Blaze Your Own Trail - Episode 20: From Broke High School Drop Out to Brand Domination With AJ Adams

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

In this episode AJ and I discuss: His upbringing in Guam How he got into Motivational Speaking How failure has fueled him What he does today Connect with AJ: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/imajadams/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/imajadams/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/imajadams/ For behind the scenes content and more, make sure to follow us on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/jordanjmendoza/ Thanks for listening! Installing strategic sales systems & processes will stop the constant revenue rollercoaster you might be facing which is attainable through our 6 Week Blazing Business Revenue Coaching ProgramBook a discovery call with Jordan now to learn more! Are you an entrepreneur?Join my FREE Group Coaching Community where we have live calls, Q&A and more! Our Trailblazer Ecosystem also enables you to network with other entrepreneurs and creator hub eliminates multiple subscriptions and logins creating a one stop shop to take action!Use code: FOUNDING100 for 12 months access FREE and Founding pricing for life! (While Supplies Last)Join now! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. I hope you all are well in spite of everything's still happening with COVID-19. Hopefully you're safe and feeling good. This is a great episode with AJ Adams. He's got such an incredible story. This is somebody that has fallen a lot, but the most important thing that he's always done is he's gotten back up. So I hope you enjoy this episode. And I can't wait to chat with you after. Welcome everybody to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast. I'm your. your host, Jordan Mendoza. And today I've got a very special guest. His name is A.J. Adams. And we'll actually kick it off and just have him give us a little bit of info about himself. Yeah, man, definitely. I appreciate you having me on the show. So a little bit about me.

I am in the space of building brands, building brands that attract. And what I do is I help clients build a high-ticket brand, I take a personal brand so that they can attract high-ticket clients. And I help them do that in 45 days or less. And I started actually as a youth pastor. And I wanted to reach kids who were outside of that church context. And that's what got me to motivational speaking. And it was actually kind of pretty random. My wife was, she's a former Division I basketball player,

Division one college basketball player. And she was coaching a freshman girls team at a local high school. And the coach just randomly came up to me and asked, hey, have you ever done motivational speaking? And I feel stupid even saying this. But at the time, I had no idea what that was. Like, they never came to my school, probably because I was homeschool. So I never heard of motivational speaking.

But when I started researching Les Brown, and I found Les Brown, I found Tony Robbins, I found Ziglar, I found the Greats, and I realized, man, these guys get paid to get on stage and to just talk. They get paid thousands of dollars. That's what I need to do. I didn't know this existed. Nobody told me. So I obsessively studied that.

I dove in and immersed myself in that world of motivational, speakers and eventually coaches. And I started building my personal brand. The challenge for me, though, was that I'm not a celebrity. I wasn't to have a crazy story, not a pro athlete, just an ordinary guy who grew up on a tiny island, you know, dropped out of high school, jumped out of college three times, nothing crazy or real compelling. So I had to figure out how do I structure my story?

How do I create my brand story to be compelling so that people will see my value and it'll get me the attention. to be paid to be on stage. And as I studied that, I eventually got really good at it to the point where I was getting paid more for a 45, you know, 20 to 45 minute talk than I was getting paid in a whole month of my day job. And that's when the year shifted. I started going all in on creating social media content. I was creating YouTube videos every, every other day. I was posting content on Instagram and Facebook.

Other speakers and coaches, entrepreneurs started to take notice of how my brand was elevating. the quality of my content. And they started asking me, who's your social media, social media manager? Who's helping you? And I said it to me. That opened up the opportunity to coach other speakers and consultant, other coaches. And I went straight to high ticket coaching because I didn't know that, you know, doing $100 for $500 a month was a thing.

So I went to like someone asked me to coach them. I said, sure, I'll coach you. It would be five grand. All right. Great. So that's how I moved into that space. And that evolved into launching agency through my personal brand. through my personal brand landed a partnership with a guy gentleman named Bert Oman,

the $6 billion man. He's built fashion brands for people like Jennifer Lopez, work with Tommy Hillfiger. He's currently partnered with Damon John. And that led to working with celebrity clients, nine-figure brands. And I've just continued to evolve it from there. Shared the stage with Les Brown. One of my idols as a young speaker, Kevin Harrington, I've spoken to his event, been on his podcast. But personal branding has just opened up a huge world of opportunity.

