Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - How Steve Weatherford Turned His Weakness into His Strength and Built an Empire - 030

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

Super Bowl Champion turned Fitness Entrepreneur, Steve Weatherford is rapidly switching industries and breaking the mold to impact more lives and share his vision. How is he scaling so quickly? In this episode, Craig and Bedros share how Steve is moving the needle in his business by focusing on his vision, seeking help from experienced mentors, and sharing his story with the world – and you can too. Here’s what you’ll discover: 2:40 - How Steve Weatherford went from retired athlete to selling a successful fitness program online. 5:04 - One of the biggest keys to success you can implement right now in your business. 7:30 - How Steve turned a one-off sale into a continuity program to help more people while still making a profit. 8:56 - Why resiliency is the number one trait all successful leaders share when building their empire. 15:05 - Why investing in a mentor will save you time, money, failures, and energy.

Everybody has a million excuses. Oh, I got kids. I got no time. I'm a little bit in debt. You know, hear that, this, that, and the other thing. Nobody really has an excuse, right? Nobody has an excuse. See, we can come up with a million excuses or one compelling reason why, right? And when you come up with one compelling reason why, that trumps the million excuses. Hey, friend, this is a big one. We are going to introduce you to a super champion in the empire mindset today. We're going to go through a case study and tell you about one of our biggest success stories. So, So welcome to the Empire Podcast. I'm Craig Ballantyne with... Baderos Coolean.

All right, Baderos Cooleon. We are going to talk about a really cool guy named Steve Weatherford. Yes. And the empire that he is building. Now, he's in our Empire Mastermind Group, and we love the guy to death because he's super high energy. And, you know, it's amazing, though, because I would at first think, my goodness, how are we going to rain this guy in and get him focused? But he actually has amazing focus. So why don't you tell us how that is played in his favorite.

By the way, this guy is one of the most. He's giant and he is definitely a commanding personality, but one of the most humble, down-to-earth, kindest guys I've ever met. And it always says, now how can I serve you? Who can I introduce you to? What doors can I help open for you?

And I think there's a whole podcast to be done on that where that's concerned. But, man, this guy, so Steve Weatherford, you know, if you don't know him, he was a Super Bowl champion. He played for the Jets and the Giants, right? He retired from the Giants. I've learned the whole story. And not that I know anything about sports. Sure.

But no comment. So when we went out surfing, so either Jay Faruja or Lewis House introduced me to Steve. And I was like, hey man, welcome to California. He just moved to San Diego from the East Coast. Want to go surfing? I'll bring a couple boards out. We're surfing. And I said, how did you make this transition from retiring from football?

And you're now selling a fitness. program on how to make your arms bigger. Like, connect those dots for me, Steve. He goes, man, first of all, I have no idea what I'm doing. And this is why Lewis or Jay introduced you to me, and hopefully you'll be able to put me on my right path. Because he was just doing it on a sheer force of will. Shear force of will. Which is kind of like Empire Foundation. Yes, it really is. He was in hustle and grind mode and not scale instructor mode. Right? And Empire mode is always scale and structure. Yeah. And so I was like, well, tell me how this came to be. You probably have a lot of, a lot of opportunities once you're retired here.

So it turns out when we got back to the car, he takes out his iPhone, and he goes, look at me during all my games. He was wearing those long sleeve, like the underarmor compressor shirts. He goes, do you know why I was wearing those? Even on the hottest days? I have no idea, man. Why?

He goes, I was always self-conscious, even though I was one of the best athletes on the planet, I was always self-conscious about my small arms. He goes, so when I retired, I decided to make my weakness, I was most self-conscious and self-aware of, make my weakness into my strength. And he did that so much, the people started, Steve, your arms are huge. Like, he made his weakness of strength, and he decided he's going to create the Armageddon

program, right, which is what he has. And, of course, start selling that online for everyone else who's kind of suffered with a small body part and wants to, you know, make it larger. A lot of guys, which actually kind of ties in great with, you know, Lewis House and his book, The Mask of Masculinity. Yeah. So many people think that, you know, gee, an athletic. male guy, you probably have no problems, right? But in reality, like, he has to have the aggression

