The Iced Coffee Hour - EVERYTHING You've Learned About Money Is WRONG | Lewis Howes

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Starting point is 00:00:27 Lewis House is a New York Times bestseller, keynote speaker, and industry-leading show host. He's a two-sport, all-American athlete, former professional football player, and member of the USA Men's National Handball team. His show The School of Greatness is one of the top podcasts in the world with over 500 million downloads, and he was recognized by the White House and President Obama is one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the country under 30. Today we got to sit down with him and discuss everything he knows from success, wealth. What's the most you've ever made in a month? Probably like three and a half million. What's your...

Starting point is 00:01:03 And of course, greatness. So if you guys like episodes like this, feel free to subscribe. It would mean a lot. Thank you so much. And on to the episode. But first, we got to thank today's sponsor,

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Starting point is 00:02:30 My name is Louis Howes and welcome to the Ice Coffee Hour. Thank you so much for coming on, man. We really appreciate you hosting us here in your studio. Yes. I probably know this is a different set. Yeah. It's a great set.

Starting point is 00:02:40 It's been so nice to come to L.A. and not bring any equipment with us and just show up and it's all done. I could get used to this. I could too. You should do it once a month. We really should. That's what he was saying last night.

Starting point is 00:02:52 That's what he was saying last night. We had this idea where, well, I had the idea. We ended up getting so much done like brainstorming. We went out and I had a beer. Wow. I had a drink. He never does. No. I can vouch. He never does that. You never drink. You never drink. You know I've never been drunk in my life. Really? Yeah. 39 years. Never been drunk. Never been high. Never done drugs. Why? Not saying that it's like, you know, you've got to do that. It's so many opportunities, man. It never served me, you know, as an athlete like you're mentioning. Like, I would go to,

Starting point is 00:03:27 kind of the college football parties after the games. And everyone was like cake standing and drinking. And I was just like, this is going to be my edge to make me better than my teammates. They're going to be hung over to the next day. We have practice. I'm going to be able to perform better and get more playing time. So it was all about just the mental and physical edge. And will this make me a better athlete?

Starting point is 00:03:49 Because there were so many people that were more talented physically. But I was like, I need to be sharper mentally. So that was what it was for me. Did you see results? Like it actually worked for it? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And the guys that were freak athletes, but were drinking and just like up late at night and partying,

Starting point is 00:04:04 when I was going to bed and just getting up and working, I could see that I was emotionally and mentally sharper on the field. And it paid off over time. You know, I've heard the culture has changed a lot in the last few years of that because we were speaking with Austin Echler and he was telling us that like himself and everyone on his team is like so disciplined. And now like that's required. You can't like you can't slip up at all.

Starting point is 00:04:27 Yeah, you got to be. So has this changed over the last few years from your experience? I think so. I mean, I stopped playing 15 years ago. 2007 was my last game playing arena football. And even my teammates there, they were drinking a lot. It was kind of like the party vibe. But I just knew that my nutrition had to be dialed.

Starting point is 00:04:44 My sleep had to be dialed in at that time because they were all more physically gifted than me. So if I was partying and not sleeping well, I just wouldn't perform well at all. So I think now the competition is so much. better. Everyone's got the best nutritionists and trainers. To stay healthy in the NFL or in any sport on a professional level, you've got to be dialed in with your body and your mind at a high level consistently. Otherwise, you might be able to make it, like can get on a team for a while, but you just can't be out partying all night after a game. It's just like it's not going to work.

Starting point is 00:05:19 Yeah. So tell us about your background, like how you got into sports. My whole childhood was about trying to overcome the feelings of being insignificant. I was really bad in school. I don't know. You were probably the top of your class gram, right? No. Okay. I'm serious.

Starting point is 00:05:37 Really? Is that a joke? You're much smarter than me. So I'm assuming you did way better than me. No. I was terrible. Really? Oh, yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:45 I barely passed. Wow. I was in the bottom four every year of high school. In my high school, they would rank you. Yeah, and in our school on our grade card. That's humiliating. Exactly. So I was always in the bottom four.

Starting point is 00:05:58 And when I went to eighth grade, they had started to do the standardized tests. And my reading test, I had a second grade reading level in eighth grade. So I always felt insecure and really just dumb and stupid because I was always in the special needs classes, the extra classes. When kids were doing recess, I had to have a tutor. After school, I had to do a tutor just to stay in my grade. So I always just felt kind of never good enough in school. And I was also like this tall when I was like 11 years old. So I was like 6'4, like 11, 12 years old.

Starting point is 00:06:37 So I was a foot taller than everyone, but super skinny and kind of like goofy looking. So I was goofy looking and poor in school. So I didn't have a lot of friends. My brother went to prison when I was 8 years old. for four and a half years. And growing up in a small town in Ohio, that was rare to have someone like in the neighborhood go to prison. And so I wasn't allowed to have friends for those four years as well

Starting point is 00:07:04 because the parents wouldn't let their kids hang out with me. What did he go to prison? He sold drugs to an undercover cop. So he sold LSD to an undercover cop when he was 18 in college. And they sentenced him six to 25 years. That's a lot. Why was he... It was his first offense.

Starting point is 00:07:21 Because this was back in the late 80s when... I think it was Clinton? Early 90s, late 80s when it was about the war on drugs was a big thing. No, I think it was... I can't remember if... Late 80s or early 90s, but the war on drugs was like a big campaign. They were like, we're going to crack down on anyone doing drugs in America. And so for his first offense, he got six to 25 years.

Starting point is 00:07:44 And he got out in four and a half on good behavior. But it was really challenging to... go at eight years old to watch your brother in a, you know, in a prison. We were able to go once a week to visit him during visiting hours in like a kind of visiting room. And so that really shaped a lot of my childhood was driving two hours on a Sunday to go visit my brother with my family and be in a room full of convicts on their families and hear the stories about what was happening in jail and in prisons. And then coming home and just, dealing with the stress of it.

Starting point is 00:08:20 Having like a family member you loved and cared about being in jail and he was young. He was 18, 19. So it was when he was in college. Did he feel safe in prison? Because I've heard these stories of this like, it was crazy stuff. It was, it was really scary

Starting point is 00:08:33 to hear the stories that were happening. Like people getting stabbed because he was in a, he was in two different prisons. They transferred him for one. And this is the stories that I remember and I might get something of it wrong. But I remember him telling me one night they were in a big room with like

Starting point is 00:08:49 a hundred guys sleeping and kind of cots, you know, with a few feet apart. One night, someone, like a few people down from him got like stabbed in the middle of the night with like a shank. And so he woke up to hearing screaming, you know, a few people down. So it'd be probably really terrorizing to try to sleep at night after you hear that. And then another prison, he had a cell with a cellmate. So it's like a little more contained. But I just heard crazy stories every week and it was challenging so I was I didn't really have friends during that time I wasn't really had to hang out with other kids I was really poor in school and I was kind of tall goofy looking eventually I just started to have a lot of had a lot of extra energy and I was just like I need

Starting point is 00:09:37 to have some activities so my parents put me in sports and I started to get pretty good at sports to the fact when I was about 13 I was you know on varsity teams and all that stuff in high school So I put all my energy into how can I be the best and get validated through sports because school wasn't giving me the validation I needed and I was very poor at it. And that's why I was so as I got older in life, I was like, I wish school would have taught me the skills on how to deal with failure. The skills on how to manage my emotions. The skills on how to get into a relationship and manage love and connections. The skills on how to do a bookkeeping and accounting and my taxes and underage. understand money and that's why I created my own school because I was like I wish they would have

Starting point is 00:10:21 taught these lessons that I was neglected I feel like growing up and so that was the early kind of childhood was feeling very insecure feeling like it wasn't smart enough and also just I didn't have many friends and it wasn't until high school when I started to be able to grow into my body and performance an athlete that I gained a lot of my confidence and then walk us through what happened like during high school after high school did you finally make some friends where you get better by yourself now I'm like the youngest you know person on the vars so I'm hanging out with upperclassmen that's got to be cool right it's cool but you're also still getting picked on so kind of like I'm getting picked on in my childhood then I'm better than the upper classman right

Starting point is 00:11:07 but they still treat you like a rookie like and they pick on you and they make fun of you even though they need me like that was needed on the team but I was still like you know, kind of picked on. So it felt really weird when I was a senior because finally I was like the oldest person and I had to learn how to be a leader as opposed to be kind of the younger person on the team. But high school was just interesting in terms of like, I'd learn to develop a lot as an athlete. And then my whole goal was to, you know, get a scholarship and play sports in college. And then I ended up playing three sports in college.

Starting point is 00:11:42 I was an all-American football player, an All-American DeCathlete. So I was an All-American two sports in college. And I also played basketball for one year. So I played three sports in college. I transferred around multiple times to different schools. And my whole goal was to be a professional athlete. And so I tried out for some NFL teams. I wasn't fast enough.

Starting point is 00:12:04 That's why I never had the talent. But I was willing to work hard and I was willing to strategize and I was willing to keep my mind sharp enough on the field. So I made it to, I got some offers to play. play arena football, which is you get paid $250 a week. They give you food stamps and they pay for your apartment. But for me, that $250 represented so much more. I was like, I'm no longer an amateur. You know, I'm a professional. Even if I was $250 a week. Yeah. I know you remember the first time you made $250 a month on a YouTube video and you were like, this is unbelievable. I'm a

Starting point is 00:12:38 professional, right? I can buy sushi. And so for insurance too. Exactly. So, two. So, two, 250 bucks a week was huge. And we, I lived in Alabama, Huntsville, Alabama for six months with my teammates playing arena football. And we were doing, you know, 14-hour bus rides stacked with like three people sleeping on top of each other in a bunks on a bus, going 14-hour rides to Florida to, you know, wherever it might be, to play these arena football games in front of 10, 15, 20,000 people and just beating the crap out of your house.

Starting point is 00:13:15 each other for 250 bucks a week. But for me, it was a dream come true. And the whole goal was to try to make it to the NFL. But I got injured my rookie year. I broke my wrist. You can kind of see like that scar here. So they took a bone out of my hip. They did a surgery.

Starting point is 00:13:29 They took a bone out of here. They put it into here. I was trying to catch a football. I was a receiver. I was trying to catch a football. And I dove into the wall and broke my wrist. It snapped it. Man.

Starting point is 00:13:39 And I played 14 games with a broken wrist. Because it was my dream. I didn't want to give it up. And so they had to take a bow. going on at my hip, they put it in here. For six months, I was in a cast from here to here in this position. I don't know if you saw the movie Rookie of the Year,

Starting point is 00:13:54 that baseball movie. There's kids in a cast like this. Anyways, I was in this position for six months when I was 23. I was in three. I only just think they're giving them a high five. Yeah. But it was this huge cast, right, hanging here? I couldn't straighten my arm for six months

Starting point is 00:14:06 because the bone had to heal in there that they took from my hip. So this was a, at this point, it was the end of 2007, going into 2008. It was end of August 2007. I'm sleeping on my sister's couch at this point. I've got no money.

Starting point is 00:14:23 I couldn't save any money at $2.50 a week. I've got no money. I didn't know how to make money. My dad, who was a life insurance salesman for 32 years, the year prior got into a pretty severe car accident where a car hit his car on top of his car, came through the windshield and split his head open. and he was in a coma for three months.

Starting point is 00:14:47 And he finally woke up and he passed last year after 17 years. He never fully recovered, but he was physically alive, but emotionally and mentally, you couldn't really have a conversation with him and his personality was completely different. But after his accident,

Starting point is 00:15:05 I was like, I need to go after all my dreams. Like, whatever it takes, I need to go do it. But when I got injured, I didn't have him as a backup to support me financially or emotionally or mentally. He was being taken care of by his wife at the time and, you know, nurses and things like that. But my sister took me in when I had this surgery. So I was with her for six months while I was recovering.

Starting point is 00:15:29 And then I stayed for about another year because I didn't have any money. This was the end of 2007, 2008. You know the housing crisis. They weren't hiring people with master's degrees. I hadn't even graduated college yet. and I still had to finish college that I went back to finish. And no one was going to hire a semi-professional, you know, football player with no skills at that time. So I got one gift that Christmas in 2007 going in 2008.

Starting point is 00:15:56 It was a book. And I rarely read at the time. I'm a slow reader. It's the wrong gift to give a dyslexic kid who had a poor reading level. But the book was a four-hour work week. And I don't know if you read that book. Yep. I read that book, too, when I was 18.

Starting point is 00:16:11 Yeah. So this was, it was Christmas, 2007. I finished it in three days. And it opened my mind to the world of online marketing, entrepreneurship, business, passive income when I knew nothing about it. I knew nothing about it. I thought I could just get a VA and sell diet pills online. I go to the Philippines and I'm going to run magazine ads and all the things that he talked about.

Starting point is 00:16:32 So I thought. And so I was like, wow, this is fascinating. And I started to, how old were you then in 2008? 18. Yeah. So I'm 24 at the time. something and so I I start obsessing so I have all this free time on my hand right my free hand that I have so I have a laptop I'm on my sister's couch for a year

Starting point is 00:16:53 and a half and I just start researching and reading every blog that I can find that Tim Ferriss references right all these people that are talking about entrepreneurship and social media at the time Twitter was blowing up and I was like okay let me get into this social media stuff and that's when the whole journey began. I started a membership site, about a year later, called Sportsnetworker.com that's still out there. That still pays me today. Because I had a sports marketing kind of like background in college. And I got, I don't know, like almost 100 people to pay 27 bucks a month, creating long form. Really cool. Creating long form blogs on a site. You can still see it today, sportsnetworker.com.

Starting point is 00:17:39 And then I created a membership for sports executives to teach people how to get a job in sports. I was trying to get a job, trying to figure it out. And I was researching how to find a job, how to get opportunities. I was going to networking events at that time. And then I was just interviewing people in the sports industry about how to get a job. How did you get this job? How did you get to this next level in your career? Write articles about it.

