How I Turned My Passion Into A $100,000,000 Business with Vito LaFata

0:00Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to another edition of Crush and Climb. I'm your host, Jason McLean, and today I've got a dear friend of mine with us who is absolutely, you know. Well, he is the best thing since pockets and slice of bread. Although I do like my pockets, you know, deep down in my pants. But this friend of mine is always a guy who will find himself deep down in your grapes. And ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure to bring to the podcast today the one and the only, the infamous or the famous one of the two, Vito Lofata. Vito, welcome to Crush and Climb, my man.

0:39Speaker B: Happy to be here. This is exciting, watching this thing take off.

0:42Speaker A: Dude, you're like one of the first dudes who come and visit and hang out with us.

0:46Speaker B: That's it. I hope so, considering how much we've been crushing and climbing together.

0:50Speaker A: We've been crushing and climbing, and I tell you, this whole podcast really has your name written all over it. And you are probably one of the most inspiring gentlemen I've ever met. So first, let me give the world a little bit of a kudo about who Vito lofata really is.

1:06Speaker B: Oh, please do.

1:07Speaker A: Yes, of course. It's my job. One, I want you to know that Vito is more than a friend. Vito is a guy who has a winery called Lafada Cellars. Now, Lafada Cellars is a vineyard, first and foremost, that started several years ago at Vito's home. And he is one of those guys who had the idea of. Of taking that vineyard and expanding it, expand it into all new kinds of ways. And we met in terms of a plan of figuring out what we can do with those grapes and turning that vineyard into a vision and literally create the brand. So we were helpful to him just by being in the corner, helping him with the nuances and the details, helping him get his brand off the ground. And now he's got one of the most stylish tasting rooms in all of Temecula, California, and he's got a wine brand that is second to none. And so, Vito, welcome to Crush and Climb. And I can't wait to get into today's conversation.

2:04Speaker B: I look forward to it because, man, think about it. If we want to talk from a vineyard dream to going down the wrong path, doing everything wrong every which way, and trying to reckon with what I had done to then being like, how did I pivot that to profit? I'll write that book right next to you right now so we could easily talk through that.

2:25Speaker A: Don't write checks your butt can't Cash. So, as in every one of our awesome episodes of Crush and Climb. Vito, the one thing that we start off with is the wine. Because it's a wine crush. It's wine, Right? So today I've got here in front of us a bottle of our 20, 21 love and happiness Pinot Noir. It is a heavier Pinot than most. Not your traditional Pinot. We add a small touch, just a small percentage, maybe 2 or 3% of a petite Syrah into that lovely, amazing Pinot Noir that give it that grit, that succulent moment, that thing that touches the backside of you and makes you go, oh, yeah, baby, who's your daddy? So let's raise our glasses, shall we? And let's talk about the love and happiness of your dreams. Cheers.

3:15Speaker B: Love that.

3:20Speaker A: Yeah, it's good. Yeah. Okay.

3:22Speaker B: That's one of my 15 things. I avoided pinots for so long.

3:25Speaker A: Yeah.

3:26Speaker B: Because they were too light. You're kind of like, where'd you go? I want some. I'm being Sicilian.

3:30Speaker A: Right.

3:30Speaker B: I was raised on wine that you would like. It's dirt, it's earth, it's gritting on your teeth that I never. I struggle with it forever until Dean and you guys with your. Your guys wine. And I was like, is this how pinot could be made? Is this what could happen and whatnot? That you changed my mind a lot about where Pinot can grow. I love the fact that we did 5% Tempranillo.

3:51Speaker A: Yes.

3:52Speaker B: In our Pinot, and it rocks people's world. I'm actually sold out. Damn it. Anymore.

3:57Speaker A: For now. You're bottling right now.

3:59Speaker B: I know.

3:59Speaker A: Yeah. So listen, I want to talk to you about your transition and where you went. Now I'm an entrepreneur. You're an entrepreneur. We're business owners. We've done things. Some things have succeeded, some things have failed. In the book Pivot to Profit, I put a big disclaimer on the front that I'm not going to tell you all the great things I've done. I'm going to tell you all the things I messed up on. I'm going to tell you every place I screwed up, every business that went under, every failure that I engaged. And in that process, we developed a program called Rise. You know, R is for reckon with the wreckage. I is for identify your core opportunities. S is for strategize. Put a plan together to take that and move forward. And of course, E is to execute. So I wanted you to be here today because you've never been in the wine business until you Made a conscious decision to get into it was going to the wine world. Was it something that you had dealt with your own wreckage? Was it a failure in some other place that turned your fuel into something amazing? What is it that would cause you to move from one place you were at? What was the one catalyst, the one thing or series of things that gave you a decision to say, I've got to make a change.

