Clayton Rodrigues: Creating a Cohesive Blueprint in your Mind to Establish a Level Playing Field.

Let’s remove the flooring of discrimination towards certain social groups. These negative stereotypes may prevent people from taking action towards their dreams by making them feel disadvantaged. As you read through our interview with Clayton Rodrigues, CEO and Founder at Zothex Flooring, Cabinets and more, you will see how creating a level playing field starts with the mind. We all have a mind, the ability to think and overcome. However, most of us don’t use it. We tend to give up at the first challenge, claiming we can’t do it. The quitting mentality is pretty prominent in society today. Mindset is something everybody has, and everybody has the ability to think, regardless of their upbringing, or any other factor. You have to say… How do I get out of here? What do I do to get to the next level? You define yourself in that moment. The point where we think and try to overcome an obstacle is where we begin to create equitable circumstances. The amount of thought and effort that it takes will vary from person to person. It can take a shift in emotion for an individual to want to change, what did it take for you? When I moved to the United States from Brazil it was challenging adjusting to the language barrier and culture change. Having to relearn 17 years of my life and not knowing how to talk to people was hard. Being brought up in Brazil, there was a huge lack of opportunity for betterment and advancement in life. The country isn’t built to empower people for growth, unfortunately, to get ahead in life, you need to cheat and steal, which are things I’m not willing to do. I also had to deal with the limited mindsets of some of my country mates that were in the United States longer than me. That type of stuff wears on you. It took people rejecting me for me to change my mindset to even remotely consider having a retail store. There were people coming after me just for the sake of it because they didn’t believe that I could make it happen. The owner told me, it was almost like a little bit of an alliance saying don’t employ Clayton. For 3 months I had no job, nobody to employ me in Sacramento because they saw I was trying to have my own company. “It was just me saying to myself, how do I make this happen?” I don’t want to get too much into race here but it does play a role, right. Being a black male limits my advances. Whether in this industry or any other, I don’t receive the same treatment.

Beneath the surface of physical or mental impairment are hidden capabilities. Listen, we shot a commercial, with a gentleman with one arm, also the first D1 basketball player to ever go D1. His mindset never told him not to go play basketball, or go do this or go do that. Here is what Clayton has to say about the line where we all share equality. It's the mindset. People do have this ability, this innate desire to overcome their disability whatever that is. Kind of like this gentleman that you mentioned, he does have that want, that drive. It may not be at the exact same level, but yes there is equality in the power of having the correct mindset. People made false assumptions about me all the time based on me coming from Brazil. To this day, I’m still questioned about the ways Zothex grew as a business. I don’t expect it to go away either, I just have to ignore the negative and keep pushing through. Now there are some things that are done to you as a person, that you are not responsible for. That could be coming from a pregnant mother that drinks a lot of alcohol, her kids may have a difficulty thinking straight. It’s just going to be hard. There is damage that occurs with that. While individuals with disabilities may not have had the same level of exposure or opportunities as those without disabilities, they do still have the ability to try and overcome their challenges.

Optimism is a constructive tool to get through the downs but don’t hide behind it. It is important to protect the younger generation from the unrealistic expectations of cemented happiness. Pushing creative thinking could unlock solutions to any obstacles the youth may face that expose them to emotions such as frustration and disappointment. We have too much negativity out there today. Not only that, but the wrong kind of happiness is being promoted. People want to feel happy all the time, right. People want to feel good all the time. That is an impossible thing to do. Being optimistic means that through the ups and downs of what you go through, you want to see the positive outcome. You want to be optimistic about what the final outcome is. You must understand, at some point there is going to be a down. Your heartbeat goes up and down, it doesn’t stay flat. If it’s flat then you are deceased. Our heart rates are not elevated all the time because that could lead to a heart attack. We have to understand that ups and downs are going to happen. Influencers, at times, can create unrealistic expectations on social media platforms by saying you have to be happy. Yes you do and you want to make an effort towards it, but don’t think that’s happening all the time. Kind of like in a relationship, or marriage, it’s about percentages. If you think that you are going to be 100% good in that relationship, you are absolutely wrong. You may be 70/30, or maybe even 50/50 that is grounds for divorce. If you are 60/40 you may still have problems. However, to assume that you are at 100, I don’t think it's not doable but it’s not realistic. So, promoting the right kind of being optimistic about life and anything in general, is important. Understanding that you have to have a positive mindset even though you are going to go through tough times. It gets ugly during the downs, this is where you find who you really are. The place where weak spots are often revealed is within trials and tribulations. How have you overcome challenges as a company using creativity and optimism? My upbringing had a lot to do with it. To build a brand like this, I had to work twice as hard. In my mind I have to think, first prove it to you and second prove it to myself. So, how do I do that? The way that I’ve done it is by going back into what I had to go through. I remember… “My Mom said, “I’m leaving. You are 6 years old and supposed to take care of your brother. I’m going to be gone for probably 10 minutes, so don’t let him play too rough.” My brother was playing with a tennis ball, he threw it and ended up breaking the glass window in our house. My Mom told me it was my responsibility, even though he did it. She made me go sell magazines to pay back for that window. Realizing that, it just made me think that there is a lot more responsibility required of me. I have to maintain a certain level of discipline, and that’s how my creativity gets started, so to speak. That is a very interesting story. It all goes back to discipline. If you have it, it flows through what you do. If you don’t, it doesn’t necessarily. Does Zothex promote equality, and if so, why do you prioritize this through your business? Yes. I just did an Instagram video the other day about the point of growing a business. The financial situation is a good outcome but it shouldn't be the sole reason. You need the right kind of people to grow a business, period. Do what you can to provide them the best opportunities. You have traits and qualities that I don’t possess, and your ability to make things happen is better than mine in some aspects, right. I need to be able to utilize your qualities, and you can benefit from this experience. By seeing Laron for who he is and what he can bring. By seeing Oscar and all these people for who they are. I am bringing people together, on an equal level. There’s no discrimination on whether or not there is a gender, there is a race. I want to bring everybody together, to see what they can cook together, right. What can we come up with together? For being somebody from out of the country to come here and see how it is, and realizing, man, yeah, it can happen. I just need people that are invested in the same exact mindset that I am, then equality happens. Then, creativity happens. Then, optimism happens. Right, because they see, man I have the ability of actually being at a job where I feel recognized. A place where I feel people want me here. They feel that, right. People who don’t show up, don’t interact, have no value, no care. I don’t want that.

