The Money Mondays - From RICO Crimes to Global Stages: The Journey of Damon West | E34

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

Damon is a renowned keynote speaker and best-selling author, known for his extraordinary journey from a jail cell to global stages. He emerged from a life marked by property crimes, notably as the leader of a group of meth addicts involved in burglary. Determined to turn his life around, Damon invested in himself and leveraged a Beverly Hills publicist to secure a People Magazine article, catapulting him into the spotlight. Damon and his wife's journey led them to create the "Be the Change Prison Curriculum," a program Damon passionately funds. This initiative sees 30 men graduate every four months in remarkable ceremonies that inspire change within the prison system. Dan's mission is to show inmates and their families what success looks like and provide them with hope for a brighter future. He also shares a powerful message about resilience and transformation inspired by his experience with the criminal justice system. Like this episode? Watch more like it 👇 7x Mr Olympia Flex Lewis & Bedros Keuilian's TOP MONEY TIPS 💪 | E8: https://youtu.be/LAA-OsePAOQ Dan Bilzerian Broke All the Rules & It Paid Off BIG 💸 | E4: https://youtu.be/yMOCvk_6cxY Making Millions with Real Estate Investing 📈 Albert Preciado & Cole Hatter | E18: https://youtu.be/OQO9hhGQf6I Watch ALL Full Episodes Here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k --- The Money Mondays is a business podcast here to teach you how to make money, invest money, and donate money by showcasing some of the world's most successful people and how they do the same. Hosted by serial entrepreneur Dan Fleyshman, the youngest founder of a publicly traded company in history, this money podcast gives you an exclusive behind the scenes look at how the wealthiest celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes and influencers make, invest and donate money. If you want to learn more business and investing while you work to improve your financial life, you're in the right place! Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@themoneymondays?sub_confirmation=1 Dan Fleyshman, The Money Mondays Learn more here: https://themoneymondays.com Watch all the podcast episodes: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLs0D-M5aH-0IOUKtQPKts-VZfO55mfH6k Let’s Connect... Website: https://themoneymondays.com Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-money-mondays/id1663564091 Twitter: https://twitter.com/themoneymondays LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-money-mondays/about/ TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@themoneymondays FB: https://www.facebook.com/The-Money-Mondays-110233585203220/

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a special edition of the Money Mondays. I have a special guest here that traveled all the way to the ranch. We're here in Temecula, California at the wild jungle. 26 acres of animals. There's 188 animals outside to my left. There's a whole military training obstacle course for the operation of black site to my right. And sitting here at this table is a three time best-selling author of a book called The Copy Bean. He's going to tell you

the amazing story of how he went from the jail cell to speaking over a thousand stages around the planet. Please, we'll give a warm round of applause to Mr. Damon West. All right, Dan. Thanks a lot, man. I've been like I'm getting to come to the ranch and seeing it like in person after I see the stuff that you post I'll follow you stuff a follow Tarzan stuff, too And you drove me around this morning. I got to see it all in person and it's so different seen in person and the thing that we saw the Zores the Zores yeah, that was cool. It was magical. It was magical It's like a unicorn like and I sent it to my little stepdaughter

It's 11 and she'll get a kick out of it too, but It's like you have bought yourself an island here like fantasy island. That's beautiful out here. I'm so impressed with what you've done brother. Thank you. Yeah. I'm glad you're here. Normally we are in an RV motorhome where I drive around the country to go to people that worked out a good time. You were already speaking to me. So you can just pop right over by the big motor boom here we are. So on the money Monday, we keep the episodes to under 45 minutes. We try to be around 35 to 40 minutes because the average workout is 45 minutes.

The average commute to work is 45 minutes. And so we want to be around that 40 minute mark. That way, you guys can listen to all this as you're getting in and in your car, go on your workout, go into work, et cetera. You get to hear about Daemon West's amazing story and why he's spoken on so many hundreds and hundreds of stages around the planet. So, the way we do this is we talk about three core topics. How to make money, how to invest money, how to give it away to charity. Now, even though we're talking about money, not all things take money,

Damon's also going to talk about charity related efforts that don't exactly take cash. It's more about effort, time, and energy where he'll help people in prisons or help people stay out of prisons. But first, we want to do a quick two minute bio. Give everyone the idea of what's going on in your world so we can get straight to the money. Yeah, so you know, I'll listen to your podcast. I've listened to every episode. So I've been thinking, what is my two minute version?

Here it is, all right. So I go around, I'm a keynote speaker and best son author. I'm also a college professor because I went back to school and got a master's in criminal justice and became a professor at the University of Houston downtown teaching a class called prisons in America but that's a little side gig that I do. I only have one class but I go around sharing the story of the coffee bean and the coffee bean message is a message that I got from a guy in Dallas County jail named Mr. Jackson

and it was right after I was sentenced to life in prison back in 2009 for engaging organized crime Rico everybody's talking about Rico right down America right I went down for Rico as the mastermind and I'll tell everybody how and back in 2009 for engaging organized crime. Riko, everybody's talking about Riko right down America, right? I went down for Riko as the mastermind, and I'll tell everybody how Riko works. Yeah, that's what I went down for. I went down for Riko. Wow, I got to send so life in prison in 2009.

You're here, right? Yeah, so that's the whole story. Like I made parole, I made it out, but here's a deal. I'm not a free person because I'm not a free man, because I'm on parole in the state of Texas until the year 2073. Come on. Yeah, man. I'm going to parole the rest of my life.

50 more years. Yeah, 50 more. I got out. It was 58, Dan. I'm chipping away at this thing, brother. But in 2009, so the jury since this is me on May 18th, 2009, my mom tells me that I can't, I mean, right after the trial is over, they give my parents five minutes with me and they say, hey, listen, my mom, my mom's saying, listen, you can't

go off and get one of these Aryan brotherhood type gangs, no gangs, no tattoos. She said, no gangs, no tattoos. You come back as the man we raised or don't come back to us at all. Why does she think you're going to come back when you just got life in prison? Like what is this? Well, because I have a non aggravated life sentence. And so this is a good question you ask because a lot of people are like, how did you get out?

