Barbell Shrugged - Building Something Bigger Than Yourself Serves You As Much As It Serves Others w/ Jon Boles  — Feed Me Fuel Me #116

Episode Date: December 6, 2018

This week we are on the mic with business coach and entrepreneur, Jon Boles. Jon is an embodiment of evolution, both in purpose and in business.   Hailing from smalltown middle America, Jon's parents separated when he was just 5 years old. From there his life would never be the same. Living two different lives, under two separate roofs. As he got into high school, he would become better known in his neighborhood for dealing drugs, than a standout athlete. It was through this experience that he learned how to, and more importantly, how not to do business. His secret would eventually be discovered by his parents, and make his way into rehab.   After rehab, and serious self-discovery, Jon moved into the city, where he found his true gift: NETWORKING. He moved away from pedaling dope, to creating nightlife experiences and connecting people, slowly building a new business model in the process.   Thriving on this creative genius, Jon has built, and sold multiple companies, and has learned to dampen the inner dialogue of shame associated with his life path. He has overcome much, and is now on a mission to affect millions with the launch of his newest venture, Avintiv Media. This week we cover everything from embracing your past, maximizing your influence for the greater good, and not being ashamed of your growth and abundance.   Let us know what resonates with you after hearing Jon's journey! We appreciate you joining us on this week's episode of Feed Me Fuel Me on the Shrugged Collective!   - Jeff and Mycal ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Show notes: http://www.shruggedcollective.com/rc_boles ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  ► Subscribe to Shrugged Collective's Channel Here http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedSubscribe 📲 🎧 Listen to the audio version on the Apple Podcast App or Stitcher for Android Here- http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedApple http://bit.ly/BarbellShruggedStitcher Shrugged Collective is a network of fitness, health and performance shows that help people achieve their physical and mental health goals.  Usually in the gym, but outside as well. In 2012 they posted their first Barbell Shrugged podcast and have been putting out weekly free videos and podcasts ever since. Along the way we've created successful online coaching programs including The Shrugged Strength Challenge, The Muscle Gain Challenge, FLIGHT, Barbell Shredded, and Barbell Bikini. We're also dedicated to helping affiliate gym owners grow their businesses and better serve their members by providing owners tools and resources like the Barbell Business Podcast. Find Shrugged Collective and their flagship show Barbell Shrugged here: SUBSCRIBE ON ITUNES ► http://bit.ly/ShruggedCollectiveiTunes WEBSITE ► https://www.ShruggedCollective.com INSTAGRAM ► https://instagram.com/shruggedcollective FACEBOOK ► https://facebook.com/ barbellshruggedpodcast TWITTER ► http://twitter.com/barbellshrugged

This is episode number 116 of the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast with our special guest, owner of Eventive Media, John Bowles. Welcome to the Feed Me, Fuel Me podcast. My name is Jeff Thornton, alongside my co-host, Michael Anders. Each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message related to our three pillars of success, manifestation, business, fitness, and nutrition. Our intent is to enrich, educate, and empower our audience to take action, control, and accountability for their decisions. Thank you for allowing us to join you on your journey. Now let's get started. I'm humbled that you guys even want me on here, so I appreciate it. Yeah, man. Thanks for being here, dude. Jeff met you at Kyle Mock's event and gave me the cliff notes of your story.

And when he told me that you were willing to jump on the mic with us, man, I got super pumped. Absolutely. Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, so you've honored. Just the cliff notes of your journey, man. You've built multiple. You're on your ninth company now? I believe eighth.

Eighth. Eighth company now. And you're also in the coaching space as well. Correct. Right. And, you know, we were just talking offline about how your network is the equivalent of your network. Absolutely. And you're now in a space, you've evolved in your journey to the point where many of the people that you looked up to and your aspiring mentors are now your peers via mastermind groups and strategic alliances and whatnot.

But none of that is by happenstance. stance. Uh, you had made mention that everybody in this room, our audience, everybody that we associate with on a daily basis is where they are today because of a single pivotal moment in the past, uh, that pretty much either set or altered the trajectory of their life. Um, so for, I want to dive into that with you and really peel back those layers. But for everybody who doesn't know who you are, you were just nominated as one of the most influential people in Arizona by Arizona Hills Magazine. So you got a lot of awesome things going on, but it sounds like now it's by design. But take us back to where it all started, man. Walk us through your journey. How'd you get here? Absolutely. So was born in Racine, Wisconsin, um, 30 years old. So 1988.

So when I mentioned before that every person is where they're at today because of a pivotal moment, it's, it's, it's so true because if you think about it back when you guys were kids, what did, what did you want to be when you were a kid? I wanted to be in the military. Okay. What about you? What did I want to be? I wanted to be on a car dealership when I was younger.

Okay. Yeah. Where did we go wrong in life where the little boy or the little girl in us got so scared to be in the military, to be owning a car dealership, to be a firefighter, to be an astronaut. What went so wrong in life that we are all so scared of our own shadow now? We're so scared of what's going to happen tomorrow. We're so cautious of this and cautious of that. There's something that's happened in your childhood or your life that was so traumatic or so impactful on your life that it has guided you down a different path. So for instance, five years old, um, you know, my grew up in a, in a great family, Racine, Wisconsin,

not the greatest area, you know, kind of ghetto, which is fine, you know, but five years old, I'm getting, getting done, um, opening up presents on Christmas morning. So, you know, black Power Ranger, my left hand nerf gun in my right hand, 1992 Hitachi TV with the wooden panels. Like I still remember to this day, it's more vivid than it is right here. And I go into the kitchen and my parents are sitting there crying and I'm like, what's going on? You know, five years old, you don't really know what's going on. And I look at the door and I looked at my parents and my dad's bags were packed. And I look back at him and I'm like, dad, are you going on another trip? And he just starts bawling his eyes out.

I'm talking about so much tears on the tables, the table that you literally think the wood's going to come in. And my mom comes and hugs me, sits around her lap. And I learned that day that they were separating, getting a divorce. And divorce is very common nowadays. Back in 1992 in the Midwest, no one was divorced. So I didn't know what it was. But I knew from that moment forward what not having control felt like. Five years old, little boy, playing with his Power Ranger.

You learn that you are not in control of your destiny. You learn that you are not in control of your destiny. You learn that you are not in control of your life. My family just got ripped from me based off two variables that I have no control over. So as a little boy who had his whole world in front of him, who had all these hopes and dreams, even though five years old, like I had thoughts at five, you know, right?

I learned what you don't have control. So from that moment, you know, my dad moved to Milwaukee. My mom still lived in Racine. It was only 45 minute difference, but every other day I'm driving 45 minutes there, 45 minutes back going to this huge skyscraper city to me as a five-year-old with a very big city. And I would be at my dad's crying, missing my mom. I'd be at my mom's crying, missing my dad.

And I was a strong, you. And I was a strong kid. It's telling at heart. So we didn't show weakness that much. But knowing that you don't have control, one. Two, missing someone every single day and switching the roles. I miss my dad. I miss my mom. Then going to school, everyone found out that my parents separated.

So I wasn't picked on any sports teams. I was last to get picked in grade school for sports. Kids, I went to a really richy, and my parents didn't have a lot of money, but they sent me this really expensive private school thinking it would fix me. Everything would be fine after that. Those kids were so cruel and so mean. Their parents had so much money, they would just rub it in. With the car we drove,

like we had a little GMC versus like the Mercedes or the BMW. So I'd get made fun of for not having money, having a broken family, no brothers and sisters, you name it. So five years old, no control. Parents get divorced, crying, missing them, go to school for the first time, you know, kindergarten, getting made fun of. So in my little world, I feel like world is out to get me now. You know, my family's gone. Kids are making fun of me. Like, why the hell? So think of anyone else in the world. When I say that you're at where you're at from a pivotal moment, like picture how that could be for a child growing up. Like I felt alone. I felt lost. I didn't know who loved me, who didn't, even though my parents gave me everything. They loved me to the best of their ability. Psychologically though, day in and day out, I just didn't feel like I

belonged. I just, I knew I was destined for greatness. I just didn't know what the greatness was. So fast forward that my dad moves back to Racine. So it was a little bit better, you know, only being a 10 minute commute, whatever. Um, I went to private schools my whole life, not the, the bougie private schools, but like the church Christian memorized the Bible and commandments and all of that stuff. So I did that. Fifteen years old, turning into 16. My parents cut me off money wise. I had two jobs in high school, so I was 16 years old.

They didn't cut me off, but they weren't giving me money to go shopping or the allowance. Exactly. So, you know, still doing stuff around the house, but I had jobs since I was 14. I was cleaning foreclosed houses. And that was a horrible experience. That's another story for another time. But I had jobs all throughout high school. And then my buddies started coming around.

