Trading Secrets - 14: LinkedIn Mastermind Lewis Howes from Broke and Unemployed to Multi-Millionaire Before 30

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Former professional football player Lewis Howes breaks down his career and his major crash that put him unemployed, living off his families couch for over a year.  He trades all the secrets of his journey from broken, broke, and down and out to becoming a multi-millionaire with many millions following his moves!  From unemployed to The White House’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs in the Country before 30! Networking at its finest and another episode you can’t afford to miss! For All Access Content - join our networking group for less than 30 cents a day! Host: Jason Tartick  Voice of Viewer: David Arduin Executive Producer: Evan Sahr Produced by Dear Media.

The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome back to another episode of Trading Secrets. Today we are talking with a former professional football player who went from injured to broke, from living on his sister's couch for over a year to being recognized by the White House and President Obama is one of the top 100 entrepreneurs in the United States. I'd like to summarize this from brawn to rags to richest. Lewis Howes has seen it all and lived each stage to create inspiration for millions. Lewis, thank you so much for joining us and giving us your time and coming on trading secrets today.

Thanks, Jason. Appreciate you, man. Just realized that you. You're in L.A. We're probably just a few miles apart. Thank you for being here. So I was listening to your interview on Ellen DeGeneres. And what I believe I heard you say is that you left college early to pursue professional football. Some things that a lot of athletes choose to do and some others choose not to do, finish school. So while we're kind of getting to where you are today, I want to take a few steps back to understand further how you got there.

And I'm curious, what really was it that made you take that leap of faith from education and studies to pursuing professional sports? long as I remember, maybe five years old, I always had something that was pulling me, like something was calling me. I didn't know what the calling was, but I felt like something inside of, like, below my chest, above my stomach in the middle, was just like pulling me forward. And I remember being very confused as a young kid, just unsure of why I was here, my purpose. I don't know if anyone else has ever felt that. And, but at the same time, and I was confused, I just felt like I'm not here for a reason. I'm supposed to be doing something greater than current situation and for me originally that was sports yeah but i always knew i was meant for something

greater than that as well but that became my identity my passion my life and then when i went to go pursue professional football and got injured that identity was really shattered and that's when it was like well who am i what am i doing why am i here what's my purpose now as a 24 year old and um and i had no clue how to make money i was only making 250 a week as an arena football player but i was living in my dream. I was like, this is amazing. I'll do this for free. You know, if I get to catch a football in front of 20,000 people. And how many years were you in arena football for? Just a year. Okay. I did like maybe a quarter of a year, the season before, at the end of the year, I was like playing with some teams on the practice squad. And then I got picked up. And then I was

trying to make the NFL. Sure. Make it. So I was like, okay, let me practice with some teams over here, the arena league, signed with a team for a season, got injured early on. I broke my wrist in like the second or third game of the season of the arena football. Then I played 14 more games with the broken wrist because I didn't want to sit out a whole other year and wait to play. So that amount is $2.50 a week, you said, when you're in arena football.

You get a $25 bonus if you score a touchdown and you'd like stand next to the sponsor and you'd like touch a sign. If you're like touched it, you just bring your tangent to it. So it's like you score your touchdown and you're like sprinting over to the side. I want that $25, man. You'd like touch the sign.

What I love to hear about this, though, we hear obviously so many success stories in professional sports, right? The multi-zillion dollar contracts for these NFL players to hear the grind of what a lot of you guys are doing just to try and get a shot. Just to try to get a shot, man. And, yeah, we didn't have time to get a job like on the side. So you're just practice and training all day. And then you're just exhausted and you need to recover.

But they gave us food stamps. So we had like, we literally had food stamps to like go to like some local like Chick-fil-A and, you know, some other places, whatever. in the town and um and the guys would be like trading food stamps literally like oh i want some this play i want this play i want wendies i want chick fillet and then they gave us like free apartment so we didn't have to pay for like rent but that was that was it man for for a while and um and i had no clue to make money i was like okay i'm an athlete i'm driven i'm going to go pursue this thing sure money was the thing that i was kind of afraid of because i just didn't

understand it. And then when I got out of football for the next couple of years, I was like, I need to understand this because I didn't know how to go get a job. It was 2008 when the economy Oh, that's the worst time. Yeah. And I didn't have a college degree at that time. So people with masters were not getting jobs, let alone me with like no bachelors. And so I was like, okay, it was probably the greatest thing that happened for me because I just felt like, hmm, I remember I had one job interview like a sports marketing company that I finally got. And for whatever reason, I had a big ego back then, too. And I was like, I'm going to get this job. I was like, I'm going to get this job. If I go to this interview,

I'm going to wow them. I'm going to be passionate. Sure. I remember I couldn't leave the house. I was living on my sister's couch at the time. I was like, I couldn't leave to go to the job interview because I started to see myself the next few years. I was like, I'm going to get this and I'm going to like accelerate in the company and I'm going to grow. And I was like, that's just not what I'm supposed to do right now. Like something was telling me not to go. So I didn't go. And I was like, well, I was like, well, I got to figure out how to make money on my own. And that's when the journey started. And so how long, I thought I saw it was like a year and a half. It was a year and a half that

you're unemployed at your sister's place. So at this time, you're looking for jobs or whatever, but then you get these like a calling like this and you just had this coming to moment that this is not my path. And so when you had that moment, what was that pivot like? Because that's a huge transition in the time that pretty much everyone was looking for its transition but couldn't find one. 2008, guys, that was the bottom of the barrel and probably and hopefully the worst position we'll see the United States ever in. But what was it that, what was it that sparked your next move? I remember just thinking, I've got to develop skills for myself. I had a lot of insecurities and fears at the time. My passion and my dream was over and I was like, I don't know what

I'm good at besides this. Yeah. And so the thing that really sparked, it was like, I don't like this feeling of being insecure and afraid of my lack of knowledge, my lack of skills, my lack of fearlessness. And so I was just like what I started writing lists down of like all the things that I was afraid of and insecure of. And I was just like, man, this is a long list. Yeah. And I started knocking them off. I just created these. I created exercises, games, experiences for myself that I would just come up with to overcome these things. One was public speaking. I met a mentor who was a professional speaker getting paid full time to speak around the country. And I just started learning from him. I started learning from other people who had what I wanted and just mentors that I met. And he told me, you know, you got to join a public speaking class. You got to join Toastmasters. And so I just went all in. Every week for a year, I went all in to overcome that fear.