There's two kinds of felonies, two kinds of classes of felonies in Texas, and in most states, aggravated and non aggravated. Agravated crimes are violent crimes. Crimes are just a physical victim. Think murder, rape, assault, child molesters. Those are aggravated, fenders. My crimes were property crimes.

It was a bunch of other methodics breaking into homes to sell off the goods for meth. And I was the ringleader of all those methodics. There was about a dozen people. They called it the uptown burglaries. It was the uptown burglary crime spree. They called me the uptown burglar. That was the name, the moniker I got from this crime spree. It's like a movie.

It's going to be a movie. And it's going to gonna be a movie. Yeah, and it's a what it's gonna be a wild movie, but The uptown burger crime spree I Was a stockbroker in Dallas in 2004 working for UBS and another broker introduced me to meth one day I'm sleeping at work. He's wakes me up. He's like, you know wake up, dude He said you can't sleep on this job the markets are open your mess with people's money said yeah And so he says come on down to the parking garage. I got something that'll pick you up. Wow.

And so, and I'm into blow at this point. I mean, I'm not, it's not like I'm not doing drugs. I am into drugs and alcohol. But that day, he introduced me to meth for the first time. I've never touched a drug like meth before. And it's, I was instantly hooked. And I mean, just like, like that, 18 months later, I'm living on the streets of Dallas.

Wow. Home was dude. I've smoked everything. And that's how I did. like like that. 18 months later, I'm living on the streets of Dallas. Wow. Home was dude, I've smoked everything man. And that's how I did, I smoked it. Oh my God. I've smoked everything, I'm home with man. I live in dope houses, I've slept on park benches, and then I became a criminal to feed my addiction. And my crimes were property crimes,

it's back to your original question. So I committed a bunch of burglaries and other property crimes thefts. Think about a crime where no one's home, never saw my victims, they never saw me, no weapons were used in the crime street, no one got hurt physically. Now it doesn't mean I didn't hurt people in different ways

because I want to always say this, Dan, when I'm broken to people's houses, my victims, I didn't just steal property from my victims. I stole something they'll never get back. That is their sense of security brother. Exactly, their safety, yeah. I didn't just steal property from my victims. I stole something they'll never get back. That is their sense of security brother. I stole it. And I don't know if my victims ever get that back. I assume that they don't. And they'll live with that for the rest of lives. And the thing about being on felony parole the rest of your life, and Texas they have a law that says you can't apologize to your victims. If you ever attempt

to make an apology, they'll send you back to prison. So I'll never make an apology to them because it makes no sense for me to do that and go back to prison, right? I mean, I work a program recovery called AA. In AA, we have the steps. And on the eighth step, you have a list of all the people you've harmed. And the ninth step is when you make an amends to them, except when to do so what caused you or them harm. That's this category because I can't. Do you think any percenters that actually know Damon West thought three-time best-selling authors, the one that broke into their house? Yes.

Some of them have reached out to me in their own way. Really? Most of it's not positive. Most of it's not positive. I get that. And you know what? And I own that. And every time I've ever had a victim that's reached out, it's not positive. Sure. And I get that. And you know what? And I own that.

And every time I've ever had a victim that's reached out, it's been by email or through social media. When you and I were talking about social media, the power of it. Every time it's happened, I turn over the communication to my parole officer. It mispracks. And she'll say, you cannot respond. Wow. Yeah, and I can't respond.

I can't apologize. I can't respond. I just have to take it. Fast, that is. And she's like, that's the, you know, that's part of the, the price you have to pay for what you did. And I get that. And I own that. I did, I did all the crimes they said I did. But because my crimes were non aggravated, it means I would have a chance to make parole a lot sooner. So if you have an aggravated violent crime in Texas, you have to do half of your prison sentence before you see a parole voter. So if I had a, if you have a life sentence, if you have an aggravated violent crime in Texas, you have to do half of your prisons and it's before you see a parole voter. So if I had a if you have a life sentence if you have a life sentence so in Texas I'm good. I still don't get it. Yeah, I mean it's so in Texas they stop calculating time at 60

So because 60 years is a natural life sentence because if you have to be 17 to go to prison 60 on top of that That's a human life span, lifespan right so everything stops calculating it's 60 so when someone says 65 which is what the jury gave me the day they gave me 65 or they say 99 it all means life because anything 60 above his life so an aggravated offender has to do 30 calendar years before they see parole for the first time and Dan I live on the life sentence building. I live on the life sentence building of a maximum security of a super max. And what they do is they take all the life first and they put them on one building to segregate them out because they want you to get escaping off your mind.

So you have to live on that building for five years. You can't come off the building. It's island. It's a most dangerous place I've ever seen in my life because there's no hope on this island. It's the life sentence built 432 people Seven buildings built another one on the styles unit Everybody's got life man, and it's the most dangerous world you've ever been right because what are they up to lose? Not much. I was on a pod one time. There's 48 men on this one pod G pod one section 48 men on this pod

12 of the guys had life without parole. One fourth of your pod are nuclear bombs. They'll never see a parole officer. Nothing to lose for these guys, right? But I have non-aggravated life. So this is the deal. The final answer to your question. Non-aggravated means that you can see parole after you've done 25% of a life sentence. Now you're good with math.

That's 15. So 15 years. But if you're non-agurated, you get access to something that an aggravated defender doesn't get. You get access to good time credit and work time credit. So here's how good time works. Every day that I'm in prison and I don't get any trouble, I get another day.

I get one for one of good time. Every day that I'm there and I'm willing to work, because inmates really do run the asylum. Every day I'm willing to work, I get a half a day credit. So when I got to six calendar years of real time, there's six more years of good time. There's 12. Here's three years of work time.