This was when like Air Force Ones were back in and polos and all. I'm like, where are you guys getting the money for all these new shoes, all these new clothes? And they lift this up. And I'm like, what the hell is that? And they're like, it's weed. I'm like, what's weed? And I'm like, it looks like a tree or like some dirt. And you know, um, I didn't start smoking for a year after that, but, um, long story short, I started selling weed. I'm like, well, you know, I know a bunch of kids that have money at my private schools.

Do you think I could, like, I was into selling baseball cards, into selling clothes, shoes, like you name it. I was an entrepreneur since I popped out of the womb. I was always trying to sell something, even the diaper off. Um, and I started, I started selling weed. And before you know it, this is where the, my story kind of takes a crazy turn from 15 going into 16 up until my 18th birthday, I had a seven figure mini drug empire. So I was, I went from selling weed to selling hard drugs, you know, kilos, pounds. Um, I was moving a lot of weight. Um, but I didn't know the negative impact I was having on the community. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know what I was selling. Um, back then no one knew what addiction was. You're not going to get, you know, like it was just,

everyone wanted to party. Everyone wanted to have fun. And a lot of the kids in Racine didn't have the greatest lives. Even the rich kids and all the money, like they just not every person has a perfect life. Right. And we fed off people that did not have a perfect life and we were feeding them a blanket to put over them. So in high school, my parents knew something was up. I had more money than I knew what to do with. I had duffel bags of cash, cash in my walls, cash in the mattress. I had more money that I could physically do

anything with, but it was illegal, right? So it's not a cool, cool story to say right now, but it was a journey of having that much money at such a young age. It made me so hungry to always be at that level. I had power. People kissed my ass no matter where I was at. I'd go to basketball games in high school always walk around with six of the biggest dudes any car i was in i was surrounded by people that would not let anyone get close to me so it was like a movie documentary style you know in in my little world doing it like white boy rick i haven't seen the movie but every every podcast of mine everyone tells me to go see the movie. So it's pretty funny. Um, so fast forward that, um, and my parents knew something was going on. I was all,

you know, I was falling asleep in school. I was, you know, I was popping, you know, Percocet, Vicodin, Oxys, the whole, you know, I was selling them. So I was taking them and it gave me the warm blanket I had over me that I felt like my parents ripped away when I was five. So remember when I said there's a pivotal moment in your life. So parents ripped away when I was five. So remember when I said there's a pivotal moment in your life. Yeah. So going back to when I was five years old with no control, I didn't feel loved. I didn't feel welcome. Those drugs at the time made me feel like I was Superman. Like it put an invincible blanket over me and it made me feel whole. Right. Right. So I remember one day my dad calls me home. Um, I wasn't really talking to my mom at the time cause she knew

something was going on and she was just too, too so i just i kind of cut my mom off back then yeah you know shame on me and my my stepmom's best friend's husband was the head uh dea agent in racine wisconsin for drugs so he called her sent her a bunch of photos photography that was being followed for a couple of weeks so they had a bunch of different evidence on me, but I wasn't, I wasn't 18 yet. Um, so she kicked me out of the house. How, you know, how could you be doing this? Your little brother's down the room, dah, dah, dah, dah. Like how could you put this family in danger? He said, you're dealing with cartels. You're dealing with this. Like they could kill us. So I was homeless for two weeks in high school and no, no one really knew about it. Like it's still, uh, my, my brain's

weird in the sense of like, it tries to not remember horrible moments. So it's like suppressed. I remember the feelings of it, but I tried to get rid of those moments of shame and embarrassment and wearing baseball caps to school, lying about where I slept saying I was just hung over from the night before, even though I didn't go out and party or, you know, anything. So it was a very embarrassing, um, moment in my life because even back then, even though I had, you know, a bunch of money, hotels weren't taking kids, you know, 16, 17 years old, no, no one would take me in. And, you know, all my parents, friends kind of knew something was going on. So parents didn't really want me over at the houses. Right. So fast forward that, um, I barely graduated

high school. You know, I was a starting basketball player, got decent grades, not phenomenal grades, but barely graduated high school. So friends I've known for 15, 16, you know, years or probably 13, 14 years, all were walking across the stage and I'm walking across stage with a hollow, how little, you know, the, where the diploma is in, but there's no diploma. So I had a case. Oh damn. So they didn't want me to no diploma. So I had a case. Oh, damn. So they didn't want me to be embarrassed walking across stage without a case. So, you know, all my friends are taking pictures and my grandparents flew in.

My cousins flew in from, you know, different states. So, like, you don't want to go take pictures with your friends? And I lied to my family and said I graduated high school. My dad and mom and stepmom are the only ones that knew. So I went to the bathroom. I started just tearing up, like, bawling. Like, my friends of, you know, 15 years are all like, this is great. We're going to college, dah, dah, dah. And I'm like, I was miserable and I was still on drugs.

So fast forward that I took a year off college, um, and I turned into a functioning drug addict. So I was taking my own product for the longest time, you know, painkillers, whatnot. My dealers got busted and that gravy train stopped running in. So within a year, I don't know, probably spent a quarter million dollars on partying, on drugs, on popping pills. Because if you're getting stuff at a wholesale cost, super, super low ticket, and you lose all those connects, I'm now a customer from someone else paying 10, 15 times that. So, um, yeah, you know, I had to keep, keep it going. I didn't know what addiction was, but every time I stopped taking it, I would get sick. Right. So I didn't know what that was. So I'm, I audited my life. I'm like, okay, take this. You feel better. So obviously you keep taking it because the dick, no one talked about addiction back then. So I was addicted to painkillers for about three or four years. Uh, I was 19 going into 20 going into 20 or 20, 20 years old. And I went to my parents and I was like,

you guys already know what I'm doing. Cause you know, what are you going to do when your kids taking drugs? Like realistically, if someone's ever in that situation, it's a lot easier to point figures and judge a family versus like, what do you actually fricking do? You know, he's not hurting anybody, but he could. So I basically talked them into, it wasn't a hard sell, but I talked them into sending me to rehab for 30 days. Um, so I was 20 years old. I went about three to five hours up North, um, to a facility where I didn't know anybody, no cell phone, no Facebook. I lied to all my friends. I forgot what the story was, but I said I was moving to another state for a job or some bullshit. Right. I made something up because I was a really big liar back then.

All addicts are, um, go to rehab 30 days, most excruciating, miserable experience you could think of, like felt like prison. Yeah. So withdrawals for seven days, you know, you're, you're puking, going to the bathroom, your skin's crawling. It's almost like a demon is trying to get out, out of you for seven full days. So it was a very miserable experience. They made you wake up at 4am every day, like, like military. Okay. Um, you know, clean your cot, your bed, scrub the floors, toilets. Like it was a full on. Yeah. Lifestyle rearrange. Yes. 100%. So I went through that for 30 days, came back home within two days. I got on my hands and my knees, and I started bawling my eyes out to my dad.

My dad's like, are you fucking back on? Like, get out of the house. I'm like, no, complete opposite. I had no money. I was not legally bankrupt, but I had zero money at the age of 20 going into 21. And I was like, you know, a buddy of mine, Nate, and I want to move to downtown Milwaukee. Please get me out of here. I've sold at every single small business from here to Chicago.

I have had either someone that works for me or myself sell drugs at. I've done shady stuff here. Get me out of this environment because every time I see it, smell it, look at it, it reminds me of the horrible things I've done. So he borrowed me two months' worth of rent money. I moved to downtown Milwaukee, got a job as a bar back, multiple bar back. So I went from living this super luxurious lifestyle at 16, 17, 18 to going and cleaning puke off toilets at a bar in downtown Milwaukee, where all the hot girls are walking past you. So it was like the biggest ego check you could think

of, um, was going to school in downtown, was actually getting straight A's and one B, which was the first time in my life to actually like pay attention in school and get good grades. And then my career, I started barbacking. The owner started seeing that I knew everybody within two months. Like the bar would never be packed on a Wednesday night because it was a brand new bar. All of a sudden, all these really good looking girls are giving me hugs and kisses. Guys are shaking up. They're like, Bulls, you've lived here for two or three months. How the hell do you know all these people? Are they here for you?

I'm like, yeah. I'm homies. I'm like, we go out. They're like, could you do this on any given night? I was like, maybe. So they had me go change shirts. They gave me a $100 bar tab. I got paid $100 cash for the night, which is more than I would have made bar backing.

And I went and they paid me to drink with my friends. You're a connector. And I'm like, what the fuck is this? Like, are you for real? So long story short, that evolved into being very, very popular in Milwaukee for nightlife, for experiences, for living that lifestyle. I was a social butterfly, right? Um, so within a year I had six or seven of the hottest nightclubs back to back. So Wednesday I would host a night Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and my name really blew up. That was the first time that John Bowles became one word. So it's like, no, like literally I've been on vacation with friends that I've known for 10 years and everyone says, where's, you know, where's John

people on vacation said, who's John? I shit you not. They're like John Bowles. And I'm, I'm literally standing right here. So back then it was, you know, I was the only, this was eight or nine years ago when business cards weren't a thing for people our age. Like your parents had business cards. So I had this matte black business card that just said John Bowles and then a phone number on the back. Didn't say who I was, what I did.

