it. It's just not it. I don't even know what it is but I'm out of here.
Yeah.
I just love that. But a couple things, though.
Yeah.
You know, (a) your birth story. I mean, super powerful so there's obviously a lot of gratitude that you carry forward with that. And like, listen, I got to make the most of this because I could have not been here. And then your mom made it, you made it, I mean, just a beautiful outcome. But I heard a couple of things in there. And I want to emphasize one or two of those points. Number one, you made small decisions. And I liked how you
phrase that. It looks to some like Jaguar, Land Rover, this is a huge deal. No, it isn't. I was asked to take photos.
Yep.
That's what I said I was gonna do in the first place. What difference does it make if it's a whatever fortune, whatever size company they are? I made a small decision to say yes, you kept it very binary. The answer is, yes I'll show up to take the photos. They'll either love them or they won't. Right?
Yeah, I wasn't guaranteed getting paid. I wasn't guaranteed anything. I was just asked to go take photos.
Right. There's something right there in that moment, which it just lets me know further how you've propelled your success and how you continue to, to think through and as an entrepreneur, a lot of these decisions we have to make are, what's the worst thing that could happen here. I don't get paid.
Yeah.
Right. And when you're an entrepreneur, you're betting on yourself every day anyway.
Yep, exactly.
So you know, I just don't want to let that pass through because it was a small decision to say yes. Some people would have looked at the quote, unquote, magnitude of the opportunity, and gotten scared because of their lack of experience, or because they don't think they're good enough and all that inner critic, self talk, crap shows up. And you were just willing to say, the worst thing that can happen is they don't like the photos.
Sure.
That is huge. As you move forward, and you start thinking about, you know, you made that decision to walk away. And from that one job. And again, at 20, 21 years old, low 20s an hour, well that's better than probably most of your friends doing at that time.
Yeah.
And you're leaving that and saying, This is just not it, y'all.
Yeah.
I got to run, I'll see you. And then this other side of it is you said something earlier, I want to go back to and that is, once you started to legitimize your business, right? You're now like, you're in the deal now, you got the check and you're like, Ah, now I got real business problems now, like I got to pay to, you know, i got to legitimize this thing. You said that some people turned their back on you, they kind of
left you on your own. You knew some people in the industry, turned to for advice and all of a sudden, they looked at you as a competitor. Let's talk about that for just a moment because that's real.
Yep.
It's falsely real, because they think from a scarce mentality.
Yeah.
Like, there's only enough. If I share with you what I know then I won't get enough. Listen, if I help you get what you want, I'll get what I want because there's enough out there for both of us, is the way that most of us live and I know that's how you roll. But just talk about how it felt in the moment and what did you do to get the information you needed?
It sucked. I mean, straight, simple. It just, think about it this way. If you're chasing something, and you know you love it, especially as a young college student, right? You have this drive to do it, because at that moment you love it. And when every person that you go to shuts the door on you, you just almost become depleted, you know, you're just drained. You're like, I don't even want to ask anybody else because they're gonna tell me the same thing and you're just expecting
the worst out of people. And what actually happened is I joined a studio in town called Hedge Studios, which is no longer their business but luckily, I was able to shoot out of there, at a college student rate and I met some great photographers that really had the same mindset. I did. And the mindset now, is community over competition. And we say that because there's enough for
everybody. It's not like, I can shoot hundreds of millions of people in the US, it's not like there isn't enough for people to take from the pot. That's just unrealistic. Now, I understand in business now that if it's a business where you know, the part you're making is proprietary to what you build. You know, you make the bottom corner of the Keurig and only you know how to do that the right way. That's a niche market. I get that It's another
photography. Something where you can buy cameras at Costco for 500 bucks, you can buy them at Walmart. It didn't make sense to me why that was happening. And being so young, when I talked to Ron, he was a co-owner of Hedge. He said, I got you macros, do this. No hesitation.
I love it.