And now I'm in the space where I help entrepreneurs, like I said, build their high ticket personal brand to land high ticket clients. That's awesome. And what a great intro. So where you are now, you had to go through the trenches to get there, right? And so for the audience, can you share a little bit about your journey, a little bit about, you know, the ups and the downs and the things that you went through? Because you're experiencing a lot of success right now.

And congrats and kudos to that. But the one thing I'm always interested in is what did you have to go through to get there? Right. So let's rewind a little bit. Let's go back. And, you know, so what kind of kid were you growing up? You grew up on an island. So where'd you grew up?

What kind of kid were you? And then we'll kind of fast forward a little bit and take us on this journey because I think that's going to add a lot of value to the folks that are listening. Oh, definitely. So, man, I just posted about this two days ago. I did a 20-year review. So I just, year by year, I posted some of the craziness that I went through. And eventually, I'm going to write a book where I talk about this. And I probably interview, you know, top entrepreneurs.

But I had to crawl through the shit and walk through the fire, which I like to say it. And, man, I grew up on time I'm Guam, which most people who do know it, It's because they somehow are connected to the military because there's a major naval base there and a military base. And it's a tiny island. I mean, it's shaped like a boot. It's 18 miles wide. It's 31 miles long. It's 160,000, 170,000 people.

So it gives you an idea of how small it is. You know, when I was working a day job, I would drive 31 miles each way to work. That's the length of the island. So I grew up not seeing big opportunity. I always had a big vision, though, to do something when I was saying. kid, I taught myself to play the guitar at 12. I was writing songs as a depressed teenager. There's a lot of dark emo songs about breakups and depression. I wanted to be on stages. I wanted to be a recording artist. They wanted to be a rapper. They wanted to be an actor. I always wanted to do something where I had

a platform to positively influence people. And then from there, you know, the, I've gone through bankruptcy. I've dropped out of three colleges. I dropped out of high school in my freshman year at 17. got a GED. And, you know, it's just been, there were, I had nothing handed to me. I had some great mentors. I had some great opportunities. But I've had to build who I am now. It's been struggled the whole way through.

But I don't resent that. I'm thankful for it because every struggle is the struggle I overcame. It made me smarter, maybe stronger, made me better. And that's why I'm able to do what I'm doing now. That's awesome. It's been an intense journey. And I'll sell you the link. I'll tag you in it.

For folks who want to see like a full 20-year review, they can see the entrepreneurial journey. You know, first year, fell on my face. Second year, I went bankrupt. I shut my business down multiple times. I ran out of money multiple times. I had an employee who just up and left one day and, you know, stole a company laptop, you know, $2,000 MacBook cost us $10,000 in just hassle.

I've been, yeah, I had business partners jump ship and try to sue me for things. It's, it's been a lot of ups and downs, but that's, that's the journey. You, you learn from those mistakes. Every one of those was the result of the mistake I made, either in not vetting the person, not knowing how to negotiate properly. At one point, I almost gave up 51% of my company. And it wouldn't exist now had I done that. So, man, you've got a, if you're blazing the trail, understand you got to hack for the weeds.

You got to step on some rocks. Might get bitten by a snake. You might get trying to provide an elephant. I don't know where your brother's in the trail at, but it can get treacherous. That's it. Yeah. And, you know, what an amazing journey that you've been on, right? And, you know, I'm a firm believer that we're a sum total of all our failures, not our successes, right?

Yeah. As long as we learn from them, right? As long as we learn from those failures, that's what we're a sum total of. And so tell me a little bit about today. Let's get back to today. So you went through all these trials, these tribulations. And today I know I can just kind of get a feeling in a sense of the type of person you are. So I know that you probably are looking at it like you're still learning every single day.