But if you had one of these cards, that would get you into the clubs. It was like a VIP type thing. Yeah, um, it blew up really fucking quick. So they like connected my first name and last name and put it into one. And I kind of rode with that every single, yeah. Like my parents are the only people that don't call me by that. A lot of people just like, I love when people call me John or like my real name, Jonathan, because they know me on a real basis. When people say John Bowles, it's from Instagram, it's from something rather than another. Um, but that's kind of how my entrepreneur journey got started, um, was promoting for nightclubs, having my own night, all the flyers would say hosted by John Bowles. I was on the radio, I was on TV. Um, and long story short short, on that piece, I became, and I hate to say this because I don't have an ego anymore, but I got too much attention too quickly.

And it was like a local mini celebrity type thing, but it wasn't that. They wanted to get into the clubs. It was hyped. I had hype around me. It wasn't that I was some special celebrity because I was not. It was I had a certain thing that they wanted, and everyone wanted to flock to me. It wasn't that I was some special celebrity cause I was not, it was, I had a certain thing that they wanted and everyone wanted to flock to me. So it was like my girlfriend and I at the time couldn't even go to grocery markets without people stopping us and asking how they could get into a club. Like it got really bad where some people weren't getting it let in.

And I had people following me to my apartment structure. Like it got really scary, really quick cause there's these big dudes outside wearing baggy jeans and this and that. And they're getting told they can't come in when all their friends are inside. And then they see a flyer outside the window with my picture, my name. So people started to really hate on me. There was too much attention on me and I, my entrepreneurship journey got started way before that. But I, I was like, what if I create a logo and a brand and I hide behind it? There's no more John Bowles. It's, it's a company and no one knows who owns the company. And I was like, what if I create a logo and a brand and I hide behind it? There's no more John Bowles. It's a company and no one knows he owns the company. And I was like, yeah, that's genius. Sure.

So I created an LLC, created a landing page and a logo all myself. And I had a friend help out. And there was no more John Bowles anymore. I mean, there was, but I hid behind the company. Yeah. So our company scaled in its first year, did a little over a million dollars for our clients. We took home about a quarter million year one, which is really good for me. But the funny thing is you guys have heard my story that I've said today, right?

Yeah. This right here, making a quarter million, was where my story has always started. Okay. So talking about having a mask on, like Lewis Housewives talks about mask. I have not told the story I told on this podcast until January of this year. Okay. Damn. So 29 years of my life has not been living a lie, just has been wearing a mask like a

lot of people do. I was scared of what people would think. What would they think of how my parents raised me? What would they think of who I used to be? Would clients not want to work with me anymore? Would anyone want to work with me anymore? Would anyone want to coach with me anymore? And it dawned on me and it's like, people hire me because I've gone through hell. They've hired me because I've gone, you know, to the dark side and back. I know what pain they're going through. They don't hire me because I'm some uber successful person

because I'm not Superman. I have pain. I have weaknesses. There's shit that I've gone through in my journey that you're paying me to get past that. So you don't have to go through it. Sure. It's like, I'm picking you up, bringing you over the cliff that you were about to jump, jump down and I'm bringing you to the other side. So I was worried for the longest time that people would judge me and not like me because again, going back to the pivotal moment, I was a child. What happened when people found out the truth? I got made fun of, I got ridiculed. I didn't feel whole. Those feelings all came back. So that's why when I do business coaching or consulting for people, it's yes, it's business coaching, but it goes so much more granular on a personal level. Like it's, it's hard to explain, but all of that went

back to when I was five. Yeah. Damn. Well, it's really funny that you say all that because, you know, Jeff and I really live by the, the value of coaching and our coaches have coaches, so on and so forth. And I don't know anybody who's had the realizations that you've had pinpointing that moment at five years old, especially when you talk about suppressing those extremely traumatic events, who helped you find that point? I would say it's rare that somebody goes through an introspective process on their own and it's like, Oh, that's it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So I hired Chris Lee, um, who's Lewis house's coach. Okay. Um, so I went through MITT, um, life transformation course. Um, I didn't have the greatest experience in the second one of it because I was, um, like I've looked up to Lewis house for, for a while. Um, Chris Lee is his coach. They had a huge conversation about me.

So Lewis like reached out on Instagram, but it was a pretty cool, you know, surreal moment. Um, but Chris pulled me aside and he's like, you know, Lewis, and I can't go into detail cause you signed an NDA, but there's certain things you can win or get elected to become in this program. Sure. And I got the same things Lewis did. Okay. And my group kind of put me on that. He's the leader of the group. He's the, this, the, that. And they, they use that against me on my second go around. Cause there's three, three levels you have to go through to graduate. They use that against me as a, on the second round to sell me to get into the third one. So I had a really bad experience of the whole thing. The girlfriend I was dating at the time, they leveraged who I was in the group saying that if she didn't go to the third round,

I would leave her for someone like Like it was just a bad experience. Okay. But Chris Lee is a phenomenal coach. He's one of my closest, you know, he's a very close friend now. He was the one that helped me realize that every person has an instance in their life that that is that's gotten you to where you are. So for instance, like I coach a lot of fitness coaches, right? So a lot of personal trainers, online coaches come to me to scale their business to a quarter million dollars in under 12 months.

And a lot of them, a handful of them, I'm getting them to seven figures in year two. Okay. So like changing people's lives, right? That doesn't just come because I redo their products and services or tell them how to talk on Instagram. I'm rewiring the way they think based off of one moment they had in their childhood, right? Based off one moment they had growing up. Like I had a client in my office three weeks ago, bawling her eyes out as she was

telling her story. And I'm like, holy cow, that's exactly why you are. And she's a, she's a, she's a 10 out of 12 out of 10 energy, like full of energy. And without going into too much of her own detail, it all stems from thinking she's never good enough throughout her entire life. Her parents, classmates, kid mates, or kids. And she felt that if she was not always on point and super energetic, she would miss something and she'd get made fun of again. So if I wasn't who I was and I just focused on the surface level shit, do you really think my clients, like I had two clients this year, grow 3,600% in 12 weeks. They went from three grand a month to almost 40, $50,000 a month with zero paid traffic. I don't know another coach in the game right now. And I know a lot of them that are having results like that. And it's not because

of just business coaching. It's all the human psyche. It's all about what stems from their childhood. What are their thoughts? What are their mindset? Like how much time do we waste a day thinking about limiting beliefs? Like I know I do or thinking you're not good enough or like psyching yourself up. That's all wasted time. So like you need to, like when I hire coaches, like I've, I've spent, you know, upwards of almost 200 something thousand dollars on coaches in the past two years. And when I hire coaches, those coaches have better have gone through the muck as well. I don't want to hire a coach who is sitting in a Rolls Royce talking about this and talking about I did this and that. Okay. If you don't have any documentation or like, if I don't vibe with your story, I know a lot, like I'm friends

with a lot of influencers now. And I know a lot of them have hired PR agencies to create the story of, I was this one day. So it's like, I need to know for sure you've actually gone through this, this crap before I give you, you know, my money. And my last coach I just hired, he's 120 grand for the year. That's an expensive coaching program. I got on the call thinking it was 12 grand. I'm like, okay, 12 grand, whatever.

I've paid it before. Get on the call. And he's like, yeah, it's, it's 120 grand. I'm like, fuck. I grabbed my side and, and, uh, he did such a good job hitting all my pain points in all of his, you know, ad campaigns, his funnels, everything that the guides I downloaded. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what time you it's time you put your money where your mouth is. You need to do this because he knows exactly what you're going through. He's been where you're, you've been at.

He's owned agencies. He's burnt them to the ground. He's sold companies. He's been, and he's not pretending. He just is who who he is and i literally paid on the spot damn what was the catalyst for you to you know dive deep and really tell your story from the beginning because you know we all go through that that pivotal point where yeah you you hit that 250k a year but actually being willing to tell that story and be open and authentic about it, that's another level. Being able to share it to an audience without feeling that fear. What was the catalyst that made you share that story? So I went to a buddy's event.

One of my buddy Jays from Five Star had me go to a mastermind live course in January of this year in L.A. He's a fellow coach. He's coached with my coaches before. And it's funny because Gerard Adams, the homie, you know, owns leader, create leaders, everything else. He's sitting in front row and there's two other influences are pressing smiles is there. I'm like, what the, I'm like, I had no idea these guys are going to be here. Like my limiting beliefs, right. Putting people on pedestals. This is the old, old me. And, um, everyone was sharing vulnerable and he did a phenomenal job at this live event.

