Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Ed Mylett: An Inside Look - 036

Episode Date: February 28, 2018

In this episode, Bedros Keuilian interviews the legendary Ed Mylett, creator of #MaxOut and serial entrepreneur. In this episode, Ed takes you through his journey, from losing his dream of becoming a professional baseball player to finding his new path and purpose in financial services. Along the way, Ed shows you how to find massive wealth and success in your own life and business. Here’s what you’ll discover: 2:12 - Why Ed’s baseball injury was the best thing that ever happened to him. 5:04 - How Ed changed his personal narrative and unlocked the power to become an industry leader. 10:27 - Why service is the only way you can sustain yourself for the length of time it takes to build an empire. 14:33 - Why you should never “negotiate the price.” 17:53 - The one thing you must do to survive any moment of weakness, doubt, or pain. 21:19 - Why “management” is an illusion and you should embrace explosions instead.  

I just ran into the tunnel. I just ran full speed, bleeding down. I got up and I ran somewhere, like down a path. I just decided to start to move to take some action, right? Hey, friends, welcome to another great episode of the Empire podcast, and this is the Inside Look segment, and I've got a very special guest with me today. He is Ed Milet, and he is a life strategist and a serial entrepreneur.

Ed, welcome to be here, brother. To the HQ, yes, sir. Thank you. Yes, sir. So, Ed, you and I, uh, you and I'm a lot. I kind of met through a strange turn of events because while you were you lived in Diamond Bar locally here in Chino Hills Diamond Bar is touching us your office was right next door to mine tell me about that literally right next door to you we were just up in your office and we can

look from your window into the office I was in for four years what what did you do here I ran my my financial services business world financial group I ran out of there and I ran my real estate operations too and so I was in there for four years I lived right down the I was telling you, my mother and father live about 500 yards from this building. We saw their house from our window. My mom and dad can look from their living room into your office. I'm curious. Are you going to visit them today?

I am going to visit them. I love that. You're a good son. Of course. You're a good son. I am good son. So obviously, the whole idea with the Empire podcast Inside Look segment, which is what we're doing is we want to bring on Empire builders such as yourself and deconstruct what got

you here. Okay. And the idea is that our audience will get a better understanding of how to go from where they are to where they want to be in life. Sounds good. Right, as entrepreneurs. So now your career really started off as an athlete who had great potential. So why don't you pick up there and tell us where you went from there?

Well, yeah. I was a, I played high school baseball here at Diamond Bar High School, actually right down the street. And I played on a great team. We were the national champions. I also had, we had six of us go on to play college or Division I. One of the guys I played with is a Hall of Famer, Jimmy Edmonds. So I had come from a really good team.

Went on to play. I played college baseball. And I got drafted to play professionally. During that time, I had an injury that ended that. career and it probably was a blessing. I always say life happens for you, not to you. Everyone knows that in hindsight, right? At the time, it was tragic. But it probably just put a premature end to something that was going to end anyways. Having played with a lot of great players, I kind of know what some of my limitations were athletically, right? And so I was kind of maxing out the limited gifts I had. And so like a lot of people that listen to this, my first dream ended. You know, just it was over. And people can relate to that. It could be your first marriage, you know, your first business. You're going to be an athlete or an actor, an entertainment. Maybe you're going to go get your masters and that doesn't work out. You end up having a baby or something. So my first dream ended and I ended up sort of finding myself out on my luck.

I ended up moving back home with my mom and dad in my early 20s, unemployed with my degree, same teddy bear on the bed, you know, same posters on the wall and, you know, watching Jerry Springer and Mari Povich all day long. I was really, really down on my luck and on my thinking, you know, in my early 20s. So obviously the injury is not something you wanted to happen or anticipate. It's anticipated to happen, yet you kind of have to go through that process. Yes. And the mindset you have today is life happens to you or for you.

I do. I do. But back then, that probably wasn't the mindset you had, which is obviously why you were down on your luck. I was depressed. Yeah. I went through a real depression because my whole identity was, it wasn't, my identity wasn't about me, which I think is what it needs to be. I think you got to build self-confidence.

I think a lot of times you meet an athlete or someone who's outwardly confidence. It means necessarily self-confidence. ego, my confidence was attached to what I did, not who I was. Sure. And so once what I did ended, I didn't know who I was. And I didn't have a lot of self-worth or a lot of self-confidence. And so I ended up being someone who was depressed and lacked self-confidence. I'm, you know, we've met.

I'm kind of introverted. I'm actually extremely introverted, very shy naturally. I had great parents growing up, great parents. But my dad was an alcoholic until I was about 15. He's been sober a long time now. But I came from a real dysfunctional family. Sure. You know, that stress that you have in a household and always introduced when I was a kid.

