Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Success Favors the Brave with Sean Whalen

Starting point is 00:00:00 You're listening to The Radcast, a top 25 worldwide business podcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to one of my favorite episodes of all time on The Radcast. of my favorite episodes of all time on the Radcast. So look, guys, this week I'm at a trade show, pumping vacay, doing some important business. So no news this week. We'll be back next week with our normal marketing and advertising and business news. But this week I wanted to share with you guys one of my favorite episodes of all time. Sean Whalen, founder of Lions Not Cheap. This was from a couple of years ago. This was almost 300 episodes ago for the Radcast.

Starting point is 00:00:52 Unbelievable. Thank you for making us number one in marketing and business, by the way. Sean is one of my favorite people, not because I agree with everything that he says, but because of how raw, real, and awesome he is in his delivery and how he builds community and the truth that he speaks. There's a lot of powerful words and a lot of insights in here for growing your personal brand, growing any brand in business and being transparent and really grinding and being authentic to your audience. A lot of great insight here from Sean. And I think even two, two and a half years later, so many things are still relevant. And so much of the growth for Lives Like Sheep had happened. I really wanted to share this episode to raise it back to the top because I think in today's world, authenticity and at least being real to who you are and who your audience is and resonating with them is so important.

Starting point is 00:01:58 I hope you enjoy this episode. We'll be back with our normal news next week. I am here on the porch late at night recording this intro. Look, really appreciate everyone that listens. You are going to find us at radcast.com. Lots of changes this episode we couldn't do without you. Thank you. As we build towards where you've taken Lions, Not Sheep and all the e-commerce growth there, maybe let's just back up. Let's give our audience... I know you've got a huge following, but it may not be the following of our podcast that have heard of you and know about you. Let's just start there. The recap of Sean and history and what got you there. I know that's a loaded question, brother.

Starting point is 00:02:41 Loaded question, brother. I'll keep it super simple. I was really successful at a young age. I grew up in a single parent home, built a couple of companies and made a lot of money in my 20s. And I talk about in my book how I felt like I was juggling bowling balls. Success looks like this and it needs to be this. And so I'm working 20 hour days, building, growing the whole thing. And when I was at work, I needed to be at home. When I was home, I needed to be at work. I need to be at home. When I was home, I needed to be at work. Really what a lot of men are going through now just today, years ago, where we're at as a culture and a society is like, this is what success looks like. If you're on Instagram, it's like, you got to be here. You got to be balling. If you're not working 29 hours a day, you're a fuck up. It's just, I was that guy. And I said, you quit juggling all the bowling balls. And I don't know what a midlife crisis is, but I left my marriage. I left my business. I stuck my head on my ass for over a year trying to figure out not how to make money, how to build business, but why was I even here? What's the purpose of all this? Why am I doing any of this? You know what I mean? I've got cars and a Rolex, but what am I even doing with any of this? And I went on an interesting

Starting point is 00:03:38 journey. I got really depressed, suicidal, and found myself in a really dark place and ended up hiring a coach, trying to figure out how do I get out of this mindset? How do I shift things around? And one of the things that he challenged me to do was to start sharing my thoughts and what was going on social media. And at the time I was like, believe it or not, my ex-wife had Facebook and a year before I did, and I was like, that's the stupidest thing ever. Why would I do that? I didn't believe in it, which is ironic now having almost a 50% use of my videos and stuff. But yeah. And the 37 stories I've watched of yours just today. Yeah. I mean, it's just, it's phenomenal. We talked about that from a marketing perspective in a minute, but I went through a really nasty divorce and to make a really long story short, I ended up sharing one night, some real

Starting point is 00:04:26 dark shit. Some stuff that I was ashamed of and had been hiding and really just told the truth. For lack of better words, I just fucking told the truth for once, which was like, instead of doing the alpha thing, it was like, nah, dude, I said a lot of dumb shit. I was angry. I didn't have all the answers. And that post ended up going viral. Millions and millions of people saw it. I went from having 200 friends on Facebook to almost 40,000 followers in a matter of 10 days. And people were hitting me up, dude, teach me more. What classes do you have? I'm like, pump the fucking brakes, man. I'm just telling you my shit. I'm not Dr. Phil. Call somebody else. And in that process,