Starting point is 00:18:03 And then I created a membership for kind of sports executives, even though I still didn't have a job in the business. I still had no job and that was my first kind of experiment of like how do I figure out this online marketing stuff How do I do how do we get paid and Back then there were no easy solutions for like memberships and it was all extremely hard back then in 2008 2009 to figure their stuff out But it was I was obsessed with it I just wanted to learn everything about online marketing so I researched copywriting I learned how to write better I learned I wrote I wrote an e-book I did, you know, the membership site.

Starting point is 00:18:41 I started doing webinars in 2009. And that was really the thing that got me into. It was early for a lot of that too. And I was using LinkedIn a lot. So at the time my thing was LinkedIn. People were talking about Facebook and YouTube and Twitter. And a mentor of mine said, why don't you check out LinkedIn? I hear you can get a job there.

Starting point is 00:19:00 And so I spent about six hours a day when I was on my sister's couch, networking with people on LinkedIn, building my profile. and then people would start asking me, hey, can you show me how to use LinkedIn the way you're doing it? So I started helping people for free. I started hosting LinkedIn networking events in Ohio. And I made, I remember making a thousand dollars hosting a networking event. And I was like, I am rich.

Starting point is 00:19:24 I charge $5 for people to get in the door of this kind of networking event at a restaurant. And tons of people showed up because in 2008, people were looking for opportunities. So I was promoting these events on LinkedIn, getting people together. And then people were like, can you teach me this stuff? So I started doing LinkedIn profile kind of makeovers for people for free. And then one guy gave me $100 after I did it. As this is like a thank you. He goes, this is going to help me in my business so much.

Starting point is 00:19:56 Here's $100. I go, really? I'll get paid for this? It's just something I'm doing for fun to do these little networking events. And then I was like, huh, maybe I can charge more people to do these makeovers. And so I started charging $200 to. $300 consulting on how to use LinkedIn, 2009. And then someone asked me, this guy named Joel Com, he said,

Starting point is 00:20:16 I'm doing a boot camp, a social media boot camp. And I don't know anyone talking about LinkedIn the way you are back in that time. I've got an expert on Facebook and Twitter and YouTube that are going to do like an hour-long presentation webinar. Can you do one on LinkedIn? And I was like, sure, no problem. I was terrified to speak. I didn't know how to present.

Starting point is 00:20:35 I didn't know how to create content really in a webinar. I didn't even know what a webinar was at the time. But I asked some friends for some help, and I created this presentation. And he said, at the end of the content that you teach for free, I'm going to bring the audience. I want you to sell a product, something around your program.

Starting point is 00:20:53 And I didn't have a program. So I made up a program. I pre-sold an advanced LinkedIn training to people. I said, hey, if you enjoyed this hour-long presentation on LinkedIn, I've got this other boot camp I'm going to give you. It starts in two weeks. It was $150. And I said, sign up here.

Starting point is 00:21:13 I had a janky like PayPal link. I didn't have a landing page or anything. I just said, here's a PayPal link. You know, type in PayPal.com slash 6784 star. You know, there was no simple link. I give the people this. And instantly in my PayPal account, when I shut down the webinar and opened up PayPal, it said there was $6,200 in my account.

Starting point is 00:21:36 And I literally was like freaking out, screaming, running around the house. I was like, I am the richest man in the world. Because at that time, I was barely making anything. And it was kind of a breakthrough for me. I was like, wow, I've been doing these in-person networking events, making like five bucks a person to come in, like really working hard to get people to show up in person. This guy just asked me to come on and do a webinar presentation to teach the thing I'm already teaching. and I gave the information away for free

Starting point is 00:22:09 and I asked people if you want more of this type of training here's the link to buy and they bought. I was like, this is unbelievable. I could do this every day for the rest of my life if I'm going to make $6,200 in an hour. Now granted, I gave 50% of that money to the person who hosted it because that was our deal. But I was like, wow, how can I learn

Starting point is 00:22:28 how to get my own audience to show up for these webinars, right? And how can I get better at these webinars? So I started using LinkedIn to promote webinars and building audiences with LinkedIn groups. And that really helped me for the next probably seven years. I did a webinar almost every week for like seven years. And started making $10,000 a webinar, $20,000, $50,000 in an hour. And I just became obsessed.

Starting point is 00:22:55 Just like you were obsessed, Graham, with like, I'm going to show up at any moment to anyone that wants to buy a house. I'm going to be there for them. I'm going to go to, I'll show 20 houses a week if I have to. be at every open house. I'll meet everyone. You did that for years until you got like really big opportunities that came through. And I was just like every week, if I just show up and do this, I can build my net worth. I can get off my sister's couch. I can have my own apartment and actually be, you know, responsible for my own life and not rely on others. And it just became an obsession

Starting point is 00:23:28 of how do I learn online marketing? How do I learn copywriting? How do I learn headlines? How do I learn how to offer more value to people? How do we learn how to package a program better? How do I learn better price points? How do I learn branding and design? And now social media, I just had to learn all of it to drive awareness to a presentation for free and then offer people a program on the end.

Starting point is 00:23:51 And that was, yeah, about seven years of doing that. Two things. One, I love having podcasters on this podcast. Graham can probably agree. The way that you're able to relay that information, just like it dumbs it. down, just like, it's so digestible. I love it. Great job. Second thing, were you nervous when you pre-sold this thing that you didn't even necessarily have any like tangible thing that you were

Starting point is 00:24:14 was terrified because everyone else to come up with something. Everyone else had a program that they had already developed and were selling. They were all, I was a 23, 24 year old bum, right? They were all like 40-year-old professionals, business owners that had just knew what they were doing. And I was just faking everything. I was just like, yeah, I've got a program. Yeah, I can do a webinar. Yeah, I've got a presentation for you. He goes, cool, awesome. Can you do it this date? I was like, yeah, I think I'm free. Yeah, okay, I can do this. But I was, I was blogging about LinkedIn and kind of just commenting on every other blog back then. Blogging was a big thing back then. You were like five, right? And you were like seven years old. And leaving comments was kind of like leaving comments on Instagram or YouTube

Starting point is 00:24:57 on a blog back then. And people would see the comment and they'd see the face. of the image of the person and they click on that would take you back to your site. And that was how you got traffic by leaving comments on blogs. But you have to give a great comment with like feedback and suggestions. I did that on YouTube to get my first 100 subscribers. And here's like three things that I would add to this, you know, article that is additional contents. You're like, wow, okay, this person's smart.

Starting point is 00:25:22 And what about people like questioning your credentials? Because you're kind of like selling like, this is how you get a job on a LinkedIn thing. But you were struggling to find a job yourself. Yeah. Well, I started teaching people more about how to make your profile look great so that you look more credible. Like how to make it, because a lot of people didn't have a photo. They didn't have a good headline. They didn't have anything in their bio.

Starting point is 00:25:43 And I was like, you just got to update it and hear the things to look for. Also, I learned early on how to rank the first page of SEO for any keyword on LinkedIn. So any one that, if you were like real estate, Los Angeles. Plummer, Ohio, whatever it is. Like, I could get you to be on the front page, if not in the top three people searches, of any keyword on LinkedIn. This is back in 2008, 2009.

Starting point is 00:26:12 There's only about 10 to 12 million people on the site at that time. So people weren't really using LinkedIn and testing it like that. And I just had all this free time in the world while I was like trying everything. So I was obsessing over it. Amazon Presents, Jeff. versus taco truck salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one.

Starting point is 00:26:37 For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero? More like habanier, yes. Save the everyday with Amazon. And it was early days. It was kind of like back on YouTube in 2010. where it was a lot easier to rank in the top four for any keyword, you know, 10, 12 years ago.

Starting point is 00:27:07 Sure. So I was able to do this guaranteed with any profile for any keyword to get you on the first page, if not the first three. So I was just teaching people, and here's what I did. I remember trying this on this first webinar. I go, because there was a live chat on the webinars, and I said, okay, what industry are you guys in? And so part of the presentation was teaching. The other part was actual live application. So I would say, I want you guys to open up your LinkedIn profile right now.

Starting point is 00:27:35 And I'm going to teach you a few things to edit right now that's going to help you. And I think that was the difference maker where most people are just kind of like, okay, here's how to, you know, here's a presentation on something. I said, I want you to take action now and get results right now. So they would open up their profiles live on their end. I wasn't seeing it, but I could see their chat. And I'd say, what industry you're in? I'm in real estate.

Starting point is 00:27:57 I'm an accounting. I'm a financial advisor. I'm a designer. I'm a web developer. And say, great. All these keywords that you guys put in, here's where I want you to put them. Here's where else I want you to put them.

Starting point is 00:28:10 First, I want you to type it in on LinkedIn search and see if you show up on the first page. And none of them would. I said, okay. Now I want you to add these things and edit it. I would walk them through on my profile. You're going to go right here. You're going to go here and type this in.

Starting point is 00:28:25 So I would show a live demonstration. then I would say, I want you guys to do this. And the comments were just people freaking out because they were all like, I'm number one in the world on LinkedIn for realtor, for money advisor, for video editor, whatever. And they were just in all of the live results that they could get from just a couple things

Starting point is 00:28:45 that they got for free from this presentation. And I think that as opposed to just like, okay, go through a program, watch something and take some notes, and then now you have this wisdom, they got results right there. then and that's why I think people were like oh man if I could get results from this free thing that I imagine what the advanced thing would be yeah sure I'll

Starting point is 00:29:04 sign up for this training so I I just took the opportunity it was an opportunity just like you said with the Oppenheim group like you got to learn from people they took you under your wing that you have to hear how people talked about it this guy kind of brought me under his wing Joel calm and he said here's an opportunity can you present and do this thing and it was an amazing experience but I was terrified before the webinar. Terrified. I was like profusely sweating.

Starting point is 00:29:31 I was like nervous. I was like freaking out. I remember it took about 20 minutes. I watched all the other presentations before and I tried to be like, okay, what are they doing and how can I mimic them? And for 20 minutes, I rambled, rambled and said nothing, no value. And Joel had to jump in the presentation because he was co-hosting it. And he's like, okay, Lewis, let's like get into the content now.

Starting point is 00:29:56 You know, he was like, okay, let's get into some of the value. I was so nervous. But then when he said that, I just said, okay, I'm going to give as much value as as I can. And $6,200 came in and my world changed. Because for a year and a half, I was learning and researching and trying and developing skills and hosting these events and making a little bit of money, but it was so much work.

Starting point is 00:30:21 Then it all kind of came together when I did this. live webinar and I was like now I can just do webinars every week forever and it's evolved since then but it was a big breakthrough for me financially and how long did it take for you to start making like some serious money because $6,000 let's say if you say you know $6,000 a month that's great income but it was $12,000 a month 6,000 a week you know half of that is 3,000 times 4 12,000 so you immediately started doing I did this one webinar and then I was like okay I'm going to do another webinar. I think I waited a month. Because I still didn't have a big audience, so I had to find other people at audiences to

Starting point is 00:30:58 promote it. So I did another webinar, maybe a month or month and a half later, and I was so excited and I made zero dollars. I got no sales. And I go, this must have been like luck. You know, maybe it was just this guy's audiences. And so for about four and a half or five months I didn't do another webinar because I was like oh it's not gonna work it was it was just this one guy's thing his audience was perfect for this I tried it again and it didn't work and thank God someone else like convinced me to do one more and I was like I just don't know if webinar was gonna work but and he like let's just try it and it made like 12 grand wow I was like okay after that we were doing them like every what

Starting point is 00:31:41 happened with the one though that didn't make the money it was the wrong audience imagine you put the wrong link in there. It's like, it's a star. No, it's like the wrong audience and someone else was like promoting it but the audience wasn't really the right fit for it. And so we had all these people on

Starting point is 00:31:57 maybe it was only a couple hundred people on and no one bought and I was devastated. I was like, oh man, I suck. I'm not good enough. Like it was just luck or this other guy told people to buy or whatever it is. But then thank God a few months later

Starting point is 00:32:09 I did another one and we made like 12 grand with another guy I did it with. And I said, let's just do this every week together. You know, let's just try to do this every week and replicate it and get better at it. We did that for a couple of years together. And then I just started doing it on my own. And, yeah, it grew from there. But you had to create a course at some point, right?

Starting point is 00:32:27 I created a course. So what I did is I recorded that live training. So I delivered this kind of like four-week boot camp where I would do like a two-hour training once a week for four weeks. And then I just recorded that. And then I put a design around it and I sold that over and over again. Got it. Then I redeveloped the whole course into something, you know, a little more better and pre-recorded and things like that as opposed to like a live training recording. So in 2010, I started making, so 12 years ago, I started making courses.

Starting point is 00:33:00 Now they're everywhere. But that became one course on LinkedIn. And then I did that for like a year. Almost every week for a year, I was just doing this like free teaching on LinkedIn selling my course. and the first I started that like the end of the last six months of a year

Starting point is 00:33:20 we did like a half million dollars in sales for the first half the second half of the year when we started it then the second year we did like 1.2 million or something just selling one course

Starting point is 00:33:31 over and over again every week but now if you keep selling the same thing doesn't eventually like not everyone can rank in the audiences but not everyone could also rank in the first page so isn't it like you're teaching people how to compete with each other and then it's like nobody ranks enough.

Starting point is 00:33:43 No, because then it was like, okay, real estate, Columbus, Ohio, realtor, Los Angeles. So you just get more and more niche. Yeah, exactly, more and more niche. But then it was also, okay, now LinkedIn's adding events and LinkedIn's adding this. So how could you use the tools that they're bringing into LinkedIn as well, teaching that stuff? But then people were like, hey, you've helped me so much on LinkedIn. Can you help me with Facebook?

Starting point is 00:34:07 I was like, well, I don't know Facebook that much, but I can learn it or I can find an expert. And they were like, can you help with YouTube? And I was like, well, I'm not really using YouTube that much, but I found the expert. So I started publishing other experts, courses and selling their courses. So we would create the content. We would record it for them. They would create the content. We would develop it, record it, package it, and then sell it.