Like the colors, the mood. He studied Tony Robbins up and down. He primed everybody the entire weekend. It was a two or three day event. And everyone's getting up. And the sad music. You're hugging. Because he's gone through MITT as well.

If I'm in my coach mode, I could probably get someone to break down and cry in under two minutes. If I truly wanted to. It's all body posture, looking in eyes, things music. I mean, there's a lot of an LP the whole yeah Yeah, there's a lot of things you can do with that. So he did all that to us It was the first time I got experienced that I'm like what the fuck is Not sure if I'm so swear, but I was like what the heck is going on and Everyone's getting up and sharing vulnerable stories like if there's ever a time this is a family this is a close-knit community if there's ever a time you're hiding something

you don't want someone these girls are getting up like i've never told you when i was raped my dad raped me yeah yada yada i'm like holy shit this is horrible stories if these girls can get up crying like why can't i share mine and my buddy jay left for a couple hours i'm like now's the time i need to say this no one in scottsdale is gonna find out i was a drug dealer like it's never gonna come out and i stand up and the microphone shaking and gerard adams looks at me preston's there a bunch of other people i'm like oh fuck jay walks through the door he's like what are you doing i'm like sit down and i tell my story and i start shaking and like gerard shaking his head like like proud kids started you know the other guys in there two of them came up to me and they're like, you know, I was addicted to heroin.

I was suicidal. I've never shared the story with anybody. And you just gave me the power to go. So I knew at that moment I was a leader. And it's sad that up until this year, like I've built 160 companies, 150 companies before this year ever started. Like I've been very successful. But my own limiting beliefs made me feel like I wasn't good enough or I wasn't a leader. Because you're so stuck in the rat race.

You're so stuck in the hamster wheel. You're stuck comparing yourselves to everyone. And it's like I got up for the first time and literally took the cloth off me, took the skeletons out of my closet. And in that moment, how I felt is the biggest success, anything I could have done for myself. When you're living in fear, you're wondering when people are going to find out. It's like, it's like if you're not faithful to your wife or your girlfriend or boyfriend or husband or whatever that is, you think about it every fricking day, right? If you live a lie or you're a fraud or a fake, you think about it every day.

I felt like I was a fraud for the longest time because I had this past life that no one's ever known about. That made me skyrocket. My businesses took off. My personal life took off. I've learned how to love myself in the past year. Because as much as I've shown it in the past, I used money and success and cars and girls and that lifestyle to show people I was successful. I use it as a mask, a materialistic mask to show people like, see, I am successful. I dropped out of college.

I was a drug dealer, but I'm still killing it, da-da-da-da. I don't have to prove anything to anyone, especially now. I don't have anything to prove. So January when I went to the event and I shared my story for the first time, that got me into life coaching. That got me into life coaching that got me into taking more courses that had me go to, you know, MITT is one of the most advanced courses you can go through. It's seven days of intense training where you're literally bawling your eyes out all day for seven full days. And then the second course you go through, which is advanced,

it makes the first one look like it's a cakewalk. Sure. Like you get sick. You like, you can't go in it if you're pregnant. Cause it'll kill a baby it's that intense reaction yeah yeah tony robbins has all of his sales people go through that before he'll ever even hire you yeah so it you know it there's there's an evolution here that's that's taking place and there's you know it it takes time to reprogram and reframe your story, how you tell it and the significance of it to you. And in throughout that process, when did you finally come full circle with the, the change that is not the, the money and the stuff,

but the happiness and fulfillment that truly facilitates your ability to have influence. May of this year. Five months. Yeah. Did you just wake up one morning like, I got it? Or like, what was it like for you? Think back of childhood, right?

I told you that my parents got divorced. I felt lonely. Kids had more money than me. They had a family. They had all this other stuff. So I had a chip on my shoulder that I had something to prove, right? College dropout and you're an entrepreneur, what else do you show outside of flashy shit or money or success? There's no diploma you can ever get.

So throughout those years, I'm like, okay, I have to keep getting a better condo, keep getting a better house, take out a hotter girl, da, da, da, da. So that was my limiting beliefs, thinking that people were judging me when they weren't really judging me. They just wanted to know the authentic me and learn and love me. But I had such a wall up that I didn't want anyone to know the real me because of what happened when my parents split up when I was five. So I keep going back to that one moment. And my parents feel so bad when they hear all my podcasts, all my publications now that they're like, Oh my God, we fucked this kid's life up. But it's, um, I tell my parents, I'm like, I had to go through this to get to where I am. So may was the, and it's so funny cause I almost reached out to Lewis house and I was like, dude, why didn't you write the mask of masculinity like five years ago? So I could have read this

shit five years ago. And he wrote a book on it. And it goes in fine detail of the different types of masks you can wear as a man. Sure. Because if you look at the difference between men and women, right? Men are alpha. We're the hunters. We're the providers. We're the gatherers.

We're the ones that have to keep the flock, the children, the community, the tribe, everyone safe. Weakness wasn't a thing back in the day. It was fight or flight. You have to kill what you eat, you know? So going into who men are today, it's just been, it's just started happening, being authentic and vulnerable, right? Everyone shows off their cars and rap videos or this or that or athletes. And you put these people on a pedestal. So I was going along with the motions up until this year. I started, and don't get me wrong, I love nice things. I've been a car guy since I was a kid, so I like having nice cars. But it doesn't define me.

It doesn't, like, I might post one here and there, but it's all strategy. Our agency has high-level clients in the automotive space, so when they see one of the owners has an X, Y, or Z car, like, it does add benefit. But I don't let it define me. My page isn't ran with flashy, you know, stuff to throw in people's faces. It's a very authentic and vulnerable and lifestyle type of page. But it's, it's almost like, damn, why didn't I, why didn't I do this years ago? How many more lives would I be changing right now if I just had a couple more years, but I'm just so excited that it did happen because, you know, my life

hasn't been easy this past year just because of how fast business has grown. So I haven't had the greatest life by any means. But finally knowing who I am, accepting who I am, and loving who I am, and knowing that by me doing those things, you know, one of my things with MITT was, you know, I'm an authentic, vulnerable, loving leader. And my old keywords were powerful, you know, and, and all these other mass, you know, ego words or alpha words. Like I'm already a powerful guy. I'm already a bigger guy. I need to learn compassion. I need to learn love. I need to be authentic. I need to be vulnerable because those are the things that are going to get people listening to this podcast engaged. It's not what model or Mercedes is or what size your Rolex. No one gives a shit about that.

And if you do, you're following the Tai Lopez's and the other different people of the world. But when I make a post like I did yesterday and I don't have the biggest following by any means, it's 50-something thousand followers, but I get hundreds of DMs off one post on how just me sharing my story was able to touch them in some, some way, shape or form.

Right. Dude, what led you into, you know, going on the business side of things, starting Modus apparel and then transitioning into a media company. That's cause those are two, they seem to do like two different, you know? Yeah. So Modus was, Modus was my sixth company that I launched. Um, I did, I did consulting before that, you know, three piece suit and tie, you know, miserable life back in Milwaukee.

So I consulted for nightclubs, restaurant, hotels, salons, spas, you know, small businesses, right? They would, they would hire me for consulting fees. I would go in and, and basically take over their business for about six or nine months. I would rip apart the operations, uh, hire accountants, higher lawyers, restaff it, redo all the interior. Like I would read like John Taffer bar rescue, but like a younger, more realistic version. And I did that for a couple of years. Um, and then I owned a restaurant with a couple of partners, the deal, um, the partnership ended up going really bad. Um, you know, I got screwed over a little bit without going into detail. Um, and I just said, I'm, I'm so sick of, you know, it was the second time a partner

screwed me over. I had a tech company, um, years ago where we basically invented Apple pay eight years ago. Like no lie. Like it was supposed to be a hundred million dollar company. Um, we closed the university of Milwaukee as a client. We were supposed to go raise $2 million of funding and without, you know, legally going into detail, a lot of, um, the smaller partners got screwed over on the deal. And I lost, I lost probably a quarter million that year. Damn. Um, so it was bad deal into bad deal. And I, you know, kept wasting all this money and my bank account kept going down. I'm like, I'm fucking like, if I'm going to do something, I want to be happy about it. And I was miserable doing what I was doing. So I, um, did a show back in, I think 2010, like a men's physique fitness

show, um, did, did well at that. And I love the fitness industry. The gym has always been something I would go to, to de-stress, to get away, you know, back to the limiting beliefs. Like I'd go to the gym to feel better about myself because you can see growth, you know, every second that you're there. And I started researching, I wrote like eight different business plans. Like I'm a huge analytics data type guy. Um, and I wrote different business plans for like a gym training company, nutrition company, supplement company, clothing company. Um, and I've always loved fashion. And every time I would, you know, wear clothes at the gym and go home and wash them, the, the, the screen print would peel off, the shirt would rip. And I'm like, what the fuck? There's nothing out there of a higher quality. And I know Randall was killing it on the rise.

