Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Building Brands and Beating Brain Cancer w/ M. Curtis McCoy
Episode Date: August 29, 2022Shawn French truly believes that every once in a while you sit down with someone and become entranced by their spirit, resilience and their miraculous story. My conversation with M. Curtis McCoy had t...hat effect on me. In this episode we speak on entrepreneurship and his successes down to his end-stage brain cancer. The doctors gave Curtis very little time to live and suggested that his mother take him to Disneyland. He could not have been more offended. All he wanted to do was get back to his businesses and continue on his path to success. He lost everything he had and then…. HE LIVED! Curtis beat brain cancer one day at a time and began rebuilding his empire. Listen in to hear more of this miraculous story of a man I respect dearly. You can connect with M. Curtis McCoy on: IG- @mcurtismccoy www.mcurtismccoy.com (Where you can also buy all his books and learn how to think like a leader) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/shawn-french/message Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
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You've talked about what makes your publication source different, right, and stand out from others.
But how do you communicate that with your prospective clients?
We don't have to pitch it much.
I've got a, because of the established domain, like I said, launching in 1997, having,
we've got thousands and thousands articles published, press releases and stuff on the Newswire site.
What's going on, everybody?
Welcome to another show of the Determined Society podcast.
I am your host, Sean French, and today I have with me a good friend of mine.
Curtis McCoy, he is known for founding dozens of businesses,
including a cosmetic laser clinic,
a pharmaceutical company, and a telecommunications company
that served over 250,000 visitors monthly.
Many don't know about the struggles that he faced in his life,
including abuse as a child, type 1 diabetes,
and even overcoming a terminal brain cancer diagnosis
before buying Newswire a few years ago
in recently launching Newswire magazine.
My boy Curtis is a motivational speaker
who's phenomenal at inspiring others to overcome adversity.
McCoy launched NewsWired magazine
to share stories of entrepreneurs and leaders
who are crushing it in life and in business.
Everybody give a warm welcome to my boy, Curtis McCoy.
What's up, brother?
Appreciate it, Sean.
Man, I'm glad to have been able to feature you on the magazine as well.
You've got to, you, bro, like, I'm going to tell you what.
Yeah, you're crushing as well.
So blessed and great.
for you putting me on that cover and, you know, even you asking me to be on the cover of your
magazine was one of those things. I'm like, wow, this is, this is really cool. And it inspired me to
do a really good job and, you know, and giving you the information that was needed to write the
article. So it's going well. It's trending and people are loving it. And, you know, that's just,
you know, a testament to your skills and knowledge in your profession. So I thank you very much.
Well, I mean, there's, we've got dozens of people on there that are, you know, a whole lot articles and stuff.
But yours, I just checked this morning and actually, I'm a refresh right now.
You've got over 3,000.
We just published this yesterday afternoon.
But so far, 4,043 readers total and 3,049 of those today or since 6 p.m. last night.
That's crazy.
So you're blown up.
That's crazy, man.
I'm going to be at your status in no time with readers, right?
Got to get those views up.
No, again, I'm, I'm so grateful for.
it, you know, it was an awesome experience working with you and that. And I just think that,
you know, this is something for the audience to really kind of dig into and think about.
Always work with people you enjoy, right? I mean, you can get featured in, you know, different
publications and, you know, I'm going to tell you what, and I have. And, you know, this experience
felt very specific and custom towards me. It wasn't a cookie cutter, you know, and you gave me a lot of
autonomy to really kind of just go and, you know, kind of, hey, here's your rope, cowboy.
You go figure out what you want to, want to get out there. So it really stretched me, man.
And, you know, I believe I became better because of it.
That's awesome.
Well, there's a difference between, you know, I mean, you can get featured on different
magazines online. You get on fiber and get featured for 10, 15 bucks on different, you know,
they call magazines, but it's just a website.
Somebody threw together with a generic WordPress template, you know, magazine template.
and it may look good, but, you know, this newswire we've had, it launched in 1997,
and I picked the company up a couple of years ago, but there's a difference between having
something that just looks good and something that is, you know, search engine optimized.
We've got artificial intelligence, the reader under there, so you can click the button and have
it actually read your article out to you in English or whatever language.
And it's kind of cool features like that that, you know, it's, it may look similar,
but it's not a, not your typical $15 fiber.
I don't even know you could do that.
People do that?
Yeah, there's, I've had, I had a couple of them reach up to me when they were starting
their, you know, they're starting a little online magazines and saying that they'd like
to feature me for free if they could use my name, you know, use my picture on the magazine
or whatever.
So there's quite a few of them like that where now they're selling them for between $15 to $50 per
episode or per article, whatever.
And I'm like, cool, yeah, feature B.
I'd like to, I'm happy to, you know, supply it for free.
But sure.
obviously bigger publications or some of them are 30,000 plus to get your name on the cover,
get your face on the cover.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
You know, you want to make sure you're working with the right people and that it's going to
actually like produce the results that you want for yourself, right?
It's one thing to, you know, some of the things I feel like it's just like optics.
Let's talk about that, right?
It's just like you mentioned, you can get on fire and I can go and I can get featured in
a hundred different things for like $1,500 bucks.
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Yeah. But is it going to support my mission moving
forward? Is it going to bring me the results that I need to grow my brand, right, and to become a
household name? Let me ask you a question. Have you found yourself counseling people when they're
coming to you for the service, right? And like, hey, listen, you can do X, Y, and Z very, very cheap,
but here's the difference. So you've talked about, you've talked about what makes your
publication source different, right, and stand out from others. But how do you communicate that
with your prospective clients.
