The Entrepreneur DNA - Lions Not Sheep: His Cutthroat Quest for Entrepreneurial Dominance | Sean Whalen | EP7

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Sean Whalen and I delve into entrepreneurship and life perspectives. We emphasize finding gratitude and purpose in daily life, regretting missed opportunities, and prioritizing personal fulfillment over traditional success metrics. Our discussion underscores the importance of self-awareness, taking risks, and being honest about one's desires. We advocate for personal responsibility, urging individuals to overcome challenges and pursue their dreams. Sean's journey from coaching to real estate investing is highlighted, emphasizing the value of mentorship and being coachable. Financial commitment and action are deemed crucial for personal growth and success. The endorsement of Whalen's coaching program by a friend underscores its positive impact on mental, spiritual, and physical well-being.

Welcome back to another episode. And as always, I have some of the best people in the entire universe to teach you about how to be an entrepreneur and I have a very close friend of mine. Mr. Sean Whalen is here. What is up, brother? What's up, guy?

What's up? Let's do this. So listen, this Entrepreneur DNA podcast is all things entrepreneurship. Doesn't matter the vertical. What I wanna do is I wanna impress upon all those out there, either aspiring entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs in the thick of it, how to navigate this terrain, what it takes, why we do it, and how they can kind of get to levels well beyond where they're currently at, dude.

And just a little background, right? We first met back in Phoenix doing some real estate stuff together, huh? I think so. I don't remember. I barely remember my kids' names. So you're going to have to refresh my memory. That's it. That's it.

Well, so we have a background there. And, you know, listen, if people don't know Sean Whalen, you immediately need to go follow Sean Whalen on all platforms because he has a movement of entrepreneurs, men, women of just people who are just changing the world. Right. And so I'm telling you, this is going to be one of the favorite podcasts I'm going to be having here. And so let's just talk about what drives you at Lions, not sheep and all the different avenues that you got cooking, dude. What drives you day in and day out to run as hard as you do?

Life, man. I mean, the fact that I woke up, it sounds really simple. A lot of people think that there's some mystical, magical thing or like what drives me is the success or the money or I'm not where I want to be financially or any of this other shit. Literally waking up. I decided years ago that what made me really unhappy was the chase of the thrill and the thing and the accolades and the benchmark of money and this and the other stuff. And over the last year, literally I've had three or four of my friends die unexpectedly at a very young age. And it just keeps reminding me how incredible it is just to be alive. And so what drives me is literally when I wake up in the morning, I genuinely feel like I won the lottery. I genuinely have like radical gratitude in my heart. Like, fuck dude, I get another day. I get another day. And I look at every day as a gift,

you know, not like, oh shit, I got to go to work and I got to do this. And I got to, I got to have this old lady as my wife and my kids. And it's like, fuck dude, I'm alive. I woke up game on let's fucking go. You know what I mean? So from the simplest reality, every single morning, what drives the shit out of me is the simplicity of just waking up and being alive. So how do you give someone that level of perspective? I think you've gone through a lot in your life to your point. You just lost four incredible friends. How does the 30 year old who probably hasn't had a bunch of shit sandwiches in the way

that maybe you and I have had, how do you gain that perspective? You can go a million ways with this, right? I look at it from the perspective of if I could go back to being 20 years old, I would have listened more to people, right? I had a giant fucking ego. I thought I knew everything. I thought I had every answer to every question, and I didn't. And I ran myself ragged. And I ended up divorced and depressed and bankrupt, and it wasn't the right play. And so I would like to think that if you think that you're smart, that you actually listen to people and that you know that there's people out there that have knowledge and wisdom that you don't. So my counsel to people

is find people that are where you want to be or have what you want to have, whether that's life, whether that's a business and learn from them. Think about it for two seconds. Like if you're 30 years old and you think that the racket is the game and the money and the whole thing, great, go ahead and run that racket. I'm telling you as somebody who was a self-made multimillionaire by 30 years old, that's not the game. The game is life. The game is experiences. The game is living, right? And so what I teach people now and what I think I have is a good track record of showing people like you could do two things. You can build a business and try and live life around it or do what I, which is what I did for 20 years in my career.

