Digital Social Hour - Spin Your Way to Success: The Forbes Riley Story | Digital Social Hour #9

Episode Date: May 3, 2023

Welcome to Digital Social Hour. In this episode, we are joined by Forbes Riley and Joshua Self. With a discussion that ranges from pitching to relationships, there's something for everyone in this episode. Forbes Riley is a pitching coach, and she shares her tips for effectively presenting your ideas and products. Forbes believes that people need to give clear and concise information when presenting their products to sell them effectively. She also talks about her experience transitioning from traditional business to online business and how she built a company that helps people become entrepreneurs. The speakers share personal stories of inspiration and success as the discussion continues. Forbes shares how she met her partner, who is a professional bodybuilder and the story behind the Spin gym. Forbes has sold two and a half million Spin gyms on home shopping for those who have not heard of it. She proceeds to demonstrate how it works. Forbes also teaches a training called Breakthrough, where she helps heal people who've been molested, or hurt. The training has been running for 28 years, and the healing concept is one of the most dramatic things you've ever seen. The speakers talk about relationships, sharing tips and advice on finding the right partner and nurturing a healthy and happy relationship. They emphasize the importance of being specific about your partner preferences and expressing appreciation for each other's little efforts. To wrap it up, the speakers encourage listeners to focus on their dreams and evaluate what they want to be remembered for in life. They also stress the importance of learning from mentors, listening to podcasts, and contributing to those in need to improve one's life. So, what are you waiting for? Listen to the full episode now, and get inspired to make positive changes in your life. Thank you for tuning in to Digital Social Hour. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/digitalsocialhour/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour, everyone. I'm here with my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, and our lovely guest today, Forbes Riley. Hello, everybody. How are you doing today? Amazing. Loving being in Vegas, having a blast here. What brings you to Vegas? Well, let's see. First, I was a guest at a huge event.

I spoke at that. And then I'm going to go to the basketball game as kind of my fun thing. And I just went to Zion with the love of my life. And it was a beautiful time. Have you been? No, I want to, though. You're missing out. I had no idea, one, it's so close, and two, it's so majestic and crazy.

I'm from a little girl from Long Island, kind of in the city. I don't see mountains like that ever. Wow. Charlie, we're going to have to go on a little date, I think. I think that would be perfect. Zion sounds amazing. It's out of this world. He's always wanted to take me to Yosemite or Bryce.

And I was like, you just stand there, and you're in awe of nature. Wow. And so for me, that's a big deal. Amazing. What conference did you speak at? Well, actually a couple of them. I don't want to go into all of that. Okay.

What I'm doing right now though is I teach pitching. Do you know how to pitch something? No. Yes, you do. Yes, you do. Well, kind of. I was that kid in high school that was scared to present. Right.

So I'm a little shy, but I know kind of how to do it. Well, so one of the things that I talk to people about is, number one, you're not shy. You're here. You're very outgoing. And if you keep saying to yourself that you are something, then you become it. Right. And so in the same sentence, you said, no, I'm not shy. I have a podcast. I have a partner. You pitch all the time to get a yes. But what I teach people, because most people are like you, they have a great idea, a great product. And if they can't get it out to the world, what good is it? And so if I asked you,

and I'll ask you, Charlie, what do you do? What do you say? I do NFTs. Okay. Which might to a younger person or an older person go, wait, what does he do? Right. Charlie, if I asked you, what do you do? What would you say? I do my best. All right, so you guys qualify as great students of mine because that's not really helpful. Because the person asking you really wants some information. So you might say, you know, as somebody who's in this type of business, I'm now focused on NFTs and I have a podcast. Oh, that gives me the information I want. So it's not really about what you want. And if you're selling a product or a service, people need clues to be able to say yes.

And then they need the confidence to be able to make it happen. And so I'm also by nature an introvert, unless I'm in this kind of environment where I know what I'm talking about. And I truly had to get over that. And I've helped thousands. For the last two years, I started coaching. I mean, many of you know me as an infomercial host, actress, TV host. I started the X Games. I have a lot of great stories. But in the last two years since COVID hit, my daughter, who was 17 at the time, came to me and said, Mom, can I take your business online? And I said, I'm not really good at the online thing and having to do emails and doing your database.

And she said, I got you covered. You just teach. We put together a training. In three weeks, we launched on day one. I opened up my ClickFunnel account, which is the back end of your business. And there was 25K there. And I said to my daughter, what does the K stand for? I'd only made like $1.98 before. And she's like, Mom, in one night, you just made $25,000.

Wow. I said, really? She said, yeah, let's keep going. In four weeks, a 17-year-old running my company made $100,000. Wow. And pretty much what that means is we were serving that many people. And we were successful at it. People wanted this information.