So we are typically not, I really don't have to,
we really don't have to pitch it much.
I've got a,
because of the established domain,
you know,
like I said,
launching in 1997,
having,
we've got thousands and thousands of articles published,
press releases and stuff on the Newswire site.
And so it's a name that,
you know,
anybody in the PR industry knows of Newsware.
They've probably already used Newsware.
So when we launched the magazine,
it was just,
oh, cool,
that's another,
other publication that this established credible press release distribution company launched.
So we haven't had a, I've never launched, you know, the online WordPress magazine like a lot of
those sites are where I'm really out having to pitch it and make it sound like something that's not.
It's just, if people look at the history on the site or, you know, go to the who is,
look up or whatever, it's really easy to tell, you know, that it's not just a, you know, not a new thing.
so right right i really haven't had to pitch it much at all it's just i've reached out a couple like you i've reached
out as a friend and and wanted to feature you just because i knew it was already you know we had people
getting 10 000 plus views a day on their articles so i thought that'd be a cool thing to feature you on
and i think that you could bring some value as well you know i think that's one of the things man that
that i've always stood out about you to me right and i've never told you this but i'm going to tell you
in front of the whole audience i've always been very grateful that every interaction i've had
from you, you've, you've come with the energy and I know it's genuine, right, of wanting more
for me. You don't want anything from me. Like to a point where I said to you, I'm like, all right,
yeah, cool, man, but like, what's the catch? Right? Because in this business, let's be honest,
man. Let's be honest. In this business, there's always some hook, right? Yeah. There's always some hook.
You think people really give a shit about you. And then they hook you and it's just like, what the
fuck just happened.
Yeah.
You know?
And so when people like you come along that really match my energy and match my heart,
like,
you know,
it's,
it's,
it's a lot of fun for me.
And,
you know,
that's why,
you know,
I put my heart and soul into this,
this thing that we did together.
Because,
you know,
like,
you did a great job.
You,
thank you.
but I just wanted,
I just wanted to acknowledge you in,
in the interview in front of,
you know,
all these people that,
that you really care about people.
And,
I,
dude,
I'm,
I'm gonna, I'm gonna be like, you've offered me multiple things before, you know, one of them I just couldn't do.
It was a fly out to California and go to this party with you.
But like, you know, I didn't really know you all that well.
So I was like, well, you know, like is this, what's the catch?
Is this random guy?
Is this real?
Like, is this guy even a real person?
I knew you're a real person because you've done some things with some people that are, we're in the same circle, right?
We know the same people.
We, you know, literally have friendships with the same dudes, right?
So I knew you were real, but like, it's, it's just nice to see like all the math is adding up.
Yeah.
And I, and to me, that's just special.
So I wanted to, you know, show you some love for that.
Well, speaking to that Hollywood Hills thing, that was one where I had, it was the, a PR special or the PR guy for somebody else that I had followed on Instagram.
Ladies got like literally over a million active followers that are just absolutely crushing it.
And so we'd talk back and forth.
I'd never met any of these people.
But he says, he reached out and said, hey, Rhonda,
Rhonda wanted to see if I could invite you as a VIP guest.
And he mentioned all these different, you know, all kinds of celebrities and stuff,
a couple hundred different celebrities out there.
And I'm like, I don't watch TV.
I've got, I have never had cable or, you know, whatever satellite subscription or whatever.
Just don't have time to watch TV and be productive at the same time.
and so he's listing all these people off and like cool those are old names I'm not sure who they are
but so I'm like yeah it'd be cool if he said she was needing to help you know wanting some help
promoting this book lunch as you're doing like cool yeah I'll fly out there and you know if there's
a bunch of celebrities or whatever and then as I started Googling some of these people like holy
yeah that's this guy's you know lead drummer for whatever band okay these are all these people are
you know actors and actresses right musicians and stuff yeah this is kind of a cool thing
So then I reached out some other friends like you and had Melissa J. Vogel, M.J. Vogel and quite a few other folks.
Some of them actually showed up.
Really?
I was really hoping that that was not a not a flop where we ended up at some kind of back alley or something.
But it was really a cool event.
It was cool.
Yeah, it was absolutely awesome.
One of the crazy things.
So I showed up, I showed up an hour early and told him, hey, I'll, you know, I'm not trying to be fancy or nothing.
So I showed up my suit, but I'm like, I'll roll up my sleeves and help.
them get stuff set up or whatever and I had no idea it was just massive just this ridiculous
mansion on the you know off over the cliff and they've got the infinity pull pull it pouring off
over the edge and uh I showed up and there's this old guy you know kind of old rocker looking guy
really nice suit but he's got this shredded old band t-shirt you know underneath the underneath the
shirt there's like holes in his shirt curly hair and is wearing a beanie and so I'm walking around
before everything gets started and shaking hands and said, hey, my name's Curtis, what do you do?
So I'm talking to people.
And when I asked this guy what he did, he says, he said, well, I haven't been asked that in a
well, I guess I play the drums.
So I'm like, so I still have no clue who the guy was, but through the whole party, because
I wasn't sucking up trying to be, you know, trying to be buddy, buddy with whoever the coolest
person at the party was.
Yeah.
I guess this guy, he pulled up in the brand new Bentley.
It was like first one off the lot in California.