It was 15. That's six times 2.5. And I was eligible for parole. And they got to me, finally, is right at the seven year mark. I was eligible for parole and I actually made it. Most people never make their first parole, not seven years. I was pretty sure I would do 10, maybe 15 years on that life sentence and incidentally, Dan, 15 years

is this year, it's 2023. 2008 when I went in, 2023 is when I thought I was getting out. Literally this year, but I've been out for eight years now. But here's the story of the coffee bean. So right after my parents giving me that talk, I'm in Dallas County, jail, I got two months before the prison bus comes to pick me up and I'm asking every guy that's in County, Joe, how am I gonna survive? What am I gonna do? And every guy I talk to in there, man, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, they all say the same thing. You have to get into a gang.

Man, don't listen to your mom. Your mom's not even your family now. They said the gang is your family. Oh, Bay the gang. But there was this one guy that was so different, this old black man, Mr. Jackson. And Mr. Jackson, oh, he's a career criminal. He's been in out of prison his entire life, most positive guy for methadone. He had a smile on his face everywhere he went. And every morning he would come up and check on me.

He'd come into my bunk and he'd pick me up like a ray of sunshine in the dark place with this positive energy. So one morning he comes up to me and I know my time is limited in the county jail. The prison bus is about to come pick me up and he says he's like, listen West. Don't listen to these idiots about getting to a gang, but let me tell you what prison is going to really be like. So he tells me the first thing you need to understand about prison, it's all about race.

He said race runs the whole institution. The inmates want it to be about race. Everybody breaks off their own racial group and they get to the life sentence built in prison in general. He said, when you walk in the door, the white gangs get the first dips on you because you're white. That means you have to fight all of them off. Aaron brought the hood, Aaron's circle, white nights, woods, he names all the white gangs. He said if you survive that, now you fight the black gangs. And the black gangs will send the black gangs after you. So the crypts, the bloods, the gangsters, the cypals. They're all going to want to get a piece of this white guy that won't get in line and get with his own race. And he said, but if you survive all that and you can't

survive all that, you'll earn the right to walk alone. He said, the strongest man in prison always walks alone. He told me the truth about fighting Dan. And this is why people, when they hear this story, it grabbed it. People love stories that have these three elements to it. They have, they love stories of overcoming adversity, inspirational stories, stories that have sports. And then they love stories about prison. And so this is where it really gets into it. He says, you don't have to win all your fights, but you do have to fight all your fights. He said, someday you're going to win and someday you're going to lose. He said, do not worry about winning these fights. He said, just show up and fight. No one in prison cares if you win.

They just want to see if you're going to defend yourself. And so he told me, he said, I need you to imagine prison, like it's a pot of warm water He said you have three choices how to respond to this pot of warm water You can be like the carrot that becomes soft The egg that becomes hard in a pot of warm water or you can be like a coffee bean Which changes the pot of warm water into a pot of coffee? And he said the coffee bean is the only thing that can change the water west He said the carrots change by the water the eggs change by the water You can see a lot of those in there, but coffee beans is the only thing that can change the water west. He said the carrots changed by the water, the eggs are changed by the water, you can see a lot of

those in there, but coffee beans changed the water. They're the change agent. In fact, my first book, monographies, called the change agent. And he's telling me, he's like, you know, everybody in life puts out energy, negative or positive. Whatever kind of energy you put out, you attract back the law of attraction. We know this and you see this all the time where you go. You attract positive people. So he's telling me, he said, you can't walk around with a mean look on your face or look down. People that are negative attracted to that. He said, walk around the smiling face. No matter where you go, no matter what happens. Walk around jail with a smiling face. Walk around prison. Have a

ground on your face. Yeah, you said just do it, man. Just just trust me on this. He said, walk around the smile on your face. And he said, you are, this is what he said to you. He said, you're gonna be a light in a dark place. And they're gonna wanna extinguish that light. They're gonna try to kill you. What are you smiling at? Yeah, but he said, if you get through this on the other side of that, you are gonna be the change agent at place.

You'll be the one that attracts other positive people. And the other positive, and might the other coffee beans in prison, they'll find you. He said, there's other coffee beans out there. He said, they'll find you, but you have to be that beacon of light in there. And the last thing you ever said to me, the last words he ever spoke

to me on earth, he said, West, be a coffee bean. And that was it, man. The prison bus comes to pick me up. I go serve, I go start serving this license. And one of the toughest prisons in Texas, man, the Mark Styles unit in Belmont, Texas. This is like one of the toughest prison in Texas. It's one of the toughest prisons in America. man, the Mark Styles unit in Belmont, Texas. It is like one of the toughest prison in Texas. It's one of the toughest prisons in America.

And remember, Dan, I went back to school after I got out of prison and I got a master's in criminal justice and I teach a class at the, well, I'm not teaching this semester. I'm just too busy. But the class is called prisons in America. So I'm the only professor on earth to teach a prison's class at a university who lived in prison. So I know a lot about tough prisons and the journey, the story that I talk about with all these audiences is about how I was able to transform myself in that pot of warm water because there's no bigger pot of warm water.

You know, we talk about the fears people have in life. We talked about public speaking, snakes and stuff like that. But almost universally, I hear from people that one of their biggest fears is to have to go to prison. And there's a good reason why. Prison's a very difficult place to live, a difficult place to survive. It's like the movie Shawshang.

What are the best movies ever made? But it's the best prison movie ever made because it depicts the fact that prison is a very hopeless place. There's no hope in prison. And I decided I was gonna be the face of hope. And that's what I was in there. And the parole board saw the transformation,

they saw that I became that coffee bean. In fact, you know, the instructions from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice are to go out to society and find more coffee beans. And so I get out of prison November 16th, 2015. My parents are waiting there to pick me up and they bring me back home to their house. And so, I mean, I'm a picture for your audience.

So, I'm 40 years old, I just got out of prison. I live in my parents' spare bedroom. I got a job making minimum wage. I'm on parole for the rest of my life. You know, I mean, if I would have had like a tender profile, it would have sucked. It would have been terrible, right? But I went on a dating napkin stuff like that. But when I got out, when I was in prison, I started working on myself and I thought,

you know, if I could transform myself inside this place, I would have a great story to tell, and I could motivate people and inspire people. But I've gotta be able to do it in here and become the best version of myself possible, like my mom wanted me to be. And so when I got out, I wanted to go around and speak, but it was very hard.

