How an Inventor Turned Setbacks Into Generational Opportunity
Living Your Legacy
Philip Fairweather shares his journey from a promising NFL prospect to a patented inventor and founder of Entrepreneurs Academy, where he empowers veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, and underserved communities through
Key takeaways
- Philip Fairweather invented a stabilized thigh-weight system for speed training after an NFL opportunity vanished when the USFL folded.
- His program is funded through Illinois marijuana tax revenue and specifically targets R3 (restore, renew, reinvest) zones and formerly incarcerated individuals.
Main topics
- Entrepreneurship for underserved communities
- Holistic founder wellness (financial, physical, mental)
Notable quotes
"I believe in you guys more than you believe in yourself."
Conclusion
Listeners gain a practical framework for viewing entrepreneurship as a vehicle for generational wealth and
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:00) It's really about entrepreneurship, taking control of your own destiny. You come out of the joint or you're trying to make a pivot in your life. There's only two ways there in a living, right? Work for yourself or work for somebody else. Speaker 1 (0:12) Philip Fairweather is a visionary, community-focused and accomplished entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Entrepreneurs Academy. Drawing from his extensive background in federal economic development and veteran leadership, he empowers underserved communities and aspiring business owners with cutting-edge strategies, creating sustainable enterprises and lasting economic opportunity. Speaker 2 (0:32) I started training with bodybuilders. Yup. And I gained 28 pounds and lost two-tenths of a second off my 40. And I was like, I just lifted myself out of a job. And I told them, I said, you know, the only thing... that breaks my heart about doing this every single semester is that I believe in you guys more than you believe in yourself. Bring your kids to class. They might learn something. If they're out of control, take them outside, get them under control, come back in class. I don't want you to miss out on the opportunity because you don't have childcare. Speaker 3 (1:03) It spans the globe like a super high school internet. Elvis, ready. Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win. The Speaker 1 (1:16) Living Your Legacy podcast. For those who live to leave a legacy. That's extraordinary. Speaker 3 (1:27) Sensational! Speaker 3 (1:37) Welcome Speaker 4 (1:38) back to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast. For Inside Success, I am Ray Gutierrez. We're moments away from filming another episode of Operation CEO, and it's the eve of Thanksgiving, so there's good vibes. Joining me today... is i already forgot your name that's the this the severe thing about philip no no don't don't say it Speaker 3 (1:57) my Speaker 4 (1:59) nhd is so bad joining me today for his episode of operations ceo is philip fairweather philip you come here with a mission with an operation what is that operation sir that Speaker 2 (2:09) operation is teaching entrepreneurship to people from underserved communities, specifically veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, and folks that live in R3 zones. R3 zones are restore, renew, reinvest. They're the most impoverished communities in the state of Illinois. And it focuses on the communities that were hit heavily by the drug laws. You know, somebody has two strikes against them, they get caught with a roach in their car, they're going up for... Five, ten, eight years. Yeah, just like that. So our program is actually funded through the marijuana tax from Illinois. Wow. So we're telling everybody puff, puff, pass. Speaker 4 (2:47) I was just going to say, rinse, repeat, puff, puff, puff. The puns continue. I medicate, but I have my card. I'm a Floridian, born and raised here. But I actually do treat it as my medicinal. It's a thing that I need to do what I'm currently doing now. Existing and being happy in the moment. A lot of folks don't get the luxury of doing that. They traverse bumpier roads and they get in trouble for it. How do you deal with that? How do you educate folks on getting on the right road and medicating correctly? Speaker 2 (3:15) So we don't really talk about them medicating correctly. It's really about entrepreneurship, taking control of your own destiny. You come out of the joint or you're trying to make a pivot in your life. There's only two ways to earn a living, right? Work for yourself or work for somebody else. And you can go get a job if you want, but you've got to skill up and you're going to be under the control of somebody else. But if you want to start to take control of your own destiny, entrepreneurship to me is the best way. to do it. That's how, that's what drives the United States economy. This is how people get wealthy and create generational wealth for their kids and their family. So we focus on the entrepreneur from three perspectives, financial health, physical health, and mental health. The mental health is the thing that's really unique about our program. So the financial health is starting your own business, getting your credit cleaned up. Speaker 2 (4:07) How to use insurance to create generational wealth, putting your money in trusts so that as the insurance rolls over, you're creating wealth for your kids. Absolutely. The physical health is urban farming. We have a sustainable urban farming program. So we're teaching people how to grow their own food. Food is medicine. Most people that are on public aid, they purchase all their produce in the first week. Speaker 2 (4:36) purchase produce. And for the rest of the month, they have nothing in their diet. It's canned goods, processed goods. That's high blood pressure, diabetes, all that sort of thing. And garbage in, garbage out. If you're going to be an entrepreneur, it's a marathon. It's not just a sprint. And you have to be healthy to be able to do that. Good food is going to keep your mind clear. Good food is going to get you up in the morning and not have brain fog. It's going to allow you to come in early and stay late and do those sorts of things. And if people only have produce in the first week of the month, their body is just going through this cycle. Correct. So if you can grow your own food, you can have fresh produce all the time and you can start adjusting your diet. The last part is mental health. Mental health, especially for people like me, old school, just suck it up. So what? This happened. So what? That happened. Just, yeah, just, just. Just suck it up and keep moving. Sorry, Speaker 4 (5:34) I'm crying about this, but. Speaker 2 (5:37) Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So the mental health component, it's just like you go to the gym to get a trainer to work on your body. You should be doing it with your mind. Your body follows your mind. Your mind doesn't follow your body. So if you start taking care of your mind, and it doesn't mean that you have bipolar depression or paranoid schizophrenia or anything. You might just be procrastinating. You might. have depression because you don't know how to meet payroll next week. You have to be able to fight through those things. So, so we wrap ourselves around the entrepreneur in, in those three areas to help them really be successful. Speaker 4 (6:10) It's, it's awesome that you're doing this is for a very long time, folks that were. like thriving in the hustle culture or want to be in this culture. They thought that the point of entry had to be like very high or you had to be a live a fancy life or be a post-grad. No, like the real stories come from, from the darkest shadowy painful areas and it creates the, the, the brightest stars. Like where, where can you talk about some journeys of some folks that have transformed or ascended? Cause it was always in them. Speaker 2 (6:39) So part of what we do is we hold forums and we tell different stories. We had one last year that was turning pain into gain. It was five women who had experienced extreme trauma in their life and they turned it into their entrepreneurial cause. Oh, yeah. We had this one Latin sister that drove from Indiana. When she was 12 years old, put two phone books on the front seat of her car, drove from Indiana to Chicago with her mother in the backseat bleeding to death from her dad beating the