California, just phenomenal car and stuff. But I had no clue. I thought it was just, you know,
kind of this old guy in a shredded T-shirt. And so the whole night, because I was the one with
these other celebrities that are there trying to trying to get in this guy's good graces. And I didn't
have a clue he was. So he'd be having a conversation. He's like, Curtis, hey, hey, hey, you got to meet
Curtis. This is my boy. Curtis is my man. Whatever. And so it's a pretty cool deal with meeting
folks like that again just because i was just trying to eat people not didn't want anything from them
i think it's really cool man but you know and i think that you know a lot of people you know a lot of
big celebrities a lot of them if they lead with ego they can be really offended by that hey what do you
do like what do you mean you don't know who i am i'm so and so but i think it's also really
refreshing um for a lot of celebrities because you know um you know through them being in the public
eye so much everybody feels like they are you know way up here and they're they're not
they're different right they're not just like us
And I feel like as though a lot of them want to be treated by just just like a normal people.
So when somebody out there truly is treating them like a normal person, they value that person.
I don't know.
I would have been offended if I was this big time rock star and the guy that was talking to me had a new clue.
He stopped icing me.
Who the fuck was it?
Who was it?
I don't remember.
You still don't know.
I didn't know until later until all these celebrities are sure.
I'm trying to get, trying to get pictures of the guy and stuff.
I didn't even know who he was, but
that's crazy.
Really nice.
Really neat. Really neat. So dude, I want to dig into something here.
You have a pretty impressive background, right?
So you've done a multitude of things.
Laser company,
pharmaceutical company.
You know,
and most recently you bought Newsreyer
when you were going through,
when you were diagnosed with terminal brain cancer.
And I really want to touch on that
if you're okay talking about it because this show,
you know, my listeners really love,
you know, like when shit hits the fucking family.
and then they see somebody persevere and, you know, heal themselves or just come out of it on the other side,
you know, bigger, better, faster, stronger, and more successful.
So talk to me about that day when you found out that you had terminal brain cancer and how you decided to,
you know, like, hey, this isn't going to be my reality.
You know, I'm going to be on this earth.
I think you told me at one point they gave you three months to live or six months to live.
Yeah, so they, this was back in 2010.
I had been having seizures.
I was running the cosmetic medical laser clinic.
I was sponsoring events at the Denver Coliseum.
Andy Hammond is an IFB Pro Bodybuilder.
He's the guy that they just did the,
that they did the original Incredibles movie after.
Oh, nice.
That Disney movie.
So just an absolute swole up,
really cool guy.
He just passed away recently.
But Andy was a good friend of mine.
And we did the,
he come down doing this event at the Denver Coliseum.
In the supplement company that I owned,
ripped off my tee,
you know, ripped off the t-shirt,
did the posing routine in front of this MMA fight.
set up there and just running all these businesses.
Everything was running amazing, but I kept passing out and having seizures.
So I got to where I was having seven to ten seizures a week, Grandma Seizures.
And I'd been a diabetic since I was 27 months old.
So my entire life, when I got too low, I'd have seizures from the time I was like eight years old on.
But it got to where it was seven to ten times a week.
And pretty soon I was having seizures when I was not getting low.
It's just a random, random time there.
Yeah.
And so this is a really embarrassing.
thing I'm going to share here that may not make me look so cool on your podcast, but I was sponsoring this event at the Denver Coliseum, the title sponsor.
So I'd got up there.
There's thousands of people.
The place is absolutely packed.
I was also sponsoring Dwayne Ludwig, who at the time had the fastest knockout in UFC history.
So, I mean, all these studs there.
And then they get up and they're saying, we got him, Curtis, boy here.
He's the title sponsor.
Thanks for putting this on.
You know, you guys need to go out of me, Curtis, when you get done here, you know, go visit his booth, whatever.
So everybody in the auditorium, I mean, every single person there had heard my name.
They saw me up in the, up in the center of the ring and knew who I was.
So I get down, I'm head back there, and I pass out, have a seizure, pee myself.
So I'm wearing my suit, you know, a dark suit.
But so pee my pants in front of thousands of people there.
And I'm just like, at the bottom of the bottom, like, what could possibly possibly?
be worse than having an entire Coliseum know your name.
And then passing out and I bang my face.
So I'm having a seizure on the concrete.
So my eyes all blacked up.
And so then I'm back there packing up my stuff.
I didn't even stay until the end of it.
Packed my stuff up and went home.
And I'm just thinking if I can't even have, you know,
if I can't even get through this event that took all this time to get set up and stuff
and can't get through that with that.
having a seizure what what good is this you know so I kept having these seizures and
pretty soon I woke up one morning and half my body didn't work so it's like I they thought it was a
TIA stroke originally but yeah arm didn't work my face is sagged down I was trying to I called my mom
pulled my phone off the counter and I called my mom trying to tell her hey I think my blood sugar
low I just had a seizure but what came out was chicken pituitary waffle phone charger so I'm like
random words wow
And so I'm, no.
So I tried to say it again.
Chicken, pituitary waffle, phone charger.
I'm like, couldn't understand what was going on there.
So she said, Curtis, I think you got, think you're too low.
I'm saying, no, I'm not too low.
I'm trying to tell her I'm not too low.
I just, you know, something happened.
Paramedics show up.
And by the time, I was coming out of it a little bit.
So I was pulling myself up.
I got to reach up, got to hold my door handle,
and pulled myself up, ripped the handle out of my apartment door there.
And got stood up.
and trying to communicate to the guys,
telling them, listen, I'm insulin-dependent diabetic.