No one was letting a guy that just got out of prison coming, you can't just knock on the door of a school and say, hey, I just got out, I wanted to go around and speak, but it was very hard. No one was letting a guy that just got out of prison coming to, you can't just knock on the door of a school and say, hey, I just got out of prison, I want to talk to your kids. They may lock you back up. So I had to convince this law enforcement officer and this judge in my area to sponsor me to take me in. And it was hard at first. And I didn't have a lot of places to speak.

But I started doing it in my little area, Southeast Texas where I live, and I started catching on a little bit. I didn't make any money at first. And we talk about making money on this podcast. And look, when I started doing this, there wasn't any money involved. It was a passion. And I think one of the ways to answer the question, how do you make money is you provide a service to other people. You provide something that is of value. And now I'm the guy that other potential speaker

or other people that wanna be speakers reaches out to on social media. They're like, I wanna be speaker. My first question is how do you add value to the audience that you're gonna speak to? What did you do to add value to them? Because that's really what it's about. It's adding value back in the world.

And it was tough. The first year I think I made $500 speaking. But again, money wasn't the thing driving me. It was a passion. But then people started hearing about the story. And do I have time to tell a story about how my life transformed? I don't really do stories here. Okay. I didn't want to teach about money. Yeah, let's go about money. So anyway, but eight years down the road, I've turned the speaking platform into a multiple seven figure business. I mean, for the last three road, I've turned the speaking platform into a multiple seven figure business. I mean, for the last three years,

I've made over seven figures a year speaking, going around all over the world, sharing the story of the coffee bean with audiences. So when you first got a jail, they give you $200, right? Like, walking money? They give you $100 gate money. Gate money.

So how do you go from gate money to speaker money? Like, what's that look like? Yeah So I had I got my hundred dollars gate money and Luckily I had a job at a law firm right when I got out of prison I did my own legal work when I was in prison really yeah, and I went to law I was trying to get myself out biggest motivated in the world right your freedom for sure so I was trying to get myself out. The biggest motivator in the world, right? You're afraid of that? For sure. So I go into the law library, and there was a guy named Mr. Brandon in my book.

I call him Mr. Winston, but Stephen Brandon, this old guy and prison showed me how to use the law library. He gave me a tutorial for one day. Two bags of coffee is what he charged me to teach me about the books, the black-slaw dictionary, stuff like that. Put together my own writ, try to get myself out, but these lawyers took notice of my writ and they said, Hey, look man, you put together a hell of a writ for a guy's never been to law school.

If you ever get out come see us. We got a job for you. So that was my first job out of prison. I was working in law firm. And on the side I would go in do some speaking stuff and for free. For free. I was because that's the thing about a Dan. I mean, I had to get in front of you.

You got to get in reps, right? You got to get in reps. And the first, I tell people all the time, the first two years I was out of prison, there weren't a lot of places for me to speak, but in my parents spare bedroom, there was a mirror. It just happened to be there when I moved in. Almost every night for two years, Dan. I draw, we get home from work, get home from the gym, go to my A meetings, I'd get in front of that mirror and I'd practice the presentation that I'm doing the day in front of that mirror and I'd practice the presentation that I'm doing today in front of that mirror. I got a rep in every day for almost two years, man.

And that's how I got good at my craft. I was willing to put in the work and build that presentation up. Even if I didn't have an audience, I got my presentation in every day. And then the real break came in 2018, John Gordon reaches out to me because Dabo Swinney is a mutual friend of ours, the coach at Clemson. And dabbo tells John about me and John's like, hey man, he reaches out to me.

He's like, dabbo gave me your number. He told me your story. He said, Damon, the world needs the coffee bean message. Let's deliver this message to the world. Will you write a book with me? We'll call it the coffee bean. Guys, John Gordon has 26 books. This is a give you context of who he's talking about. John Gordon has 26 books. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it.

I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it.

I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it.

I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it. I'm not gonna talk about it He's an incredible guy. And so we write the book, The Coffee Bean. And it comes out in 2019, 10 years, exactly since I first heard the coffee bean in a jail cell from Mr. Jackson in 2009. And it rocketed me to a whole different level. And John gave me some of the best advice about building my brand that I've ever heard anybody get.

And it's something I've always had on to. John told me this when we were writing the book. He said, Damon, he said, your message is powerful, your story is powerful. Stick with it. Do not change your message. Your message is be a coffee bean. He said stick with that thing. Do not ever change your message.

He said, because what happens to people a lot of times is they don't see the results fast enough. You're trying to build a brand. you don't see the results fast enough. And then you're like, well, let me change my message. Maybe that'll help. Well, now all you did is just confuse people. Are you the coffee bean guy? Are you this other guy, right?

But he said, stick with that. He said, Damon, if you do that, one day you'll be known as the coffee bean guy. And that'll be something pretty valuable. It'll be known as pretty, pretty important in society be known as. He said, people know me as the energy bus bus got one of the first books I ever wrote. But if you can stick with your brand, you'll be something, you'll be something one day. So how does someone that wants to become a speaker and they're putting those reps in, they're doing free events, they're throwing their own events, they're going to more free events.

When does that shift? When do they know they could finally say, hey, pay me 500 bucks or a thousand bucks or two grand or five K or 10 K or 20 K, etc. Like when do they know or when's that turning point when you can actually decide to charge to speak? I think a good barometer for that that's a very good question Dan because I think a good barometer for that is when you're starting to get calls back from people that may have been in the audience when you spoke at an event and it like when you're starting to get more

gigs because someone was in the audience and heard you speak and they reach out to you, said, hey, I was at this event, you spoke at, and this is great, because you want to always have, and this is something you talk about too, all your social media should look uniform, all your different social media platforms you're on should have the same picture,

all the same information, but you should have that in front of people so they can find you and your website too. When people start reaching out and finding you from an event you spoke at Then you know you have something that is a value and and then you start charging it gives you more confidence and Then you start you know you can start making some money off this thing But the the catch 22 is that most of most of us has started out. I don't know I can always speak for my level of what I did speaking. I started out, I didn't make anything. I didn't know I could make

anything. I just knew that I had a story to tell and I felt like this is one of the reasons God got me out in the first place. And then the money just came. And John told me, John gave me some good advice. He asked me one day, at the coffee bean, was on the Wall Street Journal best selling list for like four or five weeks, man. It was unheard of what this book was doing. And now the book is all over the world. It's in every language in the world.

