The Journey

The Real Price of Not Taking Action

Eight words wrecked my whole week: "If you think the price of being successful is too high, wait until you've served the bill for regret." This episode is different. No guest. No interview. Just me, a microphone, and the ideas that have been keeping me up at night. We talk about the guy who spent six months building the appearance of a business before he built the actual business. The dopamine trap that tricks your brain into thinking you already accomplished your goals. The plank that's easy on the ground and terrifying 1,000 feet in the air. The difference between loyalty friends and gravity friends. And the thousand small choices you make every day that are either feeding your dreams or feeding your fears. The bill of regret compounds. The bill for trying and failing never does. That's the trade nobody understands. 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:30 The Quote That Wouldn't Leave My Mind 00:03:30 A Few Years Ago I Started Building Something 00:05:00 There Is No Secret — Stop Looking for One 00:07:30 Idea #1 — You Can't Trick the Universe 00:14:30 Idea #2 — The Work That Builds Anything Real Is Invisible 00:28:30 Idea #3 — The Plank: 1,000 Feet in the Air 00:34:00 The Cost of Trying vs. The Cost of Not Trying 00:41:00 The Last Idea — Every Day You Feed Dreams or Fears ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📩 JOIN THE NEWSLETTER Every week — strategy, lessons, what I'm building. → ricoxjourney.com/subscribe ────────────────────────────────── FIND ME EVERYWHERE 📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@thericardovargas 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/ricardovargas174 🎵 TikTok → tiktok.com/@r.vargas174 🐦 Twitter/X → twitter.com/ricardov174 🧵 Threads → threads.net/@ricardovargas174 🎙️ Podcast → The Journey on Apple Podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Success Looks Different Than You Think - Marcus Roberts

I had a powerful conversation with Marcus Roberts, owner of two Augusta locations, about his transformation from a lazy teenager in Montana to building a million-dollar lawn care business. We dove deep into topics most business podcasts avoid — from morning meditation and faith to the mental toll of management and finding your true purpose. Marcus got real about the osmosis effect of surrounding yourself with the right people and content. We talked about the difference between physical and mental exhaustion, why firing employees is one of the hardest parts of leadership, and how meditation isn't some mystical practice — it's just sitting with yourself. The conversation took an unexpected turn into religion and spirituality, where all three of us shared our complicated relationships with faith. Marcus told the Mexican fisherman story that completely reframes what success means. Sometimes we're already living the life we want, we just don't realize it. This isn't your typical business interview. It's raw, reflective, and gets into the real cost of entrepreneurship — both what you gain and what you might lose along the way. What's your Mexican fisherman moment? Drop a comment below. 0:00 Intro 1:53 Marcus Roberts: From Lazy Teenager to Two-Location Owner 4:37 How to Move Up: What Managers Actually Look For 9:00 Building Future GMs: Marcus's Operational Manager Playbook 20:00 The P4P Model & Paying Employees for Performance 28:06 Faith, God & Building Your Own Relationship With Religion 49:08 What's Actually Wrong With Church Culture 1:00:00 Grieving With Purpose: A Different Way to See Loss 1:15:30 Going Deep: Reflection, Silence & Self-Awareness 1:19:51 The Rare Thing About Building Something of Your Own 1:23:35 Burning the Plan B: Going All In on Yourself 1:36:00 The Fisherman & Jeffrey: A Story About What You Actually Want ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📩 JOIN THE NEWSLETTERES Every week — strategy, lessons, what I'm building.→ ricoxjourney.com/subscribe ────────────────────────────────── FIND ME EVERYWHERE📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@thericardovargas 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/ricardovargas174 🎵 TikTok → tiktok.com/@r.vargas174🐦 Twitter/X → twitter.com/ricardov174 🧵 Threads → threads.net/@ricardovargas174 🎙️ Podcast → The Journey on Apple Podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Behind the Scenes: Cuts, Growth & the Bottom Line