mask on, the masculine mask on, the tough guy mask, and he can't be vulnerable because, come on, man up, you know, right? That's the other man up, right? There's man up as an entrepreneur. There's a man up of like, hey, be a tough guy, which put the mask on. Put the mask on. But anyway, going back to that, he created this product. And so, Steve did. Steve did. And there's a guy who has gone from one industry and taken his weakness and made a into a strength in a completely different industry. Right, absolutely. And so, you know, he's got a couple of things that an empire builder requires in order to be

successful. First of all, he goes with the giving hand. He's a generous guy, very great guy, very humble guy. So he's always learning. He's willing to go and ask for help. Most people aren't willing to put the ego aside, but he is. And then therefore, he is also always improving, always related to Kaisan, constant never-ending improving, which is another big, important part of being an empire builder.

And he is also really, really focused. So, and then he has the vision of like taking, how can I go and share this with the world and not just have an info product, but I'm going to have T-shirts and all this stuff. And then he came and worked with you recently, and I want to hear what you guys talked about and how you're going to go and take that really strong foundation

that he has and build it higher up. Well, you know, it's funny to say that. So one of his biggest keys to success that everybody listening or watching to this podcast can implement right away is speed of implementation. Oh, yeah. Remember, when he was out here in January

for the Empire Mastermind, we sat across him when it was time for his hot seat, and we said, dude, you got to build a team. You can't do it all yourself. Just because he's a Midwesterner, hardworking athlete. His thing is, I could do it all myself. I could stay awake days at a time. I could work at a pace and get it all done.

Right, because he was saying how we worked till like three o'clock the day before. No, you can't keep on doing that. You got to build a team. Your team has to have responsibilities, and then they have to meet your expectation. Well, sure is shit. shows up, whatever now, a few weeks.

Just a few weeks. That was in January. That was September. Yeah. So just a few weeks away now. And he shows up with his team here. And he goes, Bezos, you told me to hire a good team of high performers. Here they are.

I found them. Help me delegate our roles and responsibilities. Amazing. And there is, you know, when you talk about what a high performer does, and when you talk about building an empire, scaling an empire quickly, in an industry that he's completely unaware of, one, the fitness industry, as far as, like, fitness workouts, because the guy just an athlete and two the internet marketing space right right but he hired people around him so he had a full-time videographer that showed up with him okay he had a implementer so basically like someone

who's a CEO right a chief operations officer that takes his ideas and turns them into physical tangible sellable things yep and then of course he had an admin someone to clear out the bottleneck in his life sure yeah and he showed up with them and we literally over four-hour time span gave everybody their roles and responsibilities, their marching orders. And then he said, hey, man, thank you. How can I help you? What else can I do for you?

And, you know, we took some pictures and off he went. But the biggest lesson there is he puts his pride and ego aside. And he said, tell me what I need to do, fellas. He did it within a matter of weeks, shows up with a team, gets the marching orders. Again, putting the ego aside, right? I mean, it is kind of weird sitting here

telling a Super Bowl champion what to do in business, but that's, we've done this before. And that's how you time compress results, is you get speed of implementation, but you also get the marching orders, go do the work. Get the marching orders, go do the work. And when, you know, you don't sit around and wait, okay, well, I've done my marching orders, I'm just going to wait until the next mastermind. No, you come back and get more marching orders.

Right. Yeah, that's exactly right. He texted me actually just yesterday telling me that, because he was in the middle of a launch when he brought his team out here. Wow. So he's launching his newest program, which was a 30-day metabolic reset. That's a killer program that he has. And we gave him one idea to take that 30-day metabolic reset and to make it a continuity program.

Okay. Where when you get on that program, you're now part of a continuity program. So we take a one-off sale and turned it into a continuity program for him that's going to result in helping more people with greater issues, right? Because after your 30 days, if you're left on your own, you're going to go back to your old habits. Sure. So I said, Steve, you've got a duty and an obligation to help these people pass. 30 days, the only way you're going to be able to do that is to make it a continuity program where they're paying you for additional services program support.