You're learning new things. So what was the first paid client that you got? And can you remember like where you were when it happened, you know, what your thought process was that this person just said yes? You know, because like you said, you know, you weren't, you didn't want to be the $100, $500 guy. You wanted to raise the bar and price us at $5 grand right off the bat. So who was that first client? You know, have the name of if you don't want to, but do you just remember what that feeling was like?

And was there some type of kind of adrenaline rush that propelled the momentum forward? Yeah, man, it was actually, it was nuts. You know, you're the first person who's asked that question. And so, good news to you. That's a great question. And so I started my, I had clients like for speaking, which is a bit different. It's still high ticket, but not the same as when you have your own high ticket coaching your consulting clients.

It's a little different. They're not bringing you in as like an entertainer performer. They're putting a much higher level of trust in you to teach them how to get whatever results it is that you promise you can help them get. So what I did was I started with my agency and originally I was doing just coaching and consulting before doing the, like digital marketing. actual creative work, I started posting more content specific to that idea on Instagram. And I spent maybe $6 for Link Tree.

So people could find me and I was just testing it. Didn't really do much. But what happened was just people randomly following me started clicking the link and booking calls with me. So I had two specific people. And in a 45-day period, this is why I teach people to get their high-ticket client and first high-ticket client in 45 days or less because that's exactly what I did posting on Instagram high-value content of social media replying to every comment DMing people just giving value building relationship equity which is what I call it I booked three calls the first client I landed

there was two of them in the span of a couple days booked a call I had no idea how to do a sales call I had a sales background but this was very different I asked them what is it that you need what are your challenges, when you're looking to accomplish. Okay, here's how I can help you. And I really sold it well, apparently. And the first one was a six-month consulting deal for $1,500 a month. And then the next one was about $1, $1, $1,000,000 a month consulting also. And then that same week, I landed a coaching client for $5,000.

So my thought when it happened, I got off the phone, and my wife was listening to the call. And I looked at it and I said, holy crap. that was so easy. It blew me away how easy it was to close someone on a high ticket deal on the first call. So I had to go back and look at how did I do that? Why was it so easy? And it was easy because I had given so much value for, you know, some of them followed me for months, some of them was a year or years.

I had cultivated that relationship. They had been fully convinced of my value through my personal brand and my content that when I finally got them on the phone, it was simply a situation where I have to just show them what specifically I can do, how I can help them. They were already convinced that I could. So, I mean, that's why I love the space of doing high ticket sales and high ticket coaching and consulting because when you do that, you attract clients who are more convinced

and more committed. They put in the work to get better results. The only time I've had a client, you know, coaching and consulting client fire me is when I was helping them get results to the point where they were actually bogged down in their business. And they had the back from coaching in order to focus on increasing their team, getting to equipment. It was just, it was too much. That's, and that's probably the best way you could get fired. Right. Like, you actually don't feel bad about it because, you know, like they're thriving and you help them get there. So,

that's awesome. And I love, I love what you said, you know, you literally created content, contextual content at scale, right? Yeah. That essentially built your brand equity with strangers, right? Maybe they didn't even engage. Like I see this all the time. Like I'll have people reach out to me on social. Never, never liked, never commented, never nothing.

And they're like, hey, what do you do? I'd love to work with you. And it's like, where did you come from? Yeah, yeah. Right? And so that's what I tell people too is, you know, it's about, you can create content all day long. if you're not engaging with the audience, you're literally leaving money and dollars and

impact and relationships on the table. Exactly. And like you said, some of them never engaged with you. So not only do you need to engage because you engage with those specific people who will become your future clients, but because other future clients who never engage with you for whatever reason, they're seeing you engage. So some are having the experience of man, he replied back to me. others are having the experience of, wow, I see her replying to everybody else.