We tried to start this episode six times. That tells you everything about where we're at right now — Marco, Bryson, Andrew and I sitting down to reflect on a year that taught us more than we bargained for. Marco learned the hard way about being kind versus nice to employees. Bryson had to fire someone who kept stirring up drama in group chats. I bought a second location I wasn't planning to buy until 2027. We're all trying to figure out how to build general managers while dealing with the reality that managing people who manage people is a whole different beast. The conversation gets real about choosing profit over growth, why Andrew's taking GM training even though plans changed, and that moment when you realize making money isn't enough if you don't know why you're making it. We end with the Mexican fisherman story — fitting for a year that made us all question what we're really building towards. What's your version of the fisherman's life? 00:00 Intro 00:46 Multiple Takes and Bloopers 03:41 Marco's Year Review 06:21 Being Kind vs Nice to Employees 10:06 Firing That One Guy 17:00 Dump Trailer Strategy 26:20 Content Creation Journey 30:10 Ricardo's Second Location Story 38:40 Revenue and Service Breakdown 42:15 General Manager Challenges 47:50 Profit Mode vs Growth Mode 54:00 The Mexican Fisherman Tale ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📩 JOIN THE NEWSLETTER Every week — strategy, lessons, what I'm building. → ricoxjourney.com/subscribe ───────────────────────────── FIND ME EVERYWHERE 📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@thericardovargas 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/ricardovargas174 🎵 TikTok → tiktok.com/@r.vargas174 🐦 Twitter/X → twitter.com/ricardov174 🧵 Threads → threads.net/@ricardovargas174 🎙️ Podcast → The Journey on Apple Podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Trauma as Catalyst, Not Anchor - Morgan Latimore

Morgan Latimore grew up in East St. Louis. He served in Afghanistan. He came back not with PTSD — but with a decision to let trauma be a catalyst. This conversation covers the full picture: where Morgan came from, what the Marine Corps actually taught him about discipline, why most people buckle under pressure, and what he means when he says we're all "human doings" instead of human beings. There's a line in here about looking inward first — before fixing your business, your team, or your relationships — that's worth sitting with. Morgan coaches endurance athletes and life clients, but what he actually does is something simpler: he asks why. Not once. Repeatedly. Until the person sitting across from him hears something they've never been asked before. If you're building something — a business, a team, a better version of yourself — and you keep spinning your wheels, this is probably the episode to start with. The answers aren't outside you. They never were. Follow Morgan on Instagram and connect with him through Augusta. 🎙️ The Journey Podcast is built for builders, creators, and people in motion. Subscribe for new episodes every week. 00:00 Intro 01:57 Meet Morgan Latimore: the people's coach 04:11 Why you keep looking in the wrong place for answers 05:33 What separates high-capacity people from the rest 07:05 The emotional pain most coaches never address 09:13 Using trauma as fuel, not an anchor 14:36 What the Marine Corps actually teaches you 17:29 The real definition of discipline 20:38 How to diagnose your own lack of discipline 22:15 The coaching courtship: curious not judgmental 25:53 Owner mindset vs. employee mindset 34:04 Human doing vs. human being 39:07 The one word that unlocks everything 43:12 Turning "why" into a daily practice ───────────────────────────── FIND ME EVERYWHERE 📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@thericardovargas 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/ricardovargas174 🎵 TikTok → tiktok.com/@r.vargas174 🐦 Twitter/X → twitter.com/ricardov174 🧵 Threads → threads.net/@ricardovargas174 🎙️ Podcast → The Journey on Apple Podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Change Your Circle or Stay the Same - Mark Siles

Six figures in six months… sounds clean on paper. This episode isn’t the highlight reel — it’s the real timeline: the wins, the mistakes, the pressure, and the discipline it took to keep going. Mark breaks down how he started flipping products on Amazon, what changed when he began treating it like a real business, and the parts nobody warns you about: account risk, IP complaints, margins, and learning (the hard way) to track your numbers. We also get into the deeper stuff — identity, faith, insecurity, the people around you, and what “making it” is actually supposed to feel like. If you’re building from zero, subscribe and follow the journey. More long-form conversations and real breakdowns like this are coming. 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:08 The Jump: Flipping On Amazon + Big Goals Early 00:05:29 Discipline > Motivation: Staying Consistent On Bad Weeks 00:10:28 Origin Story: Early Hustles, Dropshipping, Learning To Sell 00:15:38 The Amazon Playbook: Sourcing, SellerAmp, Product Research 00:20:35 Scaling Up: Wholesale, Approvals, And The Long Game 00:32:46 Risk & Reality: IP Complaints, Deactivations, Money Locked Up 00:40:21 The Numbers Lesson: High Sales… Negative Profit 00:46:05 Work Ethic & Resilience: Toyota Days, Gym Discipline, Staying In The Fight 01:09:29 Environment & Identity: Your Circle, Family Pressure, Degree Debate 01:30:55 Outro ───────────────────────────── FIND ME EVERYWHERE 📺 YouTube → youtube.com/@thericardovargas 📸 Instagram → instagram.com/ricardovargas174 🎵 TikTok → tiktok.com/@r.vargas174 🐦 Twitter/X → twitter.com/ricardov174 🧵 Threads → threads.net/@ricardovargas174 🎙️ Podcast → The Journey on Apple Podcasts ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━