Gymshark was really small back then, even though they're not now. So everyone was kind of on the rise, right? So I was like, you know what? I can build this into a $20, $30 million company. I love fashion. I think I can do this. I knew one of the original team members of lululemon she was my advisor when i launched it okay um who then worked for kitten ace their sister company um so i was like you know what i'm gonna go all in so i just bought a condo paid a lot of cash for the condo and i had maybe 30 grand leftover cash so for me running a business that's not a lot of capital on hand to run multiple companies so I launched modus like I think I I was working 18 to 20 hours a day for two months I was popping fat burners yeah to stay up 24 7 and I literally built the entire company that would take nine

months to build I built it in like 45 days damn like all the department yeah I built all the SKUs I developed all the departments. Give me the adventure. Yeah, all of the departments. I built all the SKUs. I developed all the clothing, built the entire website, built all the back channels, the ambassador programs. We had 46 ambassadors before we ever launched. We crashed our server in the first hour of operation, did like seven grand the first day in sales, and the server was down for three hours. So with no Facebook ads, no paid traffic, being a nobody back then, like that was, those are pretty great sales for, you know, four or five years ago in the fitness industry. So to answer your question, I launched Modus off of passion. I was passionate about fashion.

I was passionate about fitness and I wanted to have a lifestyle brand, which is Modus Life is a lifestyle brand. So the, the word, the reason I chose Modus is you could have a goal of, you know, getting a million subscribers on your podcast, driving a Ferrari, marrying the woman of your dreams. Those are all great goals to have, but what's the process of getting there?

Right. So like modus is the process of becoming a better version of yourself every day. The modus life, modus lifestyle is a community of people that are all going through shit, whether it's positive or negative, we're all going through our own journey and it's the goal of becoming a better version of yourself every day. So psychologically, when you think about it, what's one of the first things you do in the morning? Now, no one ever gets this right. So

I'm just an answer for you guys. Cause they're like, I brush my teeth. I do this. You put clothes on, right? So the way I develop modus, like if you guys have ever seen any of the clothing, I strategically psychologically designed the women's and men's designs to do different things to your brain. So when you wake up as a girl, a lot of our original tank tops and leggings and whatnot, the design started in the middle of both breasts for women. And it would be a box, a skinnier box, and it would go down to the belly button. What does a guy's eyes do? It focuses on the design and it keeps it right there. Women's problematic areas are fat on the sides and fat below the belly button. So I just eliminated their eyes going to their insecure parts. I eliminated the guy's eyes from going that. So immediately when you

look in the mirror, you look thinner. All the leggings I developed, I researched where seam should go on the butt, how it's supposed to suck up, type of material same thing with guys. What are guys insecurities, you know? You know fat at the at the way skinny up top So guys want to feel like they're alpha with you know wide up top and skinny down below So all the designs we did were 13 inches wide on the chest and it would slope down Meeting in the center of the chest so it looked like you were tapered in right so Psychologically we designed all of our customers to feel better about themselves. And that's how the company started scaling. So to answer your question, I got screwed over in a lot of different marketing and advertising agencies with websites, Facebook ads. I just felt like I

kept getting taken advantage of and I'm really good at building companies. So like the branding, I'm phenomenal at building websites, making a company appear larger than it is, is like my, my MO, right? And everyone kept reaching out to me. Who did your website? Like, you know, I have five, six grand to spend. Can you just put me in touch with them? I'll give you a couple hundred bucks. And it kept happening. I'm like, what the fuck? I'm like, I'll take an extra five grand times five people every single month, you know, make an extra 20, 30 grand. So as time went on, I kept getting asked, I was like, all right, this is enough. Like, I'm going to just start a company, create a logo, create a name, just see what happens with it.

Modus was doing well around then. I think month one of Aventive, we did like $35,000 in revenue, pure profit. It was like, okay, why the hell am I running this clothing company that's doing maybe $40,000 or $50,000 a month in revenue, netting 20%? It just didn't make sense. It's not all about the money with me, so I still ran Modus for another year and a half. But as time went on, the marketplace for Modus and clothing got super difficult. Ads were getting three times as expensive.

Other clothing companies had 10 times the amount of budget. Our sales started to slowly decrease because I don't have the budget. With clothing, you have to pre-order stuff six to nine months in advance. When you're a startup or you're two years in, do you think you have enough? Our runs were 50 grand cash, not credit card, 50 grand cash a season. I don't have 150 grand cash to do three seasons in advance. So I had a disadvantage going into it. And I didn't want to pull, you know, we did take on investors, but I waited a very long time to do that. Aventive started skyrocketing and we were netting, you know, 30, 40, 50 grand a month for a while until they all started to crash and burn around me. So I had a manufacturing company too, where I did all the distribution manufacturing and design for a lot of other clothing companies.

A lot of other, you know, we did supplements. Like I white labeled a lot of different stuff for people So I had three companies that were all scaling and I thought that was a cool thing to have is putting in your Instagram bio CEO of three companies Feeding my ego right yeah, and before you know it these companies started crashing and burning into each other I'm like what the fuck did I get myself because if you're in your 20s or 30s And you don't have a couple million in, in capital and you're running three companies, unless you have 15, 20 employees, your companies can't be big. It's physically impossible unless you have an e-commerce, Amazon drop ship, fully automated company. It's very

hard to have three or four companies that are doing seven figures of revenue or multiple six figures and they're running themselves. So my company started bashing heads my modus employees would need me but i'd be in an event of meeting my you know my manufacturing clients in china would need me i'd be here so it just eventives eventives revenue dropped almost 75 percent within two months modus the sales dropped i literally had like um i was in the hospital with acute pancreatitis and stomach ulcers, almost died. So I've been hospitalized like six times, almost died multiple times from overworking and stress, which we're getting ready to launch a new campaign for our new coaching program. And it tells my full story in like an ad sequence, email sequence. And it showcases like me in the hospital sticking my thumbs up after almost dying and the doctor telling me like you've got to stop being an entrepreneur and like that

was like being a professional athlete or a college athlete telling that you broke your ankle or whatever your muscle group it is that you're never gonna play again right yeah so I led into a vint of through you know it just it just happens this one organic yeah and and the biggest thing the reason why I sold modus in May of 2018 is with aive, we give entrepreneurs their life back. And when I say that, when we develop our websites, when we do branding campaigns, Facebook ads, business coaching, whatever we're offering to a client, we're very selective with who we work with. We don't just take on anybody. We turn down probably 50, 60 grand a month in just clientele that we don't want to be attached to.

If you don't have a passion project, if you're not providing value to your customers, if you are taking shortcuts, we don't want to have anything to do with you. So it dawned on me when I started working with – we started working with small business owners when we first launched. Now we have some pretty big clients right now, but just seeing how stressed they were and not understanding Facebook and not understanding why their family business was failing or not understanding their consumers or understanding how to get out of the rat race, understanding that you can grow your business. You don't have to be there 16 hours a day. Just seeing life going back into them was like, I gave him a happy pill and my clients started like having bigger smiles week after week. And I'm like, oh, my God, I'm addicted to this. I'm addicted now to giving people their life back.

Now let's take it one step deeper because you guys said you like to go deep. Giving entrepreneurs their life back, how is that the – that's the opposite of what I did. I took people's lives away. Now, thank God no one died underneath my watch or nothing horrible happened. But feeding drugs to people is taking kids away from families. It's creating horrible experiences for people. And I did that for years. Now, it's like I had to do that to go through that shit to become the leader that I need to be to help people get their life back.

So it makes my why and my vision so much more impactful for why I was put on this earth. Like your teachers ask you, what were you destined to be? What were you? And you're like, I don't know, Linda. What were you destined to be? I wasn't a sixth grade teacher. So I now know what I was put on this earth for. And going through the coaching events I've had, you know, like you asked me before, why don't you have a book?

The old me was like, no one wants to read my fricking book. The old me was like, I'm not never going to be verified on Instagram, which I'm not yet, or I'm not going to have this. I'm not going to be that. Those are all my own limiting beliefs. Sure. That's not the truth. That's not reality.

Those are what my own brain and my own ego have told me because they like being complacent. They like being, you know, stuck in this little box because they're, they're going to keep living. So it's like, you have to, there's so much psychology that goes into like the communication you have with yourself and the relationship you have with yourself. But what, what I learned in that process of having multiple companies is I let my, I wouldn't even just say ego because I did have an ego where I thought I could do everything. I thought I was Superman because I was over compensating for how, you know, how insecure I felt from, you know, in the past. And now I probably get hit up four to 20 times a month with different business ideas, people wanting to partner or

wanting me to come on as an investor. I could probably make an additional a hundred grand a month right now, passive money by just saying yes to people. And I keep saying no, because I learned my mistakes. If it's not a part of my why, and if it's not a part of my vision, my instant vision of where I know I need to go, it's a no. For sure. And if it's not a 100% yes, it has to be a no. That's why I treat relationships the same way. Like I was on a date a couple weeks ago and one of the girls was like, yeah, I know a lot of people that know you. They say you're a serial one-year dater. And I'm like, what the hell does that mean? She's like, well, you date girls for a year and then you get rid of them. And I'm like, that's interesting.