I met someone who's, you know, great salsa dancing. And I was like, man, I would love to be able to do this. But I'm terrified. And I started taking group classes. I started watching YouTube tutorials. I started going out three times a week. I started just obsessing trying to learn this thing because I was. horrible at it, and I was like, it'd be amazing to have this skill for the rest of my life.

I started doing that in business and marketing and writing. I was like, had all these insecurities, and I just said, I'm going to find the information either online and start applying what I'm learning. I'm going to find the mentor offline, learn from them, apply what I'm learning, and I'm just going to take a lot of action on the things that I'm most afraid of so that they don't cripple me anymore, but they become a superpower. And all these things that I've done over the last, I don't know, 10, 12 years now since I really kind of got into this, it just continues to make me more confident in anything I do and relationships

and life and my health, but specifically in business. It allows me to become more fearless in my request, in my decision making, in my, you know, asking for a sale, increasing my prices, whatever might be. Sure. It just makes more confidence. So that's really the pivot for me is when I decided that I have a lot of insecurities and fears. And no longer do I want to have them. I love that. I love that, because words I overuse for sure are restart, rewire, reverse, things like that, reset. And what I love that is the conventional way, what everyone will tell you, is pursue your passion, right? Write the list of all the things you love and go pursue that. What's so fascinating about your story is you actually did the total opposite.

You reverse engineered all the things that terrified you, probably holding you back from achieving your pinnacle and what it is and then mastered them. But once you did that, and then you figure out like, okay, my calling is to speak and to motivate, to tell my story. and to educate and inform, what was the first platform for you that you used? Because I know you have a very successful podcast and YouTube and book and live speaking at the time in 2008 was much, much more prevalent than like a YouTube and social media platform is today.

So what was the first thing you did and how did that take off? Yeah, and I think I wasn't sure like what my purpose was still at that point. I was just kind of like, I think my purpose was how do I make money to get off my sister's couch? That was the whole, that's all I really cared about. Because when you're at a level of scarce or having nothing or, you know, month a month, it's hard to think beyond like, well, first I need to get like safety and security figured out.

So I was just like, I need to figure out how to make money. Sure. And make enough to be able to get out of this house and pay for my own rent and just be, feel like I'm an independent human, you know, which I didn't feel like I was. So that was kind of like step number one, figure out how to make money. Okay. And I used the platform, the first platform I used with LinkedIn. I mean, I was on Twitter and Facebook and stuff like that,

but the platform I started using was LinkedIn because I met another mentor that I looked up to. And he said, why don't you check out LinkedIn? I hear people are finding opportunities and jobs and things like that. So I started just obsessing six to eight hours a day on LinkedIn when I was living on my sister's couch when I was injured in a cast from flowing football and all this stuff. And that was kind of the break for me

because I saw a niche where no one really understood this platform. It was early. I think there was 12 million people. when I got on there originally in 2007. There's probably a couple hundred million on there now. And people were confused. It was kind of clunky. Sure.

I came, you know, I was on Facebook when it was just for colleges. And I remember, like, when our college got it and we, like, we were on there and it was, like, a big deal in 2004, I think. And so when I saw LinkedIn, I was like, okay, understand this. I understand the concept. But all these professionals who are on here don't understand it because they were never on Facebook. Right.

So none of them knew how to connect. I knew how to create a profile to actually look enticing, and I did. And people started reaching out to me and saying, hey, Lewis, can you help me? With my profile, can you help me get leads? Can you help me fight opportunities? Because I was creating groups. I was creating communities. I was doing in-person live LinkedIn networking events around the country. I would get 300 to 500 people to show up using LinkedIn to come in person. And people are like, how are you doing this? How are you building these communities? And that was kind of the catalyst. And I remember, at the time, people who were promoting themselves on were saying they were social media

experts. I'm a social media coach, trainer, expert, just general social media. I was like, screw that. Like, I don't know all social media, but I'm the best at LinkedIn. I was like, again, I had a big ego. I was like, I'm the best in the world. No one's spent more hours on LinkedIn than me. No one's tried these things and gotten these results. And I was just like, I can do this and I can teach this. And I was doing it one-on-one with friends. And then people started paying me to do it. And then I was like, let me write a book about this and then doing webinars. And they just continue to stack.

Like, okay, how do I turn this into the next thing, into the next thing? By going deep on one thing, not trying to spread my energy thin on like five social media platforms teaching this. I was just like, this is what I know. It's like, and I always tell people like, if you have no audience and you have no personal brand

and you have no really results or experience yet, start like four layers down in a niche, like five layers down, whatever it is. So maybe it's business and then there's entrepreneurship and then there's general marketing and then there's online marketing and then there's social media marketing and then there's LinkedIn. And then it's like, could you go further? It's like, okay, I just talk about LinkedIn groups or I just talk about LinkedIn events.

It's like, you know, there's so many layers down that you get to within a niche. And when you become the authority, four, five, six layers down within a category, it makes you break through and stand out in a noisy, messy world. And then you can use that leverage and that brand and that positioning to then go do whatever you want. You can take it multiple layers up within the media. And that's what I did. I started with LinkedIn.

Then I went into, I probably did, I don't know, three to 400 webinars in a year teaching LinkedIn. I was doing them almost every day. Interesting. Two times a day. And then all these kind of like, online marketing experts who were not using webinars were seeing what I was doing

and the results, the financial results. Sure. And then, because I gained experience in the next thing category, they were like, can you teach webinars? Can you show me how you're doing this so we can sell our products, build our audience and things like that?

So then I kind of built from one brand niche into, okay, now I'm teaching webinars and I can teach you how to sell it more. I can teach you how to persuade presentation skills. that all happened because I was learning Toastmasters a few years prior that now gave me the confidence to teach it online. Then I wrote a book about webinars.

