Wake Up to Wealth - I Am a Comeback: Mark Jennison's Powerful Story

Episode Date: August 6, 2025

In episode 42 of Wake Up to Wealth, Brandon Brittingham interviews Mark Jennison, Founder of I Am A Comeback, as he shares his incredible journey from hitting rock bottom—eating out of a dumpster and battling addiction—to becoming a successful coach and mentor for high-performing individuals.Tune in for an inspiring episode that highlights the power of perseverance and community support in the pursuit of wealth. SOCIAL MEDIA LINKSBrandon BrittinghamInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/mailboxmoneyb/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brandon.brittingham.1/ Mark JennisonInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/iammarkjennison/?hl=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/markjennisonjr/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamacomeback/ WEBSITESBrandon Brittingham: https://www.brandonsbrain.org/homeI Am A Comeback: https://iamacomeback.com/==========================SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS:Paramount Property Tax Appeal: https://www.paramountpropertytaxappeal.com/MS Consultants: https://www.costsegs.com/Email Carson at The Money Multiplier: [e-mail]: https://rocketly.ai/

This is Wake Up to Wealth, a podcast dedicated to helping you change the way you think about wealth. And now, here's your host, Brandon Brittingham. Hey, everybody, let me tell you about my good friend Carson Hurleen. The Wake Up to Wealth podcast is proudly be sponsored by Carson. Carson helped me build my family banking system. What I've seen Carson do for people, it gives them back their peace of mind. If you want to get your mind and your money right, email my good friend Carson at at the money multiplier.com to learn how you can become your own bank today like I have.

Hey, what's up everybody? We are back with another episode of Wake Up to Wealth. And man, I have to just say thank you guys so much. We just recently were number one again for investing on Apple podcasts in front of some of the biggest shows in the world. You guys, we cracked the top 20 in business and we were in the top 100 of all podcasts in Apple. So I cannot thank all of you so much. I can't thank you guys enough for the support you've had for the show. you guys leaving us reviews, subscribing, really supporting us, man.

I appreciate it. I appreciate all the feedback of you guys reaching out, saying how this show helped you, how it educated you on money, it helps you on mindset, all those things. And it's just a testament to you can have the odds against you and still win. Because we are, we compete with people that have millions and millions of dollars of budgets. It's we're doing this podcast in my office with some basic equipment. And the message to me is always what mattered. And you guys have shown as a testament that that's what matters.

So I really greatly appreciate everything. And today, I'm super excited. I've been trying to get Mark on the podcast for a while. Mark Jensen is here today from I Am a Comeback. What's up, brother? Nah, Mosh, man. Thanks for having me, bro. You just said something really, really important, man.

The message is all that matters. It doesn't matter what meeting here. that's all that really matters. So what's pretty cool is I met Mark years ago and we've become homies and I've been a privilege to get in, see his community, see what he does. I've had the privilege to speak to his folks before. And I saw this guy speak, gosh, you know, it's probably three years ago now. And very rarely do I sit in a room and someone starts speaking and I'm like completely like shut the

fuck up and listen. And this guy told his story and I just, it just blew me away. And then I had the privilege to go to a mastermind with him in Mexico, got to know him and his wife, and was just really captivated by his story, what he's done and what he's built. So I'm super excited to have him on today and kind of talk about some pretty cool things. So Mark, for those that my audience that might not know you tell us who you are what you do all right man so number one thanks for having me on here guys i appreciate it man this is super awesome like you just said man we've been homies for years and i probably i probably should be a better homie and reach out more i'm a kind of quiet guy but anyways i'm uh i'm the foundering period of i'm a comeback and why that's important is

because uh 10 years ago i was eaten out of a dumpster right 10 years like literally july 27th we're filming this on the 19th july 27 2015 i was eating out of a dumpster um i didn't have enough money to feed my kids. I didn't even, wasn't even able to see my kid. I'll get to that here a little bit. But the reality is, man, what I've done is I created not only just an alternative, but in my opinion, the alternative for high performing business owners, entrepreneurs, high love executives, men who want to win inside of their life, or struggling with alcohol or pornography or some sort of habit. And we've been able to help. It's really cool. You know, money's great. I know we're going to talk about money. I've been able to make a lot of money,

but I've made a lot of impact, right? I've helped almost just under 14,000 people come through my program so far. And these are high level. people these are the reach these i've been able to reach the unreachable right which has been pretty cool so i believe it's a calling by god so yeah man but what i do is i'm a coach man and i'd like to say i'm not just a coach i've been around this game for eight years i've seen a lot of people come and go and like you said the message is the most important thing i've been running the same message since i decided to quit drinking which was this you're not weak you're not disease you're not powerless okay and that message has just resonated with so many people because i believe that everything that we do

is a choice. I believe everything inside of our life. We have the ability to make a choice and decision to win and pivot at whatever time. So yeah, man, that's what I do, man. I just, you give me the microphone, I change lives. So, um, I really like to go inside the mindset of, right? Like you were, I mean, call it what it is. You're an addict, right? And yeah, right? Is it safe for me to say that? So I, yeah, you can call whatever you want. As you know, you're my friend, but I don't ever use, this is, I think, what makes it so cool, right? You can be whoever you want to be. And like for me, brother, I never wanted to be labeled an addict, but I was obsessed, right?