Starting point is 00:34:30 And we'd split the profits. So I started kind of being a publisher of courses and like all social media types of content. And that was the next few. years. Yeah. But then I kind of got burnt out from just getting on a webinar every week and talking about how to upload a photo to your LinkedIn profile. And I was like, so I'd done this for years and I'd saved enough money where I was like, I had a couple years to live off of maybe, right? Do you know how much that was? It's probably about a couple hundred grand, you know, two to 300 grand range where I was like, and I was living pretty frugal because I didn't want to

Starting point is 00:35:09 I didn't want to go back to being broke on my sister's couch. So I was like, okay, I've got enough money. I don't really spend that much. Maybe on travel, but I had a very small lifestyle. And I was like, what do I really want to do with my life next? This helped me get off my sister's couch. This gave me, you know, I was able to accomplish some goals here. I was able to make some money.

Starting point is 00:35:32 I learned a lot. I met some people. But I don't want to be teaching LinkedIn for the rest of my life. I was like, I'm really love interviewing people. So in 2012, I was like, podcasting was starting to be talked about as like a little word. And I knew a couple people that had podcasts. And so I called them. I just moved to L.A.

Starting point is 00:35:54 I moved here for a girl I was dating. The day I got here, she broke up with me. What happened? Like, how long had you been dating prior to that? Maybe six months we were dating at that point. Yeah, I met her. When did I meet her originally? This was so long ago.

Starting point is 00:36:08 I met her in an event. through a friend. And then we were kind of doing the long distance thing back and forth. I was in New York City at the time. She was in L.A. She had just moved from New York to L.A. And she had said after a while, we were having a great time. Or at least it felt like that.

Starting point is 00:36:25 And after a while, she was like, I don't want to date long distance anymore. I want to be in the same city. And at the time, I was like, I can do webinars anywhere. I can come out here for two weeks a month. I can be back in New York, but I was loving New York City at the time. And I was like, why don't I just come visit, you know, two, three weeks a month, but I stay in New York. And she was like, no, I really want your stuff to be in L.A. I want to feel like you live here, right?

Starting point is 00:36:49 Like grounded in L.A. Okay. And I was kind of frustrated by that. And I was like, well, but we were having a good connection or at least it felt like it. And I was like, you know what? I'm young. Like, I can do whatever. I can be flexible.

Starting point is 00:37:03 So after a few months of her saying that and she was like, listen, it was kind of getting some tension because she was like, I really want to be in the same city with you. I don't want to do this long distance anymore. I was like, okay, let me try it. I'll come out there. I'll get an Airbnb for a couple of months, right? So I let go my lease in New York City. I have two suitcases, a laptop and a guitar. I fly to L.A., I land.

Starting point is 00:37:26 She gets in this fight with me and breaks up with me, like within 30 minutes of landing. Okay, what was the fight about? This is the thing. The fight's never made sense. It was just kind of like, she's self-sabotaged. She's self-sabotaged. She's self-sabotaged.

Starting point is 00:37:39 it. She was a, and this all goes back to many other, many other things of, of me choosing in the past, women based on a wound. So I used to choose based on a wound, not based on alignment and values. And so it's not her fault or any of the people I've dated fault. It was my responsibility to, you know, get clear on what I wanted and is this the right person for what I want. She just wasn't the right fit. You know, nothing wrong with her. I don't blame her or anyone. I take responsibility.

Starting point is 00:38:15 It kind of sounds like, to me, just a bystander, that she didn't think you'd call her bluff. Like she was trying to justify, like, I don't want to do long distance. And then she's like, move over here. And she wants to build up that tension. Slowly kind of like break up.

Starting point is 00:38:27 And then you go and she's like, oh, my God, he actually did it. I didn't think you'd actually do it. There was a night that made me, you know, when you look back on things, you see the signs. There's tons of signs. But there was a night.

Starting point is 00:38:37 We were having a great time for a few months. and it was peaceful and fine. And then there was a night where we were having a great time out at some, I don't know, some event or something. And all of a sudden she just starts getting really angry at me. And I go, what happened? What did I do? And there was no reason.

Starting point is 00:38:52 There was no like thing. I said or did or didn't do. And after like an hour of this later in the night, I go, what is going on? Like, why are you upset? She was like, I never thought I would meet you at this age of my life. She was out of, like, mid-20s or something like that. 26 or can't remember and she said i thought i would meet the person like you when i was like 30

Starting point is 00:39:16 31 32 a person who was kind generous successful all these things that wanted to like be in a relationship she was like i just wanted to like fun and kind of party i didn't want to like you she didn't want to like me but she liked me so she got mad at me because she liked me and she had feelings i'm like okay what would you do you know so she wasn't good at communicating She should have just said, hey, I can't be in a relationship right now. But she was like, I really want you to be here. But then she was like, actually, I don't want this. So she wanted it, but she didn't feel like she was ready for it.

Starting point is 00:39:49 And I was, you know, I didn't have the courage to be like, well, I don't need this crap. I'm going to get out of here. I had my own insecurities at that time. And so I was like, okay, let's try this out. What can we do to fix it? What can we do to make it better? Sure. And so it was up and down.

Starting point is 00:40:03 She broke with me, we got back together. It was up and down for six months until I was like, I can't deal with it anymore. And I spent, you know, many, many times repeating that pattern until I finally healed and chose differently. But that's what got me to L.A. Wow. So you owe her a decent amount. Yeah, what happened afterwards? I wanted to leave.

Starting point is 00:40:22 I was miserable for the first year in L.A. I was like, screw L.A. I didn't stay for a year. Well, I remember saying, like, after I was going to try this out with her, I, again, I didn't have a place to stay. I was living in an Airbnb. I finally got a place to rent. And then we broke up within six months fully. And I was like, I'm done with this girl.

Starting point is 00:40:40 This girl's too much. And I was like, LA sucks. That was my thought. Like, LA sucks. You know, my, I was in a bad mood from just dealing with this stress from this part of the relationship. And I think I went to like a couple LA parties like in the Hollywood Hills and people are doing like cocaine.

Starting point is 00:40:57 I went to like a club and I was like, man, this is not for me. But then I started to meet the entrepreneurs and people that were content creators, entrepreneurs and inspiring people in L.A. And after about a year, I started a really, love everything about it, the lifestyle, the weather, you know, the, just everything about it, the people, the food. And it took about a year, year and a half where I was like, okay, this feels good now. But I think it was just going through the emotional stress of the relationship and moving from a city that I loved and the energy and the grit to like a different lifestyle.

Starting point is 00:41:27 So it was, but it was during that time where I was like, what do I want to do? I don't want to do these webinars anymore like this. I really want to start interviewing people. So I was stuck in the 405 in my car. I had a $4,500 car that I bought from a mentor of mine, 1997, Cadillac, El Dorado. And I was stuck in on the 405 in the middle of this year of up and down in the relationship, stress, trying to figure out why am I in L.A. And I remember seeing around me stuck in the car because we were all stopped at one point. Everyone was like angry in all the other cars, honking and screaming, flipping people off. And I was just like, man, there's a lot of people who feel like me in life right now, who are stuck.

Starting point is 00:42:14 And during this car ride, I was like, man, I've been hearing about this podcast thing. I've been thinking about maybe doing some interview show or something, but I don't know how to do this. I called the two people I knew who had podcasts at the time. This was 2012. And I asked them about it. I said, is podcasting a thing? Tell me about it. And both of them are like, it's the most fun thing that we're doing.

Starting point is 00:42:36 It's allowing us to connect with our audience and build a community. in a new way and I'm learning so much. And I was like, okay, I'm going to launch a podcast. And I had heard at that time, like, maybe the podcasts are going to be built into cars later. So it's kind of this whole thing that they're going to be built into cars. And I was like, man, people are commuting all the time. In New York, I was just walking everywhere. But I was like, people are stuck in traffic everywhere in America.

Starting point is 00:42:59 So maybe I could make something where people are stuck to help them improve. And maybe I can learn on how to improve my situation in my life right now. And so that's where the School of Greatness was born. It was like, I need help in life. Let me find the mentors who can help me. And it seems like a lot of people need help as well. Let me see if I can help them. And so now it's 10-year anniversary in two weeks of the School of Greatness.

Starting point is 00:43:23 Oh, my God. What are you going to do to celebrate? You've got to do something. I don't know. Buy a watch. Like, you got to get something like. I never bought a watch. I don't like buy fancy things.

Starting point is 00:43:32 I'm kind of like you. I spend more than you, but I'm like, I wear the same black t-shirt or blue shirt. I would get a Rolex Daytona. stainless steel black dial 10 years That's a good 10 years How much does that cost? Depends if you get it like retail Which you could probably get a hook up at like 15K

Starting point is 00:43:48 If you get a good deal on it You're not just throwing away money though It's a little bad You can sell later If you could get it around retail Which I hear that the demand is like going down right now So if you could get it around 15 You'll never lose money

Starting point is 00:44:00 Right right right Or even if you do like a few grand But I don't think so Yeah maybe I'll get a watch Maybe I got a watch Yeah we'll see I've never really bought stuff for myself. It's a good celebration, that 10 years.

Starting point is 00:44:12 I'll think about it. Yeah. You know. So it's interesting to me. You come to L.A. You know, you and your girl, you guys have your tribulations. You end up separating. You're in the car.

Starting point is 00:44:22 You come up with this podcasting idea. All the while, you're still running this webinar thing, right? Yeah, still doing that. And you're making good money. Good money. But it was like, okay, I'm going to keep doing this because I was like, what am I going to do? That's going to bring me a lot of joy and it's going to be a challenge and interesting for me. So the podcast,

Starting point is 00:44:37 was like an experiment. I was like, I'm not going to try to make any money in the first year. I just want to do this for fun. It's a passion thing. Yeah. Right. And I'm going to use it as a tool to kind of promote my webinars, you know, if I can and like build my audience.

Starting point is 00:44:53 I had a small following back then, you know, 10 years ago, maybe like 10,000 Twitter followers or something like that. I mean, it was small, right? A few thousand. I didn't even remember. But I didn't have an audience. So this was a way to interview people with audiences. and then I would send messages every day for a week.

Starting point is 00:45:10 I do one episode a week and I would say who on LinkedIn do I think would like this content, this type of interview. And I would send personalized messages every day, hundreds a week with a link to go listen to the show. With like, here's why I think you'd like this. Or in this section we talked about this and I see in your profile, this is an interest of yours. And I would just do that every day for the whole year, really.

Starting point is 00:45:35 And I remember the first year it only got 750,000 downloads. That's not only. 750,000? The whole year, man. It was like 52 episodes. That's really good. It seems great to me.

Starting point is 00:45:47 What were you hosting on at the time? Oh, man. I was hosting on SoundCloud because I knew the founder and I got the hosting for free. And I was like, okay, I'm just going to use SoundCloud. And you were just sending out people

Starting point is 00:45:56 within LinkedIn. Just the links. And then Facebook, friends. You know, I had like a few thousand friends from like the years on Facebook. So I was like sending messages to people, Twitter, like I would do the Gary V thing, like hashtags, look for anyone who's posting about these topics, and I would just reply to people, check out this episode. I was just trying to learn how to be

Starting point is 00:46:15 a marketer, but it was one to one for that whole year. Right. But there had to been some, like, organic spread, right? Just like word of mouth or... You know, over time, certain things, you get some people sharing it with a few friends or whatever, but it wasn't until like year three or four when I started to be like, okay, now they're starting to see more growth. It's hard to make audio go viral. It's almost impossible. And that's why, like, after year three, I was like, man, I feel like YouTube's going to be big.

Starting point is 00:46:44 I was just like maybe I should film these. Because I was just doing audio only. What years is this? Like 2015, 16, something like that. And I was like, I think I should film these. But no one's filming their podcast at that time. It wasn't a thing. Except for maybe Joe Rogan.

Starting point is 00:47:00 But no one else was, like, filming content like that. And I just started filming them and I was like, I'm just going to throw them up on YouTube. And for five years, I did that until 2000, beginning of 2020. For five years, yes, it must have been 2014 because the end of 2019 is when I was like, you know what, I'm going to,

Starting point is 00:47:24 it's a full circle moment because you guys just had Tai Lopez on, I saw the famous here in my garage, my Lamborghini commercial, right? He said that in front of us, by the way. and we both were like, like, silence. It was like that. You're like, wow. It just was in front of us.

Starting point is 00:47:38 Like, I heard that. Direct from the source. That was so cool. So I remember seeing that and a lot of other kind of get rich quick, you know, ads on YouTube. Around, when was it, 2014, 15, 16. Probably. Kind of around this time, right? And I was like, I'm going to put up my YouTube videos, my content.

Starting point is 00:47:55 I'm going to do it for free. I'm not going to have advertising on there. I'm not going to run any ads. And I did it for five years. And then I thought to myself, can I make any money if I turned these ads on? Let me test this. The end of 2019, I tested it on a few videos. I just turn it on, but I don't want to rub people the wrong way.

Starting point is 00:48:14 If they're going to be mad, if there's an ad in the beginning. I just wanted to help people. And I think in the first month, I made like $5,000 on like a few videos. And I was like, it's not nothing. You know, it's something. But it wasn't like my course business was still making a lot of money. Can you say about how much it was making? probably like $4 million

Starting point is 00:48:32 and just like core sales in 2018 or something and then what's your profit on that? Pretty high, it's like 80% probably 80% So you're making a ton of millions like 3 million plus a year Yeah and I have a small team

Starting point is 00:48:43 like five six people But you know In California are getting taxed a lot Okay so one and a half take home Basically after tax But one of them So $100,000 a month Really after tax

Starting point is 00:48:53 But also like you I'm showing up every week Yeah sure Rinding Doing these live presentations You know it's just like it wasn't just like rewarding feeling anymore. It felt like a lot of work at that point.

Starting point is 00:49:06 Whereas the podcast was like, this is the thing I'm most excited about. It's like effortless. It's the thing I love to do. But I wasn't making money still. It took like a while, I think maybe 2017 or 2018 when I made like 200 grand on the podcast

Starting point is 00:49:21 from like the audio. And I wasn't monetizing YouTube. I was just like, I want to help people. I'm going to give for free and try to promote back my courses. And, um,

Starting point is 00:49:31 And then in 2020, I was like, you know what, let's just turn it on all the videos and see what happens. And I think we had, I don't know, 700 videos or something, 600 videos or something, right? And I remember the first month after that, it was like 20 grand. I was like, well, okay, I can pay for a few people that can help out some things. I was like, it's not nothing. And then it was like, okay, 20 grand for a few months. And it's like, there's got to be way to make more. And then one month, it just boom, hit like 40 grand.