Starting point is 00:05:04 I left the company. I left everything. And of still dabbled in real estate. But one day, the phrase lies not sheep came into my mind. I was looking at this catalog and there was another company or something similar and it just popped into my head and it just resonated and it wouldn't go away. And for days, it just lies not sheep. And I kept thinking to myself, looking at everything in life, like I have a choice, right? to follow and do what everybody else is doing and to buy this because he bought this or build this because he built this, or this is what this needs to be. And it was like, no, dude, fuck that. What do I want to do? Who do I want to be? What life do I want to build? When you tear everything down and essentially burn it to the ground, you're pretty

Starting point is 00:05:42 much starting from scratch. I knew what my skillsets were. I knew what I was good at, but I just decided to do the things that I was really passionate about. What do I really want to do? And when Liza Sheet came to me, I called my buddy who owned a clothing company one day and I said, can you make me a t-shirt? He said, sure. And so I went online, literally went to fonts.com and found this cool font and did this. And I was like, yeah, can you do this? And he got it to his designer and I spent 40 bucks to make a screen and made a t-shirt. Our original, the original lion's not sheep, black and white t-shirt. And I was wearing it one day and I had a picture

Starting point is 00:06:14 and I posted it on Facebook and all these comments started coming in. Dude, that's badass. Where'd you get that? Can I get that shirt? And I called my buddy. I was like, I don't know how to sell t-shirts. Like how the fuck do they go? He's I'll set you up a Shopify store and whatever. And so that kind of started the whole, for me, it was just my mantra. It just became my way of thinking, my way of being. It was very personal to me. And I saw a lot of people gravitate towards it. A lot of people connect with it. We started selling the t-shirts and then I formed the company and then I formed multiple companies inside of that. And it became what is now a huge movement where millions of people engage with the content and know about it. And just recently, we've had some people that have Gunny N. Smith, who's in New Jersey, who the governor was trying to shut his gym down.

Starting point is 00:07:02 But I woke up one morning, this is probably a month ago, a month and a half ago. And I had been tagged like over a hundred times in this post. I'm like, what the fuck? And I opened up Instagram and there's this guy who's like super defiant, screw the governor or whatever. And he's got a cheap hat on. I'm not connected to him.

Starting point is 00:07:17 He's not connected to me. It was just like, oh, dope. So I followed him and said, Hey man, love the hat, whatever.

Starting point is 00:07:22 He's like, Oh dude, I've been following you. Just started, knew the brand. He ended up just seeing one of our ads and bought the hat and his, his post went viral. And it was really interesting over the course of the next couple of days. He was on CNN, Fox, Tucker Carlson, but all these big shows that he was wearing the lies, not chic gear and our free man t-shirt. And it was just really cool to see that he

Starting point is 00:07:46 didn't know me per se, but he vibed with the brand. He recognized it, resonated with it, and decided to buy a shirt and a hat. And it just brought me full circle. Yeah, man, this was me, my rebirth, coming back into the marketplace, getting my balls back and build us some business. And now knowing that it resonates literally with millions of people around the world, it's pretty freaking amazing. So that's about a 20-year story in three minutes. Yes. A couple things to unpack there. How enlightening was it? I can only imagine, like you said, you felt like you lived, not necessarily a lie, but you never felt comfortable being transparent and being maybe vulnerable, if I can use that word.

Starting point is 00:08:30 Sure. How enlightening was that moment when, holy shit, I'm being myself and I'm garnering the attention. Not that maybe you were seeking before when you were copying everyone else, but just the irony in that had to be just fucking amazing. It was. And what's interesting is we're all, and this is some of the stuff that I teach, we're all programmed to lie. I don't care who's watching this, black, white, gay, straight, rich, poor, all of us were programmed the exact same way, to lie. And don't believe me? I mean, go back to when you were a kid, sit down, quiet down, slow down. You're a little child. You go to church. This is right. This is wrong. Don't say this. Don't do that. And when you really stop to think about it, like we've been indoctrinated since we were children to do as we're told, to speak words that will be pleasing

Starting point is 00:09:17 to everyone. Don't wrestle anybody's feathers. And that's literally what we do from when we're little children, elementary school, middle school, high school. You got to raise your hand and go to the bathroom. Nowadays, you can't say shit. I say anything and I'm called a neo-Nazi online and this and that and the other piss everybody off, right? When you think about it, we've been programmed since we were little children to not speak our truth, to not share what's inside. We're told, tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth. But the ramifications for telling the truth are dark. They're bad. Slap on the hand, put them in a principal's office, parent's hermeneutics, so that we just lie. And as you get older, you become, man,