And I've even gotten comments and messages for people saying, I never see anybody reply to every single comment, and specifically on Instagram. And, you know, it still works today. The algorithms change. The platforms change. The terms of service change. Facebook keeps changing things up on their platform and Instagram. But if you are committed to strategically adding value and building relationship equity,

you put yourself in a position where no matter what the algorithm, rhythm or the platform, building relationships is building relationships. That never changes. Since the dawn of man, it's been meet someone, give exchange value. That's a relationship. And then you, you disproportionately exchange value. That's been since cavemen were trading stones and rocks for, I don't know, for historic for their, like, dinosaurs. I don't know. That's how it's been. And even yesterday, I had people, I get friend requests. So here's a strategy for your listeners. You get friend requests, reach out to them and say, what made you decide to reach out.

Thanks for reaching out. What about me? Did you see value in? From that, I had multiple conversations yesterday. And yesterday, I booked three sales calls. Two of them are today. And then I got one tomorrow. Just from the DMs.

These are people who just followed me. Just because they see value that I'm putting out. That's it. Yeah. And when you, when people connect and you do nothing, like there's a thousand percent chance that nothing's going to happen. You know, like, I have this all the time with the clients of mine.

It's like, they're like, hey, I don't know what's happening, but nobody's engaging with our content. I was like, well, did you, what content did you post and did you ask a contextual question that would actually elicit a response? Right? Because a lot of people, a lot of people just try to post stuff, but they're not asking a question. Well, if you don't ask a question, nobody's going to think that even answer. Yeah. It's about asking questions that elicit a response so that they actually want to engage in your content. And that's the thing.

They want to. That's it. Your perfect clients are already looking for you. Even if they don't know you, they're looking for you because they have a specific pain. They have a specific problem that they would like to solve so that they can live a specific passion. And there's a specific pain they feel when that problem prevents them from living their

passion. So if you and your content speak to their passion, their problem, and their pain by asking open-ended questions. And this is where so many people struggle with sales. They don't ask open-ended questions. meaning it opens up a conversation. Don't say, hey, do you struggle with this? Say, what is your struggle with this?

And then that opens up a conversation and then you can give value from there. That's exactly it, yeah. And so what are your thoughts on, you know, the transformation of LinkedIn? I know that's actually where we originally connected. I don't remember if you sent me requests, I sent you one or you mess it's back and forth,

but that's where we connected. And, tell me your thoughts. on what you've kind of seen on that platform and its growth and its algorithm changes and everything. Yeah, LinkedIn is, is blowing up right now. There's so much talk about it. You know something is blowing up when you start to see Facebook ads about it. And I'm seeing more and more Facebook ads, more and more groups on LinkedIn over the last

couple of years. This past maybe 12 to 18 months especially. And I was not active on LinkedIn, honestly, until about four or five months ago. and I was really active about 90 days ago because I've been watching the platform, but I did jump on because I really focused on Facebook and Instagram. And one of the things that helped me back was I really need to just observe, consume content, figure out how does the relationship building work here? What's the language, the contextual language of this platform and the type of content?

And I wanted to find a tool that I could use that would help me reach people at scale. If you can do something at scale, it's always better. So you and I connected because there's some, there's a software that I use that find, I can find the right people and I tell it, go reach out to these people. But when I do it, and here's the key, you can use automation. Facebook ads is automation. Instagram ads is automation. Boosting your post is automation.

LinkedIn is a different platform where most of the automation, it violates returns of service, so they shut it down. But there are some that really do work well. My buddy of mine started, he launched a software company, and I'm using his software and phenomenal because it's completely compliant, but more importantly, it's based on giving value of the relationship. So, I mean, you can tell me you've probably been a LinkedIn longer than me. What would you say on average is the acceptance rate when you or when someone else is

reaching out to people? You're inviting to connect. Probably like 85%. Something like that. Okay. So you're killing it. So you don't qualify because you're at a whole other level. For most people, it's going to be really.

low. You know, it might be 10, 20 percent, you know, 10 out of 20 of every 100 people. These are people that I don't even know that I'm reaching out to. And because I leave with value, I get 43% of people accepting my connection request. And then I can add more value. And this is not, I met them in an event and I send a connection request. This is, they have no idea who the hell I am. They've never heard of me. And they're accepting it. But I leave with value. And it's the same thing I did on Facebook and Instagram and I just waited until I knew I had the right tools to use and right positioning so that I can add the most value. Because if I'm not adding value, what am I doing?

