This is a KUNV studios original program The content of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of

Nevada System of Higher Education Good morning and welcome to the grind I'm your host extraordinaire Mr Eric James

The grind Simply put the grind is a half hour conversation that speaks to local

business entrepreneurs and explores their take on where our local economy is heading and asks them

to tell us their own story of the sacrifices and work ethic that it takes to have

a successful business Boom good morning good morning good morning It's cold out there today y'all I'm not

trying to play around I'm not faking I am from the desert It's cold out there

today I'm not looking forward to summer in a 110 degree heat but this cold's got to do something with

this But we are here we are about to have a we have another I

don't know what I'm doing but I we've been finding the greatest guests and I just know people that

have great stories Interesting backgrounds and they have come today with a lineup Even my assistant was excited all week

She's like I'm so excited about today's show Eric like we I really like our lineup today so we

have 3 special guests for you today not 1 not 2 not but 3 and

all 3 of them have fabulous background and stories and entertaining So today I think we're gonna blow it out

the water once again So um again my name is Eric James I'm your host

Post uh hashtag the grind is about telling the stories behind the stories of people that

are entrepreneurs and people out there betting on themselves and how they got their journey

started and the decisions and those cornerstones that made the difference because you know I

would say if it was easy everybody would do it So I'm gonna do uh I'm

gonna start with my first guest because it's Women's History Month and so my first guest is

Miss Adia Foster my second My guest is Ryan Erickson and my third guest is Travis Buchanan but because

it's Woman's History Month we're gonna start with Ms Adia so please introduce yourself Miss Adia Tell the

folks a little bit about yourself and then I'm gonna hit you with some questions and

so they can get the real tea and dirt on you and find out how you you're becoming so successful

in this male dominated world and you just empowering her and all the rest of

the ladies out there to do their thing and knock it out Well hello my name

is Adia Foster as you have introduced me I am the CEO and president of Empower which encompasses 23

brands now um Bundles Advantage which is a group purchasing organization Gear Me Up which does promotional materials for

that group organization and A new brand of water called Bearassed I don't know if I can say

that on the radio so maybe Bear A We all got one say what you got

to say I don't know if it tastes good or not but the name you know I

don't know if anyone of you fellows want some bare ass water but you know it is

like water should be Well OK that sounds like it sounds about right Well I'm

gonna hit you with a couple of questions real quick I happen to know this young lady personally and

her background is phenomenal She went to USCO Now some people are gonna hate because you know

I'm a rebel myself and I know Mr Buchanan also has ties here to UNLV so and

we are on the UNLV campus so but we're gonna give her a pass on that Tell us

a little bit about your time at USC because I know you weren't on the track team But you

I mean and and you know fellas and I'm not trying but she got the body to show

it So obviously them track them track skills have translated into the business because she's moving

and running fast Tell us about your time at USC My time at USC was interesting I unfortunately never

actually got to run for USC I was a track star in high school in Kansas City

but unfortunately I was involved in a drunk driver accident my summer before going to USC and

that accident left me unable to run So while I was on the team and I

did get to experience some of the perks of the team like choosing my classes

early um and unfortunately I never got to run But in lieu of that I actually

helped well let me not be so modest I was the very first student ambassador

and the very first student ambassador that they ever paid to leave campus to bring students or encourage students to

come to USC So I'm very proud of that because I helped start the ambassador program at USC during my

time And one of the one of the benefits of that program is we were able to well

I guess I guess I created a lasting impression because that program is still in existence and

it's pretty fun and I was pretty honored to be the very first person that they ever paid to fly

I actually came to Las Vegas to recruit for USA Well the accident I mean have

you met Mr Buchanan here He's a lawyer I mean If you had known him back in the day

you might not be talking to us He probably would have got you a fat check

and you wouldn't you wouldn't know any of us by now But all right so

how did you get to Las Vegas because you know Cali is a beautiful place but a lot

of you you Cali people are moving here How did you make the transition out here to