Starting point is 00:09:56 we don't talk about emotions. We don't talk about where we're really at. You just man the fuck up, put on your big boy pants and get after it. And the truth of the matter is that more men killed themselves in 2018 than during the Great Depression. Why? It's not because there's a lack of money or lack of opportunity or lack of chicks or ass running around. It's because dudes are trapped in this box like I was 10 years ago. I'm like, dude, I'm not happy with where I'm at, but I don't know how to talk about it. And my boys are like, hey man, how you doing? I'm like, I'm good. You hear that? I'm good. But I was like, no shit. Bob killed himself. We didn't even know Bob was sad. Bob looks like he's got the ideal life. And so when I talk to people about

Starting point is 00:10:32 this and I coach on this, it's no one thinks that they're lying. But the truth, the reality is if you're not speaking the truth, then what is it? And if you're not sharing what's really inside of you, how you really feel, what's really going on. It's not an issue of political correctness or I don't want to piss anybody off. It's what are you doing? Are you speaking your truth? Yes or no? I can't because my mom follows me on Instagram or my church people are over here and this and the other. And so we literally are living lives. A vast majority of our culture, our society is just fucking lying. And so the challenge from my coach was share what you're really thinking and feeling. And when I shared that post, it was raw. It was scary as shit because I talked about anger. I talked about frustration. I talked about

Starting point is 00:11:15 not knowing what the hell was going on. But what was really interesting is this, and this is a huge lesson for people to understand. I noticed two things that happened. Number one, people resonated with my message. Millions of people resonated with it. There's all these people who all teach you how to go viral. Nobody has a fucking recipe to go viral. Anybody tries to sell you a course of how to make viral videos, tell them to fuck off because it doesn't exist. I didn't wake up one day going, you know what? I'm tired of making money in real estate. I'm going to be a social influencer. I just shared my shit, but I shared darkness. It wasn't the filter, Rosie, look at my win, look at my accolades, look at my cool crap. It was like,

Starting point is 00:11:50 dude, I was depressed. I almost blew my freaking brains out. I made a lot of mistakes. And I realized that millions of people resonated with that because we're all experiencing that in one way, shape, or form, right? Sex, money, politics, religion, divorce, depression, bankruptcy, suicide. Those are topics we don't talk about. They're not politically correct, not socially acceptable. Yet everyone on this planet is somehow intertwined with sex, money, politics, religion, divorce, depression, bank, all of these fucking things. So what do we talk about all day long? So I realized the first thing was how many people resonated with my darkness. And I coined the phrase, your mess is your message. I bought the domain and it'll probably be the title of one of my books coming down the pipe here.

Starting point is 00:12:31 But my mess literally became my message. And the second thing that I saw after I shared this was that I felt better. It was almost like, okay, I got out of the way. You know what I mean? And so when I talk to entrepreneurs and business owners and people, I'm like, dude, you're a out of the way. You know what I mean? And so when I talk to entrepreneurs and business owners and people, I'm like, dude, you're a better father when you feel better. You're a better mother when you feel better. You're a better everything when you feel better. Lying doesn't feel good. Lying is scary. It's do they know? Do they know? Do they know?

Starting point is 00:12:59 Where you just fucking tell the truth and you got nothing to worry about. So if this is the recipe for me connecting with people and me feeling better, then I'm just going to keep doing it. And at the time, five years ago, and not that I was the only guy sharing shit on social media, but very few people are talking about real raw shit. It's just airy-fairy political things, reshares of this. And so I just went on a mission, I'm going to share me. And since then, I've literally had almost a billion views on my videos, millions of literally had almost a billion views of my videos, millions of followers, literally hundreds of millions of engagements on my posts from Instagram to Facebook. Some of my videos have reached 150, 160, 170 million views of one video,

Starting point is 00:13:37 which is just mind bending to me. But that's what I found is my own little kind of recipe. And I felt better. The marketplace resonated with it and I just can't fucking run with it. I love it. I want to get into some nuts and bolts on the back half here on the e-commerce. But I do have one follow up because I feel like no matter how lost you may have felt being what you categorize as a man that everybody wanted you to be and not the real, maybe you, something has shaped Sean Whalen at some point in life before you got lost or you got found or anything like that. I feel like there has to be these opinions and these beliefs, they formed all of this. Something shaped that either early, whenever, I would think. I don't know. Nobody's ever asked me that.