And so for the last two years, we've built a mammoth company that really just helps everyday people who want to be entrepreneurs, who have been laid off from their job, who are wanting a side hustle, how to do a really important piece of it. And now she's 20, which is cool. You know, she and her twin brother did high school their senior year in my house because of COVID. So many people struggled during that time. And we were bonding as a family and building a company. Wow. And you've always reached the masses. So to me, the internet would seem like a logical next step for you. You've been in front of millions and tens of millions of viewers before. What was the hesitancy to jump into the internet? Okay, here's the deal. I am a great

spokesperson. You give me any product and I will pitch it. And we should play with that because it's an interesting idea. I can do that on television. I had producers and people who bought media and ran the whole behind the scenes. You give me a product, I would create the pitch, we'd film it, and then they give it to them. On the internet, you have to figure out all these programs. You have to figure out who does your graphics, who does your back-end database, who runs all your analytics. And truth be told, I enrolled a couple of young guys, people, to help me, and no one ever did what they said they would do. And before, there was a certain period of time when the internet came out that in order to get your stuff on this internet you had to hire a webmaster well they all had their own agendas and it wasn't always to fulfill your job when a click funnel came out and all of a sudden an average person

could drag and drop and create a page like that i was excited the game changed but then there's so many more steps to it and I think the biggest crime against people right now and entrepreneurs is people saying, oh, it's easy. No, it's simple, but it's not easy. It's time consuming to learn a new program, to understand all the different aspects, to hook them up, make them talk to each other. And I talk to primarily, I mean, we reach a whole range of people, but people like 40, 50 and up, very viable people with a lot of money in their pocket, a lot of ideas, and they need to be generating money, but they're all afraid of the internet. And I think if I hadn't had two 20-year-olds go, mom, look, I was born with a cell phone. Let me

show you how to do this. They changed everything. And changed it for me. And then I changed it, like you said, to the masses. And I'm so proud of what we've done because my daughter has this little theory. I've led a very crazy life. I've had a lot of tragedy in my life. I've overcome that. I love telling those stories. I love being a speaker. But she's seen her mom suffer.

And so she made a – I'm going to start to cry. She said, mom, one of the things I want to do is I want to make the rest of your life the best of your life. I know how to do that. I said I have a lot of years. I'm going to dedicate a period of time to making your dreams come true. And that's what she's done. That's incredible. That's a lot of being able to see the big picture. I mean, to have that foresight as a 20 year old or 17 year old, whatever age she was at the time is amazing. And Sean, internet marketing is something that kind of opened the

door for you for a lot of stuff. And I don't think a lot of, you know, where your life has gone would be possible without the, you know, the invention of the internet and the ability to create those click funnels and create economies for people such as you, Forbes. So it's almost, you know, to use a very ecosystem buzzword here, a bridging of the gap between a previous marketing strategy and now a 2023 marketing strategy. Where do you think you would be without the internet right now? And also same question for you. Well, I mean, it's insane how many people you can reach. So I looked at your Instagram, you have a lot of followers. When you set out to build your world, what was your intention?

I just wanted to influence people outside of the traditional teaching methods because I saw what happened to me when I went to public school and college and I wasn't getting the value that I wanted to. So I wanted to educate more people about other avenues on how to make it, and not necessarily that college is the best way to go. So it's kind of ironic, so I have twins. My son's going to college because his dad

was an all-American Notre Dame football guy. You're going to college! And my daughter has decided, I can't afford to go to college. I have 18 people working for me from the Philippines to Croatia right now. And they both see that. It's funny because it's definitely generational.

My generation, I was the first one to go to college in my family, and that was a really important thing to do. I was so smart in school, to be honest. I graduated with two degrees in three years. Couldn't wait to get out because I didn't see the value of this, and I could figure out that system really fast. I think what's interesting about this next generation that my daughter's part of, you guys do use this word I want to influence. What would that mean in my world to influence?

You have to be an actor. In fact, that's one reason when I wanted to be a politician, I wanted to be a lawyer. I'm sorry. I know. Well, but that's when you graduated my high school, if you were top of the class, you had two choices, doctor, lawyer. Hated blood, lawyer. That's the only thing they gave me.