5:19Speaker B: So the thing is, I'd be like, I got into the wine industry not.

5:24Speaker A: Because.

5:26Speaker B: I had to pivot to something else. I was parlaying success in other brands that I had built into this. That I wanted it to be like fulfilling my father's dream. My dad made wine in our basement with my grandfather and all that total house made wine type stuff. Like, stuff that you're like, is this 19% alcohol? What is this right now? But it built a serious tolerance up that I just wanted to be like, if I could parlay this into a legacy of family play. Wine is what I wanted it to be. And I'm just passionate about it. And my wife is passionate about it. Our family's been passionate about it. I wanted to do that. That it was when I got into it, years down the road of it. When I got to the moment of not a dream, but the model that you needed to make it happen is when I recognized I went down the wrong path. I was led down many wrong paths. Many years of spending money that I didn't need to spend, not taking a dollar in yet, and just being like, well, you know, I'll actually quote your words for it where you'll be like, you don't got a shot the way you're doing it. And you're like, okay. That's a hard moment to hear where you're like, you're gonna get killed in the market. Not because you don't have capability, but because the model won't pencil out. You don't have the capital, you don't have the whatever. The thing was that it was more five years into the dream because I thought small stuff. I thought, I can make one wine, I can make this one thing. And you're just like, that's like, no one's running you through a model of how to do this. You were listening to guys that wanted to just be like, hey, we'll help you plant. We'll help you do this. We'll help you make a wine and put it in a barrel. But the minute I was like, yeah, but I want to make it a brand. I want to go after the business, they're like, well, we don't help with that. And all of a sudden I was up against the wall, hundreds of thousands of dollars in going down the wrong path. That it was either at that moment either like, get out or truly make a vanity wine. Make a vanity wine and don't, don't turn this into a business type thing. And it was like, where do you want to go? That was the reckoning. I had to have that moment that you're like, do you really want to go after this? Because you even said to me, you're like, it's going to require way more than you ever thought. 10 times what you ever think. It'll probably take you to the brink of extinction in your life type thing. Are you sure you want to do this?

7:48Speaker A: Gloom and doom every day. Gloom and doom every day.

7:50Speaker B: I remember like, anna, do we want to go in? And I was like, I don't know, this seems like a way out, but okay, we gotta go do it. I'm like, is this the moment that we have to rise to something else in order to achieve the next level of our dreams and potentially burn everything that was in the past to achieve something that we want to leave for the future? So that's where we were.

8:12Speaker A: So you started off in success. You started off in a plan that you're enjoying. You had great companies, great ideas, great brands you had built, and you saw what you wanted then. I mean, to go into the wine world, it takes a push. You know, what is the one thing you did that I understand that you saw this failure, you saw this problem, you got into it. And once you made that decision, there were a lot of questions you were asking, a lot of places you were in. And the one thing we like to talk about on this podcast is turning your failures into fuel. So take me back to the very first stages of starting your own brand. The very first stages of starting loft of sellers, whether it's going to be called Lofata or maybe something else, maybe it's called Dogs and Cats Live Together. I have no idea. Go back to the very beginning and tell me where you failed and where that failure became fuel. What ignited you to keep going?

9:06Speaker B: Well, I mean, if we're going to go to the moment of reckoning, if you will, it was on the call with you to being like, you have no model now that like to like, that sounds super business and super or whatever you're like, this is also a podcast, but that's how you do things.

9:24Speaker A: That's how you do Things you live. I mean, you have a lot of speakers. You follow. You follow a lot of individuals. You live in process and precision. You understand a methodology, duplicate it, and make it work. This is what you've been doing your whole life.