And again, because of that, in 30 days, I booked myself on 12 different podcasts because that was one of my goals. I've booked sales calls. I've just expanded my network with some great people. I've gotten guests on my podcast, people I wasn't connected to. People who I never thought would connect. like just because of my positioning, major influencers accepting my connection request

and, you know, opening up an opportunity. I got David Meltzer on my show because of that, you know, reaching out and having the right positioning. So it's LinkedIn is a platform that's involving, but it's one of the best to be on right now. Next to that, I would say TikTok, which a lot of people would disagree with because you don't understand how it works.

You haven't been paying attention to what the evolution of social media looks like. that's it yeah and so i have kind of a similar lincoln story to most people i've had had the account for years and originally when you when most people got it it was basically an online resume it was like where you go when you change the job or going on there to congratulate someone else on their work anniversary and things like that it was super boring and so i logged in in april of last year and i was like all right hang on a second what happened to lincoln linkton linkedin is changed There's video.

There's people posting content at scale. And so I did exactly what you said. I just started observing. I started consuming. I started to see like with some of the people that had the bigger followers were doing. And then I started noticing some things that they weren't doing that if I actually activated myself and did these things the things they were and also things that they weren't, I figure I was like, you know what? I think that I think that I can be on to something here because I wasn't creating content. Like I've been doing sales and marketing 25 years, started doing door to door sales.

And I said, you know what? Like, why can't this be me? Like, I have expertise in sales. I have expertise in emotional intelligence and these things. So I literally just started creating content at scale. And before you knew it from April to December, I had amassed like 20,000 followers. And this morning, I literally logged in and I was just crossed 30,000. I was like, what in the?

I mean, like you said, it's, it's hot right now. And if you do the things that we've talked about and create content at scale, you're engaged with your audience, you add value and don't try to sell people crap. Right? Like, you do those things and you can experience exponential growth. And for those that are listening, if you don't have a LinkedIn account right now, like go get one. because even if you've never posted, the organic reach on LinkedIn is so insane, right, AJ, that like even if you have one follower,

you could post a video and it could get thousands of views tomorrow. Yeah, I mean, and if you're focused on, you know, giving value, first of all, I mean, April last year, it's not even been a year and you've blown up 30,000 followers. That's nuts. That's encouraging for me because I'm like, okay, I got to step it up because, I mean, it is. It's one of those platforms that, you know,

if you could have gotten in early in the days of Facebook, and Instagram, you would blow up. That's why I mentioned TikTok, because TikTok is where it is right now is where Facebook and Instagram were in the early days. Where LinkedIn is right now is where Facebook and Instagram were in the early days. And that's why all these influencers are blown up

because they got there early. And if you're first to market or just early to market, you don't have to be first, be early to market, and you plant your flag, you start deploying value consistently. Over time, you're going to blow up. And you're proof of that. This hasn't even been a year. You know how long it takes to get 30,000 followers of Instagram without going viral or, you know, being that selfie kid with Justin Timberlick on the Super Bowl?

You know, it's not, it's difficult. You're not going to do that on Facebook. You're not going to do that on Instagram. But TikTok, LinkedIn, you can do that. And LinkedIn is great because if you want to, if you're B2B or you want to serve high level clients, they're on that platform and they're active. And it's changed. You got to change up your content. You got to pay attention to what's happening and really start.

to give value position yourself. And, you know, like you said before, it used to be just a resume. That's a big mistake people make on LinkedIn. Their profile looks like a resume. Think of your profile as a sales page. What are you trying to sell them on? Not what are you trying to sell them on?

The idea of you being an expert, you're positioning, the value you have to offer. Not a product or service. Sell them on. I'm a value to you. If you scroll down, you'll get value. So I sell them on that. That's exactly it.