Or you can figure out what kind of life you want to fucking live and then build a business that will support that. I mean, how many books do you have to read by moguls that came before us that say, man, I would trade everything to go back and do it all over again. How many times do you have to hear the Steve Jobs story of him being on his deathbed saying, I'm worth $7 billion and I can't cure my cancer. I literally can't cure my cancer. I'm rich as fuck. I won the money game, but I didn't win the life game. How many times do you have to read a book of a Carnegie, a Rockefeller, a Steve Jobs, anybody where they said, man, if I could go back and be 40 years old again, I would have done it this way. If you're smart, if you

think that you're smart, what you're going to do is you're going to listen to that story and to listen to that shit. But the problem is we have egos and the ego and the social media and the whole thing is like, go, go, go, build, build, build, go, go, go, build, build, build. And I'm telling you right now, I chose a number of years ago to start listening to the really smart motherfuckers that were on their deathbed telling me, listen, live life, man. You're going to end up dead. You're going to end up where I am right now. Steve Jobs said the same thing. I have all the money. What I can't do is go back and live my 30s again or my 40s again. And I give all of the money I have to go back and do that. So I'd made a choice years ago. That's the kind of life I'm going to live. That's the kind of business I'm

going to build. And this is why I am where I am today. Bro, it's as you guys can already see, this is going to be an incredible episode. He's an incredible human. What I'd also say, and you just kind of rephrase it for me, I think there's not enough people that make a decision on what they want. I'm from California and I can go fucking woo woo on everybody of course but when i say what's your why and make a decision i'm not and i guess i'm i'm tired and maybe you are too of people saying my why is my children no fucking shit you're a parent this is the game right like it's got to be bigger than that right and so i really believe there's a lack of entrepreneurs that start at what I would call pillar one, which is decide what you actually want and make that decision. And it can't be like, well, I'm going to do it for my children.

So I'm going to work 80 hours a week and make a million dollars a year. And that's why I'm doing it. Because to your point right now,'s a short that's a short road right look one of the heart one of the hardest questions a human being will ever have to answer is is simply that what do you want i've asked literally thousands and thousands and thousands of people that question um i've asked millionaires that question i've asked billionaires that question what do you want and the reality is most people don't know what they want most people truly don't know what they want well i want truly don't know what they want. Well, I want freedom. I'm like, yeah, cool. I'm free to fucking stab you in the face with this marker right now. You're free to do that. You're free to run across the street naked if you want. There's

ramifications to some of these things. Okay. Well, what do you want? I want financial freedom. Well, what does that mean? What does that mean? Well, I want more money. Well, great. How much more money? It's such a wild thing that we're living such granular lives of like these one dimensional realities. And when you start actually asking people questions, which is what I'm like a pro at doing, like, why do you want that? You know what I mean? It's really, really easy.

And this is something for a lot of people to take away, especially the entrepreneurs. Like when you say, I want more money, I can't help you. Like I'm a coach. I have thousands of clients right now in my Lions Den coaching group, thousands. I can't help you get more money, I can't help you. Like I'm a coach. I have thousands of clients right now in my Lions Den coaching group, thousands. I can't help you get more money, right? But the people that say I want to make a million dollars a year, I can absolutely help you. If you just say, well, I just want to be happy. I don't know what the fuck that means. And probably you don't either. So the reality is like, what does happiness happiness mean like what exactly do you want and

what's fascinating justin as i've as i've um looked through this and talked to people most people don't know but the even crazier thing most men are terrified to say what they really fucking want most men act like total fucking pussies and they're not willing to say what they want right i don't want to work real right i don't want to work real talk i don't want to work if there's not a man on the planet that would trade being at the beach playing with his kids for a day in a cubicle not one of you motherfuckers no one but you don't have the balls to say i want to play you don't have the balls to say to your wife what you really want so you're like oh well baby you know uh know what? No, I want to fuck.

I want to fuck. Like, you don't have the balls to say what you really want. And this is why you don't get what you want. You get what you're given. You get all the crumbs that fall off the table from other things and other people and from the church and from what mom and dad told you and everything else. Men are cowards.