I had a seizure.
I'm too low.
Just give me some glucose on or, you know, give me shot.
I mean, give me, you know, give me some glucose or whatever,
and it'll be good.
But the same thing came out, that chicken, pituitary, phone-chartary phone-charge
or waffle, random junk.
So the guy handed him to my notebook.
And one of my hands, I've got kind of working there, so I'm trying to write out,
I'm insulin-dependent diabetic, right out the story.
I end up back, the paramedic looks at it, and he goes,
And so he's kind of a new guy.
He hands it to the other paramedic and the guy looks at it and he's like, what the heck?
So they hand it back to me.
I cross it out.
Like, that is not what I just wrote.
So I cross it out.
I write the message again, hand it back to him.
And then the senior paramedic guy that was there says, get a stretcher immediately.
He's having a stroke.
So they tossed me down and strapped me to the stretcher, carried me out.
And I woke up in the hospital.
I don't know how much later.
I don't know if it is hours or next day or a couple days or whatever later.
But I woke up, still couldn't communicate.
And as I woke up, the doctor had his put his mom's, put his hand on my mom's shoulder.
And he said, I wish we had better news.
This is a malignant glioloblastoma brain tumor.
And they had done, you know, all of the tests and everything there.
But he said he's got a malignant glioblastoma brain tumor.
It's, you know, final stage.
I can guarantee there's zero chance of survival.
And what we'd like to do is put him on,
do chemo, radiation, brain surgery, try to slow it down.
And I would recommend you take him to Disneyland,
do some kind of thing, make some memories here.
Well, you've still got time, but he will not survive.
And so the guy leaves, and I'm so mad at this doctor.
You know, at the time I'm bodybuilding, I'm old.
I'm 252 pounds swollen up and laying.
And I'm thinking, you idiot,
I don't want to go to Disneyland.
land. I just want to get back to where I get my companies going. But I go through all this and
lost absolutely everything, lost all my companies, lost the pharmaceutical company, the everything
we were doing there. Ended up sleeping on my parents' floor in Crawford, Colorado, in the middle of
nowhere. We were 30 miles from the nearest stoplight and sleeping on their living room floor in a
woodbedroom lab cabin and it just started from there again. So, yeah, it was kind of a crazy,
kind of a crazy thing to go from being
like I was on top of the world to
absolutely nothing
and having to start from scratch again.
You know, I think what's
not the most interesting
about this, I mean, I want to get to the most interesting
part, but what I find is very interesting
is, you know, that's
you know how life is, right? You can be at the top
of the mountain one moment and all of a sudden a big
wind gust can knock your ass down to the bottom and you're
rebuilding again. And I think at some
point, everybody listened to this show,
myself included, can relate
to having to start over, you know, whether it was the mortgage meltdown in 2007.
That was my story, right?
I lost everything.
I'm like, I turned into this loser that had to move back to Florida from, you know,
I lived in California.
That's where I'm from.
I went back there after I played baseball at LSU and I wanted to be back in California.
And I lost everything, right?
You know, and I told me that myself the story when the interest, I mean, when the, when the loans started,
you know, the state of loans went away.
and like all that kind of stuff,
that whole,
you know,
bad loan thing.
I'm like,
dude,
we're done here in California
because it's so expensive.
No one's going to qualify for shit.
And I was convinced,
I was going to lose my house,
convinced I was going to have my car repoed,
and it happened.
And because I just sat in that mindset,
right?
Everybody feels like that mindset is.
Yeah.
Like,
everybody feels,
and it's so funny because I talked about,
like, dude,
they tell me like,
Sean,
you don't understand.
You are disciplined.
You've been this way.
I'm like,
are you kidding me?
Like,
no,
I had to lose my ass
for me to understand
that my thoughts were, you know, coming to real life.
And there was something, you know, so real about your thoughts becoming things, right?
And because you start to operate in that frequency
and you start to attract things and make stupid decisions
that will put you in that exact position that you fear.
So I think that's a very cool point for everybody to listen to, like, listen,
you know, we've all lost things at times.
But I think what is more impressive with your story,
story is like it just wasn't a financial thing it was multiple things right like you literally had
zero percent chance to live so if everybody listening thinking that you know like hey this what i'm going
through right now is freaking hard it may may well be hard right but like put yourself in curtis's
position if you're a parent put your put yourself in his mom's position like how in the fuck do
you come back from that uh yet you know Curtis did you know he's here with us today you know what
almost 13 years later.
Yep.
And so at what point,
like when you were mad at him,
but what did you say,
like when you were released from the hospital,
how did you beat this, man?
Because that is something I'm telling you right now,
that's almost like, you know,
pancreatic cancer.
Like, dude, it's a death sentence, man.
Like, you know, you may have one or two people
out of a whole bunch of people that actually beat that.
I don't know the stats.
All right, guys, so for you, hop on here
and fact check my ass.
I'm just talking, right?
Fuck.
So how did that work out for you, man?
It's a great to drive your interaction up as well.
Oh, it absolutely is.
So come at me.
Come on, people.
Let's go.
Let me piss you off.
So what's, what was that moment like?
So there was, you know, I've been,
I'm a believer.
I believe Jesus died for my sins.
I know where I'm going when I'm done.
Right then.
And so that wasn't a, you know,
when the doctor said I was going to die,
It was a, I think I was more mad that he wanted my mom to take me at Disneyland and treat me like a special kid.