So my life, just like you're obsessed in certain areas of your life. I mean, your gym, your transformation, right? Your, your business, your podcast, you're obsessed with it. So for me, man, addiction was a word that I think society wanted to label me. Yeah, bro. I drank 50 to 60 drinks a day, okay? Yeah. Snorted cocaine all day.

Yeah. Shot heroin or took pills to go to sleep. But I would never believe that I was. I was fucked, right? I just thought that's what you do. And so there was an obsession that I've had, and I believe that anybody out there who's even struggling with some of this stuff

where the struggle gets lost is the fact that they started thinking there's something wrong with them instead of realizing that the gift you have is being addicted, addicted to winning, right? But if you're doing it the wrong way, you're fucked. So I'm glad you said that because this is where I wanted to go.

So how, you know, walk us through this. Like, how did you go from where you were, which was a really bad, dark place to like, I'm going to get my shit together because it, like, it sounds good, right? But to go from the transformation that you went through, it's just, I mean, that's just hard, bro, right? Like, that's just, that is, that is by no means, is that normal? And I know you've helped a lot of people go through this transition.

But, like, where did you go mentally? Like, how did you forge yourself through? this shit. Yeah, man, this is actually, this is a great question because a lot of people always want to know the how, right? But nobody who wants to understand what it felt like or what it had to do to get there. They want to know the step, you know, one, two, three, how do I get there? What they found realizes is what it takes and who you have to become inside of this thing. So let me just preface this with a with a little bit of a story, right? So I had seven major relapses in my life. And I call them seven. I probably had tens of thousand micros, right? Like, come Monday, I'm done. I'm done.

honest God take this way I'm done, but those don't really mean shit. But seven major ones that I could count back to where something catastrophic could happen, right? Divorce, lose my business, friends dying, family dying, losing my son, all of this stuff, right? So I counted it down to seven, which is interesting because it's biblical, right? And everything gets out of my company has just come back seven and seven always shows up. But the final straw that broke the camel's bag, right? It wasn't the fact that I lost my business, you know, from 27 to 33. I made millions and millions of dollars and uh that sucked but it wasn't bottom and i don't think i ever hit rock bottom um because i think bottom for me would be death because i just wanted to win so bad i was just

going the wrong way but here's here's what it is okay june 11th of 2015 i was selling cars okay and i lost everything from previous previous issues that i had and i had to go sell cars and was really really good at it but what happened over time i started in i started november fast forward to june I was top 1% knocking out 35, 40 cars a month, just really crushing it. And I started leaving these Saturday morning meetings with $3,000, $5,000 cash, right? I was sober with no plan. I hate the word sober, but I was sober with no plan. And I thought I was doing the right thing, but slowly what happened is I just slid back

into the stuff that people do, right? So I leave the meeting with cash. Even though I'd already lost my company, you know, millions of dollars in IRS, we're not even talking about that dark part of my story yet. We're just going to talk about the mindset. As things were unraveling, I just, I was working and working, working. And finally what happened is, It caught up to me. I went back to the same old shit, right? I might be living externally like a

winter. I might be selling a ton of cars, making $27, $45, $32,000 a month crushing it. And as fast as I make it, it's going to pay back bills and shit that I had. But I started doing the things that got me here. And that's what people do, right? So I just went back to the, back to the bars, back to doing drugs, back to partying. And although I could still work, I found this, I found this thing inside of me, right? I found this gear, probably like what you have. It was the addictive personality or the obsessed personality. And I could figure out how to be two people. But what happened is I was running two ways, okay? One to good, one to bad. And they just got so far away that finally on June 11th, my birthday, I'm sorry, yeah, June 10th is my birthday. And I didn't show up for work on the 11th.

And the car dealership that I was working for sent out like a search party to find me. Loom behold, they find me drunk at a bar, middle of the day, in a demo car that they gave me, completely freaking shit face right and they do it drugs and they bring me back in check this out so they they go send the porter to come get me the porter's like bro you know he's all upset because he knew that i was like a good dude and they bring me down to the dealership and they're like hey basically you take help okay or you're fucked right like or get out of our world dude i didn't want help but i also didn't want to not have my job so i willingly took the help that they offered they called the rehab facility that got me into that

bed. He paid more cash, the owner of the dealership to give me in the bed. I went out that night got completely blitzed. They put security around me to make sure that I would go there. And I went in, man, and I blew a 0.367 the following morning. 0.367 failed everything on the drug test except for marijuana. That's where my life was. And I'm going to keep going. It's a little bit of a long story. And what happened, Brandon, was I went through, it was like, I think 21 days or something like that, however long it was. And I went through the first six days were hell. I was aggressive. I was on steroids, right? I was really, really good shape. Super fucking crazy. They put me into this detox. Like I said, three, six, seven. And I went

in there and I remember this kid was coloring, right? He must have been in there for, I don't know, whatever was like, hey man, you want to color. And I fucking rip my shirt off like the Hulk, flip the table over, and then they just, they put me down for six days. Okay. And inside of those six days, I pretty much slept. And they finally moved me to my room to be able to take a, to be to take a shower. That's all I wanted. I remember because I was high risk. I'm standing there, right? And there's this orderly with flame tattoos on his head to my left, like a nurse. There's another guy who's naked in this community bathroom. And my life, that's what my life would become. I made millions of dollars. And here I am, right? And I'm just fucking angry. So I don't

want to look at this guy because I want to fight him. And I don't want to look at this guy because his dick's hanging out. So I'm just like, I'm forced to look into the mirror, right? And what I saw was a monster. The vein beating right on my head. My heart, I was beat red. It looked like a red version of the Incredible Hulk. And I looked into this mirror. And I'm like, dude, you're fucking better than this. Like, what's wrong? I start talking, right? What's wrong with you? Stop fucking lying. That's what I said, right? And in that moment, something switched. Okay? When I said, stop fucking lying. Now, I'd love to tell everybody listening that my story ended there, but it didn't. I went through the rest of the time, right?