Chinese, Spanish, Arabic, it's got a global publishing deal. John's like, what are you charging? I told him, he said, no. He said, now, today your rates are this. And he said, you start asking for that. And the number he threw out of me was like Man, I don't know John. I don't know about asking him. I'll tell you what he told me back then This is like kind of funny looking now. He's like ask for $10,000. He said that's what you that's what you need to start That's what you need to be at now and I'm like $10,000. That's so much and it was so much money back

It's still it's a lot of money. I mean But I did I started asking and I started getting it and But, you know, if you don't ask for that, another thing, advice for people wanting to be speakers. And this is something I learned from another speaker. One thing is you have to always be willing to be coachable. You have to be coachable, be willing to learn because anybody can be a teacher man. And some people will teach you how to do things the wrong way.

Some people do things the wrong way. They teach you how not to do something, right? So another speaker shared with me, he looked at my website, he said, hey man, look, your contact form is great, your website's awesome, but you don't have a space in your contact form for people to put their speaker budget in there.

Why don't you have that? Because if you had that, then they could tell you what their budget is, and then now you know what numbers you work in with, you know, I was like, oh my God. So I put a speaker budget button on there, and it changed my life. It changed my whole business platform because now people are showing me that I've been leaving money on the table a lot, you know, and that's important.

I mean, because there's nothing wrong with making money. Make it money, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, it's, and when you find your niche, if you're a speaker that you had value to the places, the money will come. So, on the author side, put your author hat on, someone decides they want to write a book. It's a big undertaking. It does change their life because now authors, you know, part of their brand, personal brand forever. What is that step when it's time to like, I'm going to write a book like the coffee bean. I want to finally write a book.

What are the steps that someone needs to do to really make that decision and like figure out what that ethos is of that book? And then how the heck do they make money from a book? Good questions damn these are good questions. All right, so it's my job. Let's yeah, let's go But let's go let's unpack it backwards the money for the book because this is what usually people and Damn like I can't believe this is my life. I tell my wife that almost daily. I can't believe this in my life So a lot of people reach out to me a lot about two things, speaking and writing, right? I've had a lot of success in both the next years.

So writing a book, people are like, hey, can you connect me with a publisher, with a literary agent, whatever? And I tell them the same thing every time, first of all, publisher, you gotta ask yourself, do you think you can sell 10,000 copies of a book?, do you think you can sell 10,000 copies of a book? Because if you think you can sell 10,000 copies now, it's time to go talk to a publisher.

But if you don't think you're going to sell more than 10,000 copies, self-publish this thing. Because there's nothing wrong with self-publishing a book, you know? But if you want to go into being a writer, first of all, you need to go into with the mindset that you're, the likelihood that you make money being a writer, First of all, you need to go into it with the mindset that the likelihood that you make a money being a writer, you might wanna find a second job. Cause there's not a lot of money selling books. And Dan, I mean, I sold a lot of books.

The coffee beans probably sold half a million copies. I've made good money selling it. But the thing I know about books is you've gotta keep writing books to be an author. I mean, right now, I've under a deadline with my publisher to produce another book. It'll be my sixth book. I've written five now.

I got to do my sixth book coming up. So you got to keep feeding the beast. But sitting down and writing a book, this is what I tell people to. The very first like pages of a book, I give an author seven pages to get my attention. If you don't get my attention in seven pages, you're out of there, man.

And I got that in prison. I read probably a book every other day in prison. I read for a raciously when I was in prison. And I give an author seven pages. If it didn't work, I thought the book at the cell wall. That was done, man. You've got to catch people's attention right away in a book, especially with these short attention.

I think you call it the ADHD attention span that people have. Think about social media, how quick they want to change screens. In the first couple of pages, you've got to get people's attention. So you've got to do something. I believe storytelling is one of the best ways to write any kind of a book. And you can write a business book, whatever you can write a informational kind of book, use it in storytelling to do it. You know, you have a principal. You tell a story behind that principal, then you have the application of the principal. It's almost like the formula that John Gordon uses for all his books. He uses storytelling a lot to tell about these

principles and I think that's what people like, they can digest and break it down into, you don't want long chapters, you don't want a long book, you talked about this on one of your shows the other day, long text messages, think about the same thing with the book, you don't have to have long chapters or a big book. A lot of people look at a big book. Overwhelmed by it. Overwhelmed by it. But 140 pages?

They can knock that out. You know? So I think the formula is to keep it simple and keep it as short as possible. Both my books are under 100 pages and they look like a guide. Yeah. How to set up your business for under a thousand dollars.

How to set up your personal brand for under a thousand dollars. And I'm writing my third book, which would be my final of the series, called How to Set Up Your Events for under a thousand dollars. And the same thing would be under 100 pages nice and easy. But so many people tell me, yeah, I breezed to the book in one day. I'm like, perfect. Good. I'm not trying to overwhelm you.

Okay. So we talked a bit about speaking, we talked a bit about being an author. Now, it's, you got money. It starts to make some money. You're getting 10K, 25K, 50K, 100K, 10K, 25K, 50K, 100K. That adds up when you're doing a lot of events every single month across the country.