You know, he's like, and they're talking about doing brain surgery, so I would have had, you know, the kid in the helmet not being able to communicate.
And he said, I'd never go to communicate again.
And so I was frustrated with that going, if I could stand up, get my arm to move, I'd knock your teeth out.
But, yeah, it was just a weird, weird.
thing like that.
But as he's telling her that there's
zero percent chance to survival,
I went home.
At the originally,
you know,
I didn't move out of Denver right away.
I went and I moved in with a buddy,
he was actually the vice president
of another company that I owned.
And a supplement company.
I was running five or six different companies at the time,
but moved into his basement,
you know,
having seizures and stuff.
You know,
I had all that going on.
But that's actually why I started writing the first book.
It was the fourth one I published.
That's why I started writing the book was not because I wanted to be a famous author.
But I basically just wanted to have something for my mom to kind of remember me by
and have a book on the coffee table when I, you know, after I'd passed.
But we went to, I also owned that Cosmetic Medical Laser Clinic.
And we were manufacturing bioidentical injectable research peptides.
like IGF1, Long R3, Pagolid and mechanical growth factor,
different injectable peptides that helped with tissue regeneration.
And so I had a doctor working for me that said,
if he got cancer, he would absolutely never let him or his family,
whoever got the cancer.
He would never let them do the American Medical Association approved cancer treatments.
He said there's stuff in Germany, Mexico.
There's different treatments in other countries,
but he would absolutely never let them touch him with the medical,
you know, with the American Medical Association approved treatments.
So I thought that was kind of a crazy thing coming from a very sharp doctor.
And he brought in.
We had another compounding pharmacist that was working at Abbott pharmaceuticals.
So real high level of pharmacist and saying, yep, he would not do the American Medical Association-approved stuff.
So we went to Tijuana, Mexico.
My mom had this idea to take me down to Tijuana to a clinic called the Hoxi Biomedical Clinic.
and everybody's warning how it was dangerous and dirty
and, you know, it's unsafe
and Tijuana is a scary place or whatever.
But my thought at the time,
I thought Tijuana was a stupid idea as well
because here I am doing, you know, American medical stuff.
Right.
But so I was just,
the only reason I even agreed to go to Tijuana
was so that my mom felt like we had tried everything we could.
Okay.
At least we could just, you know,
at least you would feel like we had tried.
And, you know, I figured however I died it was going to be,
I knew where I was going, so it wasn't a big deal.
But got down there, Tijuana, and they started doing these, you know,
it's all kinds of injectable natural stuff, like vitamin B-17,
it's come from apricot pets.
And after the very first treatment, I started coming around.
I was memories coming back, all kinds of just crazy emotions.
And so it worked real well.
And I'm still here.
I made it longer than the 90 days that they guaranteed I would be dead in.
So is it completely gone?
So I've gone back.
I've still got some memory stuff with, you know, the short term memory.
And my sense of direction, since time and direction is absolutely trash.
But luckily I've got, you know, technology takes care of all that with scheduling and stuff.
So it really doesn't matter that I'm not great with directions because my car, I can, you know, I can tell my car to navigate to a certain place and it goes where it goes.
That's awesome.
As long as you've got the technology, the brain isn't required, I guess.
Absolutely not. You just got to know what the words mean, right?
Turn here. That's impressive. I mean, like, the fact that, you know, we're sitting here, you know, almost 13 years later having this conversation.
And the thing that I really, you know, respect about it is there was no fear. And, you know, there was no fear because you knew at the end of the day, you know, I, too, am a believer of Christ. So I know where I'm going, right? I may have a dirty mouth at times, but I know where I'm going. I have a great heart and I'm a good person.
but you know
I think that
that takes an added layer
of of fear anxiety
and disease off of you
when it's just like all right I accept it
like screw it all right mom
I'll go get my shot you know we'll figure
this thing out and then you know along the way
here we are 13 years later and you know
you're thriving and you're I mean
listen man I've I've always you know for the moment
we were connected on on Instagram
I saw some of the people that I know doing some things.
That's a cool guy.
He seems like he's an inspiring dude.
He's got a shit together.
But like after I've gotten to know you a lot better,
that's the power of social media.
And I feel like not enough people are utilizing it the right way.
Yeah.
I mean, the fact, I mean, I can honestly say without a,
without hesitation that the people I have met in the last two years,
that are in my circle that I talk to from social media
are closer to me than some of the
listen guys some of the people that have been in my life forever
so like my homies and my best gal friends like don't be offended by this
I'm not talking about you I'm talking about people that I think have my best
interest in mind right like I just think it's a powerful thing right
It gives the opportunity for us to broaden our circle and to have more people in our arena in our corner together.
Like I just think it's impactful, man.
So, you know.
I've actually, I've been invited to teach a class called mastering social media at the Mesa County Library here.
They've got, they're doing a bunch of entrepreneurs and business owners and stuff.
That's cool.
They scheduled a couple months ago, but it's actually the day after tomorrow.
But that's one of the biggest things I'm going to talk on is because there's all these people who are business leaders and, you know,
trying to figure out of market their mortgage companies or their, you know, whatever different
businesses.
And the biggest thing where everybody messes up, where I did originally on social media years ago,
is I'd get on and I talk about, yeah, I've got this new book.
You've got to check this out.
It's, you know, I've interviewed the inventor of the MP3 player and these different things.
Read my book.
Here's my book.
Check this out.
And nobody's checking it out because it's, I'm talking about what I can get out of it.