laying in a pissed soaked stained plastic bed roommate who has scabies like I'm with these people that I don't want to be around pissed off getting angry anger and anger finally they let me out on July 3rd okay and it was like I said a long story but my life's crazy they let me out on July 3rd against medical attention basically what I did was I sold myself out of there because I didn't want to be there and I think looking back God probably wanted me to do this but I got out July 3rd they sent the car dealership sent to God to come get me they they They bring in the car, they show up. They hand me $400 bucks cash.

They see you look good. We'll see you on Monday. Well, I decided that I wanted to go eat. Well, here, actually, there's a very important part of the story. I don't even know if you know this. So here I've been in rehab. I hadn't seen my son. I'm a piece of shit fucking dad.

I'm a loser. This is all things I'm feeling. I owe everybody money. I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed. I hate my life. I pick up the phone. I call my son's mother.

And I say, hey, I'm out of rehab. I'll love to see Phoenix. And she's like, you can't. We're in Chicago. So I pick up my phone and I call my one friend who does a drink who's a bodybuilder, right? And I'm like, hey, bro, I just want to see what you're doing. He's like, hey, I'm down at Sunset Park swimming. Why don't you come down here?

Your son is here. Phoenix is here. Oh, no shit. Yeah, bro. So his mom lied to. No, I didn't know that. I never heard this before. Yeah.

Yeah. So she lied to me, right? And what I could have done, bro, I could have went down to Sunset Park. Yeah. I could have went there, right? This is a very important part of my life, okay? because sometimes what I want people to know is I explain my story is sometimes the decision you make is the wrong decision, but what you do after the decision backs up who you can

become. And I'm looking back and I'm so glad that I didn't go there, okay? Because what happened was I made a different route. I went and I said, I need to get some food. So I went to this little bar and sat down and ordered a cheeseburger and a Red Bull, real healthy. Because I've been eating shitty food, right, when I was inside the rehab. And I'm sitting there and in walks this guy. He's just walking it's like all right man happy fourth july tomorrow who wants a shot and i'm like oh man i just got out of rehab oh fuck it give me one six hours bro oh man six hours removed yeah okay so you're asking the mindset that i went so then what happened is out of all the places i'm like well i'm continue to lie i got out i'm not even ashamed i'm just having fun i'm like fuck it i already

did this i'm going all the way out i end up going to a to a to a bar where the whole dealership that put me in rehab was having a party that nobody told me about because they didn't want me to come to the bar and I walk into this thing completely blitzed completely high as fuck and let and everyone's like it's like I walk in and that the room stopped right I went on they fired me they're pissed off everyone hated me okay I went on the worst nine-day bender alive jumped on a plane flew down to Florida my brother put me to put me there to go down by my mom he's like dude you're a loser we fucking hate you can't even do this right there's a lot to it I want to spare you guys the whole story it's a great story um but I went down to florida man and

this was in this was some midtime july you know i'm flying down there no shower completely scummy i didn't shower for nine days i'm rocking back and forth feeling like a scumb bag get off the plane my mom takes me directly to liquor store i get a bottle of um a bottle a bottle of booze right rumpleman's i love rumplements and i just start go go go go go just fucking down in it so i could feel better because i was so sick i do that for three or four days and i this is super important for the people to hear like this is where my life was and I'm skipping over a ton of steps the intensity the energy you people like dude this guy's an addict he's no man I just fucking this is how I operated so finally I realized I needed to get a get a job right and I'm battling back and forth like a

real bitch I'm calling my son's mother back then I'm like hey I want to talk to him I want to talk she she's not letting me she texts me back hey the world's better off without you why don't you kill yourself why don't you write the rights off to your son as a matter of fact here's a here's some documents that we're going to prepare for it from the lawyer. Just get fucking rid of him. You don't deserve him. He doesn't need to. And Brandon,

I probably never told you this, but I remember I'm sitting there and I was contemplating as tears are weeping down on this piece of paper. I had a pen and I was going to write it. I set it down. I ended up going. I'm like, no, I'm going to go to the bar,

right, of all places. I didn't do it. And I went to the bar and I applied for a job as a valet Parker. Okay? I'm like, well, fuck it, dude. I'm just going to drink beer,

live in Florida, make some cash. It didn't matter how many millions of dollars. right he was like yeah you could you could start right so long story short i grab a beer i go out to the ocean because it's right on the beach and i sit down i'm drinking the beer and i'm looking out at the clouds in the sky the ocean's like beating against the sand it's beautiful right it's pink it's blue and i hear this voice all of a sudden that says are you ready to listen to me now and i stood up right now i've done a lot of drugs i stood up right and i answer audibly i'm like