They were like, excuse me? Right. And so I thought that would be cool because you could affect people. You could change policy. You could change lives. And then, and whatever you think about her, Jane Fonda got famous, said a couple of things, and all of a sudden people really noticed. And I thought, wow, you have to be like an actor for people to notice. You have to be famous for people to take notice. And I literally left college, went off to be an actor and starred my very first movie, which I'm sure you guys have seen called Splatter University. Yeah, no, I didn't see it. I got you on IMDb. So I have not seen the movie, but I know of its existence. I will watch it for you. Thank you. It's a it's a crazy 80s slasher

movie. But I got the lead. And I was so excited by this and it changed my life. And then I went on and did soap operas and commercials and Broadway. And acting was always something important to me. But let me backtrack. I grew up as an ugly, goofy little girl. I had a... I know he's going... I doubt that. Right. Well, that's what's so interesting now. I had a broken nose.

I was eight years old when I got hit in the face and it always just kind of had this weird hook to it. I had a problem with my jaw. So for two years I had this thing on my mouth I couldn't talk. Oh, my. When you're a little girl and you're overweight, frizzy hair, and all of these physical—nobody wanted to be my friend. And so now you look at this little chatty Kathy over here, who I think looks pretty good, and thank you for that. But growing up, I was lonely and awkward, and all I had time to was dream. And I dreamed of a life that looked a lot different from the one I was living.

We lived in a very small house, and then my dad was in the hospital for a couple of years. And you're like, is there more to life than this? Kind of like what you thought about. And that's what I've gone on my entire life to build. Is there more to this? How much fun can you have? And when I was 20 years old and I graduated school, I had some money from this movie, grabbed Arthur Fromer's Europe on $20 a day, and I said to years old and I graduated school, I had some money from this movie, grabbed Arthur from Missouri up on $20 a day.

And I said to my mom and dad, I'm going to go to Europe before I'm too famous and the paparazzi will bother me. And I also said, I want to be able to write a story of my life that when I'm 83 years old, I can tell my grandkids and other kids. And I said, Mom, I've got nothing to write about. So I got to get going. Now, that's an interesting motivation to live outrageous stories, right? And that's what my life has been.

Something very similar that I find for both of you is you enjoy helping others. And it's something that you have expressed as a mantra in yours and all the various interviews and articles that I've read about you. And same with you, Sean. Where does each of y'all's desire to just help others to the fullest extent come from? You go first. Yeah, I feel like I was kind of born with it. Like I just always was that kid giving, you know, my leftover food to my brothers or whatever. And I just feel so, I don't know the word, but I just feel good about myself to just

help others. And I always try to put other people first. See, that's fast. Did that come from your parents or just from you? Probably my parents because they're both immigrants and they both sacrificed a lot for me to get to where I am. So I think I got it from them. See, and I love that. I talk to people a lot about their parents and not only who and what they were, because it doesn't really matter. I've talked to people who have alcoholic parents, abusive parents, and it's not about who they were, but how you feel about that decision that you made about life. So if you saw mom and dad argue about money, you might go on to be an accountant. And so for me, I had a lot of love in the family,

but they were always dreamers who didn't do anything. And I remember thinking, I have to go do this. And to be very clear, I didn't want to help people for a very long time. I was very happy being an actress fulfilling a dream. And then as I got older, my values changed. And I do think having kids made a big difference. And it's sort of like, my values changed. And I do think having kids made a big difference. And it's sort of like, what are you leaving for other people?

And I found so much more value in my personal life being a giver. And, in fact, I should take a moment and introduce my other half here because I know he's patiently waiting. Come here. Come here, other half. I have the coolest partner in the world. And I love sharing my life with him. And I'll share it with you guys. Look, there's a piece.

Man, I was getting lonely over there. I know you were. Pull the mic to you. What? And I met him. Oh, I have my own microphone and a headset here. So I met him in a hotel room in Las Vegas.

Wow, which hotel? I don't remember. You guys were that drunk? It must have been a good first meeting. We were not drunk. He is a professional bodybuilder. See, under those clothes. I can tell.

Can you lift up your... No. He's very fit. And I created this little product called a spin gym. Okay. So along the way, I teach pitching. I'm an actress. I started the X Games for ESPN.

And I also spend a lot of time on home shopping. And one day, I said, I want my own product. So I came up with this. Now, Charlie did it, and he's not going to do it again. No way are you getting me to do that on camera? And Sit up a little bit away from the back of it. Yeah, there you go. Has anyone ever done this? No Okay, make your fists called a string. Yeah, go ten nine eight seven six one go five four breathe two

Now straighten your arm, straighten out there. Come on, you're going to play basketball professionally in a couple of days. Go. Eight. Come on, seven. Go six. Go five, four. How you doing?

It's good. You can see your face. So I... Got it. You good? You're looking sweaty there? Just a little red. I've sold two and a half million of these things on Hulu. Wow.