Las Vegas and what kept you out here Well so I grew up in a household where you got I

was told to go to college get a job with benefits And so while I began

as an actress in my younger days I was very focused on making sure I had

a job and got benefits because that was what was expected of me So when I graduated from

The University of Southern California from the Marshall School of Business Yes I'm very proud of graduating from Marshall School

of Business Um they had a job fair just like in many colleges and I knew that

I was going to be a buyer for Ross because at the time I loved Ross then heck I

still love Ross but went on 3 rounds of interviews thought I had it nailed

and was going on other interviews including with a company called Rubbermaid that people may know And

I did not get the job from Ross but Rubbermaid gave me an offer to fly to Las

Vegas and make my home in Las Vegas and cover Las Vegas So that's actually

how I landed in Las Vegas Wait wait but I heard you were an actress uh uh but

my understanding is you were sad Actress that's just not no regular you know I'm

working in a coffee shop actress sag actress What what things have we seen you in or where could

we find you if we were uh uh you know I'm streaming this this weekend flipping through the different

uh uh platforms Where can I find you What can I see What kind of scenes uh

uh can I what what do we have As a child you may have seen me in McDonald's commercials

or you can currently still see me on the cover of a kid's song video

um day at Camp I'm still on that cover with no teeth As an adult teeth don't

have teeth I have all of my teeth Um now as an adult you can currently see me on

Toubie and Peacock and Amazon and Hulu So I've got um on on Hulu and

Amazon I believe Takeout Girl The Deadly Bonds is on Tube and then I have a movie coming out

soon I just got the information today actually that it's coming out soon on Peacock

Amazon and Tubby and um that one is I the last couple of movies I

tend to play crazy uh women that kill their husbands So there's that that there's always a catch out

there There's always a catch but you know as long as she's crazy about business as

well then no hustle right so I'm gonna come back to you but uh we're gonna move

on to Mr Erickson I've known Mr Erickson uh uh about gotta say about close to

know the different industries have transitioned to different workspace you know remote working and other

things so folks aren't in the offices like they used to but I've had the opportunity

to see his grind and part of what he does One of the things I've always respected and

liked about him is he has a a mentality or mantra about how he performs

his work ethic and his work day Um Ryan tell the folks a little bit About

yourself and then tell them about your morning routine or ritual and how that mentally puts

you in a place to come out in this very competitive market and be successful

at a relatively young age because you've been in the business for a minute and you're not a you're a

younger cat and you've been able to do some phenomenal things so tell folks a little bit about

yourself It's been uh 10 years in May since you and I met and uh since I've been

in mortgages My name is Ryan Erickson uh I actually grew up here in Vegas I'm uh I'm

a Las Vegas native I left here a couple times wants to go to school

in Colorado I actually went to School of Mines uh engineering school in Colorado I don't

know if you and I have actually talked about that before but I uh my my

daughter is is in Colorado right now going uh I I think uh she's actually in Denver Colorado going to

school for in a similar uh side of that so you know some background there So School

of Mines I went for biomedical engineering I wanted to build prosthetics I worked with the nervous

system until I got in labs where people had zero social skills and did not want much life at

all couldn't do it Left came back to Vegas but uh that training background is I think a lot

of what makes me operate the way I do in my business and in my life It taught me

how to problem solve how to create problems find problems put pieces together I think that's

what makes me very good at what I do Uh my main profession is mortgages I absolutely love

helping people buy houses There's nothing like seeing somebody get keys to their house for the very first time

in their life It's one of the most rewarding things I've ever done Uh despite all

that all the things I do all the hard work I do constantly I think the most important thing

that I do and the thing that has the most impact on how my days go day to

day and how my life has developed is my morning routine I look at it very simply I

want to start my morning in a way that sets my day up to be

successful and the two very simple things I try to do is do something that wakes me

up in the morning so it gets me in a good place physically So I get up walk get

some sun try to get my body right And then something that sets my mind right so I

wanna wake myself up mentally so I meditate meditation has been one of the most important things I've done

in my entire life Learning how to meditate has helped me be in control of

me be aware of what's going on around me which helps me be more in tune with what people

need from me And then I try to do some kind of learning in the morning 5

in the morning to just get my mind working first thing in the morning Do that just puts me

in a good place to start the day Uh this routine because again we're all entrepreneurs