Starting point is 00:49:56 I go, it's not bad, 40 grand a month if you do it every time. And then it hit like 60. and then it had 100 grand in a month, and then it hit a 200 grand in a month. And I go, holy cow. And then this is something I did, which made me want to throw up. I looked back to all the views I had before then

Starting point is 00:50:12 when I started posting these videos, and I thought how much money I could have made had I turned it on earlier. And I probably lost about a million and a half dollars. So that made me sick. But it also made me excited about the possibilities with YouTube. And really, it's been two years now of just kind of going all in on YouTube

Starting point is 00:50:31 and making content not only for audio but also separately for YouTube. And even like I said before we did our interview, I was like, okay, here's the title of the video because we've been doing the research of what we think's going to work and what's going to rank and what's going to click and all these different things.

Starting point is 00:50:47 And we already know the title. We already know like what's going to go on the thumbnail based on the data, right? So it's not doing the interview and seeing what happens. It's yes, that, but also saying what's the first couple of questions that people want the answers to and build the content around that and then see what happens and create magic. So when you pick a guest, are you picking a guest to get a niche or like thinking of a ranking

Starting point is 00:51:13 and be like, we need this ranking here? Which guest could we pull that would solve this for this person? A lot of different things. One is like people that I'm inspired by and excited to sit down with. That's number one. So I'll have people that have no audience, but I'm just like, this person's got an amazing story. But sometimes the people that are unknown won't do well on YouTube, but they'll do well on audio with the right storytelling, with the right title, and with the right topic.

Starting point is 00:51:40 So I've got to think strategically based on audio audience versus YouTube audience because they're different. And what works well in audio doesn't always work well on YouTube and vice versa. So it's almost like I'm thinking strategically of two different styles of content when I interview you. You know, there's a different title on the audio and a different title on YouTube. And we'll edit it maybe a slightly different in the beginning of the hook for YouTube, whereas the audio would just kind of run it through, and people are used to that format.

Starting point is 00:52:08 But obviously, the bigger names usually do better in the content world. It's funny because, you know, celebrities draw in brand awareness and credibility, but they don't always do as well on YouTube. Like I had Kevin Hard on, and I think you got like 20,000 views. Really? And it didn't do as well on audio, but it was like, you know, Apple, podcast is going to feature that he's on my show and they're doing a promotion. But for some reason, it didn't do as well as if I had a therapist or a financial expert or a doctor who could

Starting point is 00:52:40 teach you how to optimize your life. So I've conditioned and trained my audience to receive content that's going to help them in their relationships, their health and wellness, their money or their mindset. Let's get on to some of those whips that you have. I'm curious, how do you get Kevin Harton? How do you do that? That was five and a half years of me reaching out of the publicist every few months. You wanted him specifically on. Oh, yes. It was his publicist.

Starting point is 00:53:07 I reached out to his publicist for about five and a half years every couple of months. And I would email her and ask to get him on. What was it about? And it was a no. I mean, he was just inspiring. He had an inspiring story for me. He was one of the biggest entertainers in the world. He still is.

Starting point is 00:53:22 And I was just kind of inspired by his mindset as well from like being an underdog comedian. that was kind of a nobody, getting these little roles in movies to then building a massive global tour, to then being a smart business owner and entrepreneur. And I was like, this guy's got a bulletproof mindset. You don't just do this by accident. There are things that he had overcome and strategies over decades that he developed to get him to where he was. So I wanted to learn inside of his mindset about how he became such a successful entrepreneur,

Starting point is 00:53:53 a talent, how he managed his emotions, all this stuff, his community, everything. And I'm fascinated by that with people who have accomplished something like that and overcome a lot. So he was just one of the people that was kind of like on my top, you know, 20 list. I was like, I'd love to have a Kevin Hart. I love to have the rock. I love to have, you know, Sylvester Stallone. I'd love to have Jim Carrey. So I would reach out to their publicists monthly almost and pitch them.

Starting point is 00:54:18 Okay, now the podcast is this big. I see he's got a new movie out. I see they've got a book out. I see they've got a TV show out. we love can i get in the press circuit with them doing the press for the week or two and uh some people would say yes and some people will say no but there's a lot of people that were just a no until he had a book on self-help and then it was a yes and how do you keep track of everybody like do you have a spreadsheet and is this you doing it personally i've been booking for 10 years myself

Starting point is 00:54:48 but how do you keep track of it's kind of my mind but let's say you have a hundred guests like how many guess do you have at a time where you like constantly rotate through the list. Well, we get pitched a lot now, right? So I'm getting constant inbound requests. But there's just kind of people in my mind that I really want to interview. I've been trying to get you on for two years. I've been trying to reach out to you for two years. Two, two and a half years. Maybe since 2020. I do. Are you, I've been messaging. I've been messaging. I've been messaging on Instagram, on Twitter, but hey, man, I love to connect. I've been so, I've reached out to people that know Graham, you know, I finally got Reed, like, read. I I hate asking for intros, but I was like, Reed, can you see if Graham's going to be in town sometime?

Starting point is 00:55:28 Like, and just connect us. And that was days ago. That was like three days ago. You would have been here, man. It was like three days ago. Well, you know what I was telling him? I've been so bad lately. Like, these last two years, I have been in a mode where, like, my head is just down.

Starting point is 00:55:39 I don't leave my room. It's I am in the same room from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. 6 to 7 days a week. And any free time I needed to zone out. Like, I didn't have the bandwidth. Now it's been the first time that I've been like. But I've been trying to. get him on so it's like and i will try in multiple different ways i'll message people on

Starting point is 00:55:58 instagram i'll leave comments i'll tweet them i'll email them i'll i'll find a way to get in front of you know i feel like it's just you've got like the right timing timing of this worked out like the timing of this happened to be so perfect that like hey i'm gonna be in laa this works how's this time it's like i've never seen something flowed this quickly yeah we're like can you want to do it on saturday i'm like yes so i'm you know i'm like i'll do whatever because we're trying to make it work and something I've wanted for a couple years because I feel like my audience could get value from the wisdom you have, right? So I'm thinking who can my who can help my audience with the knowledge that they have on money? Ram is one of the experts on YouTube and in the world right now

Starting point is 00:56:38 he's researching this and he creates a unique perspective just like a billionaire has their unique perspective which I've had I don't know seven or eight billionaires on so it's like I'm getting different perspectives of people that I'm I think could reach my audience and also bring in new audiences and then serve them in their relationships and serve them in their health and serve them in the different areas of life that could help them their mindset. And so yeah, I messes him for, I don't know, probably messes them. I probably messes him like five to seven times. I'm worried about like what's in my assistant, man. I know. I barely read DMs like very rarely. Every now and then I'll kind of scroll through,

Starting point is 00:57:15 but it's like, I don't take it personally. You know, it's just, but that's the game I play. I'm just like, okay, I got to constantly follow up. Just like you said in our interview, one of your keys is never giving up. You would show up at a listing or an open house, whatever you call it. Anytime a buyer was interested, you would show up Sunday morning, Saturday night, Friday. You're like, okay, I'm there. And so I just do that with people over the years. And I'm like, eventually they'll say yes. Maybe it takes five years. But eventually work it out. And like you said, it's timing. Kevin Hart was the right time. And, And my audience was bigger at that time, so it made sense.

Starting point is 00:57:52 You're in town right now. So we're just like, I happened to text read and I said, hey, man, can you make an intro at some point? He said, yeah. And then you responded and you're like, I'm in LA. Like, let's make this happen now. So it's just being available to when the timing's right. Now, for someone like Kevin Hart, though, what's the process like? Because I didn't imagine he has a whole team behind and was so strict about what goes out.

Starting point is 00:58:12 I was so, I think one of the reasons why it did fine. I just thought it was going to be even bigger than it was. and I was so bummed because we had booked it months in advance and then it was supposed to happen like March 16th of 2020 but then that was like booked months in advance but then that was the week COVID happened right my birthday was the day that was March 16th was that Monday everyone was like okay don't go into the office today yeah and like let's see what happens over the next few days and I was like damn it and so we were supposed to do in person

Starting point is 00:58:47 We had to reschedule it a few months later. He was over Zoom. His laptop, like, the battery went out. So we had to stop for 10 minutes. He had to charge his computer in the middle of the interview. It's just like it's not the same as it is in person. Yes. So the connection, the intimacy, the relationship.

Starting point is 00:59:04 So it was just kind of like a weird timing of everything. It was COVID time. It was like, it's still great. And it was awesome to connect with them. But it wasn't in person. So I didn't get to build that intimacy like we're doing now. So like you said, That's that timing.

Starting point is 00:59:18 Part of me worries that we want to get on like a different caliber of guest. And I think actors would be fantastic. Directors, I think we'd be great. Billionaires, athletes. But I feel like there's a level of professionalism that you have to be at. And I worry they see us as like an amateur like, oh, it's just YouTube. How did you bridge the gap between like, oh, he just does webinars to like, this is a person we should take very serious?

Starting point is 00:59:44 I had to reinvent myself very thoughtfully. from the internet marketing world that I was in, which was a lot of people were doing, I would say not shady things, but not high level quality stuff. They were more like, how do I get as many people to sign up for my thing? And how do I,

Starting point is 01:00:04 their landing pages were kind of ugly and just like all like headlines with yellow highlights. And it wasn't like clean and aesthetically pleasing. And so I early on was just like, I want to become a master of branding and design. I want to look mainstream. I want to look mass media, not internet marketing. So in 2012, 13, 14, I started investing in like a lot of money in a makeover for my website, like personal brand design. Yeah. And I think I put like 25 grand into like a design. But I was

Starting point is 01:00:41 like so thoughtful about finding the exact designer that I wanted and having a look a specific way. I hired a photographer to do like this elevated kind of like GQ magazine shoot. I was like I need photos that look like what celebrities do on my website. And I need typography to be exactly like what Mac is, you know, an Apple and all these different things. I need everything to be elevated beyond what the other people in my industry were doing. So I was just like, I want it to be different. A friend of mine early on said, different. is better than better. And just being able to stand out and be unique.

Starting point is 01:01:21 Because I knew I was never going to be smarter than any of my colleagues, more talented, have more experience than anyone. But I was like, I think I could share things from a different perspective and I can make it look unique. So design, photography, video was something that I leaned in early where a lot of the people in the internet marketing space were not doing. They were really good at making money, but it didn't look pretty. And so that's something I did earlier on was to try to reinvent my personal brand to look different than others.

Starting point is 01:01:53 And then when I got into podcasting, early on before a lot of people did, I had a lot of relationships from just the years of been into marketing that I was able to get people on early from those relationships I had. But getting the bigger guess was challenging because I had to constantly find the angle that would serve them. Not about what's in it for me, but what's in it for them. So I was building relationships with Apple Podcast, and I was like, hey, if I get a big celebrity on, can you feature it on the homepage? So early on, I was able to get featured a lot. And so I could use that leverage and say to someone, Tim Ferriss early on that I was like, hey, I want to get you on. But he was like, who are you?

Starting point is 01:02:36 You're nobody, you know? I was like, hey, I'm going to get you featured on the homepage of Apple for a whole week on the top carous. How can you guarantee that, though? Did you have something? I had a relationship with Apple. I had a relationship with them. I went up there. I met someone at Apple at an event back in 2012.

Starting point is 01:02:52 And I went to freaking the headquarters in San Francisco. I flew up there and I met with, it was a small team at that time of podcasting. It was like four people. And I built a relationship. And they used to, you know, back then, just like they have now, they have the rankings, the top 200, the featured categories, all this stuff.

Starting point is 01:03:10 But there was no competition back then. So I was like, if I got to be a celebrity, where you promote this? And they were like, sure, just. If you tell us in advance who it is, we'll let you know. So I would give them a list of names like, hey, I'm thinking about booking this person, this person, this, and would you feature it if I can get them? And they'd say yes, yes, yes.

Starting point is 01:03:28 And so I would tell them, hey, I've got Apple that says they will feature you. I know you've got a book coming out. I can also do a webinar to my audience to sell your book, and I'll probably sell a few hundred copies. Or I know you got the movie or the TV show, whatever. Like, I'll do whatever to push it. So I would send this whole kind of pitch letter of how I can offer values. to them in 45 minutes of their time of giving me an interview. And then one interview gets another of interviews and gets another interview and builds credibility.

Starting point is 01:03:57 And then I wrote a book, my first book in 2015. I was like, I need to break through into more than mainstream. As opposed to just being the webinar guy, I need to start doing things and packaging my content in a way that's more mainstream available so that the media will want to interview me. 2015 was kind of a breakout year because I wrote a number two New York Times bestseller. And I got a lot of press and media. And for the next couple of years, I was on Today Show and Good Morning America. And I went on Ellen DeGeneres show twice and got on ESPN and sport.

Starting point is 01:04:32 Like I was everywhere in the press. And I started going to a lot of these kind of networking events and social media conferences leading up to it. And I would just find the journalists. I'd find the reporters at all these different TV networks. And I would just say, how can I help you? I remember I got a spread in Details Magazine with Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin and then me right in the middle of this big, you know, spread in Details Magazine. And I would just leverage one piece of press and build a relationship with the journalists and say,

Starting point is 01:05:07 what is the story you're looking for? Who do you need to meet? Who can I introduce you to? And it just became like, I'm going to connect with every journal. and help them as much as I can with their problems, and then pitch them a story that might make sense with what they're looking for about what I'm doing, what I'm up to, my book, or something like that. And so my whole 10-year career has been about how do I add as much value to people as possible before I ask for anything. And really, how do I never ask for anything?