If you're at a job and you're miserable every day and you're like not appreciated or this or that, are you going to stay there? She's like, well, no. I'm like, okay, well, if you start a company and you start bleeding out money and you're about to go bankrupt, would you keep the company? She's like, well, no. I'm like, how is dating any different? So it's like every aspect of my life I carry that into. It takes a year for you to figure that out. Usually quicker.

Usually quicker. But the guy my mom raised. Fuck, I would hope of the girls I've dated, we live different lives. I'm over here running a million miles an hour, growing 3,000%. They're slowly growing. And then they kind of get into a rut. Or they get complacent, lazy. I'm paying for 99% of everything. and they're not at their best part. My mom raised me that you don't leave people when they're at their weakest point.

You help them get back up and then you go on your merry way. So the last couple of relationships I've had, nothing bad to say about any of the girls. I've loved each of them in their own way. But they were at a very low point in their life and i stayed in three or four months longer than i should have just to get them on their own feet yeah yeah speaking a little bit about your vision how do you define your vision at this point because i know you touched on it yes so how do i define my vision or like what is vision to me basically give me both because what's your long-term vision for you that you

have for yourself with what you're building now? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. So what vision is to me? And the reason why I have so much success with my coaching clients is because I've created a phenomenal vision course for them to go through. But what vision means to me is it's your greater why it's the, it's, it's your dream. It's you're in a perfect world. When you close your eyes, what makes you happy? What makes you giggly? What makes you feel authentic? And what makes you just feel whole?

And where is that five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now? I have a vision where I'm 75 years old and I reverse engineered it to today. Like I'm not even kidding. Like wife's name, kids' names, where I'm living, what I'm doing, how much I'm making. Like, I'm not even kidding. Like wife's name, kids names, where I'm living, what I'm doing, how much I'm making. Like one of my mentors is 25. He's about to do a hundred million this year, 25 years old. And he, he, all of his mentors are in their eighties and nineties and they're straight shooters because they could die tomorrow. So they're not going to lie. And he's like, you need to have a vision when you're 90 years old and

reverse engineer or vision till you die. Right. right right death right a year and you reverse engineer it so vision for me is that what my vision is is event of media has scaled um over the past two years probably a couple thousand percent it's you know 12 12 employees we have 30 something clients now you know like maserati lamborghini uh penske automotive we have a lot of influencer celebrities as clients now, you know, like Maserati, Lamborghini, Penske Automotive. We have a lot of influencer celebrities as clients now. We've helped over, you know, 40 or 50 fitness coaches this year. So the company's a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be. So my vision has had to shift quite a bit. But within 2019, I would love Aventa to be a medium to high multiple seven-figure agency on its own without me having to be in the day-to-day. So I'm actually probably towards next month.

I've been doing it for two months now. I'm not going to be CEO starting 2019. I'm going to be the visionary of the company. Yeah, building yourself up. And in my level of genius, I'm going to have an operations team, a management team because the company is bigger than me. The company is not John Bowles anymore. The company is a lot bigger than who I am, and I'm not a manager. I'm a leader, but I'm not a leader in a company, right?

I'm like a visionary leader, 20,000-foot approach, closing large deals, creating the one idea that makes us $10 million or saves a client's life. I'm that guy, right? We're relaunching our business coaching program December 1st of this year. Um, and that's for personal trainers, fitness coaches, online coaches, anyone that is stuck in the muck.

Um, that's usually about two to $10,000 a month in revenue. We have a 12 week program called impact leaders that you go through the entire program. There's three coaches that helped me run it. Um, and we've already built out everything. You just have to fill everything out and it's, it's a very close knit community family. There's 20 coaches that helped me run it. Um, and we've already built out everything. You just have to fill everything out. And it's, it's a very close knit community family.

There's 20 people in a course. Um, and that allows you to scale to a quarter million dollars in under 12 months. Okay. Like almost for sure. We don't guarantee it, but we've done it to 45 people this year alone. Okay. Um, every single person is on track to a quarter million or half million dollars. Um, so we're relaunching that. So our coaching program has three tiers. So we have Visionaries Academy for people that don't know what they're doing. They don't know how to be an entrepreneur. That's like the bare minimum of how to create a vision,

what your mindset needs to be, you know, disbeliefs, everything we wish we were taught back in the day before we started. So that's a lower ticket item. Then there's impact leaders. And then we're launching a mastermind in February slash March where it's a continuity program So you can start the visionary go to an impact leader you graduate that if you get approved and accepted to the mastermind

And then that's a 12-month program And that's a multiple seven-figure company as well So let's let's just take those two aside and put them right here And I just say numbers you can get your grasp of the business and just take those two aside and put them right here. And I just say numbers so you can get the grasp of the business and everything. Put those two aside. The number one thing, our fitness coaching, and we're supposed to help upwards of 750 people, coaches in 2019. So think of 750 people in your head. And every single one of them complains about the software they use.

Asana, TrainerEyes, MyFitnessPal. Every one of them has something bad to say about one of these software sure so in 2020 We're launching a SAS company that is solely for the fitness community and solely for our clientele until we launch it nationally But on average by 2020 I think it's like we'll have 2200 customer base We launched five or six different software platforms and apps that we've already know like what we want to do Month one is like a $380,000 a month boom just off the clientele we have but not only that look at it this way our clients don't like the software because the users have a bad experience right what what

experience are the users having they're overweight they're unhappy like if you think of a personal trainer a fitness coach like now we're going like high level yeah they're miserable their husbands aren't touching them anymore. They're overweight. People are making fun of them or they're staring at them. Like when someone's overweight or they're not feeling comfortable in their skin or body, we've all been there. It's not a good feeling. So if we can create software, one, to make money, obviously, because it's a company, but two, give our clients, clients a better experience to lose weight faster, to feel more comfortable, to feel better in their body.

Why the hell wouldn't we do that? Sure. So everything we're doing with our coaching programs or our agency is not just to make money or make our clients money. It's to give the user experience of our customers' customers the best experience possible. Sure. So now take that business and move over to the side. So there's three companies all in the fitness space, right? Next step 2021, maybe 2022 is I've always had a dream of creating either an angel fund or a venture capitalist fund, um, that is specifically geared towards

giving working capital to everyone that's trying to take our coaching programs. Nice. So we're, we're going to be trying to create, to create an in-house banking system, a couple million to start off, whatever it is. But it gives seed money to the people that are taking our coaching program. And it'll be like a Shopify where you have to use, we'll have an in-house credit card processing company that we're going to be creating. A bunch of my buddies do credit card processing, so we're white labeling one of their services.

But like Shopify, if you take a $10,000 or $15,000 loan on Shopify, they take your gross revenue and pay 10% off every single time they take money from you. So we're loaning all of our clients money, but they're going to be paying us back through our processing. And then we make the percentage of the processing fee, but it's going to be a standalone bank. So if you look at it from the perspective of the agencies servicing maybe 120 medium, high-level clients a year giving clients their

lives back giving entrepreneurs their life back helping small business medium-sized businesses thrive and grow which is changing the economy it's changing people right then you look at the coaching business so on average if you're helping 700 people a year on average our coaches have 100 clients so that's what not bad at math right now but that's what 70 000 people yep seven yeah we're all like oh yeah let's just say 70 000 people right yeah 70 000 people and would you guys say that on average you come in contact with 10 people a day that you could positively or negatively impact maybe it's hold the door open maybe talk at someone absolutely 10 people right that's not like we did the research is like 28 people that you come in contact with so let's just say ten people right

we're at seventy thousand times it by ten you're at seven hundred thousand mm-hmm take that times 365 days a year that's what you know anywhere between fifteen to thirty million people our companies are gonna have a positive impact on right soon you look at those type of numbers that's insane not only that who's the customer base of our clients, our fitness portion, at least it's overweight, obese people who are unhappy and miserable. What are their characteristics at work? They're probably lazy. They're tired. They're eating fast food. Their relationships are miserable. And like we, one of our clients is possible, Pat, he's a influencer celebrity lost tons and tons of weight was on Ellen. So when I talk about obesity,

I've never been obese, but we've read emails and testimonials and we're very in tune with Pat. Like we've, we've helped him scale a lot of his company. So I know what these people go through. So even though you're looking at me and I've never been obese, like I know what shit they're going through. Um, so when you look at it, like the economy is obviously at the biggest, at the highest it's been in a while, but picture how much of an impact the community will have on the economy. There's 49% of the U.S. population, 39% or 49% is registered obese in the United States. So you're telling me 49% of the population in America is complacent at work, eating at fast food corporations, dollar companies versus mom and pop organic shops there's a huge flaw they're honking on their horns they're driving they're crashing like

when you're not fit and healthy you're not as cognizant as you are as if you're eating clean you're awake you're drinking tons of water those are just facts right so picture the impact on the community will have by impacting 20 million people. That's what gets me out of bed every morning. So it's not the money. It's not this. It's not the company. It's my 10-year vision.