And so what are your thoughts on, you know, the algorithm changes on Facebook and Instagram? Because you've mentioned that earlier, that the algorithms have definitely changed. So what would you say to people that, you know, maybe they're new to it, right? They've never used it to try to add value to generate business. So where would you tell people to start? Facebook and Instagram, the algorithm has changed and I don't get real deep into the algorithm changes because I just focus on building relationship. So regardless of how it changes, I'm going to build a relationship and see where the attention is and where people are connecting.

But the algorithm has changed. It was sometime last year, it switched to really focus on friends and family to where the content you're seeing is based on people you actually know, not pages. I mean, the organic reach of pages on Facebook now is basically no. It's like, it's like that. They want you to pay to play. It's a, it's a market place platform. want you to pay to advertise. It makes sense for their business model. So what I've started doing, a lot of entrepreneurs who are successful are doing,

is using their personal page and deploying value. Now, Facebook has been cracking down on people using their personal page as a business page, meaning they're making calls to action. They're selling. So the smart thing to do is just deploy value, build relationships, because that's what,

you know, if you think of it in the context of friends and family, that's what it is. and then take it off the platform, take it into the DMs, have the calls action there, have the, you know, have the conversation outside of that so that you stay compliant because you don't want to get your account to get shut down. But it's all about looking at where is the attention and where can you build real relationships. Facebook prioritizes friends and family.

So use a personal page and get better at building relationships. If all you want to do is run ads and make sales, then use a business page and put money into running ads. but if you're not in that place where you have the capital, you've got to get good at building relationships authentically messaging people and knowing how to slide in the DMs in a way that says, hey, I'm here to give you value, not, hey, I'm here to get something from you. That's just sleazy and is gross.

And I get that all the time. And I put these jokers in their place. And I tend to give them a lot of advice and help them. So I turn them into followers and sometimes clients. But that's what's happening. And it's the same on Instagram. That's awesome. So you grew up in Guam.

So funny little one-off here. I don't know if you're familiar with Palau. Oh, yeah, man. My stepdad's from Coro Palau. And he told me about this lake that has jellyfish. Yep. That don't actually call jellyfish lake, I guess. They don't stingy or anything.

The famous diving spot. Yeah, famous diving spot. So it's a place that I've always wanted to go and visit. I mean, just seeing the pictures and stuff like that of it, it just looks so, so beautiful. Plow and Guam both look. Yeah, man, it's a, it's a whole different thing. You go to Guam, you go to Palau, you know, hour and a half flight, hop over to Yap. People still live off the land.

I mean, you'll go there and you'll think you went back to like the, you know, two centuries ago because they, they build everything. It's still very third world. Women are, you know, topos with grass skirts. The guys are wearing, like, the loincloths. I mean, it's crazy. There's still, you know, 200 years. back, but then I have a TV, but, you know, the water, you can be 40 feet on the water, and it's crystal clear straight down. It's like you're floating on glass. You can see all the

fish, the reef, it's nuts. It's something to see. That's awesome. So how often do you get a chance to go back? Man, I haven't been back since. Say, I grew up there. I was there from 92, originally from San Diego, but I grew up there from 92 until like 2001. I went back and I did an internship in Australia and then I hopped back over there for three years. 2007 was the last time I was there. So it's been 13 years. Okay. Sounds like a trip.

You need to plan a trip soon, right? Yeah. Yeah. We budgeted it out and we, I mean, it's a it's about 22 or 24 hours of travel time. You got to go from, I mean, Phoenix to L.A., L.A. to Hawaii, straight to Guam. And that's like a nine-hour flight. And it's about 20, 30 grand to take the whole family. So we'll make that trip eventually.

But I want to make it a good one. I want to take the kids, show him where I grew up, you know, be able to go out and get out in the ocean. My wife, she's a Midwestern white girl from Minnesota. So she's never been to, she's never been to an island. So it'll be a culture shock for her. So I want to make sure she gets a full experience. Yeah.