9:38Speaker B: That's right. The thing was, is that when we planted and we did all what looks like the sexy part where people, like, plant and own the acreage and have the vines on the property and whatnot, that you're like. I'm like, that wasn't the model. That was just the facade of it. The effigy of it type thing that makes the property look sexy, gives you that feel that I'm in the rolling hills of Tuscany and all that kind of thing. But you're like, there is no model there. And in. I mean, any business, truly, you do need to understand the model of it to have a good chance of success with it. You can have, like, random success, haphazard success, mediocre success. But if you're like, I'm trying to build wealth out of this thing. No business really runs without a model. But yet most people don't want to be like, stop, Teach me the model. Pay for the model. Really understand the model. Because the model has to break down things to, like, your offer, your lead, your sales, your operations. And that also no sexiness to that anymore. That it was the moment that you're like, you don't have a model for this. You don't even know the bottling, the capsuling, the labeling, the this that you don't know any of those costs. Nobody stopped you there. They taught you, plant, get the vines, grow the grapes, put it in a barrel. And then everything stopped that right there. I'm like, okay. So, I mean, even I think about the decisions where the people that I was talking to then, and no fault of their own, I don't think they were designed to be mentors in teaching somebody how to build a brand. So a thing I always teach people, I'm like, man, before you go down any path, seek the mentor that is teaching in whatever dream you have. Because the road has probably already been paved before, and it's way better to pay for the path than it is to freaking fumble and bumble your way trying to figure it out on your own. That that was. I still think back sometimes because, you know, I'm on calls with people that are trying to do it now, and I'm like, the idea that you're like, people like, sure, just get the barrels. And you're like, okay, that's what I'm supposed to do get the barrels, and you're like, 1300, 1400 a barrel and whatnot. And then somebody comes along and is just like, you know, you could have used neutral oak barrels, added oak staves, trim that barrel cost from about 1300 to 1400 down to 4 or 500 a barrel. And when you start to think to yourself, I bought 60 fucking barrels, you're like, that's the difference of another 40, 50 in your pocket for capital, for liquid, for something, security, something like that. But those aren't. Someone isn't there trying to be like, you have to have a decision matrix of how you're deciding when, where, and why to use your money to have a better chance of success. That was when I'm giving you a lot of the props on this podcast right now that I'm like, it was that moment with you that. But I can remember sitting in that room. You couldn't see me because we were on a call. But my everything in my face is, like, down because I'm literally feeling the gravity of all the mistakes I made. And I'm like, shit, did I, did I, did I f our chances up because I didn't seek this out sooner? But the wine industry doesn't. It wasn't designed to have like, you know, I come from the, the coaching space. I come from other places where there's mentors and coaching and teachers and all that. The wine industry doesn't really have that. You get that if you're like, I became a student under a winemaker. The winemaker kind of brought me up, and that's how I worked. And there is no real coaching in the wine space. So when, you know, I relieved myself of the pressure, I was like, you did the best you could with what you had, with the skills and capacities you built to that time. It still got you far enough in the game to meet the person that can then be like, if you're serious about this, we have to plug you into the right model. And that's what anyone listening to this, I'd be like, seek to understand the model before just the dream and the sexiness of it, if you will.

14:00Speaker A: Interesting. So did you find yourself walking into this path that you now have made a few choices which are the best, and you're now in a whole new world. So what's it like? I mean, you've pivoted from one thing. You're a coach. You're spending every single day talking to people, teach them about brands. As a matter of fact, shed some light Give me the world before you walk down this sewer of a hole of opening the wine business. What was your world? You said you were multiple brands.

14:31Speaker B: What are those brands? They were all in the coaching space of some kind. One of the things I learned in my life thanks to early mentors, is when you figure out a path to success, turn around and reach back to those behind you and pull them up. So when I was a highly successful personal trainer working in the industry there, I became that person fully booked, fully packed out. But then you realize I hit the ceiling of how much I could make, etc. And when I lost that first business, went broke trying to rebuild it all, et cetera, and I learned the path of online businesses and things like that, and I became successful. I kind of went from my broke to four years later making kind of like my first million. When I learned the online side of things, I just started turning around to the fitness industry and was just like, how to make money in the fitness industry. And I built courses and coaching on how to make money in the fitness industry. Then I fell into the coaching space and I was like, okay, I'm learning out. I learned how to make a million dollars in the coaching space. I was like, I'll turn around, teach the people behind me how to go do that. And I just kept parlaying.

15:34Speaker A: Got it.

15:34Speaker B: One model to the next, to the next. And what's funny, that now I'm trying to do that in the wine space. Cause I'm like, I'm gonna help the people behind me not make all the damn mistakes I made in the wine industry. Cause no one's really helping them besides you at that stage of the game. But so it was always something in the. I learned how to either make money in fitness and online coaching to how to build coaching brands, marketing Systems, Sales Systems, etc. To then. Now I was like, oh, I'm going to parlay all that into the wine industry. And here we are today.

16:09Speaker A: So your world, as you developed it and created it, was structured, it was understood, it was clear. It was all based upon what you had done in the past. And. And you had taken that one and built that into a livelihood and a plan for you and your family.