Starting point is 00:14:26 Thinking back on life, my parents split up when I was an early teenager. I was actually a really quiet kid. I was really reserved. I was a chubby little kid. I was a pretty good baseball player, but I wasn't popular. I wasn't the class valedictorian. I was really quiet, really reserved. And I think for me, when looking back at it, when I went on a Mormon mission, I went on a two-year Mormon mission, that was where I really started to find my voice. You're out basically selling God. We were going door to door, pitching God to people. It was something I was really passionate about. It was something that I didn't grow up in the Mormon church. I grew up Catholic. And so I was a recent

Starting point is 00:15:01 convert to the church. and I just started realizing that people love to connect. People love to talk. And I was really good at it. I was good at just talking to people. And I know that sounds really weird, but there really is an art form of communication. There's an art form of being able to not just talk, hey, how's your water? Why do you like that water? Okay, great. Whatever, but really fucking listening to people and hearing them and knowing what's driving them and something that i've always been fascinated about and with is what's behind it this is why headlines and shit i'm not like bouncing around like every other freaking bozo or oh my god i'm

Starting point is 00:15:37 like let's talk about a second i like to critically think and for me being able to be in a place where I can ask deeper questions, it's fun for me. And I found on my mission is I was talking about God. God's such a crazy topic for so many people because you have people that are way over here and the people are way over here, people have no clue. And so it forced me to really, number one, find my foundation, like what i really believed and how i really felt about life and who i was and purpose and the entire thing but i found out like people just love to connect and so it's just become almost a skill set an art form that i've just gotten better and better at is communicating with human beings but it definitely doesn't come from my youth i was a quiet freaking kid man i've shared some of your stuff with people and

Starting point is 00:16:26 they go, oh man, he's pretty hardcore on this, that, and the other. And they care. He's a great community. I said it. I thought you're a great communicator, period. I love talking. When you really give a shit about people, when you really care, I think it's something that we're not, we're just so busy trying to get, believe me, hear me, this is me. And it's like, I really, it sounds funny, but if it can't be explained on a whiteboard or like with crayons, it's too complicated. We should not have a tax policy in America that can't be explained on a fucking whiteboard, right? We should not have foreign policies that take 30,000 page freaking manuals to fucking explain, right?

Starting point is 00:17:06 No one's interested in that really. And so we could tie this into the marketing and the business and the whole thing. Copy is really important. You know what I mean? What are you telling me? Everybody knows they're being sold something. So we've already got that out of the way, but what are you trying to tell me? What are you trying to communicate with me? Yay, yay, nay, nay. If the answer is a simple no, then just fucking say no. But I love being able to look at complex things and I break it down in my brain to just like coloring book kind of conversations. Yeah, this is what this really is.

Starting point is 00:17:36 And to me, it's more fun that way. I have more connection to stuff that way. Absolutely. And so let's talk about lionsnotsheep.com. We work, we're at digital agency here and we work a lot of brands and they come to us and they have great products, but they have no story. And yeah, I will take a company that has a purpose and a story all day because that's, it's organic.

Starting point is 00:17:58 Again, it just becomes about blocking and tackling. It's real hard to figure out the Hail Mary, the message, the blocking and tackling you can do. But let's get to some of that blocking and tackling. It's real hard to figure out the Hail Mary, the message, the blocking and tackling you can do. But let's get to some of that blocking and tackling. What have been some of those mechanics of... Because I've heard you talk about it. You're like, you started the company, you were selling t-shirts, you had a message, you had a plan, but something poured gas on the fire for the tactics and some of the ways with which you've seen growth. Can you talk about some of that? Yeah, for sure. First of all, there's two philosophies, in my opinion. Anybody who's

Starting point is 00:18:32 a really good ad guy or copy guy or whatever, you can take any product and figure out a way to sell it. And there's a lot of people that do that. They take products from China. They're really good. They figured out the game, the algorithms, they can do that. And then there's people that have passion behind something. They live it. They breathe it. They sleep in it. It's big to them because their kid has cancer and they want this product out there and they want this thing or that thing.