Yeah. And they need to know that they're plugged into you and your team. So it's a win-win for the client and for you financially and with what your mission is, which he wants to help literally millions of people with their fitness goals. Because you can't really build an empire on a one-time sale. It has to be continuity recurring revenue into it, right? Exactly right. And so again, taking an athlete who's never even heard of continuity, understands the idea of continuity,

explaining it to him that imagine waking up the first of next month and knowing that you've got 50, 60, $100,000 scheduled to come in this month because people are signed up for a membership-style payment pattern. Wow, that was huge for him. And he's right now implementing it and texted me saying, hey, man, it's all in place. And I've got my first few hundred people on board already. All right. So everybody watching this is saying, great, he can do it. Pro athlete, lots of money. I can't do that. Come on. Come on, guys. Talk about somebody that I can relate to. So tell us why. That's not a valid excuse. That's really not a valid excuse because I will tell you about someone who you can relate to.

A kid that was raised on a farm who wore, you know, torn up, torn up jeans, just sat next to his father on a tractor, never really shared a conversation with his father on that tractor, had an addiction to sugar, to alcohol, right? We're talking about you. And then there's a kid who comes from a foreign country who doesn't speak English, doesn't understand the culture. doesn't even know anybody. Grows up, fat, low self-esteem, poor confidence, laughed at, called names, told, yelled that, go back to your own country. And so if you and I can do it, and you certainly aren't a pro athlete, and I certainly am not a pro athlete, right?

And we didn't grow up with the best circumstances in our favor. We didn't, right? The answer is, when you look at what you and I, Steve Weatherford, and all successful people have in common is resiliency yeah but here's another one like shana kaminski you know teacher uh you know broken relationship you know busy mom yeah all these reasons not to you don't we're a little shy but i mean she's been coaching with us since 2009 almost a decade now every year massive growth personal professional she is just the mama bear now just takes care of everyone is you know paying it forward everything and you know she has a million excuses everybody has a million

excuses. Oh, I got kids. I got no time. I'm a little bit in debt. You know, hear that, this, that, and the other thing. Nobody really has an excuse, right? Nobody has an excuse. See, we can come up with a million excuses or one compelling reason why. And when you come up with one compelling reason why, that trumps the million excuses. The problem is, and Seth Godin really talked about this in an email, and I think it's worth bringing it up here. He talks about work that produces dopamine, work that produces serotonin. Both of these hormones, both of these chemicals in your body are feel good hormones. When you're speaking from stage, Craig, and you're talking, teaching the audience on how to structure their life, create their vision,

have their perfect life. Man, and they stand up and they give you a standing ovation. That is a dopamine spike you're getting. Like you feel good, you feel like you may change right then and there. Hours later that dopamine goes away. That is the equivalent of that same dopamine spike happens when we post a picture up on Facebook, social media, Instagram, whatever. You get the likes, you get the comments, you get the shares, and you feel good momentarily, or for a few hours, and the dopamine high goes away. Serotonin is when you wrote the book, Perfect Day formula, right? When you created the perfect life retreat, when you're creating the perfect life mastermind, where you're going to have greater impact over a longer period of time through a large audience.

Impact and legacy creates serotonin, the feel-good hormone that lasts and lasts and last like the energizer bunny. Oh, it's amazing. I never heard that before. And obviously, Fit Body Book is a great example of that as well. So rounding back up with Steve, he has had all of those characteristics that we talked about before. What about in terms of vision and planning? Is he just jumping from one thing to the next or is he really looking ahead as you build the empire for him? And how important is that for everybody listening to say, you know, I've got a great idea right now, I've got some traction, but what do they need in terms of that vision to move forward? You know what? There has plenty of room for vision and planning, but sometimes when you're just

on a hot streak, you have to just keep deploying the next thing. And I'll give you a great example. We said, hey, Steve, don't roll out supplements yet. Supplements on a continuity basis are a bit of a pain in the butt. There's a lot of things that can go wrong. He goes, guys, I'm on a roll. You guys gave me all the marching orders. I've been on fire. I'm making all these videos. I'm adding so much value to my community. I'm going to roll out the supplements anyway. And he rolled out the supplements, and sure as shit, he knocked it out of the park. Awesome. So it's a great example of sometimes you have to just say to hell with the planning my gut says this and there's so much value about building your entrepreneurial gut you get enough marching orders from the right