My dad's Ed too, kind of a big guy. I was always Little Eddie. This is Little Eddie and he's shy. So I was always introduced that way. So I just kind of developed this identity of a shy person, introverted person. So in baseball, then, man, I was lost. I had no idea, none whatsoever what I was going to do with my life. So being introduced as Little Eddie and he's shy.

Yeah, that was great. Right. Over and over again, that begins to kind of create an anchor. We began to identify with that. That's right. I was comfortable with that character. That was the character and the script. Everybody has a script they're given when they're a kid, how they're raised, right?

They don't know it, but their family around them, their environment is creating a script that you're the character in. And my character in that script was Little Eddie the Shy Kid, who was also a really good baseball player. So you strip the baseball player away. Now I'm Little Eddie the Shy Kid. Right? And that's sort of where I was. Ed, how do you go from then changing the narrative from Little Eddie the Shy Kid, who had an injury that caused this?

You're no longer going to play professional baseball and all you had in your mind was I'm this young athlete who's going to play professional baseball and you probably saw no other Option for you and now you're little Eddie who's shy who's not going to pay professional baseball How does the narrative change and you become this leader of an industry? Yeah, that's a great question and My answer is and this is what I found with most people too It's kind of like a dark you find yourself in like this dark space. It's like a dark tunnel, right? And there's the honest answer. I just ran into the tunnel. I just ran full speed and bleeding down. I got up and I ran somewhere, like down a path. I just decided to start to move to take some action, right? And one unique thing happened. I'll tell you real quickly, before I got

into the business world, everything was ego. Everything was being famous or rich or successful, right? Everything came from that place for me, which a lot of people relate to that. My dad, I'm at home, I'm unemployed, my dad's now sober going to the meetings that you go to when you're getting sobriety. Comes home from the meeting and he goes, I got you a freaking job. It's tomorrow morning. It's in San Dimas. at McKinley Home for Boys. I'm like, what is that? He goes, I don't know, but there's a guy at the meeting. Tim says he's got you a job there at six bucks an hour.

You get your butt down there at 6 a.m. tomorrow. I get down there 6 a.m. I walk in the lobby. Hi, I'm Eddie Milet. I'm here for the job. They're like, what is an Eddie Milet and what job? I'm like, I don't know what the job is. They don't know what the job is, right? They have no idea who you are and why you're there?

Who are you? And they're like, well, then who's hiring you? What a crappy feeling that's got to be that moment? I'm already introverted. I'm already shy. I'm already down. And they go, so who's hiring you? I go, I don't even know. They go, you don't know? I said, well, his name's Tim.

They're like, who the hell is Tim? And I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't know. I literally turned to walk away. And I go, well, he's an alcoholic. And they go, oh, Tim, drunk Tim. We know Tim. Literally the guy. So they walked me out to this cabin, and McKinley's a campus of group homes.

My boys were all wards of the court or molested by family. They were seven to ten, and I move into this home. I'm hired and I'm their dad, I'm their big brother. I'm doing Christmas, you know, holidays. And how are you at this point? I'm 22. You're 22. I'm 21 turning 22 just out of college, broke down, baseball's over, and I end up falling in love with serving people. Kids, you have them, by the way. Yeah. Kids and I have them. All kids are beautiful, but kids that come from some form of dysfunction or abuse, I have this theory that our eyes are a little bit different. We just have these eyes. They're just kind of like, man, love me, right? Like,

And these boys all had those eyes. And that's ironic life happens for you. My dad's alcoholism and the dysfunction of my family prepared me to deal with these boys who came from dysfunction. If I didn't have that background, I don't know that I would have connected with them the same way. So again, it happened for me.

All these events in your life that could be tragic, depends. It's not the event that happens. It's the meaning you take from it. And I've taken the meaning that they happened for me. My life altered them, man. Because all of a sudden, it wasn't about me and my ego and getting something for me.

It was about serving, and it just filled me up. Like, as a young man, I was like, my God, first time ever. I love giving to people. Sure. And right about that time. How did that make you feel when you started to actually be in service of others? Blessed, fulfilled, and I used this word with my wife often. I felt at home.

I felt like this was my calling. Like, this is who I'm supposed to be. This is my identity. So in other words, it wasn't something I just sort of, you know, decided to create. It's like I found this through running into that dark tunnel we talked about. went to work and while I was there my best friends growing up his dad called me and said I think he should start part-time in my financial practice and I went down there I didn't want to do anything to do with money I did no math skills I did a math class

after my sophomore year in high school I did not I was not a business major I hated business didn't want to be a business guy but I decided to do it because they did this buzzword when I was there they're like well you can help people people need help with their money families are breaking apart there's debt marriages are stressed I went oh helping people that's my new thing service that's my new thing service and by the way You could make the same money you were going to make making baseball, playing baseball. It could be millions and millions of dollars.