Starting point is 00:18:56 And there's a story and a connection behind it. And either one of those is phenomenal, right? But I think the people that struggle the most are the ones that they feel like they have that passion and they feel like everybody's supposed to have that passion. I had to, this shirt is so badass and the saying, everybody's going to buy the saying and this entire thing. But I found for me that I embodied Lions Not Sheep. It literally was for me. You know what I mean? When I wrote my book, which is sold over half a million copies completely

Starting point is 00:19:25 organically, I didn't even put page numbers in there. We forgot it. It was so basic and just put out there in the marketplace. I wrote a book that I wanted to read, that I would want to read. And I think a lot of people need to realize, what do you want to wear? It's easy to come up with slick marketing and slick products and whatever, but if there's no marketplace for it, it doesn't fucking matter how great your landing page landing pages, this, that, the other. So when you're trying to tie in that story, why is this relevant to you? Why do you believe in this? And I've literally, for the last couple of years, I've been talking about Lions on Sheep. It's become me and people have watched my journey as a father, as a business owner, as a man, as a divorced guy, as a dating guy.

Starting point is 00:20:02 All of these things have been really transparent. i think people slide with that they resonate with it right and so for me lion's not a sheep it everybody's been telling me dude you're in the perfect storm now with the whole political climate you know drunk because it's like we're all you're one or the other right you're picking well i do go to the lion or you're the sheep which is great but yeah there's 175 million people on your side we're right down the millions. Here's what's cool is everybody now wants to jump on that. And we got to plug into that emotion. They want to plug into the political climate, whatever. And you really don't have a track record. You don't have a tribe. You don't have any of that. I didn't set out to do that. And I think that's what really makes Lions on a Sheep unique. And I think a lot of people need

Starting point is 00:20:43 to wrap their head around this. And it's really difficult to do is having the consistency of delivering content and messaging for the long game. Because now we're in a perfect fucking storm. Now we're crushing because so much content has been put out there over the last couple of years. And it wasn't with the objective of selling t-shirts or selling hats or selling any of that shit. My mom, literally, she retired last year and she was bored of shit. I said, mom, come help me make t-shirts. And so we had one heat transfer. She was in the office and we'd sell 20 shirts a month, just people stumbling on the website. And she'd run down, she'd get the shirts and she'd make them and she'd write a little note, package them all out.

Starting point is 00:21:19 And that was really what the apparel brand was until the beginning of this year. what the apparel brand was until the beginning of this year. But being able to sit in a story and deliver that to people that they believe without trying to sell them anything is massive. And that's a huge tactic that I don't think very many people understand is I believe that the very best salespeople on planet earth are never selling anything. Like you go to my Instagram or my Facebook, you will never see me selling anything. Yet go to my Instagram or my Facebook, you will never see me selling anything. Yet, I'm literally able to make millions of dollars through coaching and consulting at other companies that I have, but I'm not selling anything. So how does that work? It's unlimited. I'm breathing it. I'm exuding it. And that's if you're a Jeep guy, you want to start

Starting point is 00:22:01 a brand around Jeeps, right? If you're driving a fucking Honda Accord, good luck, right? You better know the clicks and the algorithms. But it's like some of those dudes are like hardcore Jeep guys. They get it. They know what Jeep guys talk about. They know what Jeep guys want. And they're able to exude that message, right? And people instantly resonate with it. I really do believe that you're in a day and age where we're completely bombarded and flooded with products and things and ads and messages. And if you want the short game, you better freaking figure out how to become a really good marketer, a really good copywriter and buy ads better than anybody else. But if you want to build a real brand, like something that has legs that will be around for a long fucking time, that resonate with people. Why is it important to you? You better be fucking living it.

Starting point is 00:22:50 If you're living it and talking about it, everybody's doing it. My personal page, my this page, I don't even know how many hundreds of thousands of followers on my personal page. I have way less than my business page because I'm always living this, talking about it, breathing it, eating it. And you'd be surprised how many people could plug into that. And now that we're turning on ads and running ads and doing shit like that, where I have almost a billion views on my videos, I can now target some of those videos and act. You know what I'm saying? But I've been playing the long game and consistently doing the content, consistently talking about it.

Starting point is 00:23:20 People just know, like some people will see the shirts. I get messages where they're like, dude, that's the bearded guy. That's the bearded guy. They don't know. Some people will see the shirts. I get messages where they're like, dude, that's the bearded guy. That's the bearded guy. They don't know my name because they recognize my video or a post. They're like, I know that guy. That's his thing. And it's really cool. What's the vision? Where are we going? I know you're knee deep in a lot of things. I know this is Open Doors and your coaching. How to Make Shit Happen is the book. Everyone listening, go check it out on Amazon. Is it Amazon or just your personal site?