I own you know uh multiple businesses myself you know I promote myself on on the show as

well but Everyone has a different I'm not a morning person I I I can say it I could stay

up to 12 in the morning and work but getting up in the morning is hard for

me now once I'm up and moving I got my shower I'm good to go

and I can do what I need to do but I am not that person that's gonna be

up at 4 or 5 in the morning reading reading and and have uh and being

knowledgeable unless it's mandatory How is it that you develop this route because again what all all

of us what we do as entrepreneurs it's difficult and it's stressful and it's taxing and it's emotionally

draining I can see where that that mental aspect has allowed you to be successful but how did you

develop it What is what is actually you know you said you go out for a

walk or other things but is it more physical or is it more psychological for you Uh it's

both and I actually prefer nights I would much rather stay up till midnight 12 a.m. than be up at

successful in the day So I just kind of had to figure out myself I think it takes

a little bit of problem solving looking at yourself and figuring out what you're resistant

to what's natural So for me the night before sets up how my morning goes It's almost impossible

for me to just naturally drift into sleep so I have to very intentionally do things

at night to help me rest and prepare for the next morning If I just

let my night be whatever it is and I try to wake up in the morning and start it's

rough every single time So how my night goes how I prepare myself for the next morning the night

before that's what makes the morning easy So having a roughly similar time I go to sleep um using things

that help me relax like um I use something called Um by neural beats it essentially puts two

different beats in each ear and your brain interprets it and creates another one It helps get your brain

in in or out of certain states So at night if you have a mind that

doesn't slow down it's almost impossible for me to get my mind to slow down So for me to get

my mind to slow down relax that's one way I can do that Long story short just be

intentional with your night and try to figure out what works at night to make the

mornings easier My mornings aren't naturally easy So and I'm forgetting what it's called now off the top

of my head but my son used to listen to those people eat and they

would chew or talk real quiet and slow and then they would crinkle paper or and then chew

on food and I thought it was the most annoying thing in the world but he

could fall asleep to it and you know he's 13 now and I think he was about 10

years old when he was doing this or 89 10 years old and I couldn't understand how a kid that

age needed this but it soothed him and it went to Sleep So for me whatever works for

somebody whatever puts your mind at rest and allows you to clear it so you can apply all

the things you need to do but I do wanna ask you about it uh in your in my

notes I have that you own multiple businesses one being a realtor which I was one several years

myself until dual licensing laws didn't allow me to keep both licenses easily so I you know

made decisions But you owned other businesses What what else have you owned or what else have you

done prior to being a mortgage rep Uh so mortgages my baby That's where my love's at Uh my favorite

business I've ever owned though was a running company that my brothers and I own together We

put on running races on like hiking trails They would be anywhere from 50 up to 100

miles running races It was a blast putting them on watching people go running 100 miles or did the

most the most I would do personally is about a half mile I like uh shorter sprints better but

we would put on these 100 mile races And watching what people are capable of and watching the just

joy of seeing a a family or a bunch of friends come out and run a

race and succeed and finish it watching them cheer each other on was so much fun What and

now you're a realtor What why the decision between realtor and mortgage uh Being a mortgage rep why why

did we make the decision on mortgages So what made me want to get into the real

estate industry in the first place was buying my first house I realized how much wealth could

be developed or built grown through real estate buying my first house not too long

after the crash in 2008 and then watching the value go up I accidentally timed it really well and