fuck yeah i am but there was nobody yeah so i ended up going and i had no money completely we don't have enough time for my entire story but you asked where i went i drank all the way home i went back to the car dealership i drank a leader of vodka i put on the largest line display of my life to get an opportunity okay and they said yeah we fucking hate you you can start on monday we hate you they give me the hardest parameters ever you have to be in a rehab you have to be in a recovery program you have to work bell to bell you don't get to leave you can't drive a car um all of your money has to be gated they have to take care of it but you if you want to be here show the world how how good you are no lot ups no leads no CRM nothing you fucking prove it they made it so difficult

on me i walked into that car dealership july 27 2015 without a pair of shoes and no money i'm i had nothing and i come walking in this place man and for the first three four days well that was a wednesday so the first three days i didn't sell a thing i didn't even know if i could do it i was shaking i was convulsing my life was at the bottom i couldn't see my son i didn't even have a cell phone didn't couldn't even fucking afford a cell phone and i picked up the phone on the fourth day i picked up the landline and i opened up the white pages or and i started cold calling everyone in my town i started cold calling 200 people a day you want to know where i'm going bro i made a decision in that moment i didn't know what the

decision made like but i knew one thing my fucking son deserved a better opportunity that I could ever have in my life. My son needed me no matter what. And I didn't set out to do what I did, but I know that my life wasn't working and was burned down to the fucking ground and I was going to do whatever it took to get back. And what happened over time, right?

I did what they said. But not only did I do what they said, I did it in spite of them because I didn't give a fuck about them. I wanted to win for me. And over time, I felt this thing, right? I felt the energy and I got stronger and I got stronger and I got stronger.

And where I went mentally, bro, to be able to do this thing was it was everyday. 3 a.m. to midnight, self-development, grinding, listening to books, writing, journaling, repetition. I would get out a notebook, bro, when I was feeling like a fucking pussy, and I'd write down, I'm a champion, I'm a champion, I'm a champion, I'm a champion, thousands of times until I could start believing this thing. I had no proof. I had no evidence. I just willed my way to do it. And then I learned up a high-income skill, which I was,

I was good at sales, but I decided I wanted to be great at sales. Okay. So what I did, man, was I went to this place that was so fucking dark. My mom didn't like me. My dad didn't like me my brother didn't like me everybody hated me i owed millions of dollars the irs my back was up against the fucking wall i owed all the creditors every creditor out there but i made a decision i'm not filing bankruptcy i'm gonna fucking do what i have to do to pay this back i'm gonna work harder than anybody else and i showed up first one in last one out every single day with an energy and intensity that was unmatched by anybody else and what i did though bro i would stare because i couldn't see my son i would stare at pictures of him

Literally stare at the picture of it. That's it, man. And I mean, like, there's no, there's nothing complex about when you decide you want to win. It wasn't about giving up alcohol. It was about finally becoming who I know I could be, right? And then every fucking day, there's no max volume on intensity. I would turn it up. I would turn it up.

I would turn it up. I'm doing it right now in my life right now. But that's it right there. Hey, are you ready to take the next step towards homeownership? At Responsive Mortgage, the guys that we trust, they make the process simple and tailored to your needs. Whether you're a first-time homebuyer or looking to refinance, their expert team is to help guide you every step of the way. With competitive rates and personalized solutions, they find the right mortgage fit for you. Visit responsivemortgage.com today and let them help lead you home.

And these guys, Responsive Mortgage and Mike Benton are my friends and they're a sponsor of the show. So we trust them. reach out to them for all your mortgage needs. Tell my sent you. I wanted people to hear it because I think that it's why this is important is because there's people who, not to stereotype anything, but there's people that are listening right now that you have better opportunity, better everything than say a me or you, right?

And you're squandering it or when shit gets tight or when shit gets tough, you fold. And, you know, I just always think, you know, if I can do it, you can do it. And you're a prime example of literally, if we took bets on you when you were at that stage in your life of where you're going to be. Like, that's like fucking 10 million to one odds. I would have paid out well, right? And I think, and I wanted, I wanted people to share it just because I know you're, I know a lot of those things that you talked about. And I know the intensity of how you move and run now.

And I know the effects that it's had on so many people. I just want people to hear this is that people, there's this cliche around mindset, but literally it's fucking, that's what it is, right? I mean, that at the end of the day is what it is. You just went through, you know, pretty much rock bottom on your deathbed. You'd lost everything. Now let's let's go to a cool part of the story. at some point you got this calling for I am a comeback right do you know tell us like when

when was that right and again so I'm a believer of this shit is that you're you got put through this and I believe this of the shit that I've been put through in my life you got put through this for a higher calling and the higher calling probably was I am a comeback like when did you when did you feel that or see that and start to make that happen and and just go into go into a little bit of detail of like what what i am a comeback is and what it's become yeah sure so first and foremost i'm a comeback it's a statement it's a belief it's an identity it's a principle of power that once you accept it you never let go over you're going to win no matter what i'm going to start with that right it's just about redemption and i like you will never fucking quit and the people that listen to you hopefully

the inspiration they're getting from guys like you and i is that we're just regular old dudes who just refuse to lose that's it right your vehicle is is all the stuff that you do real estate and money and all the stuff. My vehicle is clearly you can hear me speaking, changing fucking lives, right? And I do it my way. I don't go on stages. I do it my way, the slow way, the right way. Now, I want to what I want to share with you is this. So remember, I was selling cars and I got really, really good at selling cars. By the way, even though I missed those few months inside of the dealership that first year, I still was the number one dealer, the number one salesman in the entire group. There was like 17 guys or 17 stores at that time. And I finished number one.