The guy was shooting amazing portraiture work, he was doing a bunch of amazing stuff. And when he said that, that just kind of like, lightened me up. And I said, Okay, how much do I have to pay you? And I was scared because the LOC here in the State of Nevada, just to start, it costs you about $,450 450 bucks. And at the time, that was a lot man, I had just left working for Department of Homeland Security. I had, I mean, literally said, I'm gonna figure it out one way
or another. But I made that jump, and I said, Hey, what do I owe you? And he said, nothing. Pay it forward, down the road. And man, did that change the trajectory of E.Sierra Media, of me as myself, and made me realize that there is good people out there. And it's funny to think about it now because a lot of those people that closed their doors on me don't even have a business anymore. They're no longer in business, or no
longer. I'm not saying around in the sense of like they've passed away, but they're just no longer around in the industry.
They're not relevant anymore.
Exactly. And so that really changed everything. When I kind of saw that this was a continuous thing, right? Being a Mexican American, who was essentially set to fail in every step of my life. I lived in a really bad neighborhood, right? Where either you did drugs, you got pregnant at a young age, or you left in a box,. So that that was just how it was. I remember sitting summer nights out in front and shootings would just
happen in front of us. You know, we saw deaths, we saw gang fights, we saw, we saw it all.
In Reno?
Yeah.
In Reno. Oh, wow. Geez. I didn't think it rolled like that in Reno. Yeah.
Yeah. So and for those that may be listening here in Reno, it's a street called The Grove Street and it was a Danish Street and . . .
Every city's got 'em. Yeah. I just didn't, I'm in Southern Nevada. I just didn't think Reno popped off like that.
No, we do. And I sat in the only house of Grove Street. And it was a place for every gang member to get in a fight. And that was it. And I never wanted to be part of those statistics. Right?
Yeah.
When Ron finally helped me out, I just couldn't thank him enough. I mean, I think I bought him some lunch and we went out for a burrito like a week later, whatever it would have been, right? And that led me to continue to help
entrepreneurs now. You know, we've talked about what we offer and one of the things is we do offer entrepreneurs the guidance to get their LLC and so far, we've done it for about seven entrepreneurs, that have businesses that even though they're not extremely successful, they're doing it on their own, they're doing their own thing. And that's what, you know, I'm taking from it, is Ron told me pay it forward, and I paid it seven times over because
I really believe in that. I don't think anybody should be held down by this old school belief that you're going to become competition, therefore, I'm not going to help you.
Right. Right.
Enough in this community to go around. I can't If I took a loss of $7,000, I've gained, you shoot everybody in Reno. I can't be there for every family. I can't be there for every business in this town or even nationally. And here we are. Here we are helping, continue to help entrepreneurs see that dream because, you know, you asked me how did I kind of get out of that room? Realistically, I lost money. I lost, lost $7,000 trying to figure it all
out. I would buy courses here, courses there, you know, you see all these ads? Oh, we're gonna make you a millionaire overnight, you know. Invest in cryptocurrency or all this other crap, you know. And I fell for that, I believed in a lot of that stuff. And realistically, a lot of that stuff did nothing for me. know, $100,000 in knowledge and with that, I'm able to pass it on to people so they don't lose
that. You know, they come in and I say, Hey, we're gonna have you buy me lunch, you're gonna buy the team lunch, and I'm gonna do your LLC and I'm gonna make sure that your legal structure is set for the future. And that's, that's how it is. You know, Ron never charged me.
Yeah.
I want to pass it forward because that feeling is just so relieving to be able to say, I have my license. And that's what that whole idea of the, you know, giving my mom my license for Mother's Day was the same way of me thanking my mom for taking that chance on me.
Yeah.
Right? When she didn't even know if I was gonna be able to survive these blood clots and this whole stuff that she went through when she was pregnant.
Yeah. Hey, man, this is such a rich story. Edgar man, we could talk forever, man. Listen, I appreciate you. I gotta ask a couple quick things before we wrap up. Number one, The Daily Entrepreneur Podcast.
Yeah.