Like you said, you're doing seven figures a year. And I've done events for all those numbers you've done out. All the way up to 100. Exactly. When does it time for you to start thinking about investing the things and what interest do you from the investing side of the world? Good question. So here's the deal about investing too is like I came from a world where I was a broker. I was studying to be a broker at UBS. I'm getting ready to take my series seven when I first get hooked on math, right? So I understand

Investment of money in the traditional sense through the exchanges. I understand that but I don't want to be responsible For my own money, so I have a broker. I'm not gonna be the one to make this it. It's kind of like the whole idea that You know anybody anybody represents himself on a quarter wall. It's a fool for a client. So On on my end with what I've been through and the rules, the SEC, and this is just strictly with me because the Security Exchange Commission does not like felons near dot market. So I don't want to get their attention in any way. So I've turned it over to a broker. Now that's a very small percentage of the money that I make. The other thing I've done with my money that I've made

is I've invested in, first of all, I wanna say this, keep the main thing, the main thing, is what I learned a long time ago. Like, if my main thing is a speaking business, how do I pour in more into the speaking business? And so there were different ways that I could do to invest in me and grow my business.

And I've done that. I'm still doing different things. One of them was getting a publicist out of Beverly Hills to help me get more exposure out there. And they recently got me a People Magazine article. So investing in yourself. Investing in yourself. Keep the main thing, the main thing.

And while this business is building, then you have extra money. The next investment I made was my wife, my wife Kindle. She runs the business side of the speaking company. But there was an opportunity there where we were getting ready to build this house. We're working on building a house right now. And we're in the process of it. But when we were clear in the land, this guy that came out there with the excavators and said, Hey, I'm looking to sell my company. Do you know anybody want to buy it? So I said down with my father and my mother and all my wife. And I said, hey, I'm looking to sell my company. Do you know anybody want to buy it? So I said down with my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my wife. And I said, hey, we could buy this thing.

And we could actually put it in my wife and mother-in-law's name. And it's a female owned business. And it's a demolition and construction company called Divas of Detrucsion. So yeah, so my wife and my mother-in-law have their own company. And some of the money I've made and my father- made, and you have seeded this company and you know, start a business tough brother. I mean, it's, you know, this business is right under two years old and you can see when someone has to make payroll, that's a really like wild thing to watch man. I watch my wife and them, you know, making that payroll every week and it's that's somebody, when someone's had to make payroll,

I'll listen to them about business stuff, you know, because that's a hard thing to do. I got thousands of employees. Yeah, so you know this, man. When I'm talking to all the companies. Yeah, when you were talking about that with the merger that you just did with the events thing, I mean, that's a lot of people, man.

And making payroll is tough. And they don't have thousands of people. They got like 30 employees now. But I mean, 30 is a lot of people, man, and making payroll is tough. And they don't have thousands, well, they got like 30 employees now. But I mean, 30's a lot. Yeah, 30's a lot. So there's been struggle, growth. A lot of lessons you learn,

some of the best lessons you learn are when your money's involved and you lose it because you make a bad investment. So here's why I made some bad investments, right? And this is why I say keep the main thing, the main thing. So as we're building deep as a destruction, my father-in-law says, hey, let's go build some houses. You know, because now we control some of the construction

equipment, stuff like that. We'll go build some houses. This sounded great in 2021. The houses got finished in February of 2023. Guess what people aren't buying right now? Houses. Your interest rates go on, what's seven, something percent right now. So people, you know, your interest rates going up would seven something percent right now.

So people are scared off in the market, which to me is a little bit crazy. Like if you want to buy a house and you're saying, well, I'm gonna wait to the interest rates go down, that's a little bit naughty because the interest rates may never go down, you know? So if there's something,

not to any election here. Yeah, and if there's something, if there's something you really wanna do, just go do it. And you can refinance later. But I'm sitting on three houses in Bruce City, Texas right now. There are luxury homes at my father's lawn I built. And Dan and December, they turned one years old and we haven't been able to sell any of them. So that'll be a million dollars.

That's lost if we can't sell those houses. But you're going to make some bad investments along the way, but you'll learn some big lessons from that too So since Damon mentioned payroll, I'm gonna walk you guys through my payroll life Because I like to give you guys behind the scenes exact details I talk about my houses my cars my investments my animals I spend nine two hundred bucks a week in hay from feeding my animals outside like I walk you through real life details so on the payroll side I

Have elevator studio, which is also the masterminds and everything underneath that which is 18 employees. Now with this new investment in the partnership with the Spire Tour and collective influence of parent company with 85 employees and growing, mostly based in Jacksonville, Florida. Carge and coffee, we have nine retail stores, 36 employees. Most of our employees range from $3,000 to $10,000 a month and salary. Most of the, mostly is $3,000 to $6,000 and then some executives will be around $8,000 to $10,000 a month in salary. Most of them, mostly, is $3,000 to $6,000. And then some executives would be around $8,000 to $10,000. On some of the other companies, like Elevator Studio,

or Masterminds, et cetera, you have some employees that are making 10 grand a month, 12 grand a month, and the super high level are getting 20 grand a month, 20 grand a month, because they are to keep them, you got to make it competitive. That's a lot of, that's a good salary. Right. So you can start to add up what's happening here.

On Everball side, me and some friends own 17 of the locations. There's 140 employees amongst those locations. Parent company, I don't even know anymore because we have 70 something locations open. There must be between 600 and 800 employees now. Everball is a parent company. I don't own that.

I'm just one of the big investors in it. I do own the majority of, sorry, 17 of those locations with 140 employees. Here at the ranch, we're at BlackSite Ranch, the wild jungle. We have 12 full time employees, just to focus on the animals, not to counting the landscaping and everything

that goes on with 26 acres here at the ranch. So that's elevator, cars and coffee, got the ranch, the mastermind business. We have the spider toy Tour Collective Influence. I'm trying to think of, I got some other companies. And then from the investment side, obviously, I don't count those as my payroll, because that's not my monthly overhead.