Starting point is 01:05:36 But people feel like they just want to help because I've given so much to them. And that's been the journey. So 2015, it kind of broke through in the middle. mainstream media more, got some opportunities. Then I pitched a show to, I had a talk show on Facebook, the first show on Facebook watch. I had one of their first shows. It was a talk show called Inspiring Life. Six episodes. It was a lot of work. It took about a year and a half to develop and produce and I did whole the rounds in LA and all this stuff. And then right after it ended, another show came out called Red Table Talk. And they were like, hey, we're going to go with this talk show over your talk show. And so, which is funny because I was just on Red Table

Starting point is 01:06:20 Talk like a month ago. It's kind of a full circle moment. But that was kind of the breakthrough. It was like, okay, let me create more value to my community. And my audience was asking for a book. After a few years of doing all these interviews, they were like, hey, Lewis, can you package all this and show us like the top strategies of all these great people you've had on what they're doing to be successful? So I was like, yeah, okay, I'll put it in a book and give it to people. And then I wrote the next book. And now this is the third one. So that's been the journey. I just constantly listening to my audience thinking what is it they need. How can I serve them? And how can I give it to them in an easy, digestible way so they can make sense of it?

Starting point is 01:07:00 And how do you feel about podcasting 10 years into it? Do you still have that same excitement? Or do you want to keep pushing forward to something else? I love it. But I know that I need to keep evolving to be excited. So we've built our greatness plus you know, kind of network. So now we have eight shows. Where it was just me and one show, now we have eight shows. We're building more original shows.

Starting point is 01:07:22 And that excites me to create new content that doesn't rely on just me. So that's what I feel like is the next thing. I feel like everyone's going to be building a network on their podcast in the next two years. I feel like you're going to have a network with two shows. You already have two shows, right? And you might bring in some other person

Starting point is 01:07:39 who wants to do a third show. So like producing another podcast. Like, we'll bring in somebody. Yes. And then you build that up. Yeah. And you take your commission from that as well. So I feel like people who are bigger creators are going to start doing a network, whether it

Starting point is 01:07:52 it be on YouTube network or audio network. I think that's going to happen a lot in the next two years. Because Apple's pushing that. YouTube's pushing that. So I think people are going to see that. They're not going to want to work as much themselves. And they're going to want to say, how can I push my audience own other IP and build up those assets that I make commissions on?

Starting point is 01:08:09 So what's your schedule like now? Do you have like a set like 9.5? Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Thursday, I block off for interviews. And I will try to do two interviews a day if I can. Wow. And I'll block off two hours for each interview. Sometimes I'll only go an hour, but sometimes you go two hours. So I'll do two interviews a day, which takes a lot of time.

Starting point is 01:08:31 I'll do a prep work before. I'll take a break in between to give myself time to kind of get some food and do prep work again for the second interview. And after kind of five hours of either sit. sitting down with someone or interacting with them in between beforehand, after hand, just building relationship like we did, connecting. I'm pretty done. So Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays is set for content creation, interviews, and me delivering the content in this space.

Starting point is 01:09:02 And then really I start, you know, checking my email at like 5 p.m. or something, you know, four or five. And trying to just going through like the daily stuff that came through to me, talk to my team if I need to and then, you know, kind of go home. Mondays are for team calls, goal setting, reaching out to people, booking stuff, doing things I need to do with my assistant, like planning, scheduling, all that different stuff. And then Friday is kind of like recapping of the week, seeing what my team I was able to execute on, what they can improve on, goals for next week, checking in with my business partner about, you know, strategy, strategy time, just be like,

Starting point is 01:09:38 what do we need to do? Who do we need to hire? What do we need to fix? And that's kind of the week. Yeah. But I wake up pretty early. I go to the gym. I meditate. And I get ready for the day. It's kind of the thing.

Starting point is 01:09:51 And then, or were you investing right now? What does that look like? I put maybe seven, eight years ago, I started putting money in index funds. And I don't do it daily like you do, like the five grand a day. I think it's a smart thing. I was just putting chunks in of like 50 to 100 grand at a time. quarterly for many years. I stopped putting in there a couple of years ago and I just kind of let it sit now, the index fund. I have a little over like 2.3 million in real estate funds, mobile park

Starting point is 01:10:29 funds and apartment funds, different people. And then the rest of it is in my business and in investing in my skills. So I spent a lot of money investing in coaches for my health, my nutrition, my heart, my business, and I have different coaches that help me in these areas of my life that I'm looking to grow in. So I invest in them. I have it in the index funds. I tried to do individual stocks a little bit. I just lost it all. Sure. You know what I mean? I just try. It's kind of like you with Robin Hood. Yeah. And it's like. You know why I lost in Robin in the real reason? Why? Jack bought in. Oh, wow.

Starting point is 01:11:11 It's true. The wrong time. Yeah. It's a curse. Anything Jack buys, it immediately dumps. And then what was funny. Except Dogecoin.

Starting point is 01:11:18 Except Doge. Wow. But what was funny is that I finally convinced Jack to sell Robin Hood. You just did it actually. I was going to pay Jack to sell his stock at like $15, $18 a share. And he's like, no, I'm going to get. And then he sold on his own. I was going to pay him to sell it because I knew as soon as he sells, it's going to go up.

Starting point is 01:11:35 The day he sold, Robin Hood went up like 15%. Come on. Yeah. It made no sense. The day. It sucks. And I was like, what happened? And Jack was like, I sold.

Starting point is 01:11:45 Oh, man. Literally, you see the moment he sells skyrocket. Yeah. You're trying to teach me a lesson, I think. Yeah. I mean, I feel like I, you know, I feel like a lot of people I tried to do in 2020, 2020, 2021, I was like, okay, let me put a hundred grand in stocks and a hundred grand of crypto and it's pretty much all of it's gone.

Starting point is 01:12:02 Yeah. And so I feel like, you know, it's just kind of an idiot. Like, just trying to get, I was, I was, and I've always. realize when I try to do something quickly without being an expert at it and without really going all in on studying it and owning it myself, it usually doesn't do well. But when I take longer time and I wait and I strategize and I don't try to go for the quick buck, it always pays dividends. Kind of like the podcast, like YouTube, like the website, these things pay dividends when

Starting point is 01:12:32 I invest in early on. So I used to want to be successful growing up. And I think a lot of us were like, I want to be successful. And I realized that success and greatness are different. Success is about yourself. Greatness is about others. And anytime I strive for success, I felt unfulfilled inside. I didn't feel like complete inside.

Starting point is 01:12:54 I felt like there was something missing. And I still didn't feel like it was enough. I would accomplish goals. I would make money. I was successful externally, but I didn't feel successful internally. And I realized because I was living more of a selfish mindset. I think success is selfish. And there's nothing wrong with that,

Starting point is 01:13:12 but I don't really feel like you can be fulfilled unless you think about greatness, unless you think about service, being of service to other people. Graham is successful because he has accomplished a lot in his life, right? He's accomplished a lot. People look at him in a certain way. He's got a big audience.

Starting point is 01:13:29 He's got a certain net worth. He's accomplished. But he's also great because he serves other people. And it's not just about Graham, right? And that's why it's more sustainable to have that type of energy. So I think there's nothing wrong with wanting to make millions of dollars, with wanting to have the cars and the fancy things. But I just feel like at some point, there needs to be something more after that.

Starting point is 01:13:54 And if you can do it during it as well, I think it's even better. So I got into just thinking about 10 years ago, how can I give back on my time, my money, in ways to serve people as well, through charities and through just like showing up in other ways. And it's brought me so much more inner peace as well as financial prosperity in the process. How has your relationship changed to your philosophies about like work and fulfillment? Because you said you're moving right now.

Starting point is 01:14:22 Yeah. I mean, put an offer on a house. And so it's got to go through inspection and make sure everything's good. But so my relationship with work or my relationship, what do you mean specifically? With the girlfriend? Graham loves talking about. Yeah. I like relationships.

Starting point is 01:14:36 So how is my relationship in terms of? in what way. How has that evolved your mentality? After the last relationship ended and it didn't end well, it was like five months of therapy trying to make it work and it didn't work. And I finally ended it. Why didn't it work? We didn't have the same alignment. It takes me a long time to learn something. I feel like you and Graham probably learned things pretty quickly. It took me, I don't know, 15 years of repeating the same mistakes over and over again until I finally learned this. So after the last relationship, I realized that, you know, it was always me choosing people based on a wound, as opposed to

Starting point is 01:15:13 based on being healed in that wound. So I always had something that I needed to feel like I fix with someone else, as opposed to just saying, I'm good, I don't even need a relationship, I'm happy with who I am. So I would always give in in relationships. Anytime I'd meet a person after six months, everything would be fine until they were like, okay, well, I don't like this about you, and I don't like this about you, and you need to change this. And I would do it just to make them happy.

Starting point is 01:15:43 So I would change who I was, my values, my vision in life, my lifestyle to fit theirs so that they would be okay with me. I needed the people, please. And that was a wound inside of me. And after a lot of emotional intelligence work, healing, different exercises that I did for a while

Starting point is 01:16:02 and integrating that over years, A couple years ago, I finally got to the point where I was like, I am 100% happy alone. I will not compromise or settle my values, my vision, or my lifestyle for any relationship ever again. And I'm happy to be single if that's the case. If someone won't accept me for who I am, that's fine. Quickly after that, I met my girlfriend Martha, who early on as we were kind of like just hanging out, not exclusive. I was like, this is exactly who I am. These are my, extreme values this is my lifestyle this is where I'm going to be in five 10 20 years and this is my role in responsibility in a relationship kind of if I ever get in a

Starting point is 01:16:46 relationship again this is how I'm going to be this is what I will do this is what I will not do this is my views on parenting this is my views on marriage this is my views on money I laid it all out in the first few months I shared everything trying to get her to essentially say okay I'm scared of you I don't want to be in a relationship with you. And the exact opposite happened. She was like, that's incredible. That's the exact what I've been looking for. So I kind of tested her for many, many months as we were just hanging out. And I said, listen, I'm not going to change just so you know. So you have to accept me. She was like, yeah, I like who you are. I'm not asking you to change. That's been a

Starting point is 01:17:23 game changer is finding someone who has shared values, vision, and lifestyle. And I always found people before that didn't have those things hoping that they would. And I didn't have the same thing as them. They wanted me to change. So we both wanted each other to change. Whereas with Martha, I don't want her to change at all. I accept her if she is. And she does the same for me. How'd you meet Martha? It's funny because she started following me on Instagram and I saw it happen. And I go, huh? You saw you. So you were just waiting this is a follow? You're like, just keep checking her. No, I saw like, I was one of the things I do is every few days, I'll See, like, oh, there anyone with a blue check mark on Instagram?

Starting point is 01:18:02 So he's followed me. It could be a potential interview, right? It's one of the ways I book people is, like, who knows who I am already? It's easier to book them. And so I saw that she had followed me. And I was like, who is this girl? She looked familiar. And a couple years prior, I saw her on a TV show, and I thought she was brilliant in this

Starting point is 01:18:23 show called Altered Carman, which is a Netflix show. And she was one of the stars in that show. And I was like, man, this girl's really magnetic on screen. but I never thought I would date an actor being in L.A. I was like, I never want to date an actress. They're all high maintenance and dramatic and all these different things. So I saw and she'd follow me and I just followed her back, but I never messaged her. It wasn't until about six, seven months later where I just replied to one of her things that she was sharing on her stories.

Starting point is 01:18:50 And we ended up connecting in person. She was like, hey, I hope you're doing well. And I was like, yeah, I hope you're doing well. I'd love to meet you sometime. But I wasn't trying to like date her. I just wanted to meet her because I thought she was, like, connecting. inspiring. And I asked her, how did you find me in the first place? Because I saw you follow me. And she goes, oh, I was watching an interview of yours on YouTube with this guy, Dr. Joe Dispenza,

Starting point is 01:19:08 who's big in the neuroscience meditation world. And she was like, I'm a big fan of his, his work. And as I was watching him, I noticed you. And I was like, huh, he's, he's asking interesting questions. I like the way he is and this and this. So she followed me from an interview. She saw me on my podcast. And we connected that way. And, you know, You know, so thanks to Dr. Joe Spencer for being on the show. That's so cool. Yeah. And we just went to his meditation retreat like two months ago together.

Starting point is 01:19:36 Wow. This is fun, like a full circle moment. So what are, you said you shared some of your extreme values with her. Yeah. I said I would never change a diaper. That was an extreme. It's not an value. It's more of like a role and responsibility.

Starting point is 01:19:49 Why don't you want to change a diaper? It's not a, it's not about the diapers. It's about the expectations that I feel like, um, some people have. right now in relationships where they just don't communicate before getting married or before having kids what it roles and responsibilities each partner plays in the relationship. And so I said my values are extreme honesty and integrity, right? That doesn't mean I've always been honest and integrity in the past, but I was like, this is what I want and this is what I'm creating. And I want

Starting point is 01:20:24 extreme trust. So I'm never going to be in. I said I will never get upset. at you for who you are. You living your life, if you are an integrity, if you're honest, if you live your life, if you're acting and you're doing the scenes with people. And I knew she was an actress and she'd done kissing scenes before, right? So I know this is possible in the future that she might be doing kissing scenes. And so I had to ask myself, would I be jealous or insecure if she did this in the future? Because I don't want to change her. I want to accept her. And I was like, no, I won't be jealous or insecure. I'm confident with who I am. I understand it's art, it's an expression, it's not.

Starting point is 01:21:01 And so I said, I will never get upset at you. I accept you and I trust you. If you are out of integrity, if you lie, if you cheat, that's on you, and we'll just end it. But I don't need to be worried. I don't need to be stressed or insecure. And I want the same level of respect with me. I'm going to be traveling. I'm going to be speaking.

Starting point is 01:21:18 I do events. There's women that are around me. I need full trust and respect and acceptance of who I am in my lifestyle. Don't tell me that I can't travel and do events. anymore. Don't tell me you don't want me speaking on stages. Don't tell me you don't want me interviewing certain people. Like don't change who I am in my vision. You got to accept me. Otherwise, we're just not the right match. And that's okay. We can just be friends or not. But this is who I am. I'm not asking you to change your lifestyle, your vision. I want you to accomplish your dreams.