I did a course about webinars. And then it was like, okay, now people are wanting me to teach marketing in general. How are you building your personal brand? So it's like master one. Each step led to like the next opportunity. I didn't start with like, I'm teaching entrepreneurship because I wasn't an entrepreneur.

I wasn't successful yet. I was just trying to figure there's no LinkedIn thing out. it's fascinating to hear that because a lot of again a lot of people will talk about like find your niche and there's thousands of niches but what people don't really talk about are the layers under the niche and how you can actually build your business to monetize it but but louis you're saying this and there could be you know people listening saying like this is my I know what my thing is now I'm hearing Lewis say this I have to do it I'm curious when you got to that point what was the strategy now you already alluded to like webinar so obviously you're talking about masses so you can reach a bunch but how did you actually monetize it. So did it go from one-on-one coaching for a dollar amount to then group coaching, to them working with businesses, to scaling it to like a ticket prices? And how much did you make? It started with, I think the first money I made was $1,000 in 2008, doing a live free networking event in St. Louis. I went to high school in St. Louis and lived there for like six years. And I had a community there. And I remember just kind of like calling up all these restaurants.

bars in St. Louis in the Central West End and asking them what's the slowest night of the week? And one bar was like Wednesday, no one's, we don't have any events. We have no one to come in or it. It was like Tuesday or Wednesday night. I can I remember? And I said, can I use the venue for free and do like a networking event? I think I might have like 100 people there and can you open the bar and the food and like, and I'm going to sell, or actually I didn't sell anything. I just said, I'm going to have a couple tables there for like some sponsors. And I'm like, sure. So I did that. I think it was like 350 people showed up. It was free, so I didn't make any money on that,

but I sold four tables at $250 for like sponsorships. Got it. So I made $1,000. And I remember thinking, wow, okay, I wonder if, like, I could do this in other cities. And so I started creating these communities on LinkedIn and started doing these events, had 20 events in about a year. And I would just kind of do the same formula.

I'd call up to venues. I'd be like, where's the hotspot? Where's the location? Ask them and what the worst night of the week is for them and say I'm planning to bring 100, 200, 200 people. And every time it was like 300 to 500 people. And I said, okay, I wonder if I could charge if people would show up, if I charged five bucks, or would like no one come.

Yeah. And I started charging five bucks and more people came. I was like, oh, it also kind of weeded out like the weird people that were there in the first couple times. Without a purpose type. Yeah. And I was like, okay, I wonder if I could, if I charge $10. I don't know.

That's crazy. I was like, it might be too much. It's like a little networking event. Like, ah, it's crazy. and people kept showing up. And I was like, what about $20? It kept showing up. And I go, huh, okay.

So I'm making a little money on sponsorships. I'm making a little money at the door, like, I don't know, $1,500 in cash or something at the door. And I was like, huh, I wonder if I could, like, I'm building these relationships with these venues. I wonder if they would give me like 10, 15% commission on food and bar because they are selling tons of stuff on a night where no one comes. Sure.

And they're making tons of money. And so I started negotiating like 10, 15%. And I go, what if they make this much of sales? Can we get 20%? So I just started doing that angle. Then I was like, at the time, I was also writing a book because I was like, people want to know this information. So I wrote my first book about LinkedIn.

Yeah. And so then I started schlepping books around the country and boxes, selling them one by one to people for 10 bucks a pop, my own little booth and my own events, been like, hey, buy the book. Then I started saying, people started to say, can I hire you to coach me how to do this? And I was charging $100, $200, $300.

for one-on-one. And I remember charging $300 one-time for one-on-one kind of like LinkedIn profile maker recession, two-hour thing for $300. I remember saying, man, this is a lot of money. But for some reason, something clicked with me because I did maybe 10 of them. And I kept just increasing the price. And I was like, huh, something clicked where I was like, and I'm teaching the same thing to one-on-one. But if I had this book out, the book wasn't out at the time, or I had something else where i could package it and position it to charge more and and sell it to more people at once sure that would be the way to do it i didn't understand these concepts of like scaling and all these stuff before yeah i just had to learn the hard way yeah and um and that's kind of right about the

time when someone approached me and said hey can you teach a live webinar to my audience about LinkedIn for free and then at the end you know offer something this is 2009 there was no online courses really in 2009 or online course platforms. You couldn't really create like a checkout sales page. It was like very complicated. You need like a team. There was no like plugins and formats out there that you could buy like membership sites or anything. And I had someone put together like a PayPal link that was and just just a link. I didn't have a checkout page or like anything nice looking. I didn't have a course. I had nothing. I had a PayPal link. I didn't even know how to do that for myself. And I did this live webinar.

and taught LinkedIn. And I was terrified because it was like 600 people on. I was like so nervous. And at the end, I said, listen, guys, I don't have anything to give you right now. I don't have anything else. But if you want more advanced training, like I taught you a bunch in an hour here for free,

like go use it, do it. But if you want more advanced training on LinkedIn, here's a PayPal link, like check out. And in two weeks, I'll send you an email. And I'll do like more advanced LinkedIn training just like this. on a webinar. There was no, like, guarantee. It was nothing.

It was just like, here's a link. Trust me that in a couple weeks, we'll do some more stuff together. And I remember turning off the webinar and opening my email and every line on my email said, you've received payment for as long as I could see. And it was $6,200 in my account instantly.

And there was more money than I've ever seen in my life. I kid you not. And I was like, I am the richest man in the world. Weaking out, I was jumping around and screaming. I was living at my brother's house at this time, paying $250 for a room for a month for him because I was like trying to save my money and get my own place.

And I was just freaking out $6,200. Now, I needed to give the person who hosted the webinar half of that. So I made $3,100, but I was still like, this is nuts. And I go, I could do this every day for the rest of my life. This was so crazy for me. And for the next five years, I pretty much did a webinar, you know,

I don't know, two, three times a week. And I just went all in on saying, okay, how can I make this process better? How can I be a better presenter? How can I create better content? How can I create a course? How can I build this out? How can I build audience?

I just obsessed. I just focused on doing the same thing over and over. Non-sexy, non-interesting, no shiny objects. Just how do I generate sales? and focus on becoming better at sales. And I did that for years until I was like, okay, now what do I want to do next? And that's when the school of greatness started. Gotcha.