Right. That's huge, dude. Then not only that, we would be looking at like an 8 to 10, 10-year buyout for all four or five of those companies for the sole fact of this, I want a larger corporation or a larger company to be able to adopt these more organic fields and add it to a larger company to make a more positive impact and change versus little or less. Right. So that that's, that's the kind of vision, but in intertwined with that 2019, 2020, I want to, you know, at least have one New York times bestselling book. I want to be able to travel around the country and be the guy that, you know, sells out 20,000 people stages or, you know, I'm, I'm on that type of a level and it's not about the fame

or the notoriety. It's just, I think I have such a unique story on how young I am and how much shit I've gone through. And I've, I've saved a lot, even, you know, we've went in, but yeah, probably shared 10% of it with you guys. Um, I think that a lot more people are able to relate to someone who's younger like me, who has gone through what I've gone through versus these guys that are doing hundreds of millions of dollars with the roles and these huge houses.

Like I can't even relate to that. And I've made a lot of money in my life. So picture someone who's struggling right now. How can they relate to that? Right. So like, I want to be that guy that entrepreneurs can look up to. And I have a post that's going on a couple of days. It's funny because teachers and professors and students used to make fun of me so much. And they used to, these two keywords, entrepreneurs are college dropouts, visionaries are losers.

You're never going to amount to anything. And it's funny. What was the award? I told you that entrepreneur.com awarded me with this year. I got named top entrepreneur and visionary, uh, of 2018 by one of the biggest publications in the world. Yeah. The two keywords that people used to pin on my back and throw stones at and make fun of me for one of the largest publications just awarded me for, right. I don't know how the hell I got it. Cause there's some heavy hitters on there. Like there's a guy that makes a couple hundred million dollars with pharmaceuticals. I'm like, how the hell i got it we'll just say that right now because there's some heavy hitters on there like there's a guy that makes a couple hundred million dollars with pharmaceuticals i'm like how the hell did i make it on the list um but when my publicist called me he's like hey they just reached out like this is huge it's the second biggest award they give out for um under 30 under 30 or 40 under 40 like dude like this is huge so it's just funny that anyone listening now if you're going through

hell if you're going through the muck or if if you're being made fun of, you're worrying about people making fun of you, and you think that you're not good enough, and you let that define who you are, you will never push through the boundaries and status quo to get to winning an award like that. If I would have closed up shop, said, you know what? You guys are right. And I would have just bowed down to it and just taken it. I'd be at a nine to five right now. I'm 30. I'd probably be married with a kid, probably living in Wisconsin. No offense, Wisconsin, but I don't want to live in Wisconsin. Like, you know what I mean? Like, so anyone that's listening, take someone like me, that I'm an everyday person, no different than you. I've just been doing this for a while. I've been working a hundred hours a week for nine years now. Like that's, I've worked, I've worked circles around people. There's a lot

of people that can't catch up because of how hard I work, but I'm no different than anyone. I'm not special. I'm not some Uber, you know, uh, Elon Musk. Like I'm not that guy, right? I just have different beliefs and different morals and, and a driving factor. And you can use the chip on your shoulder, but it only gets you so far. So like January, February, like I told you guys, like opening up and being authentic and vulnerable and sharing my story, that was eliminating the chip on my shoulder. Because the chip on your shoulder, you have a grudge, you have resentment, you have hatred. It'll get you to a certain point. But if you guys have ever heard the term i say it a lot is whatever got you here will not get you there right only get you out yeah so it's like why not keep hiring business

coaches for myself like i tell all my coaching clients that are on the fence because it's not our coaching program is not cheap by any means and i'm like you guys you can keep doing what you're doing but it's obviously not working yeah you're paying bills and you're surviving but you look miserable right now you're a you're a fitness coach you're doing, but it's obviously not working. You're paying bills and you're surviving, but you look miserable right now. You're a, you're a fitness coach. You're supposed to inspire and be energetic and all this shit. Like you look like a walking zombie. Like, I know, I'm like, I'm telling you, whatever got you here is not going to get you where you're trying to go. You mentioned all these other people you're trying to aspire. And a lot of other, a lot of our potential clients look up to our current clients. And I'm like, you have to understand that person

was right where you are before we started coaching together. They're no different than you. They just trusted the process and made an investment in themselves versus being so scared to make an investment, let the money just sit in your bank account. Like what use is that? Right. So like when Scott told me it was 120 grand on the phone, I'm like, fuck, okay, the money

can just sit there or I can pay it and become a better version of myself. I can inspire more, change more people's lives. And it's already paid back tenfold. No, that's massive, man. And I think that really drives home the purpose behind having coaches, right? Because that's what coaches do is they elevate your ability to play the game. that exposure to either, you know, uh, uh, a new thought process or a new system to adopt, you know, being able to embrace a potentially conflicting belief and holding what you hold dear and that, that new thing that scares the shit out of you as true in both hands. Absolutely. Right.

That's, that's part of the evolution. Right. And, uh, you know, I just simply asked her, you know, what kind of problems do you want? You know, you can have $15,000 a year problems, or you can have $150,000 a year problems. It doesn't matter what level you're playing. The problems exist, but I guarantee you the way your your perspective on those problems is completely different at this level versus that level see you know it's it's important that when you're looking at justifying the cost you know like what kind of problems do you want I think that's very important question to ask you know and and more importantly a better question to answer as opposed to just sitting there. And like you said, letting the money sit in the bank and,

you know, live in life and cruise control. Well, it's, it's funny because with how many people I've consulted and coached over the years, you know, hundreds, and it's so crazy that no one's ever asked these people what they want. Sure. I'm like, people what they want. Sure. I'm like, what do you want? Yeah. They're like,

what do you mean? What do I want? Like, it's a very simple question. I'll wait. What the hell do you want? Yeah. And they're like,

and I ask it in a way where they know it's deeper than just like surface. Sure. And they're like, well, like I want to make more money. I'm like, cool. What does that mean to you?

And none of them have a vision. None of them have a roadmap. They, their biggest roadmap is looking at an influencer on Instagram saying, I want that or a car or I want a quarter million dollars. Like why, why do you want a quarter million dollars? Yeah. Like I listed out multiple seven figures. Like I want us doing $6 million next year in both companies, gross revenue because that feeds my overall vision because i need working capital for the sas company i need to have

you know 45 employees next year i have all of my dollar amounts attached to a greater y of changing the world and changing the community that's the way my brain works it's not like i want to make six million dollars so i can buy a new ferrari next year and be that cool guy it's no the next level and stage of who i need to be playing at. I need to keep evolving to it. So when I asked these guys and girls, what's your vision? None of them have been able to answer. So that's why I created like a 15 page visionary course to go through to actually like get

them to open up and share. And it's a requirement. They have to write three full pages of in-depth detail of their vision for next year nice like look like they tear up as they read it because none of them have ever been asked that sure they've they've been hit like you guys you got you gotta remember like in today's day and age you go on instagram and immediately we think we're not good enough you see a better car on the discovery page you see a better looking girl you see a skinnier girl you see a guy with better abs than you, all the advertisements you get hit with, you get, you wake up every day and you're prone

with thinking you're not good enough. And then what else? Let's go to happy hour. Let's have a cocktail. Let's go out to the club. Let's do all let's smoke. Let's do all these different things to get away from the real world. Yeah. Oh yeah. So many things are going against what is the truth and what's authentic and how to actually build a vision for success. And it's a two way street just because you create a vision does not mean it's a roadmap. You have to then reverse engineer the vision and transfer it over to a roadmap and have it be your step-by-step guidance. So like anyone that's listening right now, if you want to be making a hundred grand a year or 250 grand a year,

that's great. That is an end goal. But what's your vision? Who do you want to be making $100,000 a year or $250,000 a year, that's great. That is an end goal. But what's your vision? Who do you want to be? What feelings do you want to have? Who do you want to be to the community? What type of legacy do you want to leave behind? Where are you at one year from now?

And then reverse and engineer it. And I use that as a step-by-step direction. So when I just shared my vision with you guys, I literally have a step-by-step direction. We have, we have project management software, we have spreadsheets and it lists out all the rocks we have to accomplish within our business or problems we need to fix for us to be able to evolve to the next level. And it goes quarter by quarter. Okay.