And the number two guy got on Rolex, and I believe what I got was I had to pay back my rehab, right? And that was they made me pay back my report. So what happened was I needed to make some cash. So this is the part that people should listen to, right? I needed to make some cash. So about four, five, six months into no longer drinking and building what's now known as the comeback seven, I'm like, dude, I'm never going to get back to zero, just selling cars. I've got to figure out a way to create some cash. So I created a, I built an online company.

I didn't know anything about it, right? But I saw this Facebook thing. I'm like, man, maybe I could do something here. And I created a company called Genesis and Enterprises. And I created one offer, 30 and 30 and 30, how to sell 30 cars in 30 days, to make six figures a year as an automobile salesman took off, right? And then what I did was I literally coached the people. I showed them how to do it.

I started getting the results because it's relatively easy if you just wake the fuck up. And what happened is the clients that were selling cars didn't want to actually learn how to sell cars. They wanted to know how I got. got sober, even though I don't like the word. They wanted to know how I overcame all the stuff that I had overcome. So I did this for like from 2016, all the way into 2018. And all I could see was this brand in my mind. That's all I could see as I got stronger and it got stronger and it got stronger. It didn't exist, but it existed in my mind. End of December, 2018, I built a little recurring revenue group up. I was doing 47,000 a month recurring, which is pretty

good, right? I wouldn't call that little. One by one. Yeah, it was 47th, well, comparative to where I'm at right now. At the time, it was, yeah, especially for a startup. 47,000 a month. Yeah, 100%, dude, that was just all, by the way, anybody on here, I didn't know how to do funnels.

I didn't know how to do any of the shit. I had a cell phone, and all I did was a cell phone phone, found a problem, and I called and I sold them, period. So let's, let's make a point about this. You know, I think one of the biggest struggles that people have in general is they think they need a bunch of fucking information and you need to you know when you're ready um you know this is just a this is a

point that you just made that I think it's just very important that people need to listen to like just go fucking out and execute right like you know you're whatever you're going to suck right like so at this point in my life I'm going speaking on stages I'm speaking in stadiums and I was speaking in front of five people and like the other day um because it happens right i just i got my ass kick like a couple days in a row and i was sitting at home before i go to bed and i and i pulled up a video of one of the first times i ever spoke and i was like jesus christ dude i was fucking bad but i had the courage to get on stage when i was bad right and so to your point you know you had the courage of like, I don't know shit about the internet.

I don't know shit about an offer. I don't know shit about a funnel. I know that I'm good at this. I know I have a skill set and I just put it together. I just, the reason why I'm saying this to you is that I have people probably just like you that reach out to me all the time. And they're like, yeah, I'm going to do this win.

I'm going to do this when. I'm going to start this win. I'm going to, you know. And it's just like, man, you just got a fucking point and shoot, dude. When I get here, I'll do this. When the circumstances are all right, then I'll do this. But it's never right. And I think, you know, to touch base on that, I think what stops a lot of people is they actually think that people saying that like we're saying that are actually lying.

They don't think we're lying right. But I think they think we have some sort of secret because I used to think the same thing. Like, wow, no, there's no way. But the reality is, bro, this is how it works. It's one foot in front of the other every single day, even when it's not working. That's it. It's undefeated. It's undefeated.

That's it. right and and you're going to get smoked you're going to get punched in the mouth you're going to fall down and if you just if you once you make a decision to win at whatever you're going to win in your life it's not it's not if it's just when right just when and it may take may take me like my plans build a nine figure company and i thought i would do it by 45 i didn't i have not been able to do 30 million bucks but that's that's pretty decent right i want to be able to pay i've only been able to do 30 million bucks i want to do 100 though right that's the number yeah i want to share one of mistakes that I made that I think people should never do though. I've made this mistake a couple

times in my life. I'm very spiritually led. So I think that I need to be in alignment with the assignment all the time. So that $47,000 a month business that we were talking about at the end of December, I picked up the phone. I called every client that I had. And I said, guys, I can't take money from you anymore because I don't want to talk about, which is stupid as fuck, right? I don't want to talk about the things we're talking about so you can keep all my content. And I shut that $47,000 off. The $47,000 are straight. off and I started I'm a comeback I had the wrong I had a t-shirt with the wrong logo I had a Zoom call right and I had a notebook and I wanted to change lives and by the way bro so I went for

making 47,000 to I only had three people enroll in the first month in January and I only made $3,000 fucking dollars yeah and I still owed the IRS I still owed all these people money but I knew where I was going I'll share some numbers for you real quick dude I got I just can't I'm going to make a point on that um this is again uh i think this is so powerful because i've made this pivot multiple times in in my life too where i had gotten really good at something and i was making a ton of money and i knew that the the journey was bigger or the vision was bigger and i pivoted from something that did really fucking well and the reason why i want to mention this is because one of the things that I think entrepreneurs really, they fail, is not being able to pivot their identity, right?