And I'm in the same boat as you because my dad's in the Philippines. And my wife is in Georgia. born and raised born and raised in georgia oh yeah our kids have never been out there to see that that part of the culture and the ancestry and it's in certain parts it sounds very very similar to guam in the sense that there's still natives and you know you're pumping your own water and there you know yeah literally like the last time i was there i remember it was it was in 03 and it was like the 90s you know like people are you know they're still wearing the bugs money like Remember those Bugs Bunny T-shirts?

It was like the gangster Bugs Bunny and stuff. They're still wearing those things. And I was like, man, brought it back. Yeah, right? I was like, man, that's from back in the day. So it's definitely interesting when you get go-to places that are third world countries because it really puts things into perspective for you, right? Because all these things that we take advantage of here in the States.

And, you know, we just don't realize how hard it is in some places. Yeah, man. And having that experience is one of the things that honestly has helped me get through just the struggles of entrepreneurship. Because I've sat at the table with, you know, multi-millionaires running, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars in their company and have to have done billions of dollars in sales. I've also sat in the dirt and eaten spam from a can and a terror route that was just, that just came out of the dirt with a bunch of islanders who, you know, they, they live off the land. So those experiences have helped me, kind of keep perspective and stay grounded, chase the big dream. You know, I want to have the private jet. I want to be a billionaire, but I want to do it to make world impact because there's a lot of people who are struggling. And if I'm in a position where I have resources, I can do more. Because right now, I can give my time.

Yeah, a lot of people say, well, I don't need to get rich. I can just give my time. Yeah, but you only have so much time. If I can take, spend my time creating resources that empower a million people to give their time, I've made a much more massive impact. I'd rather do that. and to give my time as well. That's exactly it.

And the one thing that I will never forget going to the Philippines is like they don't really have a whole lot. But everybody's super happy, man. Like everybody is just loving life. And like that resonated with me so much. And, you know, we have so much in this country and people are miserable. You know, and so that's really kind of stuck with me. It's like, you know, happiness is a choice. Like we have a choice in how we show up and whether we're going to have a good or a bad attitude, you know.

And when you get to see people that are living in poverty, but they still have a big smile in their face, man, that does so much for your mindset and your thought process. Yeah, it absolutely does. I mean, it helps you really keep things in perspective. One second. Yeah, it definitely helps keep things in perspective. and, man, it's, you know, I have a, you know, one thing when I was, I went to the Philippines a couple times. And an interesting story, I actually got stranded there for 26 hours in the airport. Because I ran out of money.

I was on a trip for a training. And somehow I missed my flight. I was a day late on everything. I got to the hotel a day late. I didn't know because they upgraded me to a presidential suite. Like the people to the Philippines, man, they're generous. Like, they upgraded me to a presidential suite. I'm like, man, I'm living the life.

Then I get to the airport the next day and realize, oh, that's why they didn't have my reservation because I was a day late and then I ended up getting stuck in the airport. Thankfully, my uncle, my dad's brother, whose wife is Filipino, had relatives. A few phone calls later, they found me and I spent the night of the police station and then somehow got home. But that's my story in the Philippines. Yeah, and it's definitely an interesting place. I mean, especially if you leave Metro Manila, it just gets rule really, really fast. You go from tons of cars and tons of traffic to chickens and goats kind of crossing the street and people playing chicken with their vehicles like driving head on to each other.

That's like Guam, man. It's the same thing. You got one end of the island that's kind of upscale, I guess. And then you have people who are still living in the, you know, we have the tin roofs. I mean, I know they have them in the Philippines. You have the tin roof. You got the plywood walls. You know, your pummel water.

But somehow a lot of those people still have like a nice car. It's crazy. Yeah, right? Or nice sneakers. Some of them have nice sneakers, you know. But I think one interesting with me, do you play sports at all? I've always been a martial artist. Like, I play basketball, but martial arts was my go-to.

So if I'm not punching somebody in the face, then I'm not having as much fun. So basketball is huge in the Philippines. You know they have the PBA, the Philippine Basketball Association. Yeah. And I remember going and playing, and I remember going on the basketball court, and half of the court, they were drying rice. and if you've ever, if you've been around rice, it gets super itchy, right? Like, so we're playing with just shorts and no shirts on.