Starting point is 01:21:48 Now, I hope that you just make wise decisions and pick certain roles that maybe you're not doing something too, like whatever. But But, you know, I trust you. So that was good. And then it was just about like, you know, money, money stuff, relationship stuff, family stuff. I was in previous relationships where I was expected to be around their family almost every weekend for family activities. And I was like, I need time to like just relax and recover and just rest. And so I was just like, I'm not going to be around your family every week.

Starting point is 01:22:20 You know, I'll go, you know, once a month or once every couple months and like do that. But don't expect me to be available every weekend. for this. Don't expect me to play this role. I was like, a team does well when each individual knows their roles and responsibilities. If I try to be the point guard on a basketball team when I'm actually really good of being a center or of power forward, I'm never going to do that role that well. When you ask me to do 50% of the role of being a point guard, I'm going to do a poor job because that's not my skill set. But put me in my position, put me in my role, as a partner, as a father, as a husband, whatever it might be, I'm going to play that role the best.

Starting point is 01:23:03 And I'm going to give it 100% to the relationship. But I feel like at this time in our society, at least in America, a lot of people are expected to do 50-50 of everything. 50-50 contribution of money, 50-50 contribution of changing diapers or whatever the thing is. It's not about the diapers. It's about that's not my best role. and I want to be put in the best position to succeed for myself, and I want you to be in the best position to succeed for yourself so we can come together 100, 100 together in our roles and responsibilities.

Starting point is 01:23:39 So it's just about being clear on what does that look like. Are you comfortable with this or are you not? If not, that's okay, then maybe I'm not the right person for you, and that's fine. You can find a guy who does want to change diapers 50% of the time, and I'm sure I'll change diapers at some point. It's not about the diapers, right? It's about the expectation and creating agreements. So one of the things that I said to her, another extreme value, was,

Starting point is 01:24:07 I will not get committed to you in a relationship unless we do therapy together. Not because something is wrong, we need to fix something, but because I want to minimize pain, stress, and unneeded frustrations by getting clarity on our agreements as early. as possible. And so we do therapy once every couple of months together. She was like, yeah, I'm in. And that has been a game changer. I highly recommend. It doesn't have to be a therapist. It can be a mediator, a coach, or whatever it might be, to just say, here's what I really value and have the challenging conversations with someone else. Because for almost every relationship

Starting point is 01:24:48 I've been in prior to this, I always would say something early on in the relationship about what I'm committed to and they would say what they're committed to. And then whatever reason a year later, they say, I never said that. No, or it's changed. No, I never said that. I'm not going to do this anymore. Or now that we're together, it's not going to be this way. And I'm just like, never again. You know, if someone says they're going to do something, I want a third party witnessing it to know that we could. Just get it in writing at that point. Sure. But it's like, it just creates a better process of communicating. Again, I didn't have a school growing up that taught me how to emotions and relationships.

Starting point is 01:25:27 Tell me how to communicate with people from a completely different background. They didn't teach us this in school. So that's why I keep trying to find the experts on my show to teach me and then give the lessons to others. I've just been a guinea pig of making mistakes for a long time and trying to improve myself

Starting point is 01:25:42 while helping others. So you think for any relationship out there that's in that couple phase, the dating phase, if you want to take it to the next level, you should just have a serious long conversation or maybe a couple serious long conversations, lay it out all in the field and just like make sure your values are aligned each person understands their role and has these like uncomfortable to

Starting point is 01:26:01 I think from all the different therapists and relationship experts that I've interviewed over the last 10 years there are so many problems in relationships the data is at least 50% of marriages and the divorce right now it's going to be going more now And of those 50% of people still together, most of them are not happy. So you're entering relationships where they're going to end, 50% of the time, flip a coin, it's going to end in divorce. A lot of the time, the other 50%, they haven't figured out a solution where they're thriving. They're just surviving. And then there's probably a 10, 15%, that's doing really, really well in last 10, 20, 30 years.

Starting point is 01:26:43 But it's rare. How many people do you know who've been married for 30 years who love each other, a lot. Not like we're sleeping in separate rooms and we like can't stand each other and as arguments, but how many people do you know on the top of your head who've been together for 30 years, happy? Not saying it's perfect. There's ups and downs, but overall, very happy. Do you know? I could think of three right now. Three. Just very close family. Like my parents, I sure hope. It's great. Yeah. They're happily married for 30 years. That's great. But three people. What's that? Grandparents.

Starting point is 01:27:19 That's great. It's rare, though. Some of that I don't know if you fully know because they could be putting on a great frond. They share the same bed. I see them kiss sometimes. But sometimes you don't fully understand. Like, it's easy to put on the front. You're trying to convince me of with my parents.

Starting point is 01:27:33 In general, not your grandparents, Jack. They're very good. No. You're right. But in general, it's rare to know a lot of couples who've been married for a long time who are also happily married, right? Not because they feel like they have to be in it

Starting point is 01:27:46 because of their religion or because they're kids, but like, stay in it because they really love each other. And for me, I'm just like, why I've been in enough challenging relationships that were emotionally draining. I take full responsibility because I chose the women and I stayed in the relationships out of fear of being alone. I could have easily left the relationships much sooner, but I tried to make them all work and they just weren't a right match. So I just said, I'd rather be single and alone and living in peace than forcing a relationship that doesn't align with values, vision, and lifestyle.

Starting point is 01:28:19 And that's why I was like, I'm willing to have all the uncomfortable conversations now instead of wait another year in a relationship and repeat the patterns that I did in the past, the mistakes that I made without having these conversations. Because I just think a lot of people don't have the conversations that are scary up front. I don't know.

Starting point is 01:28:39 Have you talked to your girlfriend about like, hey, when we have kids, what is your exact... Fiance, sorry. What is the exact expectation? you have in me when the child wakes up at 3 a.m. What is the exact expectation when he's throwing up everywhere? Am I supposed to clean it up? Are you cleaning up? There's no right or wrong here. It's just what are the expectations? You know, is you could have your mom stay here with us for a certain amount of time? How long are they staying here? I've just asked every single question possible.

Starting point is 01:29:05 But some of those, I feel like you don't really know until you're in the moment. Like you could expect a lot of that. 100%. But most people just don't ask any of it. Sure. They just expect, oh yeah, we're going to figure it out. And so it's just trying to minimize it. And I know you probably have the conversations around money 100% with her. But most people don't have the conversation around money. They just expect, well, I guess we're going to merge our money or I get 50% of what you have now. It's like this expectation without communicating it. So the goal for me has been how do we have a third party support us in just navigating every conversation?

Starting point is 01:29:40 And when there's like, oh, okay, you think a little differently here? well, how can we create an agreement we both feel good about? So I don't feel like I'm getting walked all over or you're getting taken advantage of or whatever it might be. And it just brought me so much more peace inside so I can have energy to create on the outside. That's been the game change. Sure.

Starting point is 01:29:59 That's super smart. But it's scary. It's uncomfortable. It's not fun. Like no one wants to go and spend four or five hours on a Saturday doing couples therapy in the first three to five months of their relationship. Dave Ramsey recommends that to all. couples. Yeah, before they get married, is to do marriage counseling. Yeah. I think, I think it's great

Starting point is 01:30:17 before marriage for sure, but I was like, I want to do this when we first start dating. Because why go a year or two if we're... Imagine that being a first date. Kind of was. It kind of was with her. It kind of was. But we're also, you know, it's like, I'm in my late 30s, so is she, it's like we've, she was married and divorced. So she was like, I don't want to deal with this again. Sure. You know, so. It's interesting. I am a firm believer that your life partner is the most important decision you are ever going to make. Huge. A lot of people kind of waltz into that decision. And you really have to explore every single possible outcome of this decision and how compatible you are with that person. And I'm not saying it's

Starting point is 01:30:56 going to be perfect. And it's going to be like seamless and there's no challenges. But it's like, are you at least in alignment on the core things in life that could cause a lot of stress? For me, that's, that's been key. Have you figured out who your partner is going to be yet? I mean, I have like ideas of what I want, you know, them to be like, you know. He's got a list just like on the podcast. You know, I have celebrity crushes and whatnot. Oh, nice. But, no, I haven't figured out.

Starting point is 01:31:26 I guess. I'm open to exploring that, though. That's great. Yeah, it's fun. Yeah. Your DMs are going to get flooded right out of. They're certainly not. Every single time you say that, they never get flooded.

Starting point is 01:31:37 So, it never be wrong. We have like 99% male viewership. Really? It's very skewed. I'll get a lot of DMs, but it will not be from girls. Maybe if you've got a sister, then you want to be with him. You know what, that could be it. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:31:50 Maybe it's just the sister. Sure. Yeah. A mom. You never know, Jack. I'm saying. That's a good point. Yeah.

Starting point is 01:32:01 A mom. I'd like a son right now. Yeah. Do you want Jack to be your, what is it? Stepfather? A stepfather. Oh, my name. There you go. Grand, your stepfather-in-law or god.

Starting point is 01:32:12 Godfather. I'm 24. 24, yeah. I'll tell you what, though. If I could do it all over again, I'd probably just live more life single, you know, and just experience life and travel and adventure and learn things and living in another country for three months and like practice a language and just take more time alone. Because I feel like I'm really grateful at, I'm going to be 40 this year that I'm like getting into a committed relationship now, like, where I feel clear about myself and clear about the relationship. So in your 20s, man, I would feel free to be in relationships

Starting point is 01:32:49 but I think do as much exploring as you can about yourself I think it's a wise thing to do. It's always a tough spot to be in, like this age that I'm in right now in the last couple of years because I know what I want to do with my time. I know how I want to spend it, right? But I hear everybody when they're like 40, 50, 60, like, man, if I was in my 20s, I wish I did this. And I'm like, well, I really don't want to be in my 50s wishing I did stuff different in my 20s, mid-20s.

Starting point is 01:33:15 But I'm doing kind of what I want to be doing. That's great. And do I really want to be doing what I think I'll have wanted myself to do when I was in my 20s? You know what I mean? Do what you want to do now then. Yeah, whatever it is you're doing, if you feel like you're doing it, if you feel like you're doing it now, then keep doing it. But I feel like I did it. I feel like in my 20s and my 30s, I wouldn't go back in my chain.

Starting point is 01:33:37 I would have gotten out of relationships sooner to have less stress and pain and been single more time before I went into a different relationship and given myself more single time. That's the only thing I would have done differently because I just tried to make every relationship work that just was never a right fit. Because I was just trying to be a good guy and a nice guy and all that's crap. So I would have just said, well, I was just like trying to give in who I was not being authentic. Right, right. By trying to make someone else happy. So it was, it wasn't good. And so I wish I had the courage to end things sooner.

Starting point is 01:34:16 So I could have just been like, oh, I've got six months alone where I can go travel or do this or have more energy, you know, with my friends. So I just dealt with a lot of stress that didn't have to. But I traveled. I went after all my dreams. I went to, you know, I played professional handball for many years. I was on the USA national team for eight years. I traveled all around the world. I met interesting people.

Starting point is 01:34:38 I said yes to events last minute. Like I did the stuff that I wanted to do. And I lived where I wanted to live, you know. What advice do you have for us? Like, how could we improve? Familiar with kind of like the channel, the operations, the podcast. I think the podcast has a lot of potential.

Starting point is 01:34:56 I have a very objective view of this. In terms of advice for building the podcast. Yeah, what would you do in... I would hire a coach. I would rank... I'm going to give you advice on things you don't think you would do. Okay. I would give yourself an assessment from one to ten on how you're doing in your mindset,

Starting point is 01:35:23 your relationship to others and your relationship to yourself, your health and wellness, and then your purpose. And on a scale of one to ten, I would ask myself, am I at the top of my game in this category being a 10, one being I'm horrible? Where am I in there? And which category is the lowest? Do I have a healthy relationship with myself? Meaning I have a ton of self-confidence.

Starting point is 01:35:52 I have humility at the same time. I love myself. I accept myself. I feel peace in my heart consistently. I sleep like a baby or my up all night thinking and analyzing and stressing. Where am I in a one to 10? my relationship with others, all my family members, are they at a 10? Or are there some people that I haven't talked to a long time?

Starting point is 01:36:14 Do I have close relationships with friends, intimacy? Where am I? Do I feel my money isn't the right place? Maybe for you, it's too much here, 15, right? But wherever you are, think about 1 to 10. And then for me, I would just say, okay, when you improve the thing that you feel like you're deficient in in your life, you're going to elevate your confidence in your business. So that's what I would think about.

Starting point is 01:36:39 And for me, coaching, having coaches has probably been the best investment because the more I feel good about myself, the more my business grows. And, you know, when Kobe Bryant wins a championship, he didn't say, I don't need a coach anymore. He said, how can I find better coaches? How can I find specialist coaches who can help me in this parts of my game

Starting point is 01:37:04 to keep him at the top and then improving. He didn't say, well, I'm here, now I'm good. He just kept growing, and that's what top athletes do. So I would think about that. And then I would start, you know, I would talk to people, not you can talk to me, but other people who are doing podcasting on YouTube and really see what they were doing.

Starting point is 01:37:24 Right when you guys walked in, I was like, what are you guys doing? Here's what I'm doing. You should try this. You should do this. If you did this, it could double in a year. So just finding other people. people networking, which you don't like to do, reply to your DMs, he doesn't like to do.

Starting point is 01:37:38 Yeah, when you were talking about that, I was like, that's the one here. I'm a one. But I think it's, you know, it's being willing to invest in a coach who could give you like one or two things that could really help you in a big way. When I got into YouTube, it's like, okay, I reached out of a few friends who did YouTube and I said, can you tell me a little bit about this? And a couple of these people just told me a few things that got me down the rabbit hole. And I'm like, oh, I just need to turn this on and do this and try this differently. and look at the growth. So it doesn't need to be some drastic thing,

Starting point is 01:38:06 but maybe something that we talked about today beforehand would give you an idea to help you grow it. And all you had to do is show up and just try it. And it's like, do that with a few different people and see what other ideas you get. It's a great advice. Yeah, it is. I like that a lot.

Starting point is 01:38:21 You know what I mean? It's like, and I would ask you to start asking yourselves different questions. For example, are you talking about this podcast or your other YouTube show? Everything. I see everything is like the same umbrella. I would ask yourself this.