Tell everybody what you're doing there, where they can find it. Give us the story there.
Hey, man, great segue, righ? The Daily Entrepreneur was actually created back in 2019, in order to do this community over competition. Ah man, we host entrepreneurs from all different industries to come and talk about their stories, successes, failures, growth, their plans for the future. And we try to provide that information for free on all streaming platforms. We've had you, Darrell, we've had Marilyn York, who's a
divorce attorney. We've had tattoo artists, we had Sarah Hambly, who's a huge influencer. We've had everybody on there, and we're gonna continue doing that. And that's just free advice for anybody who wants to take the time to listen on your drive to work or whatever maybe.
That's amazing, man. Congratulations, dude.
Thanks, man.
(a) being an entrepreneur, (b) just taking in the advice. And you're just scratching the surface. You got so much future ahead of you. I'm so excited for you. Taking in the leadership perspective that, hey, someone gave it to me, I'm going to give it to somebody else. Community over competition, small decisions, dude, you've dropped more bombs than some of my 20 and 30 year entrepreneurial guests. So Edgar, tell everybody really
quick. You're now, you're transitioning your company, you're focusing on this corporate photography thing. Tell everybody a little bit about what that is and where they can find you.
Yeah, of course. So 2022 E.Sierra Media is making the big change from B2B instead of B2C. And we're trying to now focus all of our team and our work and our efforts to helping entrepreneurs take that next step. And branding, social media content, whether it's videography or photography, we've already helped a brand, about four businesses just in 2021. And we've decided that that's kind of the direction we
want to go. We're stepping away from the portrait photography, and kind of focusing more on giving content to businesses. And basically being a one stop shop. We can start from your business license, to your logo to your branding, to your website, to then content creation, so you guys can post and do all that kind of good stuff. So that's where we're at. If you guys want to check us out, it's at ESierraMedia, all one word, dot com. So
ESierraMedia.com. You guys can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, we have LinkedIn, whatever you guys, feel free to follow us, just look up E.Sierra Media. And if you guys want to follow me personally, my IG is TheEdgarSierra, all one word. Right now I'm kind of going through this time capsule where I actually show the videos and moments of everything that I talked about right now.
That's amazing. We'll link up all of that in the show notes. Edgar, so good man, I appreciate your story. I learned more about it today than I've even known from our prior two conversations. Listen, I'll continue to support any way I can. Thank you for taking some time out of the day to share with our audience, to share your story. You're an inspiring guy.
Thank you.
And like I said, you're scratching the surface. I got to ask the last question I always ask my guests. And that is, if for whatever reason, this happened to be your last day on this planet we call Earth, what would be the thing that you would want everyone to remember you for?
How and always be remembered for the guy that was determined to follow his dreams. That's just it. I live a life of no regrets because I believe everything that I've done in the past, whether wrong or good or bad has turned me to who I am today. But if people were to follow where I started my life with almost dying to having a successful business that's gone international, that had clients in Mexico for the Baja races to now helping entrepreneurs establish your business. I want
people to remember that. That's who I am. That I do this from my heart. I don't do this for profit. And I hope that they can see that because even now as we speak, I also have a full time job as a security analyst, which I took on because of my master's degree, right? And doing this podcast with you Darrell with two hours of sleep because I care, because the message that I'm bringing to your audience, I hope somebody can say, You know what? That dude was determined.
If he can do it. I know I can do it. That was my last thing. That's what I wish people would remember me by.
That's what's up. Edgar Sierra, man, thank you for being on The MindShift Podcast. I'm sure we'll continue our conversations in the future. Thanks for being here man.
Darrell thank you so much, man. I appreciate it.
Hey my friend, thanks again for listening to today's episode of The MindShift Podcast. Listen, let's not have the conversation in here. Connect with me on social @MrDarrellEvans on almost all the platforms, with the exception of Facebook. My Facebook fanpage is @DarrellEvansFan. Until next week, remember you're just one shift away from the breakthrough you're looking for.