And so what is that like for people that are listening to this being like, wait, I could do this in the world that I live in and the niche that I have? What did that scale up look like? So you hit the 6,200, you got to split half of it. You're jumping for joy, 250 bucks. Like, was it like, okay, you made 50 grand a year to 100 grand to 200 and then you started at like, and also with that question, how much money did you save? before you said, I'm going to take the next leap of faith into creating this school of

greatness, which is cost capital to put it. Yeah, of course. So for, I don't know, for a year and a half, I was maybe making $503,000 a month, depending like how many events I had or how many books I was selling, like schlepping them around and just kind of like hustling for a year and a half. Maybe it was a few hundred bucks and then got to like a couple thousand dollars at the end of that. But it was like, it wasn't that much more in that year and a half.

And then once I got into webinars, I think that next, it's funny because I did this one webinar and then I did another webinar and I got zero sales and I was about to stop. And I was like, oh, this is a fluke. Like, oh, maybe I can't do it again. And I stopped webinars for like three or four months.

Interesting. And I remember being like that one kind of failure where it got zero sales kind of defleaded me. And I was like, oh, okay, well, back to doing it, what I was doing before. And then I had another opportunity to do another webinar. It's like, I don't know if it worked.

I think it was just like his audience and, you know, whatever, the right timing, the right thing. And it's kind of like, it's not going to work anymore. Yeah. And I did one more and I think I made like 10 or 12 grand. And I was like, okay, I'm going all that. We're back. We're back. We're going all in on this.

And then it was just like every week. And I think like that half of a year. And I partnered with another guy who was doing it with me. We're like, let's try one together. And we kind of bundled my training and his training. and then sold that, and we kind of just split everything. And I think for that next, like, for that six months, because it was like, yeah, I think it was like a half of a year until the end of the year when we started that, we did like, I don't

know, four, 500,000 in sales total, right, just for like total sales. And then the next year, we did a million and a half, and there was two and a half in the following year. I mean, you're doubling your sales, an annual basis? When I tell you, I was like, I'm 25, 20, six at the time and I'm but I'm just like obsessive I'm not doing anything but thinking marketing learning writing content building leads going to networking events finding joint partners and I'm just creating marketing and selling every day I'm up until 4 am every night I was just kind of like on a maniac because I was like I don't want this to go away like what I needed to do I was just

thinking 250 bucks a week at a couch now I'm making my brothers and my sister Yeah. And now I finally moved in my apartment paying $4.95 a month. But I was like, okay, at least I have an apartment. I'm on my own. And it was just so exciting. So we did that for a few years. I did that a couple years with him, maybe three, four years with him. And then ended up selling a company to him, my partner. And I probably had two years of runway where I was like, I can do nothing and survive for two years, the lifestyle I had from the money I'd save, maybe a little longer. And I said, okay, what do I want to do with my time now? That this is, this is gone.

And I really just wanted the interview fascinating people. Yeah. And this was really pre-podcast, you know, mania. This was 2012 when I had the idea. People didn't even know where to go on their phone to find a podcast. You had to, like, educate people to like, okay, you go here, you click here, you click here, and then press play, and then it shows you know, it's like, you had to teach people first. But I remember coming up with the idea.

And I said, you know what, I'm just going to do this for one year, and I don't want to make any money. I'm not going to try to make money. It's not about money, but I'm going to do it once a week for a year. And I'm going to see how I feel. And after that first year, like, the opportunities just kept, we're coming in for money, for books, for events. Like, things that started coming to me. And the audience really loved it. And I was like, I could do this for a long time.

So it's been eight and a half years now. And I don't think you're putting enough emphasize on the fact that, how early of an adopter you were to podcast like guys 2013 no nobody was doing a podcast now it's obviously like the hottest thing in the world and since you've done it I've seen over 1100 episodes millions and millions of downloads top of the charts I mean your podcast is killing it and so that that's that was from my understanding the inception of the school of greatness but under that you've built a lot more now there's new wave of people understanding and learning about podcast. And I said, I think I need to hire someone full time to just film all these in person.

Yeah. And I just have a feeling it's going to, I don't know, take off. This is before anyone was doing like YouTube. Maybe Joe Rogan was like the only person doing it at the time, but no one else was filming. They were just doing audio. Just audio. Skype or whatever. Yeah. And we started filming, yeah, for like the last six and a half years now, we've been filming, I think. And it's, it was one of the greatest things we invested in because I wasn't monetizing the video. I was just using the video to promote on social media to go back and listen to the audio. But we are posting them on YouTube. And so now we've got over a thousand videos on YouTube. And it's been crazy to see the amount of people that are discovering me now from YouTube and the revenue that we can

generate from doing the same content. So it's been a game changer. It's really cool to know that you went into the YouTube space for the purpose of just branding and with no monetization. No, I didn't have ads turned on. I remember I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember saying to myself, I just want this to be free. I just want to give value for five and a half six years. It was like free, free value. And I didn't want like sleazy Ferrari marketers in front of my videos, like just targeting my brand because they wanted to get my audience. So I didn't turn ads on until last year. You didn't turn ads on your YouTube channel until last year? Probably one of the dumbest things I've ever done and lost millions because of it. Because guys,

glistening. So you know, Lewis has over and Lewis, got. Anything I say that my stats or research wrong, you tell me. But I'm pretty sure you have over 1.5 million subscribers on you. Yeah, we've been 10 million views a month over there. I just want to put that. I mean, guys, we're talking hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars and add money at that level. That's wild.

So you just turned them on last year. I was just like, you know, I just want to add value and serve people. I love it. And plus you're making a ton off the podcast. I had a question for you, but now I got a detour quickly. After you turned them on, could you share a, a rough amount of, like, how much you can make off your YouTube channel now? We can make a lot.

That's fair. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think we turned it on in the first month. I turned it on just a few videos of the, maybe at the time we had like 700 videos. It turned on just a few. It was like $24 grand in the first month. And I go, huh, I wonder if I turned on all these videos. I just turned them all on. It's such a cool story, especially the way it happens so quickly from $250 a month.