But I went, I like this. So I did that part-time for a year and a half while I stayed with my boys. Were you good at it when you did it for that first part-time gig? Horrible. Horrible. And, well, I should say this to you. Like most entrepreneurs, tons of false starts. I'd get it going, then I'd go back.

I'd take three steps forward, five back. So it wasn't like I never had any results. It was I couldn't maintain them. I kept having a surge, and then I'd go backwards. And so it was just riddled with false starts, riddled with questions. of should I quit. Maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I should just go back to average and ordinary. Like this whole thing at the group home was wonderful with the boys, but my own family's existence would never be great financially if I stayed just sort of, and to an extent I could

have hidden there. In other words, it did become comfortable for me, right? It was easy. It was second nature. It would have been easy to just go, I'm going to hide here with these boys the rest of my life. Not that the service wasn't great. But what I found out, if I could go get wealthy, I could serve a whole lot more than just these 10 boys. Perfect. In that group home, I could only help 10 at a time. If I get very wealthy, which my wife and I have tried to do, we can help thousands of children. Because money is a multiplier of service. Bingo. That's exactly right.

So let's hit the pause button right here because all empire builders, and as I get to interview more and more of them, we see the commonality. So let's deconstruct something. Do you believe, and I don't want to put words in your mouth. If the answer is no, you tell me no. But do you believe that all empire builders must serve, or do you think there's any merit to service that somehow helps us build empires? 100%. You know that that's true. What's the connection? The connection is it's the only thing that's going to sustain itself. So I think you can see somebody get ahead short term. We all know someone like that. We all know somebody right now who's in business, who's shortcuts, who's about themselves, who's sort of, I don't know if you want to call it, they're greedy, right? We know some, and they're having some short term results, right? But if you're going to sustain success long term, and one of the ways that you're just going to sustain your success long term is by staying engaged, staying inspired, right? See, getting money is motivation. It's, plays to your motives. Serving people is inspirational, which is in spirit, right? And so in spirit never goes away from me. So if you're going to sustain effort, if you're going to sustain

success in business, always has to come from inspiration, which is always service. It's the only key to long-term success that I've seen. Anybody I know like you and I have met, you have this amazing practice that's exploded, you've got all these wonderful people. And it's an impressive place. Probably the most impressive thing today, though, is we did the tour, is how you and the folks that are your teammates here interact with one another. I can tell they know you love them and they love you back. There's this great era of service around this place that you've sewn into it, I can tell. And this is just a wonderful team you have here as a result. That's because you're inspired. Very fortunate and blessed to have been able to build a team. And likewise, they are with you.

Thank you. Thank you. And so we know that service is a big component. And you said the magical words earlier, you said, you could have hidden in that boys, in that, it was a community of boys, I guess, right? And really just justified by saying, look, I'm helping these young boys. But you knew that you loved service so much. You needed to now create wealth in addition to service. Correct. And you had the side job, I guess a part-time job in the financial world where you weren't doing so good. Yes.

Why didn't you quit? Because most people quit and just give up and go find their passion or purpose. Why did you actually stay and develop this into your purpose? Yeah, well, because it was a passion I found. Early in that, it sewed into me. Because here's what people try to do. This is what we all try to do. We're constantly, if you're going the wrong direction, you're constantly trying to justify

your current existence. You're trying to justify it by hiding there, justify it with your excuses, justify it why, well, I'm doing this well. You give yourself little pieces of credit, right? And I had a mentor there who believed in me. I had somebody I found there that said, I think you're great, I think you're incredible, I think you were born for this. And it was sort of borrowed belief for a while from this other person that was mentoring and

coaching me that I was accountable to. They treated me wonderfully, so I kind of wanted to live up to help. they treated me to an extent to. And I had found something I was passionate about. And there were several times I was going to quit, but there was just a point, and the consequences of it don't really matter, the circumstances.

I just made a decision at one point that honestly, my will to win was not to be bought. You can't buy me. Most people can be bought if the price gets high enough with failure. In other words, the price tag gets higher, more and more failure, the price gets harder and harder,

and eventually most people will sell out their family. They'll sell out their will to win, they'll sell out their dream, Most people's will to win is for sale. And mine's not. I eventually just decided, no matter what the price, as long as it's not legal, ethical, or moral, I will pay whatever the price is required to become the best version of me and to make my dreams happen for my family.