16:22Speaker B: That's right.

16:23Speaker A: So now you're in the wine business. You sat with me as you mentioned. I gave you some pointers and some ideas and things you could do and what have you. Just because I had done some things in the wine business for a long time. But you learned the path, you got into it, and the first two or three years, I know for a fact, because I know you was a whirlwind of choices, a whirlwind of decisions and a whirlwind of risks and a whirlwind of moving down that path. Tell me about that.

16:57Speaker B: You know, I sit back and I run through it a lot because still, you know, we have a successful brand, we're marching and we're growing out there. But you're still like, I'm in still the struggle of the first three years of the business. And this is a heavy capital intensive business as compared to the online coaching spaces and whatnot, where you're like, for 500 bucks, you're in the game type thing that I run through a lot of those different decisions and especially when I'm sitting back with my wife and we're kind of contemplating like, do we make the right choices? Where are we at where we're, are we happy with where things are at, even when they're scary and whatnot? And number one thing I'm always like is I'm like, there's nothing we can go back to. There is no ability to go back. Regret serves nothing but regression out there. That I'm like, okay, that serves us nothing. What we have to now do is look at is when we were given the right data, the right information, the right decision tree, what did we choose and why did we choose that? Because in that we can then be like, this is the path to success. Should somebody follow us. When you're presented at this crux ab, when you get through here, you're presented with this choice there that is very manageable. Where you're like, I don't think of every decision a law go. I deal with the one in front of me and in what level of integrity, what level of passion, what level of belief, what level, what level of exit, level of execution that I do there. Those are the things that I look at in trying to create what I would turn to somebody behind me and be like, this is what you can control and this is what you can't control. And right now your decisions are all along just what's in your control. Because beyond that you don't know. There's too many things that are coming after that. And then you're going to get in paralysis analysis, you're going to get into doubt, you're going to get into disbelief and you'll let the dream be chopped away at because of the daily dilemma. If you will instead still live into the dream but follow the controllable choices. Along the way is this.

19:21Speaker A: Once you got the answers you needed and you began going this path and we talked and you began running your business. Today, looking back over the past couple of years, you've been engaged in this new world. Are you happy? There are times and times you're not.

19:42Speaker B: There are 100%. 100%.

19:44Speaker A: And right now would you say to be honest, listen, I poured my heart out in this book, in the last one, about telling the truth of where I'm at and how I feel and where I'm going. Because I think most people in the world don't take the time to tell the truth about how they really feel about something.

20:00Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

20:01Speaker A: You know, and so I want to ask you, you know, clearly this is love and happiness. The wine. So if you're not happy, well, you are happy. What's the percentage? Where are you going? What's your path to happiness? Are you 90% happy or 1% happy? And working on the other second percent?

20:18Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I've ever sat back and given it a ratio type thing, but I'm like, I'm happy because I just, I've trained myself to bring joy into the world and I live in that moment of gratitude. Why did we build our house the way we did and where we are at? And it's just because. So every day I can look at that horizon, I can look at those gardens, I can look at my kids faces and still have gratitude for I'm alive and I went after this dream because we all know at any moment Anna could kill me. Anna could kill me. I'm out of the game.

20:49Speaker A: Your wife is not gonna kill you.

20:52Speaker B: I live in fear. But that's a running joke. Everyone knows, but it's just truly the idea that. Because what is worse than me not being happy all the time is I never went after it. Because then we have no, there's no challenge in our life. There is no pursuit of the dream or living in the dream because the pursuit is always meaning. I'll never really get there and whatnot. And I believe we can always live into a state of growth of it and be in the moment of it at the same time. But I'm like, if I was to say I'm happy all the time, there's no one that is that all the time. Barring you're some monk living by yourself atop a mountain, sure, by all means. But otherwise I'm like, no. We deal with daily struggles. I dealt with a people issue. I dealt with a freaking Inventory issue. And you're like, these things suck to deal with. But that's being an entrepreneur. That's being a business owner. So if you thought it was always going to be amazing and whatnot, I'm like, you should never be a business owner. You should not be the entrepreneur. Because 90% of what we deal with sucks balls at times. 10% is the legacy and the mission and the vision and the purpose all out there. But without all that stuff that we do on a daily level, that thing never gets achieved, never gets lived. And that's why there's so many dreamers that aren't doers, that never actually go after it. So I don't know if I ever worry about how much I'm in it. It's how long do I stay in the unhappiness. If I'm like, this sucked today, but I can get out of it in 20 minutes, 30 minutes. I'm skillful at what I'm doing in the pursuit of what I'm after, right? It's. If you're like, you lost seven days because you couldn't get over the fact that this happened with a customer, this happened. What not. I'm like, you got to train that mindset better. You got to train some other areas of your growth better. That is what I've gotten good at is like, I can recognize this sucked. I'm not happy about it, but I don't stay there long because I've also got young kids. And you look in the eyes of a young child, there's nothing but belief, nothing but dream, nothing but opportunity in their eyes.