I was like oh this real estate thing's pretty cool So I just just started tinkering with real estate

mortgages And then uh looking back a little bit after that looking back at my experience and all the

things I felt like I missed from my real estate agent and my loan officer I

worked with made me kind of see a need that I thought I could enjoy doing really

well helping people make smart decisions educating them so I decided to just give it a try Um I got

my real estate license mortgage license both within 9 days I did all my education licensing for both tried

both for 2 years and decided I like the mortgage side better Main reason is

the challenge the problem solving and I think that is kind of in line with my

engineering schooling It made me like problems and problem solving and it's not an enjoyable part of buying a

house and I feel like we do a pretty good job making that part not quite as much

of an obstacle so you can enjoy buying the house and on the fun part Obviously it's working

I mean 10 years or more in you've made obviously made the right decision So I'm gonna come back

to you because I have a final question for all three of you but I'm

gonna get to my third guest here Mr Travis Buchanan Now folks you can't see Mr Buchanan here today because

this is radio but this brother has dressed like he is about to be on TV on a runway He

is blanked out He's got the suit the tie and the look that says I am successful I'm powerful and

I'm about to come in this courtroom and be Beat you down So I want to

introduce Mr Buchanan a very good friend of mine I've known him for a really long time and

he is good at what he does Uh Travis talk to the folks Tell him about yourself and and

um and and make sure y'all don't say the wrong thing because he will sue you when

they get paid He'll have your keys in his pocket on his way out to

the courtroom I just wanna start off by thanking you for inviting me here today with the

other guests here whose stories are phenomenal so it's a privilege to be here But

I've been practicing law now for 28 years in multiple settings I now have my own

law practice that I launched back in 2016 so I'm in my 9th year of serving the local community

here in Southern Nevada as well as Southern California Because I do cases in both jurisdictions so the firm does

personal injury police abuse and employment all plaintiffs' side so pretty much 100% plaintiff's side litigation So we'll take

a case from beginning and if we have to go to court try it get successful results for our clients

and sometimes life changing results for clients and wait wait a minute police abuse I

I I mean does that mean you're getting more tickets or less tickets because of you

you going after the police I can't imagine when They see you rolling down the street in one

of your nice cars they're not trying they they they got a little look in their eye they they

coming for you How did you get uh pick those particular fields because I know that you used to

work with the city of Henderson or you know I'll let you give your exact

title but I then you you like the rest of us transition from a government employee

to an entrepreneur which each one of my guests have made that transition as well as I

did And that there's a life changing moment there where you go from working from somebody

else to being your own boss and making your own decisions Who did you work for prior to uh uh

opening up your own shop and then what was the decision that made you make that leap Well I'll start

off with what the decision was or what prompted my decision to do my own thing I

did you know start off with the firm in Beverly Hills Century City right out of law school Pretty much

represented government agencies so we represented school districts cities throughout California and so in doing those cases

I was definitely interested in government service and at the firm lawyers would work there 7 years before they could

actually try cases I wanted to try cases right away and so while there one of our clients was

the city of Los Angeles and a lawyer on a matter that we were handling said hey

if you And work for us you'll be in trial right away so that kind of

really got me motivated to jump ship and leave private practice after a year to go to the city attorney's

office in LA where I prosecuted different criminal charges against people that you know were

committed of crimes did 15 trials in one year and loved it So after working in the criminal division I

was promoted actually to the Department of Water and Power Which is a civil division the city of

LA how it operates is they own the airport they own The harbor and they

own the Department of Water and Power so it was like a money making entity

that the city owned and they had different legal departments in each so I was able to promote

from criminal to DWP in less than one year The city attorney at the time told

me I was the first city attorney in office history to promote from criminal to DWP in less

than a year So you know just doing that and the exposure the experience that I had my mentor

who was my supervisor made work fun taught me how to write I mean I learned how to

write in law school but working under Tiero Rosales who was just a brilliant writer really gave me skills that

you know after working at DWP I ended up leaving because the Los Angeles Unified School