But when I started figuring out, I mean, it's every social media.
platform. They've got me there for an hour, you know, plus questions afterwards. And I could literally
distill that down to about a 60 second talk. Yeah. You say, listen, you get on there and whether
there's collaborating, sharing, whatever it is, if you're doing at least 80% of all your content
in order to give something to your audience with nothing required in return, just like I do
with you with, you know, different things where I'm going, hey, I can help you do this, hope you do this,
we'll help you do that. And pretty soon when it comes time to pitch you for a big, you know,
big thing. It's, I mean, that's not my, that's not my point. But if I come up with something where I'm
needing, you know, a big financial investment from you or whatever, you go, man, Curtis has been
there all along, always providing value. I've always got good things out of it. Then, then that's
the person that you're going to do business with. And so it's basically all on social media. It's the
same kind of thing where if you're just providing value, even if that's, you know, maybe it's just a
picture of you, or you know, it's a, it's a thing where you're you sharing, you know, I'll do
sometimes where I'm, you know, I'm sure in a, uh,
or I'm on a trip or taking a motorcycle ride or, you know,
hiking or mountain biking, whatever the thing is,
but where people are just getting to know you and,
man,
that looks like a cool guy.
That looks like a fun thing that he's doing.
And then pretty soon when I come out with the new book or the new course or whatever,
then people are excited about it.
And then the money just comes without even have to ask books.
Yeah, I think,
you know,
I think that's something that,
you know,
everybody learns,
um,
throughout their journey on social media.
I mean,
I'm still pretty new in it,
right?
And so,
you know,
I was noticing that,
you know, very early on, people weren't acting on what I was putting out there, right? Now, I mean,
I got to tell you, once people learn who you are and what your heart truly is by you being
authentic and genuine every single time you put something out there, I started being myself,
right? I started if I was, you know, feeling a certain energy about something, I wouldn't hold it back.
I didn't worry about, you know, if I was going to offend somebody or if this is too aggressive or
or what it is.
These are my feelings.
I'm going to be 100% transparent.
And what I've found is to your point.
You know,
like I'm getting,
I'm getting messages from all over the place.
The people,
you know,
with my book,
I'm like,
what is going on?
This is,
this is the most beautiful thing ever.
And it's,
it's not from a standpoint of,
hey,
look what I've done.
Let me pound my chest.
It's just like,
I'm going to sit in this emotion right now
because I'm emotional about it.
You know,
like I had someone yesterday send me a picture or tag me on social media.
She's in a hospital bed holding my book up.
That's amazing.
Did a post and tagged me.
I'm like,
I mean,
at that point I got it.
I just like I literally started like I had tears welling up.
It's like,
this is,
this is the movement that I wanted.
This is the movement that I set out to create when I,
when I started a determined society.
Yeah.
You know,
and to see it,
you know,
coming full circle and still at the very infancy of it in my in my humble opinion like it's still
like i mean we're not even close right now like there's always another level i will never stop
pushing but to see it start to come through in in such a genuine way like you're stating
you know like i've provided so much value to these people and in value i mean i want the audience to
hear this the value could be just something you put out on social media it could be a quote
it could get somebody through their day, right?
Everybody has a story and everybody has the responsibility, in my opinion, to tell it.
Because if you don't, it dies with you.
And that's not only tragic, but it's irresponsible.
You don't have to, so many people try to figure out this class.
The reason they're asking me to teach the class is because they're wanting me to tell the details of, you know, how do you share this?
How do you edit your video clips?
How do you make, you know, what colors do you use?
How do you get this to be?
so everybody's showing up is expecting to figure out how to show up and and create the
Instagram feed that I've got and do the same kind of videos and same stuff.
Yeah.
And some of them, anyway, I know, I know they're going to be disappointed on some of them
where they're expecting to be able to show up and get this formula of how do I, how do I get my
video background to look like that, those kind of things.
Yeah.
But if some, you know, if I tried to copy what you're doing with the determined society,
I'm going to fail at it because I don't have the same type of, you know, not only the same
personality, but my audience.
is not the same as your audience.
We've got a little bit different,
you know,
a little bit different genre of people where some of them may,
may absolutely love you.
And I'm thinking,
man,
I'm going to copy exactly what Sheld's doing.
And then when I post that,
there you go,
like,
what is he doing?
This guy is,
yeah, this guy's weirdo,
even though I lost his mind.
Yeah.
But talking about the books,
that was another cool thing where I've had,
I had a guy chased me down in the San Francisco airport.
I carry a gun everywhere I go.
I got one here,
one here with me on the,
on the side.
I got never going to tuck in my waist.
He's packing, y'all.
I've always got, you know, always got ammunition and stuff.
And so I'm going through the San Francisco airport,
and I hear footsteps, you know, running behind me, fly,
and I was like, what the heck?
And then so I hear, Mr. McCoy, Mr. McCoy.
And so I turn around and I'm thinking,
I'm about to get tackled by airport security.
And so you just thought going through my head,
I figured maybe I had some extra, you know,
extra shell in a in a bag or carry on or something so I thought I was getting ready to get
tickled for a for a bullet but the guy carams running up and he says I just want to I just want to
let you know I'm your biggest fan I want to see if I get a I want to see if I get your autograph
that's nuts and so I told the guy who was like like what he said yeah I've read all your blog
posts and he just starts listing off he's kind of a you know like like photogenic photographic
memory kind of yeah but he's talking about yeah but he's talking about you
talking about blog posts I'd written like back in 2016 or something.