You cannot buy me out. And that's to this day, too. If this thing all goes away, if I go busted broke, you will find someone still efforting their way through this because there's no price I won't pay. I just decided it. Let's stop right there and explore that. Because so far, here's what we've learned. To build an empire, one must be in.

service. To build an empire, one must start and not give up. To build an empire, one must find a mentor. Yes. And for a little while, borrow their, what did you, how did you, how did you borrow their belief? Borrow their belief system. When you don't believe in yourself, you're barring your mentor's beliefs. But then there was this will to not quit. How does one develop, this will to not quit in this era where if on Instagram, I want to post it, I'm a marketing expert or a whatever, and if in two months, I'm not that guy, I'm ready to shift gears. How does one go all in like you did. Okay, well, and let me say this to you.

What most people do, and I'll answer you. Most people are constantly negotiating the price. In other words, they waste so much energy in their mind. Is it worth it? Is it not worth it? I don't know if it is. They negotiate the price, negotiate, negotiate, negotiate it. Just negotiate it in advance.

There's not a price I won't pay. Done, that's decided. Now, why was my will to win, not for sale? For the most part, I think the answer to that for me was this. I found something that I believed in. Like, I really believed it made a difference for people. I had consciously decided in my life this was good for others, right? And so for me, the alternative was to go through the rest of my life as like an imposter or a fraud.

So sometimes I do as I flip it. I don't just pursue what I'm doing. What if I don't? What if I were to walk away from this? Knowing what I know what the potential is, the difference I could have made with it. Because there's this chase I'm on, and I've been on it since I was really young. It sounds corny, I'm just telling you. At the end of your life, I believe at the end of what your faith is.

I'm a Christian. about faith is faith. If you have faith, that's wonderful. The end of my life, I'll probably answer to God. And hopefully he says, well done, good and faithful servant. But I have this other suspicion that he goes, hey, by the way, this is who I made you to be. Here's the man you could have been. This was your destiny. You were born in my image and likeness. This is who I destined you to be. And at the end of my life, I'm chasing that dude every day. Is that your whole theory behind Max Out? It is 100% behind Max Out. Tell me about that. Every single day, I'm trying to get the most out of myself,

every day because that next day I want to be a different version. I'll give an example. My daughter, my daughter is the, my son's a sweetheart, sweetheart. My daughter, it will say anything. So we're at dinner a few weeks ago. This is just a few weeks ago. She goes, Daddy, you're going through a midlife crisis. I said, what would you make you say, Dad is doing?

How old is she? My daughter's 14. She's at that age, right? So, you know, she's at that age. So I said, what are you talking about? She goes, dad, come on. The beard, you know, social media. There's a little midlife crisis going on here.

And I said, you know what? You're 100% right. I am. Daddy is in a midlife crisis. And guess what? I was in a young life crisis. I was in my 30-year-old crisis. When I was 22, I was in a crisis to be a better 23-year-old. I don't, I'm 40-year-old. I already know what this guy's life is like. I don't want to live this same guy's life at 47. I already had that one. I need to be a better 47-year-old. My son was little. I was a car wash. I tell you real quick. There's a very nice man I'd see there all the time in his mid-40s. Reading the same newspaper every Sunday morning. And my son was six. And Max walks by and how old is your son? I said, he's six years old. He goes, enjoy this. the six-year-old. Because when he turns seven, the six-year-old's gone forever. And when he turns eight to seven-year-old's gone forever. And reflexively, we all know this as parents, reflexively, I went, sir, when did that process stop for you? And he just stared back at me. And I went to myself, I told myself the time, I said, the 22-year-old me is gone. The 23-year-old's a new guy. The 23-year-old's gone. The 24 is a new-year-old guy, a new guy. So I've always

been in this process of trying to be the better version of me daily and yearly so that the end of it, I catch this dude I'm chasing, which is the ultimate version of me, right? And so I'm in that pursuit. And I think about that consciously when I was going to quit. Would the ultimate version of me, the guy I'm chasing, quit this business? Would the ultimate version of me that got my destiny guy, is that guy someone who would bail on this and not pay the price? And I put every decision through that barometer, through that measurement. I usually make the right one as a consequence. Brilliant. Because you're chasing the future you. Right. Most people make decisions to quit their business in moments of weakness and pain and emotion and not with the ultimate version of

them in mind. If you'll always be thinking about the end of your life, not the current conditions you're in, you will always make the right decision. And sometimes that perhaps may mean making an adjustment or a change, but if you put it through that measurement, you'll typically make the right decision. I love that. You know, it's funny you say this, and we might be kindred spirits here, we'll see. But in, oh, I don't know, early 2000s, I watched the Sopranos, probably like everybody else did i favorite show of all time okay got do you remember the scene where tony soprano says the lowest form of conversation that any two people can have is remember when yes right yes i do and in that moment i'm hitting my wife i'm like you see you see i'm right about this because i live by this mentality