They don't literally know what they want, and they're not willing to go down into the rabbit hole to figure that shit out and so they live these lives of anger and misery and frustration oh dude life fuck you bro what the fuck do you want and what i have found is like when you can be around people that will challenge you like really fucking challenge you to get clear on what you want then you can build anything i can show people how to build anything if you have a target what most men don't know how to do is number one identify the target or number two they don't have the fucking huevos to say exactly what they want

so don't be surprised why you don't have the life that you want yeah and that starts with looking in the mirror in my opinion right the your point like everyone wants to everyone wants to go on fucking social media and look cool talk the big shit i want to make a million dollars i want to be a bit whatever the hell yeah when they look in the mirror they know their truth they just don't want to admit it right and i think that starts with them being honest inside yeah my coach asked me this he's like what do you want and i was like well i want this and i want freedom and i want finances and i got really thinking it took me a. It literally took me a year to answer some of these questions, most important that. And I just flat out told him, I was like, dude, I want to play with my kids.

If I'm being really honest, I want to play with my children. I have five kids. They have hockey and soccer and horses and all that. And all of a sudden I started realizing to myself, that's really what I want. That's what I want. Now, how do I build a life that allows me to play with my kids whenever I want? And it was like, shit, nobody taught me this. Nobody showed me this. What I was shown is go to school, get a job, climb the corporate ladder, da-da-da-da-da, put your money in your 401k, your Roth IRA, the company will match, da-da-da-da, and then at some point in time, you'll be happy and you can fucking retire, and then you can do whatever you want. And I was like, fuck that shit. I don don't like that that's not what i want what

i want is to be able to play with my children whenever i want and do whatever i want and it was like okay well cool but that's gonna that's gonna cost millions of dollars great what type of business do i have to build to do that great that's the type of business well who do i have to become what type of man do i have to literally build like you're a creator you're built exactly what you are you built exactly what you are so if you're a fat sack of shit you built that if you're no doubt as fuck you built that if you're rich if you're able to do whatever you want and and this is why people it's fascinating for me especially with entrepreneurs to say well well well but but but but but, but, but, but, but fuck you. Like I didn't grow up with a silver spoon. I don't have rich family. I did it. I'm literally, I'm literally living the exact life that I built. So don't tell me it's not possible.

Don't tell me that it's not possible. Just tell me that you don't have the balls to do it. Don't tell me, just tell me that you don't have the wherewithal to do it. Just tell me that you're not mad enough to say what you really want, and then we'll be cool. But so long as you lie and say, well, Sean, you're lucky. Sean, you this. Sean, you that. No, I got crystal fucking clear and said, I want to be able to do anything I want with

my children whenever I want. That's not practical. For you, it's not practical. For me, it's my life. So what's the difference? What's the difference? I had to swallow a giant freaking humble pie and realize, okay don't have the life that i want right now who does who has the tools and the resources that i can get to build the life that i want and eight nine years

ago i went on this quest and i'm literally living that exact fucking life right now but i haven't had a real job since i was 20 years old so i love love that. Right. So by the way, let's go down that path. I actually think we're insane. Just so you're clear, my actual personal opinion of entrepreneurs is there's actually something wrong with us because I've also never had a W2 job ever. I went to a nice school, got my nice little pretty degree because that's what we do, right? That's what society says to do. I said, okay, I got to go do that.

Go to UCLA, get my degree. I've used it this many times. I've never applied for a W-2. What if this is normal? I mean, you watch The Matrix. Okay. Look at it now. What I think is fucking absolutely insane is relying on someone to pay you every two weeks

is that's job security. That's financial security. That's family security. That's life security. Fuck you. That is the most insecure unsecured fucking thing that you could do is trade your time that like that nine to five as a literal slave that's that's like the most unsecure thing possible because all you're you're

just a number you're just a line item on a spreadsheet and when all of a sudden they're like they don't care about your family uh mainstream america corporate world doesn't give a fuck about your family they don't care about you they don't care about your family uh mainstream america corporate world doesn't give a fuck about your family they don't care about you they don't care about your kids you're fucking replaceable in two seconds they fire you and ship your job off to some other fucking country that ain't job security what's job security is knowing that i can create whatever amount of income i want whenever i want that's security i am my job security my skill set is my job security now mind you i'm my job security. Now, mind you, I'm a high school dropout. I don't have rich family. I don't have rich fucking friends.