District they were expanding their legal department and they went from like 7 lawyers to 40 and

so the general counsel who was actually the head lawyer for the Pentagon in DC took

over the legal department in LA and so he pretty much wanted to expand the legal

department and bring in the best lawyers in LA I ended up applying and out of 700 applicants and

young people say That boy bad You know what uh but like a lawyer he didn't answer

my question I asked that brother what he did prior to opening up his own

shop and like a lawyer he moved right around my question and it was smooth folks

and I was like listening to the story like dang this brother is was banging it

even back in the day and now he once he came out to Las Vegas that's what I want to

hear the part you know because you and Miss Foster over here y'all transplanted some of

are natives like me and Ryan you know held it down till y'all got here Now y'all think y'all

made Vegas but we was here first and the best But what did you do and what

was the decision to make to move from working for the government because my understanding is

you work for the city of Henderson What was your title Senior Assistant City attorney So I was #2 in

the office He was #2 in the office also It wasn't like he had a low level position so he

was probably making a decent little paycheck and was bringing home the bacon to the family but yet

Walked away from that and made a decision to go out on his own Obviously again if

you see the way he's dressed today in his car in the in the parking lot you know he

made the right decision but there had to be a point where he decided I'm

gonna walk away from the safety of a check every two weeks guaranteed benefits or retirement plan 401k Purs whatever

it is I'm sure they didn't have a 401k over there at the City of Henderson but

he walked away and made a decision to bet on himself as with all three of my guests and myself

What was that decision Why did you walk away and say you wanna work for yourself So

to tie it all together you know when I've worked at the different entities that I was privileged to

be able to get jobs for I pretty much learned the best practices of all of those entities and so

I figured you know I need to pretty much start my own practice and since I know best

practices of actually working in different legal settings I can be the owner and do

my own thing and use the best practices that I've learned from the entities that I worked

for to my own benefit and so After you know working with the city of

Henderson for 5 years I did pretty much say you know I've pretty much been around

the block It's time so I forced myself after 5 years to pretty much move on start

my own practice and didn't look back But I mean on the business side but on

the personal side you went home told your lovely wife I'm quitting my job How did

that conversation go to my well paying job and I'm gonna go out here and Start scratch start over

start from zero and we're gonna be good And she looked at you and said she was very supportive She

said you know you've been making good decisions your whole career so I have faith in you and

your abilities and just as you do so I got your back So pretty much she was 100% on

board and immediately things started to go well to the point where she's like I wish you'd have

done that sooner Uh OK well as long as you got a good team On your side you

can accomplish great things All right so I'm gonna start with all three of you because I have a final

question We got about 10 minutes left in the show or so so I don't want to

make sure we don't run over but I want to know where people can find you Mr

Buchanan My office is downtown so I have a small boutique law practice 6 employees lean

mean but you get personal attention My website is www.FTblawlv.com You can find me there

And I'm one of those lawyers that you know if you hire my firm I'm gonna be involved

on your case Now was there a phone number I could reach you at Yes 702-331-5478 Say it again

for the folks in the back of the car 702-331-5478 You call us we'll treat you

great OK uh Ryan Uh best way to find me is go to my site It's Ryan

Erickson.com That's R Y A N E R E K S O N You can

find me on social media on Google Uh best number to reach me at 702-528-6235

Say it again for him one more time That's uh 702-528-6235 All right And you Ms Foster

where could folks find you if they had questions about Mow her Empower you can reach

us at www.bundles advantage.com That's our group purchasing organization or geareup.com for our promotionals My phone

number is 702-466-7999 Again that's 702-466-7999 to get more information and learn to buy smarter Alright so the

final question I have for all three of you and I want each one of you to uh answer this