Starting point is 01:38:35 How many hours are you spending a week on your main show? A lot. Give me a rough. 20 hours, 40 hours? No. 10 hours? Probably 8 hours a day, at least 8 to 10 hours a day, five days a week. And that's like the, that's the floor.

Starting point is 01:38:47 It's the minimum. What's the most you've made in one month from sponsorships and AdSense on your YouTube channel? Probably like 800 grand. 800 grand. So I would start asking yourself different questions. And I think a lot of people don't do this, which I wish they would. And that's why I think a coach can allow you to have a different perspective and ask these questions. 800 grand.

Starting point is 01:39:10 How many hours a month on average? Do you think it is, roughly? Most months? In a month? 40 hours a week, you said? Oh, yeah, but that's just one channel. And then there's everything else on top of it. I would say most weeks are probably 70 hours of a week, probably.

Starting point is 01:39:27 So what is that in the month? 70 times four. What is it? roughly four weeks. Three hundred hours probably. It's okay. So if you had to, if your life depended it on it.

Starting point is 01:39:37 Yeah. You had to make a million dollars a month in a hundred hours or less of work. How would you do it on YouTube? If your life depended on it, that's the question I'd ask first. Yeah. Then I would say if your life dependent on it,

Starting point is 01:39:52 how can you make, it doesn't need to be a million, but call it 800,000, right, a month, or whatever number you want it to be. How can you make that? with 10 hours a week, not 70 hours a week. Like how'd you cut it in half? I don't know if that would be even possible.

Starting point is 01:40:06 Like I'd have to be like selling everything I, everything I have in the arsenal. Be like, you know. How would it be possible? If it were possible, how would it be possible? I would have to sell everything. What do you mean sell everything? Like I would pull every like program I've ever made in the past

Starting point is 01:40:23 and discount it and just like, you know, if you didn't have to discount things though. If you weren't allowed to disallow to, discount things. If you had to work half the time and make the same amount of money. Someone else would have to do it. Um, let's just call it. If you, if you want to have to make the same money and you can only work half the amount of hours, how could you do that without selling stuff and discounting everything and going, what would you have to do? So this is a question I asked Grant Cardone multiple times when I interviewed him. Because the first time he came on, or I've had him on multiple times,

Starting point is 01:40:55 but one of the first times when he was like, oh, I've raised like $200 million. And I go, what's the goal? He's like, it's $400 million. I go, why isn't it a billion? He goes, ah, it's just, it's not possible right now. I go, but if it were, what would you need to do? And he got really mad and frustrated. I don't know, you couldn't do it.

Starting point is 01:41:11 And I go, but if you could, what would you do? He goes, okay, well, I'd reach out to 10 other different types of people with $100 million of assets. I'd start reaching out to these people and finding them. I'd start going here. like doing this. And then he came back a year later and he blew past the goal, like double the goal that he thought he was even capable of doing and less the time. And then we did it again. He was like, okay, I want four billion. I was like, why not 10? It's like, ah, you just can't do it

Starting point is 01:41:40 that fast. It's just not possible. And I was like, but if it were, what would you do? So it just gets you thinking differently. And Jack said it right. It's like, you need other people. Well, I guess, yeah. You need to hire other people to start doing some things. You need to start delegating some of this. And that's hard for you to do because you've been the one who's been able to do all of it for five, six years. Same for me. It's been hard for me to delegate to other people because I learned marketing 12 years ago and I learned this and whatever. But that has been what's been able to help me grow in less time where I'm just focusing on the main thing that I do and letting everyone else, training everyone else. It may not be as good as me, but eventually

Starting point is 01:42:18 it can scale beyond me. And I think that's the next level for you is figuring out, how can I find a few people, train them up, cut half my time down. So you can have more critical thinking space. You can have more time to like read a book and get a better idea in the middle of a day and not feel stressed. So you can go take a walk and get some nature time, whatever it is, eat an extra piece of sushi or whatever might be. And you can feel like, okay, I can think strategically with more time as opposed to doing the business. I can think about it and expand from there. That's what I'd be thinking about for you is asking different questions. If I had to do this and half the time

Starting point is 01:42:54 and make the same amount of money or more money, what would need to happen? And it's not about discounting everything and making all these courses and selling it all for nothing or whatever it is. It's just about, okay, what are other successful people do

Starting point is 01:43:09 and have the time making more money? Probably be those interviews. Like the Mr. Beast interview, like doing those. And just picking, like, big guests doing a one-day production, having that edited. You can do a multiple-part series with someone. You can do a four-part series with Mr. Beast.

Starting point is 01:43:29 And it's like, okay, we do one day, but that's a whole month of content. Sure. Whatever might be. And in your main show, you've got to think differently about that, too. Yeah. That's my opinion. I got a question just because I'm curious.

Starting point is 01:43:44 Asking different questions. You asked Graham this. What's the most you've ever made in a month? Well, I mean, most of them brought in for business. probably like three and a half million. What's your, what's your net on that? Because it always cares about the net, though.

Starting point is 01:43:58 That is not what I expect. But what is like 90% expensive. That's not a normal month. That was like a big deal that came in. That was like, you know, that doesn't happen every month. But that was,

Starting point is 01:44:08 that was like an advance of a big, like multiple year deal that I got in podcasting and stuff like that. So I'm just saying, but like a normal month out of, I don't know. It's like, like a, I mean, I used to do a lot of course launches.

Starting point is 01:44:26 We did like a million dollar launch in a month one time, you know, so, but that's like putting so much effort and energy into like a big thing and selling, you know, a course to everyone and stuff like that. But then you have affiliates and you have other people. Then you pay, spend money on ads. So it's not like you keep all that money. You know what I mean? So if you were to get a monthly average of, let's say, an annual income, you know,

Starting point is 01:44:46 then we'd be able to figure out what it is generally that it is. I don't really get around this easily as well I don't really pay myself that much I put it like all back into the business

Starting point is 01:44:58 I've lived a very simple lifestyle and I just you know you guys see where I'm at the expenses of this place and it's got

Starting point is 01:45:04 50 people you got to pay every month I'm thinking about how do I keep money in the bank to pay people for the next

Starting point is 01:45:10 six to 12 months I'm not like oh I just get to have all this extra money and I right again I don't have any watches or fancy

Starting point is 01:45:17 things I have the same like V-neck that I wear Yeah. And I have a simple setup. It's not like I'm bawling over here with cars and lambos. That's not my lifestyle.

Starting point is 01:45:29 You know, I've been in an apartment for the last 12 years in West Hollywood. That's because you're very humble. You're just a humble guy. So it's like I've invested back into the business, back into like, you know, I spent a year writing this book. It took time and energy and I had a ghost writer help me. And I had, you know, production. I paid for the design of this cover. I played for all these different things.

Starting point is 01:45:50 things, I put my money into buying a domain, into buying, you know, content, all this different stuff that can help me for the future. So it's not like how can I spend it now for me and just stack the money to buy stuff. It's how do I invest it for a brighter future? See, part of me worries that like... And the taxes here are insane. I know. Yeah, so it makes sense. Dude, I'm spending... It was like 400 grand last year just to live in L.A. on state tax I had to pay. It's like, it makes you want to throw up. because you work so hard to make the money. I've heard there's a way around it.

Starting point is 01:46:24 Tell me. It's a... It's called moving. No, no, no, no. It's got to be another strategy. No, I forget what it was. It was something that you are able to deduct it through your corporation.

Starting point is 01:46:35 Tell me, please. So you got to Google it because I'm very unfamiliar with it. Like, I learned about this after I already left California, but there... To my understanding, there is a way to run it through the business. You pay it through the business,

Starting point is 01:46:47 and that way it's deductible on that level before you take a sound. I'm going to have to look this up. Yeah. So I think it's a gray area as far as I'm concerned. I don't know if I should probably do it then. But, you know, I think, unfortunately, the more I get into like taxes,

Starting point is 01:47:01 the more I realize that the whole tax system is a gray area. Very gray. It is insane. And everything is open to interpretation. And it's like, how well could you argue your case for X, Y, Z? Very little of it is like black and white. Like, obviously certain deductions, yeah. But it's crazy.

Starting point is 01:47:19 And it's like, whoever has, more money could learn these gray areas and hire the right people to do it correctly in such a way that's like compliant it's insane but i was about to tell you that i worry that i feel like part of my strength and maybe this is the reason why i haven't scaled is just like it's always been my angle for the very beginning is like hey it's just me in a garage it's like i'm not a big team i'm not a corporation it's just a dude making videos for fun on youtube and really up until like a year ago or Alex started editing the main channel videos. Like that main channel was just like me doing everything from start to finish.

Starting point is 01:47:52 So much work. Everything. It was just, and Jack and I would just goof around for thumbnails, like title thumbnails for like an hour. And it was just riffing back and forth. And like, what do you think of this flame? And like, what about this color on this? And like, that's funny. What's another word for this?

Starting point is 01:48:05 And that was the extent of it. And I feel like there's something special about like, hey, I'm just like, it's me and you watching this right now. Not a team. No one else is editing this. It's like, I'm doing this for you. And that's like a strength that I feel like not many people could say that. It's a strength, but what gets you here won't get you there. That's what a net set.

Starting point is 01:48:25 No. That is it. Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this question. If Mr. Beast was just him and a camera, would he be Mr. Beast? No. If it was just like, hey, guys, I'm just here with you. I'm still doing the same things in my little, like, you know, my garage.

Starting point is 01:48:40 In my bedroom, which was like him like, how can I read the encyclopedia for 24 hours? And this is cool. But Emma Chamberlain was a great example of that. I'm sure she has a bit of a team now. She's got a team now. She got a team now. But she was able to scale her career so well. But what got her here won't get her there, the next level of results.

Starting point is 01:49:01 And I think what's gotten you here will continue to get you here and grow at a certain pace. And you'll have to keep putting the same amount of hours doing the same things to get the same results. Maybe a little bit more every bit every year. But it's like, again, if you have to. different goals, which was maybe you don't have to have these goals. But if you're like, if I wanted to get 20 million subscribers and 30 million views a month, I'm just throwing a random number, what would it take for you to do less work to get there? You can't keep doing the same things to get new results. Sometimes you can. You can use your strengths in different ways.

Starting point is 01:49:38 You still have the same personality, the same connection, the same intimacy, the same look and feel. But you have a team that's doing this something else for you for an hour every day. You create multiple content in different strategies. You have someone doing man on the street content for you, and you're reporting back in a new style of content where someone's out asking questions about finances, and you're kind of doing man on the street from your desk and reporting with them.

Starting point is 01:50:04 Whatever it is, I'm just coming up with some way of ideas, where you're expanding your creativity and using your power of your intimacy, your wisdom, your knowledge, your research, your creative ability to come up with ideas, and still connecting with the audience, but in different ways. And I think testing new stuff, new formats, you don't have the ability to do as much of it right now

Starting point is 01:50:27 because you have so much of your time doing the same things. You don't have to bring on a massive team. You can bring on a couple of freelancers to do some of these things. And it doesn't mean that they're going to work out right away and it still means you have to train them and it takes time and energy, but it will start to free you up to do more things in the future when you can start to empower others to support you. Mr. Beasts has got a massive team now.

Starting point is 01:50:54 Massive. I'm not saying you need to have that bag of a team or not, but it's like you've got to have some people supporting you. Yeah. Part of me, though, what I've really learned is that, like, I've taken a lot of advice over this last, like, a year, I would say. I really like trying new things. And one of Hormozies things is like, you got to, like, do this and this and this.

Starting point is 01:51:12 And I took that to heart and it did. And it made me miserable. Like, the more things I took. took on, the more I realized it, like, it made me realize just how happy I was, just sitting on the couch, planning a video, and like, that's what I want it to do. And so at that point, I cut everything that wasn't just the podcast, second channel, main channel, and that was it. And I was so happy doing that. If you're happy, then don't do anything differently. If you're, if you're happy with your lifestyle, then keep doing it. But if you're looking to grow in other ways,

Starting point is 01:51:39 I want to probably grow in other ways that are maybe just not that. Yes. I want to, you know, Just because... It's like I tried this, that direction was not... I remember someone gave me advice early on. I was like, oh, what a ways I can make more money? And he was like, Lewis, you don't have enough products. You got to make a whole suite of products and different price points and have tons of options. The next year, I went out and built all these products and I was like, this is not fun for me.

Starting point is 01:52:02 So just because someone gives you that advice doesn't mean it's the right advice for you. And again, for me, I'm thinking, how can you do it in less time and get better results? So if you only want to do a couple videos a week on both the channels, then cool. How do you just do it in less time so you have more energy to do other stuff? Sure. That's what I'm thinking about. Okay. You don't have to hire the team, but it's just...

Starting point is 01:52:23 I get it. You don't have to do everything. You know, it's just like, do the things that make you the most happy. That's why I started hiring the team, so all I'm really doing is interviewing. Before I was doing everything. And because I could, but just because I can't doesn't mean I should. Got it. And it's not supporting my strength.

Starting point is 01:52:41 of doing what I do best and having energy so I can work out and be with my girlfriend and try other stuff. So that's my suggestion. Thank you. Yeah. What did being a pro athlete teach you about life? What were the biggest takeaways outside

Starting point is 01:52:56 and just like sports for that? Planning your life in the seasons and really having clear goals seasonally. Because every sports team I was on was usually typically three to four months, right? and there is a pre-season, there's the regular season, there's the playoffs, and then there's the post-season. It's kind of like in life. There's four different seasons, just like in sports.

Starting point is 01:53:23 And before the season would begin, so before you take on a new project or a new endeavor, a new relationship, or a new business venture, I would really get clear, do I want to play this sport? And what is my goal for playing with this team and this sport and going after this thing that I'm looking to do? And what is the goal that this will take me to the next step? So I was always thinking about, okay, high school football is going to get me a scholarship in college. Because I want to play professional football so I need to go to a good school in college, and I need to get good stats in college.