I'm like, why is my body so itchy? And then I look around and I'm like, why is everybody wearing flip flops? Like, are you really going to play in these? And they're like, yeah, we're going to, like, they're playing in flip flops. Like that's, that's Iowa style, man. That's hardcore. Yeah, that's it. Flip flops, barefoot, no shirt.

I mean, whatever you got to do. You don't need basketball shoes to play. Me got guys running down to the court playing full. playing full court basketball running full speed and I'm the only one that has shoes on and these dudes are they're booking it that's it yeah man so again it teaches you a lot of perspective and how we kind of take all those liberties and things that really for granted sometimes so so let me ask you this what has been the biggest lesson that you've learned whether it's you know it's your lowest point or or where you are now with with the success that you've been experienced. Man, it all comes down to, you know, there's a couple of lessons I've learned. I'll share one first that is my mantra, which is build something worth being known for, leave something worth being remembered for.

That's your legacy. Like, go ahead and get known, but make sure that when you're dead and gone, you left something worth being remembered for, whether it's the people who impacted, if it's an empire, do all of that. but a real big one is that a lot of people maybe be surprised by is be ethical, but be ruthless. So there's a principal martial arts at different ranks,

and I earned my black belt rank several years ago, and I'm going into a new style now to start all over again as a white belt, which is interesting. But at different ranks, we would say these different creeds, and the creed was just a reminder of our mindset. And at the advanced rank, black boat ring, what we would say is if he is weak, I will spare him. If I am weak, I'll spare myself.

And it was the idea of being ethical, knowing when to fight. Because I've been taught how to take a life, how to kill someone, different techniques. And we did a very hardcore street style. So it was about looking pretty. It was about, can you take this personality to debilitate them. But you have to know when to do that. So whether it's protecting my family or in business,

I'm kind, I'm gentle, I'm patient, I'm generous, and I'm compassionate and empathetic. But if it comes time where I can fight, I will fight in a way that will terrify that person and I will fight to the degree that I have to. And I've done this with business partners who wanted to be unethical with me and try to take advantage and I have to go hardcore. You know, sometimes it's just sending an email saying, look, if you're going to do this, then here's the repercussions. It's being ruthless in demanding what you're worth or demanding what's right, standing your ground, and be willing to lose everything because you're standing on your principles.

Be ethical in everything you do. I will be generous with you, but if you come at me, you attack my team, you attack my family. The gloves come off and I will hold nothing back. That's it. And that's awesome. And so where is the best place? I know you're all over social. Right. You're on Facebook. You're on Instagram. You're on LinkedIn. It sounds like you've

at least created your TikTok account. You might be creating content at scale there. So what's, where's the best place for the listeners that are out there if they want to get in touch with AJ Adams? You want to get in touch with AJ Adams. My handle is the same on every platform, including TikTok. It's I'm AJ Adams. So imagine with me for the first time, you say, hey, I'm Jordan. and I say, hey, I'm AJ Adams. I, letter I, letter M, AJ Adams on every platform. That is awesome.

Well, man, this has been such a great chat. I really, really appreciate the time. I know your schedule has got to be crazy with all the things that you're doing. So I really appreciate it. And I definitely can't wait to connect with you further and kind of see what you're up to and follow your journey. Hey, man, I appreciate it.

Likewise, that we're connected. We're connecting on LinkedIn and Facebook. So we'll be staying in touch. Awesome. Appreciate it, man. Wow, what an amazing journey AJ has had. But you can tell the guy is a hard worker and he never gives up. And that's what's really led to all his success today. Make sure you go and follow him on all his social links.

And if you're not subscribed to the podcast yet, please subscribe and tell all your friends about it. This is the way that we'll be able to impact more people across the globe. Thank you so much for listening. and this was actually the last episode of season one, but the good news is season two will actually kick off next week. So I can't wait for you to tune in for season two, and thank you for listening to the Blaze Your Own Trail podcast.