250 a week, getting food stamps to turning that. I want to ask a success or a failure in some of the negotiations along the way because you talked about selling your business. You've talked about your book, right? So with book, there could be publishers or there could be people that took the IP. You started your podcast in the time no one did. And we now see all the stuff with like Collar Daddy and the big negotiations happening. And we see Joe Rogan's podcast being sold to Spotify for the amount it is through creating school of greatness or your podcast. or your courses or any of this. Have you had any like really big negotiating wins

that have paid massive dividends or losses that you're like, I can't believe I sold the IP or something like that? Yeah, my first book, The School of Greatness, my first kind of like main traditional book, School of Greatness, it was a half a million dollar book deal. And I remember at the time it was 2014 when I sold it. I was like, that's a, for me it was like a big,

it's like a first time like traditional book author. I was like, okay, that was a nice, Because I remember thinking, like, I don't want to do it for less than that. And I said, again, I had a big ego then, too. And I was like, no, I should have a million dollars, blah, blah, blah. You know, so, and originally it was only going to be like $2.50. And I told the agent, I go, tell them $500 or no deal. And they came back and gave me $500.

And I was like, so that was like a nice, like, win. I was like, I'd never seen that, you know, amount of, like, a deal come through in 2014. I think it was. But now I kind of look back at it and I'm like, man, I should have kept it myself. and not taking it because I don't know in the IP. I don't know in my audio book. It's like there's all these things, limitations. But, you know, I also wanted to experience it and be like a big traditional publisher

and kind of get that credibility. And it hit number two in New York Times list. And so maybe I wouldn't have had all those other things happen had I self-published. So I don't look at it as a loss. So I'd look at it as like a lesson and, you know, all part of the process. Tough to look at a 500,000 dollars a loss. But I do totally see what you're saying with that. And it's fascinating to talk about and just further understand, like, how all that happens

and how it comes to fruition. One thing I want to ask you about is the whole, everything that's happening now as a former athlete that has made a big, big name for himself and now onto a whole different stage of his career and now seeing NCAAs kind of open up the name, image, likeness. And I'm just curious, just from your perspective, you're a dude. D1 athlete, professional athlete, just what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that is something, is that a market you think will take off? Do you think it's something could be distracting to these kids?

I think it's amazing. I was actually Division II and Division III athlete just to make sure that I don't put myself how it was. Okay, good, okay. There we go. I told you to correct me when the research is wrong. It's all good. And I think it's awesome.

I know some people probably don't think it's good, but I think it's awesome. The challenge is, I feel like in the next couple of years, there's going to be a couple people that I make like a million dollars off their name and likeness easily. And there's going to be just its own challenges and complications because I remember when I was with a mentor of mine, I was kind of mentoring with him for, I don't know, maybe six months. He was an inventor in Columbus, Ohio, and I had this idea for an invention and kind of worked with him a couple days a week in his office. And I remember this is when I was like, I had no money. Maybe I was making like 500 bucks a month from like early on in the event stuff. I wasn't making that much.

And I remember saying to him at one point we're going on the walk And he would kind of like walk with me for like 30 to 60 minutes a few days a week And kind of just like teach me a mentor me And I remember saying man I could really use some money right now I just feel like I'm tired of being broke I'm tired of like feeling this way Living you know my sister and my brother I don't think I had an apartment yet

I was like I'm just tired of being broke I really could use some money And he goes money comes to you and you're ready for it And I was like I feel pretty ready though I feel really ready to like Well, y'all are feeling right. Have some money. I just want some money.

You know what I mean? And he goes, yeah, but if you're not ready for it, you won't know how to manage it. You won't know how to handle it. So I worry about some of these 18, 19 year olds who are going to be on the cover of Sports Illustrated and get all this attention and when the, you know, the Heisman or whatever it is, they just not, not going to, they may not know how to manage it and understand it. And so I hope that they have good people in their corner that are helping them facilitate that process because then it could be

very destructive. Well, that it's such a good point. And that's actually, as someone who's a motivational speaker, Lewis, I got to ask you this then. When you're seeing 60% of NBA players claim bankruptcy, 70... 80% is it 80%? I think it's 80% of NFL ads. It's go bankrupt two years after retirement

or something. The one I saw, again, this was I always said, the one that I know I've read recently was, it was because of weird numbers, guy. I remember 78% of NFL players have like massive financial distress. Right, something like that. After that comment you made about the NCAA, which makes perfect sense. I mean, you put a million dollars in my pocket at 18. I might be dead by 30. I don't know what's happening. What type of like motivational advice I'm curious do you

have for those people or any person that, you know, just from a financial wellness and balancing your life and stuff like that. Obviously, don't trust your friends because your friends don't know about money. You know, don't ask your friends what you should do. Don't ask your family what you should do. Find a coach, a financial advisor, a fiduciary, honestly, a fiduciary who's not trying to sell you services, but it has your best interest in mind, a financial fiduciary, and that's what I use. And I would put 80% of it away, you know, into savings or, you know, investments that the fiduciary recommends and whatever, blow the 20% of what you want to do, but I would put 80% in a way, personally, because 50% is going to taxes, you know, depending where you are,

40% or whatever, if you're making a million dollars, and, um, you know, and put 80% of that away and then 20% for whatever you want to do. But that's what I would do. Just be as good advice. Be as smart and practical as possible because that money, you get one injury and that could all be gone. Yeah. I mean, it's good advice. I love the Rob Grinkowski strategy of how he'll only spend his endorsement money. I think it's brilliant. Yes. Yeah, my friend Steve Weatherford, who was a punter in the NFL, he only spent endorsement money, and he saved like 10 years of salary and was just smart with it and invested and, you know, whatever. It's brilliant. It's brilliant. One thing I don't have written down or prepared for you,

but I've heard you say a few times now, big ego, big ego, big ego. And I think for some of the things you've accomplished, especially you've got the White House and Barack Obama calling you a top 100 entrepreneur, at least from my vantage point, everything I've seen and watched and and follow you on Instagram and everything. I don't see the big ego thing. So do you still think you have that? No, no. And what was it that deflated?