But those companies collectively have thousands of employees because I've done 43 angel investments personally. Last two years are Syndicate, Elevator Syndicate. You guys can see that at ElevatorSindicate.com. It raised $44 million for those companies. put in three to six million dollars per company they've now hired hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of more employees which is almost like charity to me in the sense of it's kind of like the teach in the fish instead of you just give them fish by funding $44 million in companies last

two years we're creating hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of jobs hopefully thousands of jobs so that's a little bit of my behind the scenes on the payroll side. I'm trying to think of what I'm missing. There's a lot of moving parts here of my world. But I want you guys to think about most of the time for your overhead. Your employees are going to make between three and five grand, three and six grand, two grand, four grand, five grand a month,

depending on the city or state that you're in. Okay, that's going to be a higher in California, lower in some Midwest states, and average out or dollar cost average based on the state you're in, also based on the income and taxes the tax bracket that you're in. Okay, that's going to be a higher in California, lower in some Midwest states, and an average out or dollar cost average based on the state you're in, also based on the income and taxes, the tax bracket that you're in, based on your state. When you go get high level executives, you're talking about 6 grand and 10 grand a month, and more, especially if you're in California, Miami, New York, Chicago, Atlanta, some of these top two cities, you're going to have some people you're going to try to wrestle

with to get them for 10 grand, 12 grand, 15 grand a month, which is crazy to think about when you need more than one of them. So really consider for yourself the most biggest reason, the main reason that a lot of companies fail is their overhead gets too high. So if you think about, from my perspective, when I walked you through Elevator Studio, this is a company that's done over $60 million, I have 18 employees. Where VaynerMedia has 900 employees or more, Gary's probably got a thousand plus employees now, it's a very big overhead, but he's building a multi-billion dollar company. There's risk reward to that scenario. I did elevator studio, I have no partners, no investors, no shareholders, just me and my CEO are the only ones that own that company, but I don't want to scale it. I like the $60 million dollar number, I like 18 employees, I like low overhead, even with cars and

coffee. Every one of our stores that we open is three to five employees. That's it. I keep our rent between three grand a grand a month, I keep our overhead of three to five employees, let's scale it. We look at ever bull, those stores are like 500 to 1500 square feet. So your rent's like 2 grand to 6 grand a month. The employees make 15 bucks to 20 bucks an hour. Like you just think about what the things I'm trying to scale, I'm going to be able to replicate it. And that's why I'm so obsessed with Ever Bull is,

I don't have to hire chefs. I don't need managers. I can hire high school kids and college kids that are happy to work there. They're making good 15 to 20 bucks an hour, serving blueberries and raspberries and strawberries. And you have an endless source of potential employees whenever you need to fill in the spot. work there, they're making good 15, 20 bucks an hour serving blueberries and raspberries and strawberries. And you have an endless source of potential employees whenever you need to fill in the

spot because you're going to have to do that. You lose a chef at your fancy restaurant. That's tough. Good luck finding another chef. That's real tough. Anyway, so I digress. We're going to go over the last section, which we're going to talk about charities. Can I say something about that?

I can't go for it. I can't go for it. But so, listen to all your stuff, man. And so my wife and I were listening to one of your episodes and you're talking about the payroll side. Because one of the things you said you've done is you helped companies make payroll. So like their company, Deva's Instruction,

they do a lot of work. They have a lot of refineries where I live in Southeast Texas. Biggest refineries in the world is in Port Arthur, where I was born. But they do a lot of work inside the plants. Well, here's the deal when you work inside the plants. You get paid net 30. So if you're making payroll every week, but you get net 30, you've got to be able to cover payrolls for four straight weeks without any money coming in. And

you said that you've done that with companies before too. But and we didn't do that. We got this close to having to do that with with with the company to help us make the ends meet on that. But that was a lot of out of pocket expense that came from the speaking business to fund that because you know 30 people cover and payroll for four weeks before you see your money back on that first year. There's a lot. That was tough. But we survived it. We got through it. Dan and we got through it. I mean, you know, knock on wood, you're going to have overhead, you're going to have events happen, stuff like that. But yeah, man, it's, I learned a lot about starting a business by making mistakes,

and I've learned a lot about watching other people's mistakes, not wanna make those, and I learned a lot from listening to shows like yours, brother. Last section, we talk about charity. How do you give it away to the people? Now, as I've mentioned before, charity is not only about money. It can be your time, effort, energy, power of your cell phone, power of your actions, the butterfly effect of inviting a bunch of people to get behind a cause, whether it's a toy drive,

things like food drive, helping the homeless, helping children, helping people in prison. Walk us through why you're passionate, I think I know why you're passionate about it, but walk us through how you do it, What's the concept behind you in prison reform? Yeah, so whenever I was in prison, Dan, one of the hardest things to see was these men I'm locked up with, they would get letters from their family or on the phone, they have prison phones in their phone calls or visits.

And they would come back, they're crying. They're broken, man. And I was like, hey, what's wrong? Man, it's my son or my daughter. They're doing this, doing that. They want to get involved with this or that. We can't afford it. I'm in here. There's no dad at home, right? And them. And there's the concern you could see in these men. Those kids are going to get on the same path as them because generational incarceration is a very real thing. And I always thought to myself, man, if I ever get out of prison

and I build a platform up, this is one of the things I want to address. So I started a foundation called the Biocoffee Meam Foundation. It's a 501c3. And what I would tell people about giving your money away, there's different levels of charitable organizations. I think, you know, the ones, there's ones like mine, you can get 60% back, you know, it's a 60% tax deduction. There's no 100% one that I've seen out there, but 60% is where you come

in with a 501c3 level. But I started this foundation off because I was like, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to address this in my wife and I put our money into it. We raised money for it. We have a program called coffee bean cares. Cares is an acronym stands for cultivating activities and relationships through extra career scholarships What we do it cares is we say hey look

Any child in America that has an incarcerated parent anywhere You're eligible for a one-year scholarship for $2,500 per year for any extra career activity If you want to say a little boy wants to play T ball or baseball or Select sports or a little girl wants to dance or a little boy wants to play T-ball or baseball or select sports or a little girl wants to take dance or a little boy wants to dance whatever piano lessons we got a we got a little girl that wanted to take guitar lessons so we bought a regattor or found her a guitar teacher you know her dad's in prison we give the family member the guardian the parent whatever that's taking care of the kid

$2,500 a year and they can apply it to and it's an honor system we don't track it we don't make sure you use industry seats and like that. But up to $1,500 a year, we will provide to make sure that they have access to extra-curricular activities. That's one of the reasons we do it to keep the kids busy. But the other reason is we want the parents that's incarcerated, the man or woman that's in prison, to be able to take credit for this scholarship. So now they have something positive to talk about in phone calls and letters from prison, right? Now that they're the visits of visitation, you know, the dad can say to his daughter,

how's those dance lessons I got you? Because the guy in prison doesn't have any money. You know, you can't pay for dance lessons with soups and coffee and stamps. You know, you can't pay for select sports and select sports are expensive. And my little stepdaughter takes, you know, dance competition, select dance.