So you just gave an example of your identity was you were a coach making $47,000 a month, right, a reoccurring revenue, but you were willing to pivot your identity to say, I'm going to be something bigger. And this makes me think a couple months ago, I was sitting in a room with the founder of Netflix. And he's one of the most profound things he ever said that is stuck with me is he said, we were in the early stages of Netflix, 99% of our revenue was selling DVDs. And we knew that that was not a viable business. And we made the decision and we pivoted overnight to go to a subscription model. When 99% of our revenue was DVDs, then they pivoted from. subscription DVDs to producing their own content.

Well, how the fuck did that work out? Sure. Fucking great. Right? And but the point I'm making to you is you got to have the fucking balls and the fucking internal fortitude when you feel that the vision is bigger and you know that the calling is bigger to make that decision, which you did. I just wanted to highlight that because I think this is a place where a lot of entrepreneurs

get stuck and they're unwilling to pivot because they're scared to, you know, it's like I'm in the plane, but it's like you got to land that motherfucker because you're about to hop on a private jet. Yeah. And I think so the word that I use is knowing, right? I just know where I'm going, period. Like there's a knowing. And I've tried, even since we've been friends, I've deviated many different paths inside of I'm a comeback, right? I've tried to be this business coach or I can do relationship coaching, which all things I do on the inside because I can do it. But the world doesn't want that from me. The world wants me to be able to share the story and show them how to wake the fuck up from drinking too much. And every time I try to run from that, my company starts

hurting. My bank account starts hurting. My energy starts hurting. I fall down. And what's interesting though is I never stop looking for what's next. Okay. I'm always continuously looking, but it's not always about what's next. It's about improving upon the knowing that you have. So I would love for your people out there that are doing this. Like they have the gut. They have an intuition. Everybody knows how they want their life to look. Are they willing to go do that that's the question like if they believe it and they can see it even if they're thinking about it most likely it's supposed to happen not even most likely like it's supposed to happen is just do you have the fucking balls like you said to go do it and most people don't and that's what's so

difficult about about watching people walk around is wandering generalities and mediocre mindsets right when they're just one small tweak away from doing bigger things than me right yeah dude it's you hit on another point man you're always you know what a lot of people don't think or realize is is that you're closer than you think. Do you know what I mean? But you're just willing. And here's the thing, you know, like stopping, you're closer than you think and stopping and going backwards

versus just forging and pushing through. Like you're close to that wall and you're about to knock that motherfucker down. But then you tap out. And then another thing that I truly believe in, right? So like me and you are the 1% of the 1% of just our ability to fucking get shit done to just fuck it right and what i think um if you're listening to this i want you to understand that like when you're standing in the shit and it's like man this fucking i'm getting hit and i want to fucking fold and i want to just curl up in a blanket and cry anybody you compete with that's where

they stop they will fucking stop and if you just like hugh said earlier if you just put another foot in front of the other and you're just willing to keep going you'll beat them by fucking attrition dude like no question about it you'll beat them by attrition so we deviated off a little bit but you you said some shit that gets me fired up yeah no this is great i love where we're going on this we can always eat more of these calls later but here's what i know okay that it doesn't just stop when like what you just mentioned happens over and over and over at every level yeah right it just it gets and it gets harder it doesn't get easier right but yeah you do get better and after you've done it once you've done it twice you've done it three times whether it was just figuring out how to make your first thousand dollars extra right for some of your people out there and then before you know it that thousand is now 10,000 then the 10,000 is now 50,000 then it's 100,000 but you're dealing with the same problems that which is essentially mediocrity trying to set in and make you think that you don't deserve it or that it's too hard when we Kendra and i just went through a massive we're in massive pivot right now right we came into arizona i had fucking put a house in california house in a

I was all over the place, burning through about $100,000, $125,000 of a month of just like shit that we didn't need, but I thought we needed to chase this dream, right? Because I was trying to do something. Yeah, I was able to, I built us. I don't know if you know, it's not. But we turned around. I built an agency, a marketing agency. And we did, what, $3 million in seven days, right?

Turned it up. Right? So we turned out. I'm like, oh, fuck, this is what we need. Right? And then as I was, attention was going here, I got hit somewhere else I didn't see. And like you said, this, this version. of us that wants to crawl up in a blanket and just fucking cry.

By the way, take them in and feel like shit, but then just get going. Yeah. Right? That's it. It happens to all of us, by the way. Hey, this next segment is brought to you by Paramount Property Tax Appeal. And these are guys that I trust, my good friend Wes over there. If you're overpaying for your property taxes, Paramount Property Tax Appeals specializes

in helping commercial property owners and homeowners reduce their tax bills, ensuring that you only pay your fair share. These guys are going to fight for you. And these are the guys that I trust. You can reach my good friend West. Their contact information is 310897-5056 or Wes at PPP Tax Appeal.com. That's Wes at PPP Tax Appeal.com. So if you look at me, you look at Mark, anybody that you see that's successful and you're like, I want to be like them, I want you understand. It is 730 on the West Coast or, you know, right? it's 10 o'clock 10 and some change here on a Saturday right I'm in the office there's maybe one or two people in here right marks up on the West Coast I'm going to leave here go crush a