Yeah, eight years ago, I went through, I would say, a journey of healing and a journey of facing myself in the mirror and all the things that I didn't like about myself and all of my insecurities. Again, I did this at 20, whatever, four, all my fears and insecurities and doubts, but then I really addressed my traumas around 30,

about eight years ago. and the things that kept me still reactive in life, the things that made me defensive, the things that made me frustrated to people or quick to snap or something. And I started opening up about all my shame and stuff in the past, which I've talked about many times and very public about being sexual abuse as a kid

and a lot of other stuff going on in my life. And I just held it all in for 25 years. And so when I started to open up about it, I started to realize, oh i've been living life to kind of prove myself and to kind of accomplish and succeed to look good not to serve and not to be of service to humanity through my creations and through my talents and through my gifts and you know and through the symbol of inspiration of accomplishment as opposed to what i was doing which is like look at me accomplish and how successful i am

and praise me and give me what i'm like lacking inside or whatever and when I started to kind of to really start to process and heal all those things from the past everything started to shift I started just coming from a place of collaboration instead of competition where it was like I need to be number one and that was kind of my whole come from and I wasn't even aware of it I was just like I need to be the best I need to be number one I need to win you know it was kind of that mentality and now I'm just like I'm a humble servant here to help as many people as possible and whatever that looks and I don't need the credit you know it's like it's a we thing it's not a me thing yeah and i think unequivocally like something that you just mentioned that has

resided with me too is people will look at their gaps and their areas in life their competencies like the financial aspect in my career and then my personal self and they'll put them in silos and like unequivocally i believe that you really have to take care of yourself before all these other things will come to fruition and however you do it right maybe it's religion maybe it's therapy, right? Like whatever it is that you can do to like get yourself aligned. I think, Lewis, obviously, you're a prime example of getting that stuff aligned and watching everything come together. Yeah. It's amazing. One question I got for you. And so now I'm going to play, I've been pumping your tires a little bit. So now I got to chirp you a little bit here. So when I see

the Ellen stuff and I see you're over here. I see the Barack Obama thing. And then I see that detail magazine called you one of five internet's gurus that can make you rich, all this stuff. I'm press but I'm also thinking here's like my pure honesty my jaded ass is like god he's got a he's got a good PR team how is he getting all this stuff so that's my chirp so I want to give you the chance give me a retort here how does someone that like okay you weren't on this like big television show you're like you literally self made it from your fucking sister's couch how did you end up on like the Allen show and how are you getting these accolades like what is what was the process of it is it like tell me about that I've never had like a PR team like

like help me with any of this stuff. I hired a PR firm when I did my book launch, but they didn't really do much for me. What happened is I've just been for years building relationships with journalists, writers, TV anchors on social media. I'd follow them, I'd connect with them, I'd meet them in person,

I'd find ways to add value to them for years. So 2008, I've been doing this. And then I was getting reps in like regional TV. I was just like, I need to get on TV and get reps. So I was like teaching like LinkedIn or social media. and like Columbus, Ohio or, you know, in St. Louis, when I would tour, I'd find the regional markets and do like five-minute little press stuff, just a practice. Sure.

It wasn't that good. And those things started to stack. I remember I got this Details Magazine thing. It was like with me, it was like me, Seth Godin, Gary Ranichuk, and Tim Ferriss. And it's huge, like, you know, five-page spread with all these photos of us. It was in 2009. I was a nobody. And I remember the guy who wrote the article and found me and said,

I want to do this feature piece and I want to include you. I was like, okay, I acted really cool. Like, yeah, cool, let me know what you need. And like, I'll be wherever. He's like, one way to fly out to New York City. We're going to do a photo shoot in Times Square with blah, blah, blah. And I was like, cool, yeah, let me know when the dates are. I'll see if I can make it.

You know, I was like trying to act all cool. And then after it got published, I wanted to wait after to ask him. I emailed him and said, hey, thanks again for. publishing, just curious, why did you choose me to be in this? And like, how did you find me? Sure. I don't want to ask him before to be like, you know, maybe. Yeah, let's let it publish first. Yeah, let it publish first. And I go, hey, just curious, why did you, why did you reach asking me? How did you find me? And why did you decide to include me? And he said, someone retweeted one of your pieces of content. And I read the article you wrote. It was really insightful. And then I went to

your website and I saw that you'd been featured in I don't know all these other places because at the top of my website I had been featured in like sure a week or time or all these other places and he literally in the email said I saw that you were featuring all these places and I figured if you were good enough for them you're good enough for details and it's just like oh I just started to understand like psychological influence like just the positioning of a logo of where you've been featured automatically someone thinks credibility and they're like okay if you've been on there like he must be trustworthy and credible so let me do something about him and that unlocked the next thing and the next thing and the next thing the allen thing actually came from scooter brawn scooter bronze a buddy

mine who got me on that show and i wouldn't have been able to get on there probably without him he made the introduction to allan i met but that's a relationship like you just said you built right yeah of course i've been building that relationship for eight years before it happened and i never asked him for anything but he was like hey i want to do some stuff with you and let's get you on now i was like cool So it was all my, it was never like a booker or a publicist that didn't think was my relationships. And then I've just been really good at like positioning ideas to these journalists and being like thinking about how can it make them look incredible? How can I drive as much traffic to them? How could I advise that they look like the hero by having me featured?

And that's the way I think of it. It's not like how can I get featured to make me look good. What's the information that makes them look good? And I'm always just trying to find ways to add value to the press. And so, and now that I've kind of built my own, you know, audience, it's easier to get press at this. Yeah, no, it's, and there's so many, like, you just hit 100 takeaways for anyone listening. It doesn't matter if you're a stay-at-home mother at home or you're working for a boss or you're an entrepreneur. The lessons that he just gave right there about not having to, like, you know, use someone who's selling you everything to say,

pay them, a retainer, just figuring out a way to add value to the people that you're trying to work with. And curating those relationships are so important. And it was a, and this is work. It takes time. It's not like this. It's not this easy thing that just happens the first time you send an email or connect. This is, you got to be thinking like years and years down the line. And most people try to approach someone in the press because they want something now. And that's why I was like, I'm just going to be building relationships years before I need it. And that's hard to do. It takes time. It takes energy. You're taking meetings. You're helping, you know, you're doing things without seeing a benefit or a reward. And you may never see a reward. You're planting a

seed. There's a quote out there. It's like the secret to happiness in life is planting seeds under whose shade you may, you may not sit. It's like you're planting seeds everywhere. And you may never be able to get the fruit off of those trees or sit in the shade when you're, you know, it's hot outside. But someone else will be able to benefit from that. And you know what? You've sat under a number of trees and eaten fruit off trees that you didn't plant. And you're benefiting from that. So it's like, how can you just keep doing that in your business as well?