So how did I acquire the skill set and the knowledge to have what I have today? It's really simple. If you watch the matrix, red pill, blue pill, you choose red pill, whichever one it was, blue pill, red pill. You stay exactly where you are. Keep doing what you're doing. Good luck to you. Blue pill. But maybe it's the other other way around i don't fucking know is we're gonna open up a door of possibility and we're gonna go on a journey and there's it's possible to build what it is that you want to build it's possible that you can become a man who can actually dictate his own future it's possible that you can go from having a broke family i'm the first millionaire in my family ever i owe family tree as far back as we can go.

Don't tell me it's not possible. Just tell me you don't want to do the work because I know that it's possible. And a lot of people like this is what rubs especially meant wrong is then the ego flips and is like, well, you don't know my story. Fuck your story. Your story means nothing. Your past means nothing. How bad your daddy was and your mommy was and how many millions you

lost when the market crashed you want to know one of my favorite things is dudes are like yo dude when the market crashed i lost it all bro that was 12 fucking years ago what the fuck you've been doing for the last 12 years homie you see what i'm saying like literally anything declaration between you and your god and saying i am done playing these rules i am done being mediocre i am done working for the man the problem is nobody wants to do that why it's a safety my mom like say scary my parents will say stuff my wife will be scared and all thing and i i have literally found the more I jump off the cliff, the more comfortable I am jumping off the cliff. The more I'm able to build my wings on the way down,

the more comfortable I am building my wings on the way down. So now it's just not even a thing for me. I start a business, do a deal. It's just another fucking day, right? And this is where I think most men go wrong is they're just, we're fucking liars. We lie to ourselves more than anything else. We lie to ourselves more than we lie more than anything else we lie to ourselves more than we lie to our family we lie to ourselves more than we lie to the fucking social media we lie to ourselves more than we lie to facebook we lie

we just we're just liars and we lie to ourselves more than anything and we're killing ourselves we're literally depressed and frustrated and sad because we simply won't tell ourselves the truth it's wild i think we're absolutely fucking normal. And I think people that actually rely on a job and rely on somebody else and think that this government and this system and this country is going to help you out, you're fucking nuts.

If you're relying on a government and a job and some other man to feed your fucking family, to ensure your financial security, you're fucking nuts. You're absolutely nuts. Dude, I love it. I love it because the mind blowing part of all this whole thing is your original point. You get to create the life that you actually want to create. Now, listen, if you're okay living mediocre and you're totally happy and that is you,

you're not going to vibe with Sean for sure. You're likely not going to be vibing with me, right? But the reality is the honesty that you get to realize is this is your life that you get to create the more honest you are to yourself in the mirror you can go woo on this abundance thing but just in general the life you can live when you put it on your shoulders as a man is miraculous yeah miraculous ability you're a creator man look i. Look, I don't need to go down the whole religion rabbit hole with you and shove, but you're a fucking creator. If you're listening to this right now, there's no one that made you go to the job you went to today.

There's no one. There's no one that's making you be where you are, look how you look, earn how you earn. No one. It's your fucking choice. You chose it. So you either chose years ago to give up on your dreams to listen to the fucking fat slobs to go down the path that your parents went down which are fucking miserable or you made a choice i'm gonna do it my way and everybody called you crazy

and nuts and and not stable and irresponsible and whatever whatever but the funny thing is most of the geniuses that came before us they were labeled crazy and irresponsible And nutty and then all of a sudden they created the the fucking ipod or the iphone or something like that And now they're a genius, right? You got to go through being an absolute fucking nut job completely irresponsible to find their scope of genius You got to go through some really heavy hard life-changing life questioning, life-questioning shit to be able to become free. I had to question everything I thought I believed. I had to question everything that I had been told since I was a child of what normal looks

like, what being a dad looks like, what being a husband looks like, what being a CEO looks like. I had to question all of that and say, is it possible that all of that is a lie? Is it possible all of that is a scam? And what I found is the ultimate level of freedom, which is I am a free man. I get to create what I want. I get to wake up every morning and add the value to the marketplace and build whatever the fuck I want. And there's no one other than me standing in my way. I love that. Let's take that direction about what to build. Let's just say,