So it's, it's just an ever going, like the list is never going to end. Yeah. Your problems are never going to end. I'll tell you right now, like we were talking before the podcast started, I would give anything to go back to making five to 15 grand a month with a thousand dollars a month of overhead. Those were the good days. Now when you're building successful companies and I have,

you know, 10 to 12 people that are looking up to me with responsibilities, everyone's on salary. We're looking at benefits in 401k now. Like, are you kidding me right i've consulted for companies that have had that but i've never had to look at hiring an hr salaried position to like make sure women feel safe and comfortable and like it's getting to

a level that i've never been at before personally so but that's growth as you evolve there's going to be different problems and it's not the problems or the size of the problems it's the characteristics you choose to use in your thought process and who your psyche and who you are to deal with those problems like i still get super stressed but i deal with my problems at a whole different level of responsibility than i used to do you know three or four or five years ago sure dude i love that i love the level of granularity you're talking about where you're breaking things down from the high level vision so i'd look at it sort of like a pyramid Absolutely on the pyramids the top is this big angle and you just have to build the building blocks But a lot of people miss the building blocks because they have this grand vision

The funny thing is every single person in the world knows how a house is built exactly You don't see a three story townhouse getting put on you know muck or sand or grass Like there's a foundation and I'm at fault for it too. So, you know, I can't even point the finger at my clients or people listening saying shame on you because we've all been there. It still happens to me where, you know, a huge expense comes in. I'm like, all right, we're going to launch this campaign. We're like, John, we don't have the foundation for it, but we need to like, I still go through it day to day. Right. My team has to kind of pull me out of that and restructure some things and do it correctly versus, you know, trying to make a quick buck or

something like that. I love that brother. So before we let you get out of here, man, uh, want to ask you two questions and you can answer them on any level, mental, physical, spiritual, whatever strikes you right now. And I'll ask them in succession before you answer. Uh, the first of which is what do you do each and every day to feed yourself and kickstart the motivation for the vision that you're trying to impart? And then the second question is,

what do you do each and every day to fuel yourself and make that motivation, that vision sustainable over the long term? Okay, so I'll take these from like a morning ritual standpoint or some characteristics that i do um travel i've been traveling a lot lately like new york la so my morning rituals are kind of

all over the place right but my ideal morning rituals is i wake up at 6 a.m i do meditation for 15 minutes to get my day started. I write in my best self journal. It's been a huge game changer for me. I send them to all my clients that sign up. But I list out my schedule for the day, which I do that the Sunday before. But I know what my schedule is. I list out three things I'm grateful for. I list out three goals I have.

And I list out three targets for the day that if I just accomplish those three things, I'll be whole at the end of the day. I then go into the, the spots change periodically. Um, but the, the place, the complex I live in Scottsdale right now is very artistic. It's like orange and gray. So I love getting up and going and reading for an hour, two hours. So from like six 30 to seven 30 or eight 30, I'll read the book of my choice because that's, you know, my, my, my company doesn't, my employees don't get until nine. So I know that I have up until nine before, you know, shit hits the fan or I need to be in, or there's an emergency that allows, like, if you think about it, like you need to start your day every single morning with having control. And this isn't just

because I went through the divorce and all that shit I told you before, when you're going to work or the day or coaching clients or on a podcast. When you're going to work or the day or coaching clients or on a podcast, like there's going to be stuff that happens. You have no control. If your computer just dies, you have no control over that. If a client cancels, you have no control over that. So the morning you need to do small little wins, like making your bed in the morning. So like the biggest thing is waking your bed when you first wake up because it sets your day up for success. Psychologically you're, you pat yourself on the yourself on the back. If I go to my best self journal, it's not hard writing down three things I'm grateful for.

Boom, I just accomplished two things for the day. Three, meditation. Four, reading a book. Damn, I'm already on a four for four roll this morning before I even start work. And boom, it sets me up for success. The thing that I do to feel me, I need to start eating a little bit healthier to have that fuel me.

I really love engaging with people on social media. Like if I'm doing a story or going on a rant or making a post and I see 50, 100, 200 comments and DMs and people coming in that like, wow, the 10 minutes I just gave up, the little 10 minutes of my life I just gave up just changed how many people's lives. If I'm tired, that gives me nitrous oxide on my blood where I just start steamrolling. Another thing I do is I love working out at the gym. It fuels me. It allows me to calm down. It allows me to get my thoughts out. I don't like talking to anybody when I'm at the gym, even though it's hard because when you're in the fitness community, there's always people that want to talk. Um, but I would say the biggest thing I do to become Zen or become one is reading. There you go. Um, I didn't read as a kid. I didn't read in high school. Um, but reading books is

almost like, I know I'm not alone. Yeah. Like I'm re I'm reading books of successful entrepreneurs. Like right now I'm reading books of successful entrepreneurs like right now I'm reading a book called rocket fuel. It's on like operations scalability How to build the correct structure to get to multiple seven figures eight figures, you know, you know vice versa. Yeah, no vice versa It allows me to know I'm not alone anymore. Yeah, so I'm reading the book and I'm like, oh my god I did that last week. Yeah, stupid us like yeah, buddy Like I relate to the book now and it makes me feel like I'm not alone anymore cool another big thing is we just moved office spaces in Old Town Scottsdale and

it's a huge open open concept yeah I love watching the team engage with each other now yeah so it's like we've you know we've outgrown three offices two offices a year we're in our third right now and just seeing like my vision come to life yeah and there's actually departments now like the creative department there's the you know timeline and budget department accounts payable we have all these different departments that are coexisting with each other all in the greater sense of changing an entrepreneur's life and then when the entrepreneur comes in and they get their final product and they're exuberant and i see my team smile it's just like holy shit what did i really just create yeah it's like it's so much, holy shit, what did I really just create?

Yeah. It's like, it's so much more than a t-shirt or joggers or any, any type of that stuff. Like I'm actually creating life again. And it's crazy because my clients start breaking down crying. Like I had a client this year who broke down and cried because he was in debt and didn't have enough money to visit his little, little daughter and little, little son. And they live in different States and he just didn't have the money to go visit them on top of child support.

And he listed down in one of his goals is he's like, I want my family back. I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, I'm in debt. I don't make enough money to do this, to fly there to this and that. And in my coaching event when I was in LA for January, I told you guys, I was with Jay.

I leave the restaurant. He calls me. He's tearing up. I'm like, dude, like, and he's had a horror. If you think my story is crazy, he's had a crazy life. Yeah. And it's stuff, you know, he was in war. So like, I always have to get concerned when someone's like frazzled like that.

My dude, what's up? He's like, you gave me my life back. I'm like, what do you mean? He's like, I just booked. I don't know how many flights for my daughter and my son to come visit me. He's like, you, he's like, I did it. I'm at 15 grand a month. You've changed my life.

My family's back in the picture. I just paid my credit card debt off. Like I didn't, I didn't think this was possible. So to be able to have someone do a testimonial video for me and say, I gave them their life back. I had another client, two clients around a divergent of divorce.

And like we saved it. We saved a marriage. Like the stuff we do is not just business coaching. So that also feels me to keep moving forward. Oh, yeah. And where can everybody in this community go follow you and support you and everything you have going, brother? Yeah. So on Facebook, I'm John Bulls official because some assholes took all my domains for Snapchat and Facebook.

So Facebook, my page is John Bulls official. I'm going to start being a lot more active on that. We're going to be pushing a lot of content for 2018 and 2019, end of 2018. But I'm really active on Instagram and that's John Bowles. So it's J-O-N-B-O-L-E-S. Dope, bro. I appreciate you, my man. Appreciate you guys.

This is great. I hope we provide some value to the listeners. Oh, definitely, dude. Definitely. Much appreciated. You got a lot going on and taking an hour out of your day to. Anything you guys need. I appreciate it.

This is what fuels me, like you just said. Yeah. Much appreciated, man. For everybody out there in Fumi Fumi Land, get out there and support everything that John has going on. Appreciate that. If you're at a point in your life where you just need access to level up, use John as a resource.

He's obviously available to help make that happen. And until next time, guys, Feed Me, Fuel Me. And that'll do it for this episode with our guest, John Bowles. If you want to check out everything that John has going, please go check out the full show notes on shrugcollective.com. Also, be sure to connect with us on social media, including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at feed me, feel me. We would love to hear from each and every one of you.

If you found this episode inspiring in any way, please leave a rating and a comment in iTunes so we can continue on this journey together. Also, be sure to share with your friends and family on social media. We really appreciate you spending your time with us today and allowing us to join you on your journey. We would appreciate you spending your time with us today and allowing us to join you on your journey. We would love to hear your feedback on this episode

as well as guests and topics for future episodes. To end this episode, we would love to leave you with a quote by Jim Rohn. Whatever good things we build end up building us. Thank you again for joining us and we'll catch you on the next episode you I know you're there. You got me feeling good. I know you're there.