23:04Speaker A: And.

23:05Speaker B: And I'm like, I'm trying to teach them where to go. So if they see me acting like crap for a long time, not a moment a moment, they get it. But if they're like, this is a chronic way of being, then I'm going to raise chronic children that aren't happy, aren't joyful, don't believe in their dreams. And that's not what I want to leave behind in the world. Maybe there's other people that are okay with that, but I recognize the preciousness of life, how quick it could be over. I lost a lot of people in my life. I think the first person that died in my life I was in sixth grade. So when you face that, and I've lost many people, from bus accidents to lost at sea, to run over by buses, to the, like, weird shit that you're like, you know, I gotta be grateful for every damn day that I'm above ground. And I'm getting to do something that I'm passionate about that hopefully I can leave a difference and some meaning and some significance with. There is what I choose to look at, if that's helpful.

24:05Speaker A: So what do you say to the person who doesn't feel that? What do you say to the young man or young woman or young individual who doesn't know how to get out of that place of pain, of difficulty? How do you find the resilience that you have spawned and you live by that give you the second life to engage today when tomorrow just fell apart?

24:26Speaker B: Yeah. I don't know if I would ever diminish the growth necessary by saying I can say one thing to them because I would share a path that many of us that have figured out a way through. By being like number one, do you learn to find the things that you are grateful for so that you remember, like, yep, I may have lost X amount of dollars today, but I'm still alive, not living in a war zone right now. I'm grateful that I found love in my marriage and in my relationships. I'm grateful that I'm being the best dad I could be. I'm grateful for the people I get to work with. I'm making up the ones that I kind of lean into. But do you have that ability to pull back, recognize perspective of where you are and what you're doing? Have you ever sat back and just been like, I think back when I was miserable working on. Because I went through many journeys from when I was working on Wall street to recognizing like, I love the work, but I don't love the people. And I left a good paying job to be like, I'm gonna go find something that I love. And I did that in fashion industry when I worked for Calvin Klein. I did that in the fitness industry when I recognize I'm unemployable. So I just found these ways to be. Like, I'm always in the pursuit of. If I want to be that person that says I can live my dreams, I better figure out the skill set that those people have. That isn't taught at school, isn't taught in religion, isn't taught in therapy, isn't taught. It's taught by people that have been like, I figured it out. And I went and paid to be in those rooms. I paid to have the mentors. I paid to be doing the coaching. I'm often like, you thought it was going to be the one book, like the secret type thing. I'm like, that was the bullshit. You were Sold. The thing is, did you read the 100 books? Did you spend time with the 16 mentors? Did you do the things so that it's not theory, it's in practice? Did you do it once and it didn't work out and you're like, oh, it's me. I'm the person that's. And then you took on identity issue as compared to your. Like, I have to develop who I am as a person to know how to navigate struggle in a diversity time and time again. Because if you think those things aren't coming, I'm like, there's probably one of the biggest issues. You thought the stuff was just going to be easy versus anger. I don't want to say. I always joke about with Anna, about when we struggle through something. I'm like, it's our adversity, our anger. And anger isn't a bad thing. If we take it where it becomes back to an identity, a characteristic. As compared to, I'm in a moment of anger, very different. But in that there's truly advantage because then we learn to navigate these things in a healthy, productive way. Then when I'm sitting down with somebody that's like, how to do this? I wish I could be like, hey, man, I got one second with you. Maybe I'd be in that moment enlightened enough to say the one thing, but I probably want to spend half a day with them, talking through, asking questions, sharing example, giving metaphor, showing story to that person to be like, let me show you the ways that the many other people that have gone through this have done it themselves so that you can build a pathway, a set of skills that you possess that I'll never be able to take away from you, no matter if I'm gone or not. You now possess these for the rest of your life. That's probably what I do for somebody. And then the biggest clarity be like, are you fighting for something? Are you doing this because you're not fighting for anything besides a paycheck? Or you're not fighting for anything that has meaning to you. It's why these things really get to you, why you won't be willing to go through the wall to get to the other side? Every single person that I've seen that gets through the other side did it for something of meaning, something of significance. It wasn't just barring you're a scam artist or a thief or something like that.