workout work the rest of the fucking day like I want you guys to understand like number one what it takes but also we deal with so I'm the CEO of my company Marcus too we deal with the worst fucking problems all the time all the time and And it is not like, oh, man, it's, it's like when I go like a week or two and like nothing goes wrong, I'm like, when's it coming? You're expecting it. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, it's just part of it. It's just their growth does not exist in comfort ever. You know, I'll share this, right? So right now as I'm retooling my entire new offer, just rebuilding the, from the inside out. I sat my team. I don't know what I've been doing with him yet, but I sat them on the sidelines because there's an energy and an intensity that company needs to have to serve at the highest level and they weren't producing it the way that I needed to do it. I didn't like the way it felt. Now I'm in a place where I have to make

some hard decisions and most likely let these guys go and these are people that I love, okay? Yeah. Because they're not getting it done. But what I did before I make that decision, I went back and made sure that it wasn't the problem, it wasn't them, or that it wasn't the offer. It was them and it wasn't the offer. And what it is, I went down every day this week because I'm on the West Coast, 3.30 a.m., which is 6.30 on the east, I'm taking sales calls. I'm at 3.30 and I'm working. I'm on the phone until 8 o'clock at night on Pacific, which is like 11 there. And I sleep.

I go to the gym. And before this call, I did a sales call at 6 a.m. Right? So I want it. This is what I want the people to see. Like, when you fucking want something, you'll do whatever it takes. And I know that sounds cliche and you can see it on Instagram. But there's a feeling inside that you know you're supposed to have it.

You fucking get it. No matter what. I don't care if it's 2.30 in the morning. I don't care if it's 2.30 in the afternoon on Sunday. You don't stop. Yeah. So you mentioned, you launched IMA comeback. It was 3,000 the first month.

You mentioned earlier, you know, you got to $30 billion in revenue. Like, what did that look like? How did you get it from $3,000 and $30 million? Because that's like we left out some in between there. Yeah, yeah. So the first nine months of IMA comeback in 2018, I didn't think it was going to work. So I did $3,000 in January.

And then September, so January 2018, I did $3,000. September 2018, I did $12,000 a month. That's okay, but that's not $47,000. And that's definitely not going to get it done. So what happened, though, is I took my son down to Florida and I'm looking at my Instagram and all of a sudden this woman starts liking all the pictures of my son. There's fucking like, I'm like, what is going on here? You're like, who's this chick?

I'm single at the time. And sorry, she messaged me. We started talking back and forth. And what happened was I started dating Kendra. I'll spare all the details, right? But she came into my wife. We did 12,000 when we started dating about the end of September. October, I did 32,000.

Same energy, same calls. Nothing changed. All of a sudden I had somebody believing in me. I did 32, 36, 71, 96. So that was, the only thing that happened was the right person pushing me. I didn't feel alone anymore. Then what happened is I invested in a coach. Yeah.

I found it. I didn't pay for any coaching. I found a coach, which was Garrett J. White. He put out this thing called Wake Up Warrior. I'm sorry, big money market boot camp. I paid whatever I needed to go learn how he did it. Fast forward. Let me ask a question on this because this is important.

At the time, do you remember what it cost? to get into the room was 5,000 and there was a room of 165 people and then what he did though was he had 22 spots in his office and it was like 25,000 bucks or something like that and he put the offer and I couldn't fucking get my card up quick enough right so I'm spending about did that stretch you financially at that time um yeah yeah yeah it did well I just had a couple good months right but the money was still going back to the IRS yeah it was tough yeah I say that for a reason because another very important piece of my journey, obviously yours too, is this is again where I think people fuck up and make the mistake is you'll buy some dumb shit and spend money on some dumb shit, but you won't buy the guide who already has the map and the tools to get you where you need to be because you think it's quote unquote too expensive. and there was times in my life where financially

I couldn't afford it or it stretched me or it was uncomfortable, right? Like right now I've got a billionaire. Guy your exit is coming for a billion dollars coaching me, right? And one of the biggest mistakes I've ever made in my life is not asking that guy to coach me sooner. Right? And to your point,

there's been plenty, plenty of times in my life where it was super fucking uncomfortable. but the ROI on the money I spent was just you can't quantify it's in the millions right so I just I want to make a point about that yeah man it for sure stretched me man I'll share another story with you back before I was even like built any of that stuff grant Cardone put out I was selling cars and he had this MP3 how to make $250,000 a year as an automobile salesman was $500 I bought it for $500 I didn't have to $5.3 he was an MP3 he was an MP3 $500 for this thing.

The next day, he put it on sale for $37. So if I went away to one more day, I would have bought it for $37. It didn't matter. I invested into the $500. Just that $500 actually grew my whole entire sales career. Sure. And then it was from there, it was on and on. And Garrett was, Garrett White's the biggest investment that I've ever made in my coaching.