I wanted something that... I had a resistance band slip off my foot and shatter my nose and I wanted to find a home product for me and my mom was always overweight. So my videographer says, hey, do you want to meet a two time Mr. Arnold? And you walked into the room. I sure did. I walked in with another fitness girl and she thought we were together. Yes, of course.

Well, he's very fit. He's very young. And one of the things that I do for everybody who tries this, I didn't do it for you, is I make you take your shirt off. Especially my fitness models. Because you want to see all these muscles. What you guys didn't see at home is that every single muscle in your body fired. It's why you got so red so fast. Right.

Probably the most effective product ever. Wow. I know. And then he tried it and had his shirt off. And it was very handsome. Yeah, I just got done with the national show. So, you know, you go through your preparation where you try to get as lean as possible. And then you blow up at the end by eating a lot of carbs.

So at that time, I was just kind of blown up because I was just eating everything. Because you can pretty much eat all you can once you deprive yourself of all the good sweets. So I was pretty big at that time when we met. And she said that I wasn't her type because I was a big, bulky bodybuilder guy. Well, I had been married for a long time. And I wasn't really looking for... I said to my daughter, by the way, don't ever go with bodybuilders. They only like three things.

Food, working out, and themselves. And then he pursued me on social media and came out to meet me in los angeles where i had a house and just he said something i don't know what your relationship statuses are married uh dating single oh wow hello you girls all hear that very cute very smart um i was at a point in my life where i had just been through enough of a relationship and kind of just shut down because you start to think about men as certain you men are like this and he came over and very good-looking I'm like okay I know what we're gonna do here for a weekend and he got down on one knee if you don't mind me telling this and he said they said I don't not very spiritual but something told me that you need me. And like Tom Cruise, he had me at a hello.

Wow. That's impressive. And it's been five years. Well, and the important part of the story is you were right. Say what? The important part of the story is you were right. Oh, I'm always right. Right.

And that is why we stay together. Wow. No, the truth is you're the most supportive man I've ever seen. Well, thank you. I do my best. But why? Why me? Why you? There is something about you. It's like the sun was shining behind you when I saw you. You're like

this spirit that I've never witnessed. She was so joyful, so happy. There was something about her. And then when I came to St. Pete and I found out what she does but she heals people through the drama that has happened in their past and then I knew that she needed me for for support and for just the person who she is that's incredible one of the crazy things I do besides just teaching is I do a training called Breakthrough. And I have this wild insight. I was going to show you a magic trick. We may run out of time. But I've lived, my dad was a magician.

And through those skills, I've been very insightful. And you can read people. And I take them through training over a weekend and heal people who've been raped, molested, hurt like that. And if you don't heal this, I do think you carry that baggage forever. And you've all met people who walk in and have this wall in front of them. I can help take care of that. And so I haven't really gone very public with it. I've only done it with my students over the years. I've done it for 28 years, started in my living room. And I think there's a little convergence of energies that said, you know, Forbes, you need to get this out to the world. And so hopefully you'll hear more about

this healing concept that he's talking about, because it's the most dramatic thing you've ever seen. You see people's faces change and let go of past because i think if you keep carrying the luggage of your past into your future you you live the same boring life over and over again well i found that you're also a licensed massage therapist long time and normally i only get that letting go of the past whenever you know that that is in the past that is she doesn't rub me at all i I even ask and ask. Yeah, both. Oh, my hands just don't work anymore.

Okay, so here was my massage technique. I would bring you in for an hour and a half. I love the concept of massage. I was really good at it. But then I would sit with you for another half hour and talk about all the things that got let go and emotionally ways to untie that. It's not therapy.

I don't want to see you again. I only see people one time for that. And it's miraculous. God, you really did your research, dude. He's a good partner. He's a beast. Yeah, he is a beast. He's a beast. All right. So what's one, I know we're going to run out of time here. What's one last question you'd like to ask me? So I want to ask more about the pitch because that's how you really made a name for yourself. You did $2 billion? Two and a half, but yeah, who's counting? You. That? You. So what did you see from the most successful pitches? What did they all have in common? Okay, so first of all, this is a really good lesson for

all of you guys. Pitching is not about you. When you walk in, let's say you want to do an investor pitch. You want someone to invest in your podcast. You're going to walk in probably and tell them how wonderful you are, all that you're up to, how many listeners, all about you. What do you think they want? They want numbers, right? Well, they want one thing. If they're an to, how many listeners, all about you. What do you think they want? They want numbers, right? Well, they want one thing. If they're an investor, they want to make their money back and they want to know that your idea is good and you're qualified to do it. And so if you can talk and speak into what they want subtly, they want you. The problem with most people, whatever product it has, is you tell people what it is. You tell people they need it. Hey guys,