Sean, you fucking fired me up. That's it. I'm in. I'm ready to go create. How do you direct that person in the right direction? Meaning, well, I think you know what I mean. Do they go like you? Do they create a community? Do they go brand a clothing company? I mean, you definitely are multifaceted and many of us are how do we help these people say i just heard sean my life has now changed i'm going to do it what is it how do we tell them which way to go number one is stop fucking lying i can't tell you what to go do i can't tell you what to be passionate about you're not going to be me don't try and be me don't try and be justin don't try and ever be me you're not me you don't have the same screws loose as I do. So

go figure out where your screws are loose and run with that shit. What makes you tick? What are you good at? What are you passionate about? And not what you think is safe to anybody else or what might be accepted by everybody else. But the reality is I spent years coaching people without ever collecting a dime for it. Because I was like, I a coach i'm a real estate investor i've been in real investing in real estate since i was 20 years old like i'm not a coach and then all of a sudden i got somebody who was a coach who made millions of dollars like yo you're really fucking good at this you should do this and i was like me really and i literally made tens of millions of dollars in coaching since then right what are you good at what do you like

to do what's your passion well sean i like fucking fixing cars great there's dudes on tv that make millions of dollars fixing cars go fucking do it problem is and where everybody goes wrong is they they take their little teeny pinky toe and they're like i'm gonna just put that little teeny pinky toe in and you expect the world to give you abundance you expect the money to fucking flow while you just dabble in it no motherfucker all in or nothing and guess what's funny you'll know really fast how to fucking navigate the game and this is where guys are so fucking stubborn and you go wrong is you'll never actually know while you just dabble. You will never become wealthy dabbling. You will never know for certain dabbling. I literally sat down with one of my,

one of my dearest friends. This is why you got to have good fucking people. You got to have mentors. You got to sit down with Justin and be like, yo, tell me the real truth. Give me like the real shit. I sat down with my buddy and I said, Hey man, I want to get out a single family. I own like 170 homes at the time. And I want to get out a single family i own like 170 homes at the time and i want to get into multi-unit and he's like all right you want me to be real with you i said yeah and he's like right i'll never forget this as long as i live he said ride the waves i was like what do you mean this is like back in 2016 he's all right the way i said i don't understand what that means and he's's like, bro, your social media is blowing up. People fucking love you. The way you're able to orate words and

the way you're able to share the story, your way you're able to teach. There's very few people on planet earth that can do it the way that you do it. And I'm like, yeah, but I've never built that business for, I don't know anything. He's like, bro, this real estate will always be here. You'll always be able to make real estate. But the second he said that, I was like, okay, I'm all in. I'm not shitting you. I'm not making this up. I got the fucking receipts to show. I sold every one of my fucking houses, and I went all in on Lions Not Sheep.

I didn't know how to build a coaching company, so what did I do? I found coaches and mirrored what they did. I didn't know how to write a book, so I found a fucking editor and said, how do I write a book? I now have a a bestselling book. Almost a million copies sold. People with book deals don't sell a million fucking copies. I sold a million copies of a book that doesn't have fucking page numbers. I literally forgot to put page numbers in it. So don't tell me that it's kind of perfect and all this other bullshit, right? I started a fucking coaching group with my phone, literally with Facebook and Stripe. That is it. I didn't have anything else. I didn't know the

tech game. I didn't know any of that shit. And I literally started, I just fucking started. And what happened was I started with one person and then two and then whatever. I have 2000 people in 13 different countries that now tune into me once a week to coach them. I've had 23,000 people since 2016 come through my coaching groups, 23,000 people, right? I didn't know how to do this shit, but I knew that like my passion inside, the only thing I could bank on with 100% certainty is me. And I bet on me and I bet big on me and I went balls fucking deep. And I've literally put the multi-million dollar multiple multi-million dollars companies since then and so if you're

sitting there scratching your head going well sean i'm not you good don't be me don't try and be me what burns inside of you what message do you know that you need to share with the world what skill set do you have that you can fucking shape and refine and crush the marketplace in? Well, I suck at business. Good. Go hire somebody who doesn't suck at business to teach you business. This ain't fucking hard.