it says never peak the best is yet to come and i don't know if you saw that in our kitchenette upstairs i didn't see it but i love and and i really believe that i want to reach my fullest potential in life just moments before i take my last breath and go away to heaven me too because Because if I do anything other than that, then I've given up on my purpose, on my potential, and what if you're standing in God in front of God? And that judgment call happens. And he says, like you said, this is who I made you to be. And you're total strangers.

Can you imagine meeting that guy? We are kindergarten spirits. Because I want to meet him, but the other fear I have is we meet and we're total strangers. You imagine looking at you going, oh, my God. That's who I could have been. But all the way along, daily and hourly, I made these stupid. Stupid decisions and choices not to max out, not to continue to push through, not to pay the price. So 1 million percent exactly the same way.

It's like an obsession of mine. One thing I will tell you, too, I think you noticed this as well. I listened to how people talk. And so when you gave me the tour here, you told me the story of it. But linked into the past part of the story is the future part, the current and the future. When I'm listening to people, so many people want to tell me their old story. I used to be this. I used to do that.

We were this. I want to know where you're going. What's the new story? What's the new character? Quit telling me about the old character and the old chapters and the old versions of you. Who's the new character?

And at any time in our life, honestly, we walk out this door. We can decide to be a new character. We can literally step into a new role. We can be a little more confident, a little bit more bold, a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more caring.

You were sharing with me upstairs. You had some events take place. You're just a little bit more light. A little bit more giving, right? You can choose to do that. Your former script is not your current one. but everyone keeps repeating the same script. And I'm just committed in my life.

I struggle with this too, but I'm committed to thinking about the future, committed thinking about the best version of me, not the current version. I love that. And I think there's no better place to end than to ask you this question here now. If you can impart a message on entrepreneurs

who have this vision of not just building, being self-employed, not being self-employed, not owning a job, but really building an empire where they make an impact on the industry they serve, What most people who watch and listen to our podcast here, Empire, they know that Fit Body Boot Camp is all about 2,500 locations worldwide by the year 2022. And they know that our mission is to help millions of people every morning through fitness, health, and a positive mindset. So I look at myself as the ultimate personal trainer through all of our franchise locations, right?

You are. And so that's my purpose and mission. So someone who's building their own empire, what is the message you want to impart to them before we wrap up here? It's always got to be bigger. So people have a tendency to shrink. their vision to their current circumstances. And here's the mistake you'd make. You're going to try to manage it. People have this illusion of trying to be, like you have all these systems in place because it's important to have some sort of governor on what takes place. But you know as well as

I do. Explosive growth in a business is messy. You're going to have to embrace some mess, some disorganization, some imbalance of some type, managed by a system. That's what holds it together at all, right? Even the system that you have here. But you've got to think bigger. You've got to go bigger. Grant Cartone talks about 10x. I talk about maxing out. But in order to do that, you've got to be willing, it's like a great workout at the gym. It's not beautiful. It's nasty. It's ugly. It's sweaty. It's painful. You've got to be willing to get a little bit of the dirty done. Don't be so perfectly clean all the time, right? Like get it messy. Stir up a mess once in a while. That's what an explosion is what you want. An explosion is not organized. An explosion is what it is. And stuff kind of goes in

different directions. And then you gather it together with your system. So systems, it together, but along the way, you've got to embrace the explosion or you'll never have one. So that's my biggest message. And the last thing I'll tell everybody is this. This vision you have is not some joke. In my belief system, that vision was sewn into your heart. It's a blessing from God. It's not a joke.

It is something that he put there for a reason because it's giving you a peak at your capacity. It's giving you a peek, just a glimpse, just a second. He lets you look at that ultimate version of your life. And so it's not there by mistake. it's not a joke you're not tricking yourself it was put in your heart in your mind it's why it's a picture like it is because it's something you're capable of i don't know whether you'll get there or not but i know you're capable of it and that's why it's in your heart as a dream ed my let how can our friends find you and connect with you um instagram you can go to ed mylet on instagram or just go to

my website edmylet dot com or my podcast on itunes or any other platforms you get all my stuff i'd love to communicate with you awesome well friends thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode of an inside look on empire podcast If you like this episode, please be sure to comment, leave us a really positive rating. And of course, share so we can get the message of entrepreneurship to more and more people worldwide. Thanks so much. We'll see you guys later.