Yeah. It's refreshing advice in a world that everyone is looking for immediate return. And I'll tell you, you know, anyone that is asking, Jason, why would you even ask a question like that? Because you see so many jaded things out here. Like, guys, when you see like paparazzi photos and stuff, you're like, oh, no, it's all a 90th, that's all planned. Every paparazzi photos planned. They know what they're wearing.

they're actually probably getting paid for what they're it's all bullshit so much bullshit in this world so to hear the refreshing like smoking mirrors but you're in the you're in the reality TV space you know all the like I did it I did like three episodes of a reality show like 10 years ago or something uh-huh uh-huh on Bravo and I was like man I don't know if I could ever do this again because it was so inauthentic to me of how like unreal it was at this at least this show yeah yeah they had to redo scenes I was like what what he was almost I have to tell you, I love you again. Yeah, it was so weird, man.

For the first time, no. I was like, this is not my lane right there. Lewis, this has been awesome. It's really incredible to hear your story. Start to finish, the good, the bad, and the ugly, all of it. If you could leave us with one trading secret that anyone, they might be lost within their career, personally, professionally, or just looking for a little insight from you, given all the people you've talked to and things you've accomplished,

what would your trading secret be you could share with us today? Uh, in school, uh, middle school, elementary school, high school, I was pretty much always in the bottom of my class, like the bottom four. When I went to eighth grade, uh, they started giving us report cards and telling us what rank we were in the class. And I was always in the bottom four, sometimes last in the class. And I remember feeling like, I don't know if we'll ever make it because I'm just so slow in school. I don't have the skills. You know, it's lexic. I just, it was hard for me. I just, it was hard for me. And I just, it was hard for me. I just, I just, it was hard for me. I just, me at a second grade reading level when i went to eighth grade i just felt like i was in the special needs classes so i just felt like dumb and like i was never no matter how much i studied i wasn't able to learn this stuff yeah and then when i turned like 16 i someone mentioned the quote from roosevelt that said people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care and i was like i have a chance a chance if i can show people how much i care if this is true and i can show people how much I care about them, then there's hope for me in the future. And my trading secret is

you don't have to be the smartest or the best or the most talented or whatever, but if you can show that you care on a deep level in any scenario, your intimate relationship, your family, your friends, your clients, your audience, if you show you care, then that's what people care about. That's what they want to know more. Do you listen to me? Will you look me in the eyes when I speak to you. Will you be a helping hand when I'm in need? Not how smart or talented are you? Maybe that's cool and interesting, but if you don't care, that's not as valuable. So I would say show up with as much care that you can. And most importantly, show up with a lot of care for yourself because I think sometimes people lose themselves to try to just help others. And that's not good either. So well said,

don't be defined by those grades. Show people you care. Reminds me of the quote where I'm a blanking. I can't believe I'm blanking on it. And in the recap, I will correct myself. But people most of the time when you're speaking don't remember exactly what you say. They always make you remember how you feel. Lewis, thank you so much for being here. Everyone that's listening and wants to hear more about your school of greatness and your podcasts and your books, where can they find everything that you have going on. Yeah, just Lewishous.com or School of Greatness, anywhere you listen to podcasts or Lewis Howes on social media. Well, Lewis, thank you so much for your insight, your inspiration. We nailed this.

right at the one hour mark so I feel good about that and we really appreciate your time. My man, thanks, cheers. Ding, ding, ding. We are ringing in the closing bell on the Lewis House episode with David where we break down and recap our guest. David is the voice of the viewer,

the curious Canadian who will get my take on everything we just discussed. And if you enjoyed this conversation in any podcast, you can be part of, of our membership, where you can network with our other members. We have a day trader who gives advice on the market every day, private Facebook group, and you could be live on these podcasts. To join, just nine bucks a month. Go to jason tardick.com backslash restart all access. That is jasontartic.com backslash restart all access. The Curious Canadian, it's here with me live.

Lewis Howes, David, you listened in on the episode. What did you think? What's top of mind? Top of mind is one quote he said that resonated with me. He was afraid of money because he didn't understand it. And then just his whole story about how he kind of just stumbled into entrepreneurship with some of the networking events and LinkedIn and really finding his niche, that was my biggest takeaway. It was kind of summed up by that quote and how he figured it out from there. I mean, there are some LinkedIn warriors out there that have literally changed their life. And there are so many statistics on the power of LinkedIn. So it does not surprise me at all that he was able to build what he did just from ripping through a source

like LinkedIn. It's a very, very real thing. Did you used to crush LinkedIn? Dude, clobbered it. I used to be all over it. And now I've been doing a lot of research on it, especially for the book and stuff. And I know that like there's some crazy statistics out there. Like over 75% of people who recently changed their jobs use LinkedIn to actually make that decision. And that it's like one of the number one sources of quality hires right now out there. So the numbers are staggering behind the way recruiters use it and the way people are using it to find new opportunities. What's the biggest tip you can give our listeners for people who are also clobbering or crushing again? The biggest tip I'll give you is the following. Everyone you knows knows people asked for introductions and

feel free to DM people to get those introductions, but do it strategically, do it creatively, and even understand, like, the time in which you're going to do it. Like, there are some stats out there that if you email someone at on Saturday, like on the weekends, your likelihood of response is like 40% lower. But if you do it at the right times during the week, it's a lot higher. One thing we do when we do a lot of brand reachouts, David, is we will hit them at like 4 in the morning, right? We do that because the first thing they see when they wake up is that email.