Starting point is 00:23:47 Yeah. Amazon. But where are we headed? Where are you going? Right now, we're trying to put the wheels back on the bus. We got our asses kicked in production. We grew so fast. I turned everything on back in March.

Starting point is 00:23:59 What I mean by that is I hired a team to come in and started running ads. I'd never run an ad before. I'd never put ads out there. And we went from that to, we were doing $2,000 to $3,000 a month of just apparel sales. We did $463,000 last month of apparel sales in basically 90 days. A lot of them. And it fucked some things up and I learned some very valuable, expensive lessons on production and being able to keep up. And it's a funny story. Everybody thinks it's just sunshine and roses, but all my kids and their friends worked for me and they were all part of our production team. And so we were doing

Starting point is 00:24:31 heat transfers and the whole thing. And I'd run all the numbers and I've got all the production companies and all the big promotional companies. They were hitting me up. Let us do your shit. Let us do your shit. Long story short, we had 10 of them employed as we were just crushing. We went from literally picking up one box of shirts and screen prints to getting pallets delivered. One of the kids apparently got COVID. And because they're all my daughter's friends, nine out of the 10 kids, their parents made them quit.

Starting point is 00:24:58 Their parents made them literally self-quarantine. And so we were doing 350 orders a day, which represents about six to 700 shirts. And so we were like, oh, no problem. Get a temp agency and bring all these people. They fucking takes forever for them to learn and speed. And like, anyways, we got really far behind. We got about 6,000 shirts behind. Wow.

Starting point is 00:25:20 And team came in and they're like, bro, we got a problem. And I'm over here. Well, it's grown. They're like, hang on, bro. We got a fucking problem. Cause even if we work 24 hours a day, we can't get the numbers that we needed. So if that wheel on the bike isn't working, you can't. Because I've got some guys, some dear friends of mine, they're big in the e-com space.

Starting point is 00:25:38 They do millions of dollars a month. And I've told them this and they all laugh and chuckle. Cause they're like, yeah, dude, like, you know what I'm saying? Every single person has this happen to them. I had a buddy who was bringing in hoverboards and he bought like 20,000 hoverboards from China and they had already sold a bunch of them. Then they all got hung up on customs and it cost almost a million dollars. And I'm like, yeah, this is a pain in the ass. And he's like, now that you're learning it, the vision for me is obviously getting that part of the business straightened out, which we do now. But I really do, I'm passionate about this, man. I'm passionate about the ability of, especially with men, to really fucking step

Starting point is 00:26:16 into who they are and not in some hippy dippy way. But I'm 41 years old and there's a lot of 41-year-olds that are like, okay, I got the house and the car and the kids and the thing. Why do I fucking hate my life? Why am I not doing anything I want to do? My wife and I, we eat at the same place. We fucking vacation at Disneyland once a year. What am I doing with my life? And why it's not sheep in me specifically is I'm coaching a lot. I've got multiple facets to the business, but I really want to show people that it's possible. Building a really badass life is possible. It's not whimsical. It's not because I got a silver spoon. In fact, it's anything but with me. I've worked my ass

Starting point is 00:26:51 off for this. And I want to be able to show people and show kids and teenagers, we have one shot at this reality. We have one shot at this life. Go build the shit you want to build. I've never built an apparel company and I'm building a multimillion dollar apparel company. It's like, I'm showing people literally, like I'm posting on Instagram, my numbers every single day, sales, all this other shit. Cause it's like, I'm showing people how this is done, right? To literally be able to build from scratch a huge brand. But to me, like I want my end game is I want want Lions Not Sheep to be a global company and to have a majority of our people not have any clue who I am.

Starting point is 00:27:30 That's my end game is I want to leverage what I've got now through social media and the following and connections or whatever. But I want somebody to be able to see this hat, see this message, see this t-shirt, resonate with it and have the same feeling of empowerment and power that I do and that thousands of other customers and people do. So that's my end game. But we've got six different companies inside of Lions Not Sheep that are all doing different things. And yeah, it's fun, man. It's fun. It's sweet. I love the way you bring your kids in to talk about it. I've got four boys under the age of 11 that were knee-deep in it it but i love the way you bring them in you talk

Starting point is 00:28:05 about that you're transparent about it and yeah i know work here it's like they got to see me get my ass kicked and like i'm talking to my son and we literally have a pile of shirts that are sitting on the warehouse floor that we ended up trying to solve part of our problem as a outsource to another company to be able to help us expedite these shirts. And we sent them 5,000 shirts and almost every single one of them came back completely fucked up. The logos were all crooked and this and that and the other. So we have a pile and I'm looking at my son, I was like, that's $25,000 sitting on the floor right there that I can't do anything with. Teaching them these things and showing them success is so freaking fun for me. That's awesome.

