#2 From Late Nights to Lifelong Learning: Eric Griffin's Journey in Coding and Entrepreneurship

Ever wondered how a 13-year-old's late nights at the family computer could spark a lifelong journey into entrepreneurship and coding? Join Eric Griffin as he shares his inspiring story of Invisible Battles Ministry, a project born from a church session that turned into a learning adventure. With zero knowledge of website building, Eric taught himself the ropes, fueled by a mission to spread an influential message. This episode takes you on his early entrepreneurial escapade where determination met creativity, leading to a connection with a missionary in Africa and eventually selling the domain to another ministry. Discover how this formative experience ignited a passion that laid the groundwork for Eric’s future tech endeavors, reminding us all of the wealth of resources available online for anyone eager to learn and grow.

But that's not all—Eric dives deeper into the more personal battles faced along the way. Learn why overcoming self-doubt and embracing persistence are crucial when chasing your dreams. Eric opens up about the pitfalls of self-criticism and the importance of fostering a positive mindset despite external doubts. With candid anecdotes and insights, he encourages listeners to reject negativity and pursue their goals fearlessly. Tune in to this episode for a powerful message of resilience and growth, as Eric underscores the abundance of opportunities for those ready to take the plunge.

Chapters

• 0:01 Early Business Endeavors and Learning Code
• 10:43 Overcoming Self-Doubt and Persistence

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hello and welcome back to episode 2 of Eric Griffin's podcast. I'm your host, eric Griffin, and today we are going to dive into the first business that I tried to create way back when I was 13, some 25 years ago, something like that 25? No, that's not right 15 years ago, and it actually is what drove me to learn coding and programming. And this was during a time where visual scripting, which is a way of building software or a website it's basically visual scripting is what Wix is, or Squarespace, squarespace, mysquare I forget what it's called, but you know, it's basically a visual way of building a website and all the code is done in the background. But this was the very, very early days and this is when you had to download the software and figure it out, but you still had to know how to code. Everything wasn't still. It wasn't as easy as it is today, but what drove me to build this was in the church I was going to.

Speaker 1: 1:40

We went over this big kind of session on the armor of God and how important it is to walk with that and soar the spirit, shield of faith and all of that, and I was so inspired and so on fire. I guess, in terms of more people need to hear about this, more people need to know about this. And so I was like, how do I get the word out? How do I do this? And I was praying about it and I felt like the answer was I should create a website. And then it was well, maybe I should create a ministry instead and have and and and we could have, um, kind of like these groups that could go into cities and help people and share Christ and everything with people, and how cool would that be. And it would all be focused around the armor of God, and because armor of God really touches on a lot, on all the different aspects of walking with the Lord. And so I was asking the Lord, what should the name be? And he told me or I felt like he said no-transcript. And I was like, okay, that sounds great, that's what it's going to be.

Speaker 1: 3:25

And I didn't know anything about building a website. I knew nothing about domain names, I knew nothing about setting up a server, because that's what you had to do back then you had to set up your own server and you had to plug everything in and you had to make sure your email and everything was right if you wanted email and so I got to work and that was also during the time where YouTube had just barely started and there wasn't as much resources. So there was really a lot of reading that I had to do, a lot of blogs and a lot of all of that. But it was a lot of late nights staying up to two to three am in the basement, just because that's where the computer room was, because I if you just little segment I was homeschooled and so we had, um, it was very structured and we had a computer room and that room was like the designated room where any computer would be. So, anyway, but my parents, they could see how important this was for me and they allowed me to be able to stay up late and do all that. And they allowed me to be able to stay up late and do all that. So I was down there working, just drilled in, and about a year and a half later I had created this ministry called the Invisible Battles Ministry and I had the domain name and everything. I had the website, and then I was thinking, okay, how do I get like, what's the next steps? What's the next steps here? I knew nothing about running a business. I knew nothing about incorporating anything. I'm 13, so just take that into account.

Speaker 1: 5:31

And then I got, let's see, six months later I got an email from a missionary somewhere in Africa I don't know, I don't remember the exact place, but he really wanted to talk to me. He didn't know I was 13. He really wanted to talk to me. He was telling me how encouraging and great this resource was and how it's helped his people, or helped him minister to other people, which was that was very encouraging. And so I called dad, or I got dad to come down and talk with him and pray with him and we did all that together and that was really cool. Him and we did all that together and that was really cool and sharing forgiveness and all of that.

Speaker 1: 6:30

And then, yeah and so, and then of course I had school. I still had everything else going on in just my regular teenage type of you know life, like I still had my activities and all that. But then about a year later I kind of moved on from that, still owned the domain name and there was another ministry that wanted to buy the domain name from me and in fact I think they were called Invisible Battles something, if you go to InvisibleBattlescom right now I think the domain is for sale. I'm not sure we could check. But yeah, so that was the beginning of my career in learning code was the beginning of my career in learning code, and from that point onward I went on to do, like so many, a zillion other things, which we'll dive into all of those in the future.

Speaker 1: 7:35

But yeah, so I would encourage you guys it's never too late to start something or to do something that, whatever you're excited about you can do. There's so many resources out there, way more than what I grew up with, way more than the people that started all these great companies grew up with. There's so much information, so much stuff that and all of us in all the books and all that, everyone's kind of saying the same thing, just in a kind of a different way. So don't let the oh, there's too much information for me to shift, sift through, stop you, just get in and start learning and watch a YouTube video that actually it's really cool. The rise of YouTube is amazing in terms of the content, of how you can learn. So in another video we'll talk about the video, gaming, mobile apps and how. When I got into that and started learning how to create video games and mobile games, how useful YouTube was in terms of jumpstarting the coding of that, and I fully knew how to do it in less than a year. It's crazy how fast.

Speaker 1: 9:20

So, anyway, that's episode two. Let and uh, well, invisible Vitals Ministry did eventually closed it down. Uh, just because I was, I moved on and did other things, um, but my next, the next big thing that I started was another company, a real one. It was my first one and we'll dig into that in some future shows. But I went out and I pitched to people. It took a year to do that, to build something, and how we ultimately shut it down, and why we shut it down.

Speaker 1: 10:05

Because sometimes just because you start something doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be exactly what you want or exactly what you want it to be in the future. Sometimes something's meant to be started to learn from starting it. So don't let that discourage you from going and starting new things. Okay, don't let that, because just keep starting things, just keep doing things, just keep building. And don't let that because just keep starting things, just keep doing things, just keep building.

Speaker 1: 10:43

And don't let your family or anybody else put you down and say, no, you failed so many times, you can't do it again.

Speaker 1: 10:50

I mean, you're gonna do it again or you can't do what you're going to do. You shouldn't believe them, because if you believe them, then you're self-fulfilling what they're saying, that you won't be able to become, and don't let that happen and don't let yourself tell you that either, because I don't know about you, but I tend to beat myself up and take it more personally than other people who say something about me personally, than other people who say something about me on a regular basis, and it's something that is not a good habit to have and you have to keep it in check and you have to know that that's happening. So, anyway, that's it for the podcast episode and stay tuned for episode two. We'll talk a little bit more and we'll dive in and if you guys have any questions, feel free to email me at eric at ericspodcastcom and yeah, eric at ericspodcastcom, and yeah, so have a good one, guys, and I'll see you guys in the next one.