You understand what I'm saying? Guys, he said this literally for the past 21 minutes as we've had this episode running. He has said it no less than every single minute find someone who's done it before is doing it better pay them to teach you yep i don't know how many i mean you and i were just at down in san diego together literally full of the room of probably the 50th 50 highest performance influencers in the nation, right? I mean, getting in those groups, do you think I was able to level up? Do you think Sean was able to level up?

Cutting a check to be in those groups, cutting a check to be around Sean, cutting a check to be around me and others, we all do it. Sean does it, I do it. But for some reason, someone who's just starting or really wants this, they are terrified of cutting that check.

And that is a breakdown that I'm tired of it. Because if it's good enough for Sean, if it's good enough for me. The single biggest thing I did was hire a coach. And I didn't get it. I didn't get it. I'm like, why would I pay you? I was a multimillionaire by the time I was 30. What are you going to teach me?

And it was the act this is what so few people understand it was the act of jumping and hiring someone that was the single greatest lesson it wasn't what he taught me it was that i was willing to become coachable i wrote a fifteen thousand dollar check to my very first coach i had 16 grand in my bank account they say one of those oh i was fucking drinking hose water and sleeping on a park bench no i wasn't poor i was a brunk it wasn't my last dollar but i was like god was screaming at me like are you going to fucking do anything different or are you just going to keep doing the same fucking dumb shit yeah but 16k and that's 15

and that's that's an irresponsible move and one day it was like dude how much longer you're going to bang your head against the wall the definition of insanity is trying to do it the same way over and over and over again getting the same result and what what what i am fully convinced of is it wasn't the coaching program that ultimately shaped my life it was me literally signing a check and saying i'm now going to be coachable it changed the entire fucking game for me and ever since that day like what i learned over the that that past that that next six months i've literally made tens of millions of dollars from what i picked up and what i learned and this is where most men don't understand it until you sit there and you're actually willing like one of my favorite

quotes and this is so hard for people to wrap their head around, is this. The very best leaders have mastered the art of following. The very best leaders have mastered the art of following. Ed Milet, one of the best speakers on planet Earth, one of the highest paid coaches, follows Tony Robbins. Yep. Like how many stories of this do y'all want to hear before you realize shit justin might be right bye justin what do you got teach me good write the check jump in my shit

game on same thing with me my my my freaking lion's den group it's fucking hilarious it's 297 a month it's 10 a day and you get access to me 24 7 you get access to my friends who are all multi multi multi multi multi millionaires and you get the business owners like 297 why would i spend that that's fucking dumb i'm just gonna keep being a dumb shit going day after day week after week struggling and it's like you stupid fuck like all of your answers are right here in front of you and it ain't about the 300 dollars well if it ain't about the 300 dollars then why don't you just tell me? What do you think Andy, Priscilla and I and Justin and everybody else have been doing for fucking five years, giving you all of the content, all the resources? Here's the lesson.

You haven't done jack shit with it, right? Or else you wouldn't be struggling. So it's the game of you committing to yourself financially that 99.9% of the people listening to this podcast will never fucking do. And that is the reason next year, you're going to be in the same spot that you're in right now. Those people that get the game that know you got to pay to play. And it ain't about the fucking, I'm not getting rich off of your $300 friend. You understand this? What I am doing though though is challenging you to jump into a game you're not fully committed to if you're not willing to invest in you why would i if you're not willing to invest money into you why would you expect justin to spend one fucking waking second

with you when he could be with his family. This isn't what people want to hear. This stings a little bit. Welcome to the big leagues. Welcome to entrepreneur DNA, baby. That's why I created this for individuals like Sean Whalen to tell the truth. If you're listening to this, first of all, make sure you find Sean Whalen on every platform. If that vibe that he just gave off resonates with you,

you need to sign up with Lion's Den. I mean, it's not even a question. Just go right now. He's a friend of mine. There's no one I could tell any, like, get over there right now. Period. Everybody. I appreciate you, brother. You are making a massive, massive impact. Make sure to follow him on everything. He will change your life mentally, spiritually, physically. Bro, I'm hitting him up about his fucking jacked ass body. He's all big and shit now in his old age. I love it, bro. Well, I appreciate you. Keep doing your thing. I appreciate everyone, all the loyal listeners. Sean, I appreciate it. Later, bro.