So be creative, follow up, and ask for introductions. So many of the people that you're listening to right now, you're listening, your people, know people, ask for introductions. I love it. Now, to build off LinkedIn, it was just more virtual. He talked about a lot of networking events that are in person. I want to ask you kind of two questions, twofold, and maybe follow up a little advice. If you're one of these people that are paying the $5, the $10, or going to these networking

events for free, how do you make those the most impactful, the most successful for your life? It's like, dude, any networking event, period, I talk a lot. lot about this at my book, the importance of networking and some strategy to use behind it. But what I will say about this is you cannot go into a football game without a playbook. You cannot go into a networking event without a playbook. You have to do the pre-work. You have to know who's running in the event. Who do they know? What are their interests? If you're going into a networking event or you're going into a seminar and you don't have a plan of attack or a goal, you don't have information on who's going to be there and what ways you could

break the ice and talk to these people and build a relationship and have some takeaways, like these are the three people I will meet. And tomorrow, I'll make sure they remember me. This is how they'll remember me and I'll follow up. You're completely wasting your time. You got to go in with prior planning and an action, in an executable action, especially now, like, live shit's back, man. So this is a real thing again. I couldn't agree with that more. We've all been to those events where you go to a networking event and like, yeah, maybe it was fun, but you come away with it being like, that was actually a waste of time because I didn't make any connections. I have friends if I want to hang out with friends. I don't need to go to networking

to make friends have those action items, like play a game. I got to get three business cards, three numbers. I'm going to follow up with three emails. I totally agree with that. And you talk about waste of time, David, like you are a great social guy, right? You could be in that room for four hours, chopping it up, laughing, having beers. And if I have a plan of attack, I could be there 20 minutes in and out. And my time was more effective, even though you are so good socially. So having that just optimizes everything. It's huge, baby. 10,000. I was speaking from experience there, too, so 100%. Now, what about the monetization of it on the other side of the networking events? Any advice anything on that? I mean, the only thing I'm going to say about that is I love the way he was able to present, speak, and make money off his story. It's great. I love it. Those are events I want to go to. Events I don't want to go to. Watch out. Watch out warning. Can I put a multi-level marketing. Stay away from them.

Those are means of getting big mass as a group of people, selling them on a get-rich strategy. And the only way that anybody in that room is actually making money is if you're using your network to sell them the same idea. So they're paying a big initiation. And there are so many different multi-level marketing schemes out there. I'm not a fan. I tell people to stay against them. And if you have questions on that, feel free to reach out anybody who's listening and just

said, like, okay, okay. the old pyramid scheme um all right i got two more things for you uh one thing that i that i really loved that he talked about is how he mentioned you know and you brought it up too like his ego he kept saying his ego but i felt the same as you where i didn't get that vibe at all but he talked about his reflective path i kind of let him to understand how and why he is have you ever had the same feeling of like kind of getting your ego checked a little bit along your path dude and i want to hear if you have any stories too but i just think about man when i was out of school like my first two, three years, got my first job.

I thought I was the shit. Like, just walking around thinking I was like, I knew it all. I knew more than the CEO that I was going to be. I used to tell me I'll be the CEO of the bank. Like, who the hell are you, buddy? And so I think, unfortunately, a lot of that kind of like self-awareness comes with age. But those, like a Hugh Henney, who can do it at a young age, could zoom out and change at 1920, are going to be so ahead of the curb.

So for me, at a young age, I was arrogant, stupid, I said shit I wish I didn't do. I've learned from it, change. What do you think? I think for me, I will sum it up by saying it definitely comes with age, the wisdom part of it. But I was always like, when I was 15, I was like, I can't wait to be 18 years old,

like the seniors in high school. And then I'd be a senior high school. I'd be a senior high school. I can't wait till I'm in 25 and making money in the real world and seeing the life that they have. It was eventually I was like 28. I was like, I'm sick of chasing the shit. Let's just focus on, like, what I'm doing, what I have now and be grateful and, like, focus

and kind of be that person and it served me much better. Once you stop chasing it, like, just be happy with what you have. Well, now it's funny how it reverses, right? We're stuck in towards like, what's our next big thing? We're low 30s, 40. Then we're like, fuck, I don't want to be 40. No. So live in the moment, enjoy it.

But also, if you have the ability to kind of keep yourself in check at an early age man, and it'll pay serious dividends. So my last question for you, if you could sum this episode up in one word, what word would you use and why? Honestly, when I think about the fact I drilled him with the question of Ellen DeGeneres and how he get on these shows, who is PR guys? And when he just dropped like Scooter Braun, this guy is a master networker. I think he's smart, very smart.

I think he's got a great story. But his success, in one word, in one word, from being unemployed on his family, family's couch, making nothing to now being a multi-millionaire who just enabled his ads on YouTube. That's wild. That's how, like, how well he's doing. Was that a WTF moment? One of them, yeah. He's like, yeah, I just turned it on 24 hours to make 20 great. It's crazy. Networking, networking, networking. If you guys don't believe in the power networking, this episode should have done it for you. What are your thoughts on that? Oh, I agree with that. Mine was relationships, which is the same as networking. fascinating episode. Relationships is a great word. Networking is a great word. Lewis Howes made an

absolute empire out of strictly relationships, grind, and networking strategy. What he did is brilliant. It's unbelievable. And it's different than a lot of people that we've had on this show. A lot of people like myself fell into a show and pivoted. He literally did it from the ground up from arena football. He did it. You can do it. I task everyone. David, you too, me and you. We need to get three contacts from people that we know that we want to have a conversation with that can help advance our careers. And we'll follow up that next week on our next recap.

And guess who knows who's coming in hot next week, everybody? We've heard it all. We've heard Bitcoin. We've heard Ethereum. We've heard all about cryptocurrency. We have what I will say is the number one individual out there that can speak to Bitcoin. Anthony Popliano, a.k.a. the pop.

Over a million followers on Instagram, an absolute beauty. So tune in next week to another episode that you can't afford to miss trading secrets and our big guest coming in hot. Anthony Popliano, please don't forget to give us five stars.

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