coaches soon enough you start thinking like them and at the end of the day you have a better pulse and beat on your business than anyone else yeah so steve's like you know what enough people are asking me about the supplements that i take because he did a great job peppering those supplements instance, his social media videos and posts, there was a demand for it. He created the demand, and he launched it and he sold it. On the flip side, 90% of the time, if you don't plan, and if you don't have a clear vision of what you want that plan to look, you're headed for disaster. You might be successful in a one-off promotion or in a one-off sale product launch and generate half a million, two, three million. Seventy percent of it goes to affiliates. By the time you pay your taxes,

You're really stuck with 40, 50, 100,000, but you don't have an empire there. You don't have an ongoing business with legs. I like one thing that you said there. You talked about how he was looking at some other people, doing some other stuff, and he was surrounding himself with all these other models. And so, you know, that's one of the really important things about getting the seminars, getting in mastermind groups, getting coaches, and seeing what else is out there. Otherwise, you just live in this little bubble, and you can't build an empire in a bubble, right?

That's exactly right. And again, when we go back to Steve, here's a guy who says, I don't want to be defined as, you know, Steve Weatherford, Super Bowl champion. Right. Like, that was just a phase in my life. And let's go back to our audience listening and watching this. You don't have to be defined by who you were. You're not the kid who sat on the tractor without a voice.

I'm not the kid who came from a foreign country and was laughed at and went to many different schools and never felt like I fit in. And so oftentimes we kind of take on who we were and we just carry that baggage with us, like a fucking anchor. There's no reason to carry that with us. And so Steve said, look, it was great being a Super Bowl champion. I'm letting that go. I'm going to be known for something new.

Yeah. Biger and better. Biger and better. Massive, bigger following. That's what you need to do. Yeah. So first step for everybody listening to think big, like an empire builder, action taker, speed of implementation, all these things.

What is the first step that they can do today to move ahead that really, really matters and will move the needle in their life? Well, if someone's got a business or a good business idea, the very first thing you can do, is to find yourself a mentor. If someone like Steve could do that, right, who has a lot of pride and ego, but he just can easily put it aside and go, you know what, I'm an empty vessel. Show me what to do, right?

He reached out to his friends and they connected him with us and show me what to do. Because when you find a mentor, you're really taking their lessons in life, both success and failure, and you're going, oh, show me all the things to avoid, right?

Show me all the things to do, to move faster in life, going back to time collapsing. And when you can time collapse, You're no longer losing money. You're no longer being frustrated. You're no longer stressing out. Instead, it seems like win after win after when.

And that's because the mentor is guiding you through a process. So the biggest thing you can do, obviously, in the search of a mentor is, one, do they walk to walk or do they just profess but don't practice? If they walk to walk, great. The next thing I always do is the Ronald Reagan method. Trust but verify. Got it. All right. You say you walk to walk, and it looks like you're saying.

successful. Can I talk to two or three your coaching clients who are in a similar situation as me? You want to make sure that the person actually can coach. You and I have seen plenty of people who are successful at what they do. They get frustrated when they try and explain it to someone else. They thought they can be good coaches. They had every great intention. There was no bad intention there. They had every great intention. The problem is when they decided to become a coach, they don't like, they intuitively, instinctively are good at what they do, but they don't know how to teach step by step. Right. You can be a great player and All-Star, but it doesn't mean you're going to be a great coach. Yes, exactly right. And so make sure that that mentor actually has successful coaching

clients in a similar space as yours. And if that's the case, commit financially, commit ethically and wholeheartedly, wholeheartedly in every way possible and go focused on that one outcome. Awesome. Awesome. That's what I did when I had my anxiety attacks. I hired my first coach and I remember sitting there thinking, oh, I might have a heart attack in the middle of this call, but I still showed up for every call, and I got exponential results. And that's how it built my empire.

That's how Steve's building his. That's how you built yours, and that's how you'll build yours. Thanks for listening to the Empire Podcast Show. Remember to subscribe on iTunes, share it with your friends, and give us a rating. We'd really appreciate that. And make sure to go to Empire Podcast Show.com

to watch the videos as they come out.