We have like I said about 2 minutes for each one of you How is AI affecting your industry

or how do you see it affecting your industry over the next 1020 years I'll start with you I'll

start with you Ms Foster because I ended back with you so I can make sure

you were first again On the group purchasing side I think it's going to enable us

as a group and as buyers to do what we're doing right now which is purchase smarter Uh

when I mean purchase smarter making our dollars count making sure that we can budget and keep our budgets

it's going to allow us to do better with small businesses and helping them keep their budgets

because a lot of times small businesses budgets in flux based on the market based on prices rising

and they have no control So AI right now is currently helping us do better at keeping

prices stable for our clients and I think it's gonna be better in the future All

right Ryan what what what can you tell me How's AI affecting currently or how do you see it in

the future affecting your industry This could go on for so long We could do a

half an hour on this but so I've been using AI quite a bit for almost

possible It's just allowing us to do what we do better faster more accurately to give you a couple

of really simple examples earlier today I have uh a chat that I use to take notes

for me so I can go back and ask it questions later so I never have to remember

it ever again It's made a lot of the things that we have to do in our

job that are very complex things that we might do once in 10 years much easier and more

manageable and it helps me get a lot of that information out to my team other people that

I need to a lot easier I think the way that it's going to continue

to impact our industries it's going to make those of us who embrace it and figure out how

to use it be able to do more and better I even use it for preparing conversations for

a certain type of personality that I don't match well with so I know how to talk to

them the right way That's a way that artificial intelligence is making me a better human

which seems completely backwards but I choose to use it that way The people that

don't want to adopt it and are resistant to it are going to have a really hard time I

think in our industry especially because it's massive and very data oriented a lot of pieces moving really fast so

I can already see kind of a separation in our industry of those who use it and those who

don't and you're very quickly seeing How much leverage and strength it's creating for those that use it while

others are getting left behind and having a really hard time keeping up I absolutely

love it It's made me better at what I do I can do more faster

I can be better I could be available for more people because of what it

does for me On the business side uh what it's allowed us to do data wise has been unbelievable

The amount of information it's been able to give us on our just portfolios our loans

everything we do I I you know uh the the the one key thing I took from that

you said it's made you a better human uh uh and this conversation as you said we could we could

spend a half an hour just on AI We're all talking about it We know it's here we know what's

coming and it it's having an impact on everybody's life but that's The first time I've heard that particular

take on uh AI that it's made you a better human So I'm gonna take and

I'm gonna let you know I'm gonna steal that probably my next show I'm I'm gonna use that and uh

I'll give you I'll try to give you credit but I'm gonna act like I I came

up with it Travis Mr Buchanan what what can you say How's AI Because I've used Chat legal

GPT so I'm trying to cut down because you're too expensive per hour so I can't afford to use

you all the time but how has it affected you your industry or how do you do what

you do Well when I was first introduced to it in the legal setting I was a

little apprehensive because I'm like you know a bot doing things that lawyers do But once

you know I actually delved into different things that help my practice and it really streamlines our processes I have

like for intakes a chatbot that can help do intakes with clients to the point

where all of our questions can be answered and then we can do smooth intakes

and then also medical records now just with the click of a button and a little bit

of data we pretty much have a virtual assistant that can order medical records from any

hospital In the country quickly So just you know in terms of streamlining different processes that would normally take hours

for a person to do it's assisting me to actually be leaner without having to hire staff and

spend money and pay benefits Well it sounds like you being cheap to me really AI's supposed to make you

cheap Ryan came up with this whole complex deep answer made him a better human

He was like it's saving me some money All right folks looks like Again uh we're running out of time

here Wes is over there giving me the mean the mean mug telling me it's time for me to

get off but I wanna say I enjoyed each one of you today I I felt like I grew

and I'm gonna be a better person It's making me a better person being on this show with

y'all today And my name is Eric James I'm your host If you want to get

a hold of me you can get a hold of me at 702-836-0953,702-8360 953 at my State

Farm Insurance Agency and I have an entertainment company working on other things but Wes let's get us out

of here Thanks for listening to the grind Again my name is Eric James We hope that

today's show was two parts entertaining with a dash of education Feel free to reach out to

me at my office at 702-836-0953 and remember to always stay on your grind