Starting point is 01:53:56 So I can have game film to get into professional needs so I can fulfill my dream. So it was like all these steps to fulfill a dream of like 15 years that I had. And I played lots of sports. But I remember my senior year, going in a senior year, I didn't want to play baseball anymore. So after the season was done, my junior year of baseball, I was like, I'm not having as much fun anymore. So in the postseason, I re-evaluated,

Starting point is 01:54:22 do I want to play this sport next year? And I didn't. So it gave me time to reflect and think after the season was done. And then I used that effort and energy to do something else. So for me, I take that in my business. And I really think about the seasons. You know, the first quarter, we have a big ramp up. into, not to plug, but March 7th, I've got this book coming out.

Starting point is 01:54:46 And so I knew that for January, February, leading up to March, I've got a full regular season of energy and effort, actions I've got to take to get me ready for the playoffs. The playoffs is the book is out, and now I'm out promoting it and talking about it. I spent a whole year before preparing. This is the off-season. This is the training mode. This is writing.

Starting point is 01:55:10 This is researching. this is developing, this is packaging, designing this product. Then I'm in the regular season doing interviews for the product right now with you guys and other people. And then it comes out and I'm going to be even, you know, it's like the championship level. This is the playoffs. I've got to show up even greater. Then after the book is done after kind of a couple months afterwards, the season is done.

Starting point is 01:55:34 The playoffs is over. It's now the off season. I evaluate. Do I want to do this again? What's the next thing? So it's always thinking about the next season ramping up, having some time off, ramping up again, but visualizing the dream far, far in advance. So I thought 15 years in advance that I wanted to be a pro athlete.

Starting point is 01:55:55 In business, I think very far ahead. And every decision is based off of one sentence, a meaningful mission in my life. And everything I do, I ask the question, does this serve the, meaningful mission that I have for my life and my business. And the meaningful mission is to serve and impact 100 million lives weekly to help them improve the quality of their life. So I make decisions based on, is this action going to help impact 100 million people improve the quality of their life? If it doesn't help that, then I don't do it. And it gives me clarity. And I think a lot of people don't have clarity when they get into business or just whatever.

Starting point is 01:56:41 They're just like, oh, here's something that's coming up. It's exciting. Let me do it. What being a professional athlete taught me is, do I really want to do this thing? Because being a pro athlete is hard. You have to train your body and your mind for hours every day. It's extremely demanding. You have to love it.

Starting point is 01:56:58 You have to love winning more than training, right? You have to really love the idea of like, I want to do this because I want to win and play and have fun, but it's so demanding on the body. It's exhausting. You have to love it. So that's what it taught me, is like writing a book can feel exhausting if you don't love the idea that will impact people based on your mission. So do you guys have a one sentence meaningful mission?

Starting point is 01:57:24 Is that something you have in your life? Hit the like button, subscribe. That's it. What is the ultimate goal? I would want to take a lot of time to figure it out. Exactly. And it doesn't mean you have to be like, oh, this is my life's mission. And it doesn't mean, and just like, you know, there's seasons of life, there can be.

Starting point is 01:57:41 seasonal missions. When I was on my sister's couch with a broken wrist, I was like, I just want to make enough money to have my own apartment. That was my meaningful mission. I couldn't think beyond like other stuff. I was like, I just need to make a couple grand a month because I'm broke and I want to feel like I can get on my own feet. Then when I had basic needs met and I had enough money, I was like, okay, what do I really, really want for my next season of life, my next chapter? Whether that's the six months, two years, ten years, whatever. And this doesn't, it's, it doesn't, it's, it's, it's, doesn't mean you have to figure out your life's mission right now. Like I'm going to cure cancer at 24. That's my goal. It can be, but it doesn't have to be. But what I think would be meaningful

Starting point is 01:58:21 for you is to think about these next two years, what would really excite me if I was spending my time and energy doing? And if we accomplished what, it would be a rewarding goal to accomplish. It would be a fulfilling thing to accomplish, not just like, oh, look at me, I'm successful and I made a bunch of money and I, you know, but I would feel rewarded spiritually inside as well. And I think when we, again, just think about success and we don't have the greatness effect, which is about service, which is about the inner fulfillment as well, I think we're always going to be saying, well, what else am I missing? I'm not feeling everything, like I have everything I want. So for me, that's what sports has taught me about business and life.

Starting point is 01:59:09 is being super clear on my not just goals and dreams, but a meaningful mission. I talk about the whole process actually in this book of how to create it, how to develop it, how to find it, and then make it come true. And then just from there, setting up a simple game plan for getting there faster, for accomplishing the goal quicker, just like we were talking about here. It's asking different questions. It's becoming a different leader than you currently. are. It's developing new skills for yourself that are uncomfortable. You're very comfortable

Starting point is 01:59:44 what you do because you're extremely talented and gifted. But what gets us here will always get us there. The elements of that could help us get there, but we might have to do a few things differently, right? So it's not like change who you are and your personality and what you, how you think. It's just like empower people to support you. Another thing I learned about being a professional athlete is you cannot accomplish everything alone. You can't. You can't. You need a team. No one great. Even in single sports, you know, even in tennis, the greats have a team around them supporting them. But you must have a great team on your meaningful mission in order to accomplish the goal. So you can't do it all on your own. You know, you wouldn't have this show without Graham and vice versa. It wouldn't be the way it is without you guys together. That's a team. Your relationship, you want to experience love without your fiancé. That's a team. that's why again I just think coaching is a great thing to have in general because you want to have players on your team and you want to have coaches or mentors or guides who've been there before to support you as well just give you I mean I see you're doing that that's great keep going did you think about this too maybe look at that I see a little deficiency here maybe watch out for this in the future just to save time from headache that's what I learned about sports in life it makes sense it makes perfect I got a question for both you guys. Do you love winning or hate losing more? Go ahead, Graham.

Starting point is 02:01:15 I don't really worry about losing. So I love winning more. I used to hate losing more than anything. You know, I couldn't stand it. So it drove me to be the best I could, so I would always win. But that left me feeling very empty. You know, because when I would win, I would still criticize myself for, what I could have done differently or better. So there's kind of like this perfectionist mindset. I love winning. I don't enjoy losing, but I love focusing more on the process of like the efforts

Starting point is 02:01:51 and how I'm showing up on a consistent basis, even more. If the results never happen, it's okay now. Like if my goals never are accomplished, it's okay. As long as I know that I'm doing everything I can in the process, to get there. Because I had a goal of being an Olympian. I spent eight years with the USA national team playing team handball. I traveled the world. I played against the Olympic team in Brazil and

Starting point is 02:02:19 Argentina and I played in Canada and the UK and Israel and all over the world. I played in the Pan American Games, you know, against all the teams of North and South America. And my goal was to make the Olympics. We never qualified. That doesn't mean because I didn't the dream didn't come true, it doesn't mean it still wasn't a dream come true of the whole journey and the process of who I became over those eight years. So we didn't win. We didn't even go there, but I was on the national team. I was close.

Starting point is 02:02:52 And what I developed in that time, the people I met and who I over, whoever, what I came is the prize. But I still love winning. One final sentiment I want to add, you know, I'm kind of dragging this along. Graham, one thing I wanted to mention to you on the card over here, but you run a phone call, is the fact that I think you are too comfortable in life. I think that, like, although to a lot of people that view the podcast and they know you, they're like, wow, Graham is always in the trenches, he's always working, he's always, like, grinding away.

Starting point is 02:03:25 That must be so tough. But for you, that isn't hard. For you, that's easy. And for you that's comfortable. And it's really hard for you to put yourself in uncomfortable situations, such as last night, where you had a beer. You're like, that, I know this is silly. Lines don't drink. It's like I don't like the way I feel the next day.

Starting point is 02:03:41 And the next day, the way you're reacting is like, wow, I can't believe I'm so hungover like after one year. I get hungover after a beer. It's bad. He's like, I don't want to like, I don't want to ruin this podcast. Like I told Jack, if I'm like anything less than 100% it's bad. If I show up and like it, I'm 95% that would be bad. And I didn't feel well either.

Starting point is 02:03:59 Like for some reason, I only had a beer and a half. Like I didn't feel good either. But the thing is, I told Graham, like, yo, if you wear your emotions on your sleeve like this, it will affect you 10 times more than just. saying, you know what, I feel good, let's go. And just being oblivious to whatever, you know, suffering that you may be inducing. And I think this also applies because I've seen it in so many other areas of your life. Like, you'll touch like a toothache, ow!

Starting point is 02:04:21 Really? Yeah, like he'll accidentally, toothache will slide underneath his phone nails. Like, like, paper cuts. Yeah, like, that's like that or like it's cold out and Graham like, he's like, I'm like, do you want to wear my jacket? Like, I'll give him my jacket. It sounds like me. Like any little thing.

Starting point is 02:04:39 Any little thing. Like we go in the pool and it's just way too cold. He's not tough enough. No, he hates cold weather. I would try some extreme stuff. It's funny. And what I was really proud of you, I was really proud of you when you did the boxing match. Because that was like the most uncomfortable thing before you did one of the Matt, the creator.

Starting point is 02:04:57 How was that for you? Good. Looking back now, I'll never do it again. Did you lose? I did lose. He did. But he got uncomfortable. He reflects back on it and he's happy he did it.

Starting point is 02:05:07 He loved that he. I'm sure you learned a ton. And you also probably got a lot more confident putting yourself in a really uncomfortable situation. Yeah. And I think that you just need to get a little bit more comfortable being uncomfortable. I like that advice. Yeah, I agree. Like outsourcing, although it's kind of actually the easy thing to do, right?

Starting point is 02:05:23 For you, it's extremely uncomfortable and it's like foreign. Well, he loves to be in control. You know, he wants it to be his way. He wants to be perfectionist because it's worked. And so that's the way. He's in control of every penny. Right. He's obsessed with everything.

Starting point is 02:05:37 It's comfortable to be that way. And it's worked for him, but it doesn't mean it's going to, and it doesn't mean you don't have to be in control in certain areas of your life still and, you know, just give up all responsibility. But it's learning to get out of the comfort zone. I think it's good wisdom. You know, you know best. Even when we go on runs, that's just another thing. We'll go on runs, Graham will run, like, especially in the beginning.

Starting point is 02:05:56 He'd run for like 30 seconds and just be like, oh, I can't do this anymore. But I would listen to his voice and he's barely panting. You know what I mean? I know this sounds like, I'm just like reaming into you. It's funny. That's funny. That's true. Like this is like what friends and business partners are.

Starting point is 02:06:09 Yeah, it's good. If I were you guys, if you're asking for advice, I would hire a full-time nutritionist and trainer that comes to the house every day or four or five days a week and puts you guys through your own individual workout plan tailored for you both. And you do that for a year, business life relationships will change 100%. If you had a full-time dedicated trainer and invest in it, making that investment, spending the money, which you wouldn't want to do, would be like, oh,

Starting point is 02:06:37 Okay, now I need to make the return on this investment. You would be like, I'm committed, I'm going to do this, and you would show up and you would suck. But I think eventually you'd start to see results, and you'd be like, okay, this is inspiring? Sure. Do you guys both did that? Do you just run right now?

Starting point is 02:06:51 Is that all you're doing? No, I go to the gym. Yeah. Does he? Yeah, I go to the gym. You do? Pretty much every day. Do you have a trainer, though?

Starting point is 02:06:58 Once a week. Why not four or five days a week? The gym for me is a place where I could zone out and think. It's one of the few times for me where I just, like, I download all my YouTube videos, and I go on the treadmill and I just zone out. And it's like reflection. It's like meditation for me.

Starting point is 02:07:12 But what if you delegated other things and you had those two extra hours a day to do that, not at the gym and you can just chill, but have a trainer focus on improving you. Perhaps. And pushing you beyond your comfort zone. Yeah, perhaps. I don't like being pushed. I like, I'm very particular about like I like to do things my own way. Yeah, I know that.

Starting point is 02:07:32 Maybe to a detriment. But like, I don't know. I've gotten a good rhythm at the gym. I've been going like pretty much every day. And that's my way of doing it. That's like being able to zone out. That's good. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:07:41 They're all suggestions. You just try them on. Some things work. Some things don't, you know. It's good coaching here. Thanks. Yeah, Graham and I are, we're hard on each other in different ways. And I think that's what makes it really good.

Starting point is 02:07:52 We have a deep respect for each other. We really value the other person's opinion. What's one thing that Jack could do differently that would improve the quality of his life in a big way if he added something or eliminated something from his life? Oh, gosh. I don't know. I always tell Jackie could work harder, but he tells me I could work less. Yeah.

Starting point is 02:08:12 So it's... I don't know. I got to think about that. I'm not sure. Think about it. Yeah. On your guys' next episode, you can talk about.

Starting point is 02:08:23 Do therapy session together. Deal. Yeah. That's cool. Here's a good partnership. Thank you. Good team. I think so.

Starting point is 02:08:30 Thanks. All right. Cool. Anything you want to shout out? Yeah. Take your time. Go for it. I got this book.

Starting point is 02:08:36 Greatness Mindset. This is the main thing I'm focused on. And it's really a lot about the stuff we talked about today. So if people want to check it out, they can check it out. Do you have an extra copy? That's yours. Are you serious? That's yours.

Starting point is 02:08:47 This is the galley copy. So it's not like the physical hardcover. Yeah. Yeah. Can you sign it? Yeah. But the greatness mindset. This is the book I wish I had when I was 16, when I was 21, when I was 35, and today.

Starting point is 02:09:01 I wrote this for myself, my younger self, and my future self. Feels good. Feel the cover. I like the material. That's soft. This is just like a galley. Yeah. All right.

Starting point is 02:09:10 Thank you so much for coming on. This really needs a lot. It's been an honor meeting you. Appreciate it. And we hope to meet another time. Someday, place a football, ping pong. I'm in. Let's do it.

Starting point is 02:09:18 I wonder how this would have turned out had we met two years ago. I'm so curious how it would have been different. But you know what? It worked out the way it did. It's perfect, man. Perfect timing. Thank you guys for having. Thank you.

Starting point is 02:09:27 Appreciate it. Cool. Good stuff. Thank you so much.

The Iced Coffee Hour - EVERYTHING You've Learned About Money Is WRONG | Lewis Howes

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