28:36Speaker A: Sure.

28:37Speaker B: But the person that has really done this to leave a mark in the world, they have tried to figure out what that mark is or what that means. And they don't get stuck on. I'm waiting for the piano, the purpose piano to fall on my head. They're just like, I got started and then I got better and I figured, oh, now I figured out a better way because I'm like, I went from Wall street to fashion to fitness, to coaching, to the wine industry. All of them were purposes. I lived in those moments. Now I'm just like, how do we continue to keep purpose in the everyday? So I'd help that person try to find what is the purpose of my everyday.

29:12Speaker A: Who taught you your philosophy that you hold deeply today?

29:17Speaker B: I'm many. I mean, everything from the musicians of my life shout out to the Eddie Vedders and the Maynards and those kind of guys out there, to the books, to the Brendon burchards to the McLean's, I'm at. If you go to my house, well, you've been to my house. You see my, like, I have thousands of books. I have hundreds of audio books. I'm a student of history and life and music and just knowledge. Because it's all been there before. Go back and just read some Aristotle, read some freaking Marcus Aurelius Reed. Some of the people of the past, they've been doing this. Humanity hasn't really changed that much. Just the severity of it has, if you will. And now we're at a little bit more critical moments because you're just like, damn, making some bad decisions today in the world. I mean, we don't have world no more. Dinosaurs kind of did better than us type thing. But without being that also apocalyptic about the world. It's just from what we know, we all have one life. Well, is it one life that you lived or is it one life that you coasted through? One life that you let dictate to you? Did you decide, I want to tell life what I want out of it. So the people that are doing that, what did they do? And did you buy those 10 books, those 10 records, then those 10 whatever it is, you kind of get the idea that I have had a history of great mentors, teachers, artists, musicians in my life that have helped me carve out this. The biggest difference that I would share with the person is I'm like, I didn't read them in theory. I put them into execution. And I know that's a big part of your rise model, right? I always just say, don't just say it. It.

31:08Speaker A: You have to.

31:09Speaker B: So I think that's the big thing, because I'm like, even any of the things I've shared today, if you're not willing to go out and execute it over and over and over again, it's kind of like my son, when he's trying to play basketball and he doesn't hit the first shot, he's all like. I'm like, how many did you toss up? And he's like, four. I'm like, and you thought you'd be good at four shots? I'm like, no one living their dream ever said I'd be good. On the fourth turn, they were good at on the 40th turn, 4,000th turn, 40,000th turn. That's the difference. I mean, it's the classic Michael Jordan, like, taking the 10,000 shots. And I'm like, all the inspirational, metaphorical things are sitting on posters. They're sitting on walls.

31:54Speaker A: Thomas Edison was asked by a reporter how did it feel to fail 1000 times? And he says, no, the light bulb was an invention that had 1,000 steps.

32:03Speaker B: That's exactly right.

32:04Speaker A: Yeah, I agree.

32:06Speaker B: Now, the key to anyone listening to this is, are you gonna do that?

32:10Speaker A: Yeah.

32:10Speaker B: To your E model?

32:11Speaker A: Of course.

32:12Speaker B: I like. I. Sometimes I wish we'd throw. We throw that up earlier because I'm like, it don't matter if you gave me the model.

32:18Speaker A: Yeah.

32:19Speaker B: How many people have you given the model to for making wine?

32:24Speaker A: Hundreds.

32:25Speaker B: Well, I'm building wine business hundreds. How many have executed it?

32:29Speaker A: I would say, before you came along, we had somewhere close to 30 or 40 signed deals that we'd done deals with, and no one did anything. Even one of that person that we had worked with that you saw the products. We did, and we had pallets of wine built for this individual. And they're done. Everything's finished. It's complete, and the packaging's perfect. But does it want to execute? Doesn't want to go over the last very next step. And you don't know why, your mind begins to just fade into a blackness, to think to yourself, how can you put all this time and effort into something and not actually finish it? You know, it's funny when I'm doing anything I got to finish, you know, I mean, you've seen the hours I spend at night working on things.

33:17Speaker B: Good God.