I've got a fitness product here. You need it get sexy make your arms fit that word need whether you say it or not is very off-putting Don't tell me what I need, but if you can get someone to want it So for spin Jim, you know what I did. I tell people to lift their arm up Come on lift your arm up. Is it nice and tight under here? Is it wiggly jiggly? This is pretty pretty tight, but most women wiggly jiggly What if I told you in just five minutes a day over a period of three weeks you could have rock solid arms like this would you want it yeah right now you want it and you want to know more you want to ask questions how many sentences with five sentences

you want something you've not even heard of and i do that with every product and everybody he made me want him i'm a great pitcher what was your pitch oh that's that line I did right it only takes one line to get so I want what you want you have no he had another line though he said to me I promise to make you look better now that's crazy but I spent a lot of time on red carpets and in my last relationship I would do all that alone you never wanted any part of that part of my life right and I remember thinking I want a partner in life who shows up and is that amazing. And I was looking at people at the time, like Cindy Crawford and Randy Gerber, or at the time, Giselle and Tom Brady. They make a great couple. And I wanted that. And he has been the most supportive, loving creature that I've ever

imagined. And yes, he looks good, but he looks better on the inside I wasn't just a fitness fitness guy either I was a Chippendale as well and a fashion model so why not I could make her feel look good you're also 3d graphic artist and a videographer and we own a television studio in st. Pete he came in and said I'm home I can totally make this better he's made it part of my life better man of many talents there you go that's why you carry a camera around yeah i'm also her photographer so when you go looking for a girl what's the pitch going to be we'll keep that off camera oh god i got it in a blush how cool is that wow that was a great any anything you want to say no just that you're an inspiration both of you are and anybody who's not paying attention

needs to be yeah any closing thoughts from you guys? Yeah, that everybody watching, you know, it's an interesting time in your life where you can go in two directions. You can bitch, moan, and complain. Or you can look and say, wow, how can I be a contribution to the world, to other people, to my family? And just get out of yourself. Because

I find if you wallow in this, you will stay wallowing in that. The second thing, stop listening to people. Because for some reason, people around you want to put you down and keep you playing small. You know what? You get what you tolerate. If the person that you're with doesn't uplift you, you need to leave. You really need to go, I put on my big girl pants and stop this before it gets too bad.

I hear so many narcissistic relationships of people who brought people down. And then to believe that if God makes no mistakes, then live up to what your expectation is. Be spectacular and do it with complete abandon. Because I've watched a lot of my friends die recently. That's going to happen to all of us. I've watched people commit suicide lately. I'm not sure what that's about. And I say to people, if you're that depressed, go help a kid. There's so many people in orphanages who can't eat, who are displaced, who are homeless for a variety of reasons. You want to feel good about yourself? Contribute to them.

And all of a sudden, your life looks better. Wow. That's a powerful message. Joshua, any last thoughts? When it comes to a relationship, know what you want. Ask for what you want to the universe. And it will be very specific and it will happen that's you know what that's somebody who's not that religious ask the universe that's what we

talk about all the time we both had lists and not just tall dark and handsome i wanted someone this is a crazy thing on my list when i rolled over in the morning i wanted someone who said wow even with mascara down your face your hair looking in your breath I was beautiful my last partner might have said something like ooh what a bear poop in your mouth mmm that's not a good way to start your day no when he rolled over and said what he said I thought it's funny I asked for that I asked for that affirmation in the morning and I asked for number one should it be my best friend. She had to be smart, funny. I think he fit it all. Determined.

Well, I appreciate that. And I will say that every day, that's the last thing too. I've never done this before, but every day we affirm each other, our relationship, what we want, how proud we are of each other. And it's this conversation that doesn't seem to get boring because I don't think we appreciate our partner enough. The little things they do, we take a lot of things for granted.

And I'm blown away constantly by the little things that he'll do to make my life better. And I thank him for it. I don't think I've ever done that before. So my advice to everybody, get a little bit more mature before you get old.

Get some of those lessons and implement them. Your life will be better. I spent too much time looking and hoping I'd find it. And then I got really specific. Writing things down. Finding a mentor. Asking questions. Listening to podcasts

of people who are more successful. And then just going for your dreams because at the end of the day, nobody really cares. Really? I read obituaries of friends all the time. I'm like, if it's over at that moment, what did you do? what do you want someone to say at your eulogy do you want to say you were a great husband a great father well then you better get going if you're an award-winning author or whatever is important to you just do

it literally just do it and you know burn the boats Wow that was incredible so much wisdom there thank you guys so much for coming on. That was a great episode. Thanks for having us. Of course. It was so nice meeting you guys. Great to meet you guys. Thank you very much. Thank you.