Yeah, he's reading this one.
You know, he's just just listing off these different things.
And I learned this from you here and I learned this from you here.
And I just want to let you know, I'm your biggest fan.
And I said, you're probably my only fan.
I've never had anybody to say that.
Thanks, man. You're really made by day.
That's so cool, man.
But it's cool to see with the books or the podcast or whatever,
I had a, I had to be all speaking in San Antonio a few months back
here and there's a guy last January that had got on he he called me in the middle of
night on Facebook because he got on he was in the process of committing suicide he'd already
eaten a half a bottle of pills you know he had been handfuls of it then he got on social media
and he googled motivational speakers or whatever it was he you know whatever he got on uh
and search found my page and called in the middle of the night just to like a facebook video call
and so i answered and you know i try to answer all the calls because it could be business or it
could be something like that kid that was in the process, commit and suicide.
So as we're talking, he's talking about how he had, he had been abused when he was a kid.
So I shared a little bit about the abuse with, you know, my dad had me a loaded pistol and told me to do the world of favor.
Jesus.
Different stuff like that.
So just sharing this story with him.
And he's saying, well, I'm a loser.
I've had, you know, I've, you know, gone through a lot of the same stuff where I'm, I'm listening to him going, maybe I'm a loser too because I've been through the same kind of stuff.
Right, right.
But so I'm sharing the story.
He's just going, you know, you were created in the image of the gods,
created the entire universe.
He created you in his image.
So by default, you're amazing.
You know, maybe you're in a rough time right now.
But that doesn't mean this is where you should give up.
You know, I told him, hey, would you, would you do me a favor?
Make me a deal here.
And, well, what's it?
It said, make me a deal.
Okay, promise.
He said, okay, I'm going to send you a copy of my book right now.
I'm going to send you a copy the latest book.
You go dump the, dump the rest of those pills down the toilet.
Don't settle on the counter, don't know the toilet, and wait until you get that book and read through it cover to cover.
And when you get done with the book, then make the decision if you still want to, if you still want to end your life.
But give me a few days, don't, you know, don't finish making this, this life ending or life-changing decision right now.
Will you make me that deal?
So, yeah.
So I got his address and stuff, sent him a copy of the book.
This is like January, two years ago.
And I was in San Antonio.
I'd had this speech that I'd been working on for weeks and weeks making sure it was absolutely dialed in.
And during the first day of the conference, I started getting text from this guy.
And I didn't recognize who it was.
But he just starts talking about how I changed his life and he's doing good.
And he's just celebrating his 24th birthday.
So we get on the conference the first day.
And I'm reading through these.
I'm like, holy cow, this is that guy that was in the process of killing himself.
And so he had written out paragraphs of, you sent me his new personal identity.
saying, I'm a leader.
I surround myself with good people.
I make good choices.
Good things come to me because I work hard because I deserve good things.
So he wrote out this whole thing.
And then he started sending pictures where he's standing out on his balcony,
where he's holding book.
And he's saying, yesterday was my 24th birthday.
And I celebrated it not by being at the bar drinking with friends or doing drugs like
I would have typically.
You know, you're talking about all the different drugs and stuff.
he said normally you would have got you know done coke or heroin or whatever he was going to do
and had a good time but instead he sat home and read that book cover to cover again um
you know just changed his identity but i'm going that's not's not because of what i wrote
that's just because i had put myself out there on social media and had enough of an audience
that when this kid searched for motivational speakers he happened to find me because i had
I had the most trafficker or the most most relevant posts.
And so by finding that, I didn't have to be the best speaker.
I didn't have to be the best author.
I just had to be available where I was in front of him when he searched it.
My name showed up.
And then I could respond to that and get on the call with him and go,
and listen, I went through some of the same stuff.
You know, don't need your life here.
Give a little bit of a chance.
So that wasn't about anything about who I was or any of that.
It was just by using social media connect and get yourself in front of people.
you end up in, and that could have been a business deal,
but it also ended up in where it's just a, you know,
changed kids' life.
And he ended up now he's,
he's doing good things instead of ending his life back last January.
You know, I think it's impressive.
But what I mean by that is, like, I think to respectfully, like,
to disagree with you, it was about who you were.
Well, there's a lot of people in this business and a lot of, you know,
people that are in positions of inspiring people.
people or motivating people or they wouldn't have picked up that call because they'd have been too
good to pick up a call right oh i'm not picking up this call my team handles these things that had
happened that that young man's not alive right now so you know ladies and gentlemen that is like
truly a testament of why this dude is my friend because it's things like that when you can truly
give your heart in every situation and not want anything from people but just want the best for them
like amazing things happen.
And two years later,
here you are delivering a keynote
in San Antonio,
and this boomerangs back around.
And you get to see that,
although you may not have had communication with him
after that book was sent out,
and I'm sure you've been praying
endlessly for this kid.
You got to see that he is now okay.
That to me is the reason,
that to me right there,
like,
forget every single thing that you've accomplished professionally.
That was your purpose.
And the other cool thing besides that, though, is it wasn't just, I'd been working on a speech,
almost like a sales, you know, I had, I had it ridiculously dialed in exactly what I wanted
to say.
And as this was going on, I started getting messages.
And then the kid, the final messages that were coming in were late at like 2, 3 a.m.
And the kid's still messaging where he's celebrated in his birthday.
And he's got these, he's sending these pictures about his new identity.
So I got up the next day on stage.
And scrapped my original speech, told him, don't use my slideshow, none of that.