33:18Speaker A: Yeah. It's a sickness in one person's mind, but. And the other side of it all, you know, I didn't release one book. I released two. I didn't, you know, build. I built four websites in a week, you know, And I got. I have to just. I have to finish it. Because if I don't do that one, then I don't finish, and I don't have anything to show for it. It's literally all just pie in the sky. And I can't tell you how often I've been even this book, Pivot to Profit. I wrote the book, finished the book, and then I got it edited. And then I needed to do one more chapter. And next day would come around and I'd edit that chapter, and that would become three weeks, and nothing happened. Six years. The major story in this book took place literally in 2005. So we're going back more than a minute or two ago, decades here, right? And it took that long to take that story and bring it out and share with the world. This is where we're going. This is what this needs to be done. And I gravitate very much so to people who don't mind making a whoops and actually love it. I mean, I love fail forward, fail often, fail quick. I love it. I really do, because you learn what to do and change your dynamic. But I guess the question really comes down to is when you pivoted from something, whether it be for success reasons or for challenges, and you identified, this is my opportunities. I mean, you're looking at this, I'm looking at your world and saying, okay, the second part of this was to identify the core opportunities and what was yours when you started up on a seller, what was the core opportunity? The things that you knew that you could build upon in the wine world?

35:10Speaker B: I knew we could create a unique brand and carve out a space. Just because of the uniqueness of the way we kind of name our wines and do our stories. A lot of people will come to our tasting experiences, and they're like, good God, this is like personal development seminar with wine and whatnot. This is amazing. And I'm like, I knew I could take all the lessons and all the things that we were speaking from stages and in videos and in coaching, and now put those messages in a bottle and take all those moments and memories and teach them how to intuition and meaning and a wine brand. I knew we could do that. And I know the way Ann and I host and then what we do, the way we're entertainers and speakers, that I'm like, we're just gonna be dynamic motherfuckers, and we're just gonna be able to kind of go do this. So I knew that we can kinda get a foothold, and we didn't want that to be where we're building multiple locations so we knew we could do one thing real well. But when you talk about a unique opportunity in it, it's really though what I've always learned. And we're going to actually name a wine called the Reach because I always learned Reach up. Reach up. You know, you were talking about fail forward, fail this and that. I'm like 100%, you absolutely have to do that. But it is 2025 at the time of this podcast that I'm also like, there are people that made the mistakes. Pay them or ask them get in their world to learn how to avoid. Avoid the mistakes. Some are unavoidable because new things, new dynamic will change in the markets. But there are ones that they're like, no, you shouldn't have started with brand new barrels. You should have started this. Did you not know about shiners and bulk juice that you could have started out with? You didn't have to wait five years before you took a dollar. Those mistakes I could have avoided. There's day to day ones that you have to walk through, right? That you're like, that's the biggest thing. So when because I have built my entire life success, it's funny that you say 05. That's when I opened my first gym and I left Crunch. And that was the start of my whole entrepreneurial start at 05 is the fact that I'm like, throughout that time I learned reach up, but reach back. So all my businesses were built on reach back and teach the person behind you. It was Dan Kennedy that actually taught me that concept. He's like, best business you can build after the first one that you found success on is teach the people behind you who want to go faster and spend less money and less effort than you did, but you can make a freaking business off that. I was like, God damn, that's great. That when we started to look at this is not happening in the wine industry. No one is coaching the wine industry behind or showing them. Different models, different paths, different ways. Virtual wineries, this that you don't have to go through. So when we started to figure that out, I'm like, there's the opportunity that I'm like, oh, that's a white whale. I know. I'm like, the coaching industry, the course space, all that. I was like, you won't do that. And you're like, you won't go do that. We're like, let's go do that. To me, that was an opportunity that I not see that is even bigger than what we can do. With Levada sellers, because how big is the sellers going to be by itself? I don't know. Like, I just want it to be special. I don't need it to be big. But what we can do with our kind of, like, seller alliance and collective and all the other stuff there, I'm like, that could be. That can challenge the model of Constellation and the other brands out there and kind of build something that this industry hasn't seen that helps the small guy thrive and compete in an often market where they're getting swallowed up. But you're just like, doesn't need to be that way. So that opportunity is where I'm. We're sinking our teeth into the most and probably is also what we're most excited about.

38:48Speaker A: Yeah, that's awesome. That's awesome. Vito, I tell you, you are a breath of fresh air. Talking to you. And I know your story. I know you. And so, you know, truth be told, we've known each other for a long time, and I know who you are. But I love the grit that is always there, the grit which is always to stand up again and be counted as the one who will always show up. You show up and you go in. You go in deep. You don't quit, you don't dance around, nor do you dip your toe into anything. There are very few people in the world that I can give that compliment to or that admonishment to, I should say. And you're one of them.