So, you understand the value of being creative, and overcoming obstacles and all that. What would you say to a company or a person who is having an issue being creative? What information could you give them on having optimism to overcome their trials and tribulations? It doesn't have to be business, it could be family or anything. The way I look at overcoming trials is I think that there is no other way. I create this tunnel vision where you can't really get me out. That’s it. Eminem has this song from the movie 8 Mile where he says, “this is the only moment, you have to seize this moment. You have to get it.” For the longest time that was my song. I was still out doing labor and all this other stuff. I was like man, there is no other way, there is no other plan. People ask, what is your plan B and it’s always to make plan A work. So, I keep going back to, if anybody really wants to become something. Understand that if you persevere, if you push, if you keep driving, it will happen. Right. Now, how long does it take to happen? I can't tell you because it goes differently for everybody. It took me 18 years, if I look back, and I tell myself it will take you 18 years to own a company that will be successful, I would have been like man you must be out of your mind. You know, but, that’s how long it took to overcome all this. There’s more coming, now I’m dealing with other trials, right. Other tribulations, the way I look back, the only way for me to make this happen is to keep going at it hard. Every single day, so I'd say don't give up but also look into whether it is really for you, and does it make sense for you to persevere for you to keep knocking on the wall. If it does, tunnel vision it.

If you could rearrange the way you put the pieces together while building your brand, what would you do differently I would look for mentorship and talk to people that have made it a lot sooner. I would believe in it as a bigger, broader thing. I would believe in it as it is now. Because at first, I didn’t. At first, i just thought, Ok this is just a gig, this is me just trying to see what’s going to happen. Why didn’t you want to seek help I didn’t fully believe in it. You understand, so, when you are out there slanging floors from a 1996 GMC K1500, and you are loading that carpet, you are thinking about this, you are not thinking about having 50 employees, or 60 or 100. You are not thinking about any of that. You are not thinking about extending your brand. You are thinking about, today I’m going to be laying out some floors. That’s all you think about. Going for help at that stage didn’t mentally make sense. Now that I look back, yeah I should have probably gone to talk to somebody, maybe they would have dismissed me but ultimately, if I feel like I got help before, I would have probably got to this point sooner. I don’t know, I feel things happen for a reason but believing in myself was a very big challenge for me, from the very beginning. How do you feel we can strengthen schools with more life awareness skills and strategies, education in general Kids today need to be taught real life skills. They need to know how to negotiate and what it takes to make it on their own. Again, it goes back to how you have to be happy all the time. This is where we are weakening our system, our kids, by teaching them that. People need to go through a little bit of hell to be able to make it out. If you don't then, you got to at least be at a point where you are like man I can't do this. This is too hard. Or you got to be at a point where you are working at McDonalds, and you're there constantly and your manager is yelling at you and you're like man. If you don't have that experience you can’t come out on the other side. I have my thoughts from our own kids, I got two little boys and I’m, in my mind I already know. I want them one, cleaning up the warehouse, I want them dumping trash. I don’t want them to come here and work. I want them to go to McDonalds and Starbucks to work. I want to put them through Dutch Bros at 5am and sling coffee, for at least a year. Something different, don’t deal with Dad because Dad has a soft heart for you, on one side. I’ll be tough on them too.

Teaching youth how to channel their energy to push through real life situations They have to understand that right. I came to this country working with my Dad on flooring. We would leave Sacramento at 6am and do 3-4 apartments out in Richmond and then come back at 3 in the morning. The whole day from 6am to 3am, come back, sleep for an hour. Go to the shop, pick up another 3-4 apartments and go back to do it again. For 3 months. No sleep, I’m 17 years old, if I didn’t go through that I couldn’t look back and say yeah I went through some hell. The lack of sleep alone, I mean sure I’m 17 so I do have a lot of energy but you have to understand, if that wasn’t channeled correctly, Would this happen? That energy, it could go anywhere. So kids need to go through some hell, they have to have some real life skills. We protect a lot and it’s understandable. Laron, you're a Dad, I'm a Dad. You don’t want to see your kids suffer. You show me what you do with your kids, and I’m very impressed because that is the way of teaching them how to endure stuff. In the future you're not going to be here, you will be gone. How do they think for themselves? What do they do? I think our educational system is very flawed and it's failing hard. Real life skills is where it’s at.