Starting point is 00:28:46 Is that, I don't want to ask you, what do you want to, you've said it, I've interpreted where you see your legacy, but I do want to ask it because what do you, you know, when they go Sean Wayland in 50 years,

Starting point is 00:28:58 you know, what do you want people to think? My legacy is my kids and it's not wealth it's not assets that can be distributed it's not the 401ks and iras the kids are splitting my kids are splitting up if i played this game i've empowered my children to become their own entrepreneurial independent preachers my legacy if you will is that is if I can help these three kids break the chain that I came from and having dysfunction and having a divorce at a young age and having a dad that was never around, if I can be that man to where I'm laying on my deathbed

Starting point is 00:29:37 knowing I don't give a fuck about the money, but my kids know that they literally live the fullest life with me, That's my game. And then to me, I quote unquote won. And my son is, he's 14 years old and he's raced the Baja 1000 with me twice. He's raced the Baja 500. And that's something I'm super proud of because that's our thing. There's 50 year olds that that's been on their bucket list for 30 fucking years. And my son's already done it twice. And so to me, it's, I want to be able to lay on my deathbed knowing chances are I'm never going to be on my deathbed. I'm going to blow myself up or drive my race track off on stupid shit like that. But I want to be able to sit back and not have any fucking regrets. Know that I played the game. I was all in. I was all in every single day, like with my

Starting point is 00:30:16 lover, with my kids, with my business, with my message. You can go back and watch thousands of videos and you know that whether you like me or not, whether you agree politically with me or not, you know, those fit in my trees and you know, that's like me or not, whether you agree politically with me or not, you know that I'm just fitting my truths and you know that it's coming from my soul. And for me, that's the game. I win if I accomplish that. And I feel like I'm on a pretty good track for that because that's how I feel literally sitting here. This is the last podcast I do. It's like, yeah. No, man, I think you're living it. And as someone that doesn't agree with every single principle of yours, I respect the hell out of you and wanted you on the podcast because I see that is as clear as day. We're smart.

Starting point is 00:30:52 You and I, everybody, we all think we're smart, right? We should. You shouldn't think you're dumb. If you're smart, I love to study and I love to read. study and I love to read and you think about all of these great men that have come before us, the Carnegie's, the Rockefellers, the Steve Jobs, the Steve Coveys, these literal industry creators, they just have changed the face of the earth. They all say the same thing at the end of their book, all of them, without questioning. They all literally say at the end of their books,

Starting point is 00:31:25 their biographies, if I could go back and do it all over again, I would have spent more time doing the things that I wanted to do. I would have spent more time with my family. And I consider myself a pretty smart fella. So if Carnegie, Rockefeller, Steve Jobs is saying, if I could go back and trade places with Sean at 41, and I'd spend more time playing and doing the things that I want to do, then I get what Instagram is trying to tell me. I get that I'm supposed to be balling and Lambos and jets and the whole thing. But at the end of the day, I'm enjoying my life. I'm living the life and I'm taking the counsel from those guys. And it seems to be working. It works really well for me. And literally never been this happy before, man. You had a great business and a phenomenal family. I literally wake up every day and I'm like, I'm fucking doing it.

Starting point is 00:32:04 I love it, brother. I'm going to let you go. I really appreciate your time, Sean. Been really enlightening and love what you're doing. If you're looking, follow Sean Whalen on all the social media channels. You just Google Sean Whalen, W-H-A-L-E-N. You'll find him, seanwhalen.com, lionsnotcheap.com. Go find him, man. I know. Find your truth as well.com, lionsnotcheap.com. Go find them, man. I know. Find your truth as well. Sean, really appreciate it.

Starting point is 00:32:29 Hey guys, this has been the latest episode of the Radcast all along at theradcast.com and at the.rad.cast on Instagram. And we'll see you next time. To listen or watch full episodes, visit us on the web at theradcast.com or follow us on social media at our Instagram account, the.rad.cast or at Ryan Alford. Stay radical.

Right About Now with Ryan Alford - Success Favors the Brave with Sean Whalen

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