39:30Speaker B: Thank you, brother.

39:31Speaker A: You know, and you're showing it through your brand, you're showing it through your grace, and you're showing it through your presence. And so for all those who are in a place where they're looking for a change, let Vito Lofata, this guy right here, let this man be the one man to tell you that if you're at a crossroads, if you're at a place where you don't know which way to go, if you're wondering if you want to take this job or that job, you're wondering if you want to execute on something. You may have made great success in a business that was great for you or a career that was awesome. And you may have found your niche, but there's something inside of you that's itching that you want to get out. Something that says that tomorrow the sun's going to rise, but I want to be there when it rises in a different way. Then you can look at Vito Giuseppe Lafata, look at this man and realize that just like him, tomorrow the sun will rise. Because you make it rise. And no matter what you're struggling with, no matter what you're doing, you can climb out of that place.

40:33Speaker B: Place.

40:33Speaker A: You can climb out of that one place. And it just may be dissatisfaction. It just may be I'm just not happy. It just may be I want to build a legacy for my children and my children's children. Or more importantly, I want to reach back and help somebody, not make the choices that I made. Your life has value, but only to the degree that you allow it and allow yourself to pursue what's amazing and what's beautiful. So, Vito, you're an inspiration to myself. And we picked the wine, love and happiness for today because, you know, it's not just a song, which my mother loves, but it's also a state of being.

41:13Speaker B: That's right.

41:13Speaker A: You know, to love somebody, we always confuse love a lot of times with, you know, the love of our spouse or the love of our friend or what have you. But to love the presence of someone who makes them better. The Bible says the iron sharpens iron. So does the sword of a man sharpen that of another. So I want to be the iron. I want to be in worlds in my life where I have a hard surface and a hard surface when I can't get away with things, I can't make mistakes. I want to be able to have somebody in my world, in my life, which every human needs, that will hold them accountable to their ambitions, hold them accountable to their own hope and their own ego. But we'll see past all of the fluff, all of the crap, and say, wait a minute. You're not in the place you need to be right now. Sit down and do this, sit down and do that. Follow this other path or reinvent something new. Do you know the joy that comes when you have an idea that the light bulb goes on and you feel like the world is now perfect? It's kind of like a blessing renewed every day in your mind. It's kind of like a new relationship where you fell in love with somebody for the very first time you saw your spouse and you said, I'm in love with you. That moment, that spark of true joy that's deep inside your heart that you'll never forget. The moment you fell in love with your spouse or they fell in love with you. That moment of perfection. The world is perfect. Everything is where it should be. It's like an alignment of the sounds of the world of a great song that's played over and over in your head. Like the moment when you feel the sun on your face because it's a beautiful day and the rain is gone and the breeze flows through your face. Those moments of perfection, they come like the idea of a person getting better, the idea of a person rising up, the idea of an individual saying, you know what? I will not go quietly in that good night. I will rage against the dying of the light and I will stand up and I will be a better version of myself today because I've got people like you behind us. That's what we want to be.

43:21Speaker B: Amen, brother.

43:22Speaker A: We rise. Amen. So, my friend, that's love and happiness. Love and happiness to you. To you, brother. Well, I tell you, that's good. Nothing but a good wine, a good conversation. So, Vito, thank you so very much. For those of you who want to get to know this man, vito lafada, lafada sellers.com. we'll put the website up here on the video and of course, belief, the podcast and the details are all your contact details, because there's a guy in your world named Vito Lafada who loves wine and he loves people and he loves combining them together. And there's no one on the planet you'll spend a better moment of your time with when you go to his tasting room in Temecula and sow a seed into yourself and fall in love with the wealth of connection, the freedom of life, and everything that comes. When you hear about the wisdom that comes from rain, fall in love with it. My friends, this is Crush and Climb. I'm your host, Jason McClain with my dear friend Vito Lofata. Subscribe, because if you don't, you're a poo poo head, like the video, like the podcast. And follow us, because every single week we bring you joy and and love to make sure you don't fall into the trap of being ordinary. Here's to you. Cheers.

44:44Speaker C: Thank you for joining entrepreneur, author, speaker, and winery owner Jason McLean on the.

44:50Speaker A: Crush and Climb podcast.

44:52Speaker C: Here we hammer raw experience into wisdom, helping you not just bounce back, but bounce forward with new strengths to continue the journey and build a life that's not just successful, but significant. Subscribe to Crush and Climb. Wherever you get your podcasts, let's raise a glass to the journey ahead.