It's expensive. So, but we want to rebuild that parent child bond. That's one of the things I think is really important. So we put a lot of effort in our money behind that initiative. Another thing we do is we try to help out locally with the, you know, youth football in our area, youth sports in our area, just different things that people reach out to us and say, hey, you know, can you donate some time or some money to this? We do a lot of money to that locally. One of the things that are, so this is one of the things I got really heavy with, and during COVID, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, who is the people that own me

to a 2073, they have my parole. They reached out to me, the parole board reached out to me and said, hey, listen, could you create a curriculum for the prison system that can teach other men and women how to think like you because they said this could be a huge shift in the mindsets of prisoners. If we could teach them how to have the principles they men west has in life, then you can change the way people think it.

That could change the family trees forever. Could you build a curriculum? I'm like, well, I've never built a curriculum, but I'll figure out how to do it. So the curriculum launched last year, it's called Be the Change Prison Curriculum, is all out of my pocket. You know, I have a partner in it, we pay for it. Everything's out of pocket. And every, every four months, we graduated class with 30 men. And these graduation ceremonies are incredible Dan. And I put a lot of money into these ceremonies because I want them to be something that

people talk about in prison. On one side of the chapel, the prison are the 30 guys graduating, they all have Caps and gallons on it because a lot of these men have never won a cap and gallon, you know, they've never graduated from anything. On the other side of the chapel, there's 30 men that are about to take the class next. They're seeing what success looks like. And so the warden, the prison director has let me run the graduation. What else do you want, Damon? Well, here's what I want.

I want family members to be there to see these men in cats and gals. So the family members are there. Their mothers, their fathers, their wives, their kids get to come in and see dad dressed up in a cabin gown. They see the success. Another thing we do at the ceremony is I have really nice food brought in. Food's a very big motivator in prison, Dan. It's hard to get good food in prison. Like, food is horrible in prison by design. So I bring a cater in, get a good meal. And I always have the caterer bring the meal in about 30 minutes into an hour's presentation, an hour graduation ceremony.

Because I want those guys to start smelling that food. Because once the guys start smelling, it's like a pevel only in response. Men just start drooling and stuff like that. And when the ceremony's over, I tell all the guys that are just graduating, all right. You mean that are graduated? We're going to practice some of the stuff we want to do.

Servant leadership, Dan. I think is the secret to life. The secret to life is serving others, helping other people reach their goals in life. You know, when we're helping other people, that's when we're at our best. So I tell these guys that are just graduated. You're servant leaders now, leaders eat last. You're going to get up and serve everybody in this chapel. All these other inmates, all the other family members everybody there the guards everybody

and when you're done serving everybody then you get to eat to entrust me on this there's enough food to go around because the first thing they're thinking is man there won't be any food left there's plenty of food I buy extra but I want these men to understand that do a gratification self-control and service above self that's what is all about and serving other people and So I do a lot with that. I did another thing I do Okay, I want to keep that under 40 minutes where I'm already way over so another thing I do is the The the guy that told me the coffee bean story in county jail mr. Jackson

I went out to try to find him when I got out of prison. He was dead So I found his family and I started a scholarship in his name. He's from the inner city of Dallas So it in his old high school every year, Dallas Lincoln, I have a 10,000, I put 10,000 dollars every year into a trust for a scholarship and his name. The James Landbacker, the second, be a coffee bean scholarship. His family fixed the winner every year. So one little boy or one little girl who gets that scholarship every year. And then the last thing is I've got four guys that were really good to me in prison. One of them is the guy that taught me how to use the law library. Every month, I put a hundred dollars in their books. They don to me in prison. One of them is the guy that taught me how to use the law of our very every month. I put $100 in their books. They don't have family to take care of them,

but they were just kind to this person named Damon West that passed through their life one day in prison. And because of that kindness, I reward them every month with taking care of them for the rest of their lives. All right, guys, you're listening to the Money Monday. It's here with Damon West, three time best-selling author. Check out his book called The Coffee Bean. Also visit us on the moneymundays.com. As you know, we do a Zoom call every Monday at

four o'clock PST where I do live Q&A, either myself or one of our executives will do speeches there. I'll probably get Damon to jump in there one of these Mondays to do a speech and then he'll do live Q&A in there. So you can go to moneymundays.com to join us there. That does cost 200 bucks a month. We then donate all the proceeds to the toy drive. We have the world's largest toy drive coming up in December from December 2nd to the 17th. We're going to 10 cities in 15 days. Don't ask me how, but we're going to do it for our 10 year anniversary.

So as I always say, we all grew up thinking it's rude to talk about money. I think it's rude to not talk about money. And that's why we're here talking about literally every detail from prison to rent to payroll overhead and everything between to have these blunt discussions because it's important to have these topics talked about since we grew up thinking that we couldn't talk about it. Now we can. That's the concept of this podcast.

So keep sharing it. We've been number one on the entrepreneur category for 136 days in a row. That's all because of you guys commenting, liking, sharing, reviewing, forward to your friends. Repost us and we'll see you guys next Monday. 136 days in a row. That's all because of you guys commenting liking sharing reviewing forward to your friends repost us and we'll see you guys next Monday