And got up and talked about how by putting yourself out there in front of people,
by building a good social, good following online where people, you know, identify with you,
even if you've never got a chance to meet them, where they can get out and go,
hey, I really like that, Sean guy. He seems to share some good stuff. He seems to have a good heart.
And then now when they're when they're needed to hold you, maybe they're need to hire a speaker,
maybe they're needing somebody to co-author a book. Or maybe they're going, I'm at a
it's in, I'm going to kill myself.
I'm going to reach out to this.
Who's the first social media guy that I can think of?
Okay, Sean, I'm going to try to reach out to Sean French.
But by getting out there, just having that.
But that turned into a speech where I got up and I was just sharing,
here's some of the stuff with this kid's no identity.
Here's, you know, the pictures of the book.
And so I sold a whole lot of books because of that.
Because people are going, I want to hear this.
And so rather than you're just talking about the pre-planned speech,
I just got up there and was able to be real at the audience
and share this real story.
And that was actually the fourth kid that I've had, you know, because of the social media stuff and being out there.
That's the fourth person I know of directly that had decided not to end their life because of just getting into contact.
But that's all possible because of just by getting your name out there on social media.
So if you're a jerk, if you're a dirtbag, maybe maybe hold up and don't try to grow your following.
But you're a good person.
I'd say try to board up because it'll open up some opportunities for you.
Yeah, absolutely.
it's a great it's a great way to um you increase your reach and to uh do more for people right and to uh
just be there man and it's that's an impressive story that truly is and you know unfortunately we're
running out of time man um we're both busy dudes and we got a role but i just want to thank you so much
for being on the show and telling stories that may not be out there in circulation because
you know like i told you before we started recording um i
I do my best to keep my show fresh every single week.
It is not the same questions.
Nothing is scripted.
My intros aren't scripted.
They're all real and raw.
And, you know, just a little bit of post-editing from my boy, Anthony.
And, you know, so I take great pride in it.
And, you know, this conversation has been so enlightening because it was so dynamic.
It was a deep conversation.
and it was great to learn more about you.
And guys, if you are on, you know, Instagram,
you got to look up, my boy, M. Curtis McCoy, follow him,
see what he's got going on.
And if he's ever doing a conversation or a keynote anywhere in your area,
I don't care what the investment is.
You need to go.
You need to hear what this man has to say,
because not only has he been very successful in the medical industry,
the cosmetic industry, which is medical,
And then now you're talking about the supplement industry.
And now we're in, you know, the PR and press release in the magazine industry.
And he's also a professional in the people industry.
And that is what matters the most.
So, bro, with that being said, a couple more questions.
One, what can my audience do to best support you?
Man, that's a good question.
So one of the things, if you've got, I'm trying to get more into,
I've spoken of Caesar's Palace and all kinds of stuff, big events, but I'm really looking to get in to speak with schools, high schools, middle schools, stuff like that, even though they're lower paying than some of the large, you know, tactical events are.
But definitely if you've got, if you're an administrator, school administrator, anybody that's got any pool with the school, I would love that contact to get, you know, get featured, running it and talk to students and help them improve their lives.
and then also if you know anybody that's looking to you know they're trying to get verified on social media or whatever
i can get you featured in newswire magazine so feel free to send me a message let's get connected
and i was happy to always happy to meet new people absolutely go to go to newswire
because new newswire magazine check out my article you'll see the kind of artwork that that he does
and it's a truly professional a feature and it was amazing so i highly recommend it and um you know
like I mentioned to you for Curtis, my students, I'm going to send your way for, you know, a lot of those services, for verification purposes, for, you know, amazing feature cover articles.
But more than that, man, what else can I do to support you?
And that's it.
I'm just always looking to connect with great folks.
So you've got people that are good people, send them over my way and let's get connected.
I'm always happy to, always happy to work with other folks.
Absolutely.
Go-authoring a book, speaking, whatever.
I'm happy to help out.
Co-authoring a book.
I'm down to do another book.
Actually, we need to get you in.
I'm writing my fifth book right now.
Okay.
I've had well over 100 applicants already,
but it's going to be on personal branding and personal identity.
I would absolutely love to feature you in that book.
Let's talk about it offline, man, for sure.
I think that would be fun.
I would definitely love to do that project with you.
So, guys, you heard it.
You know where to go to find him.
And if you don't remember, don't worry, I'm going to put it in the notes.
So you don't have to write anything down.
Just go down.
Hit more.
see more expand details.
You're going to see every single place.
You can find my boy Curtis.
Maybe even links to purchase some of his books would be really cool.
So be looking out for that.
And more than anything, guys, if you got anything out of the show,
please share the show out.
That's the only way I'm growing right now.
I'm not doing ads.
Eventually, I might be forced to, if you guys don't share the show.
So no pressure.
But share the show.
Tag us on our social medias.
I know Curtis and myself will share it back.
out on our platform.
We appreciate anything you can do
to bring awareness of this episode.
And with that being said, guys,
take care.
See you next time.
Rinse takes your laundry
and hand delivers it to your door,
expertly cleaned and folded.
So you could take the time
once spent folding and sorting and waiting
to finally pursue a whole new version of you.
Like tea time you.
Mmm.
Or this tea time you.
Or even this tea time you.
Said you hear about Dave?
Or even tea time.
tea time, tea time you.
Mmm.
So update on Dave.
It's up to you.
We'll take the laundry.
Rinse.
It's time to be great.