Over the years, I think I'm a little over a million dollars into coaching with him. I don't, I'm not coached by him anymore, but he taught me a lot about high ticket, big money marketing how to how to strategically seduce people to get i mean bro it's like a half a million to be coached by me one-on-one right now because i've been able to earn the right to do that inside of my space and so tight on my my message never would have been able to do that and why i actually paid him a half a million one time if i never paid him that i wouldn't be able to charge it yeah wouldn't learn it wouldn't be able to charge it yeah so um man it's so much good stuff on this so when i end the show i always say um what does

wake up to wealth mean to you, but I want to ask a different question because I think this is important. So there's a lot of people that listen to this that probably struggle with some form of addiction. I mean, look, let's keep it real. You're successful. You're making a shit ton of money. You know, you start drinking. You start doing shit you shouldn't do, whatever. Or if you come into money, you never had it, it's really easy to get into trouble. The girls start thinking you're a lot cuter. You can buy all the shit you never, you know, you never thought was possible to buy. You can, you get access to rooms you didn't have access to, which can get you into

some trouble. Just, number one, Mark can tell you this, is that it's more common than you think if you're struggling with something, right? But for somebody that's out there that's listening and they're dealing with maybe an addiction or an issue, just. Just give them a piece of advice they can walk away with. Yeah, man. So the words that I would like to give people is the greatest gift,

the greatest power that you possess, the ability to choose, right? So you can choose to do something about it or can choose to play the victim. And there's a difference between probably the people that listen to you and somebody who's written off life. If you're somebody that's written off life, then you're kind of fucked. I can't help you. That's just the truth, right? I have no advice other than to figure out what's going to make you feel live and then go to work.

But I would assume anybody who clicks a link and downloads, wake up to wealth, has a desire to make some more money. And those people, and what is wealth? Exactly, right? Wealth isn't just about cash. It isn't just about being rich. It's about the way that you feel. It's about who you are. It's about becoming this person you're supposed to be. So the advice I have for all the people is, number one, when you get up, you make one choice. We've already talked about it. You go forward. You go forward. You go forward. But you make a choice and a decision to look at not where you, like all these things that have been hurting you, all the things that you've been doing. You're disciplined already. You're just disciplined the wrong way. Okay.

So think about these people who have a struggle. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, vaping too much, right? I'm watching too much doom scrolling. That's no different than drinking. It's the same shit. It's the same action. You make a decision and you make a choice that you're no longer going to do this. You want to be controlled by nothing. And then you find a coach, right? Whether it's me, whether it's you, whether it's someone free on YouTube, I don't care. But someone has the life that you want. And what you need to recognize is you're not broke, right? You're not broken. You're not busted. You're not disgust. You might be down, but you're not out. And if you count yourself out, you're fucked. And you will never count yourself out. Go listen.

to the re-listen to the things I've said or go check out some of my content that I put out there. By no means, should I be here. Yeah, no doubt. Nobody would have ever. There's just no, I should be dead. Yeah. Most of the people that I loved are dead from what we did, right? By no means, should I ever be this person?

But you could never tell me that I didn't deserve it. And in the moments when you think you don't deserve it, where people are telling you, oh, you're not good enough or, oh, you can't do this. You're hanging around fucking losers. You need to just know who you are. And you probably don't know who you are yet because you haven't allowed yourself to just say, hey, this is what I'm becoming. If you're hiding in the pain, you're drinking at night, you're doing drugs, you do all

this shit, no one's forcing you to do it. Nobody. Like, nobody can make you fucking put a drink in your mouth. They just can't. Once you make the choice that you're going to win, don't let off the gas. Yeah, and I'll end it with this. So I've had the privilege of meeting a bunch of guys that have been through your program that you have helped.

And it's wild because I communicate, you know, I talked to a lot of these guys. Um, you know, actually kind of frequently. And, uh, it's wild the other day. Like in Facebook memories, one of your guys, like a picture of them came up. And I was like, holy shit, dude. Like that's not even the same person. Like physically they look better. You know, mentally how they're carrying their self is better.

And like you see a picture of them like, yeah, that was pre. I am a comeback. And then now you see this version. Um, it's pretty remarkable. I think it's just, I think it's cool of being able to sit in your room and see the butterfly effect you've had on a bunch of people. And that's pretty fucking awesome. It's something you should be proud of. Yeah, man.

Thank you very much. Sometimes, you know, pushing and pushing for what's next, I forget what we've done. I really do, right? I got to take them in. And it's great to be able to be on here with you because different perspective of what I built. And I know you've always been a friend, a fan and a family, right, for this. And I just really appreciate you having me on here, man. So people are paying attention to this.

How can they get in touch with you? How can they check you out? So, yeah, man, if you're struggling with something, say you're a business owner, an entrepreneur, or a Hollywood executive that's looking to make a change inside of your life that's looking to be coached and want to be part of what we do. You can go to I'macumbach.com and write on there

is an application that you can push, and that's the best way to get into my world. But if you're looking for me, man, unfortunately, I don't hang out a ton on social media, but I do have Instagram. I think it's at Mark Tennyson, Jr., and then I've got Facebook, but Instagram's probably the place

where people, everyone goes. You can send a DM over there. I do have a team that watches it. But the reality is, man, if you want to change your life, you want to be coached, you want to feel some of the energy and the intensity that I have, go to IMAComeback.com and fill out an application. Awesome. Hey, thank you so much for being with us today.

You guys, again, thank you so much for the support of the show. Thank you guys for the growth. And everybody, if you get value out of this, go find Mark and just thank him for taking the time to pour into the audience today. Thanks again, brother. Thanks, man. Appreciate you guys. Hey, let me tell you with my good friend, Jeff Hyatt, over at MSC consultants,

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you haven't done cost segs on, you're paying too much in taxes. MSC's approach to call segs is the answer. Visit them at www.com. That's www.cauxaigs.com and ask for my good friend Jeff Hyatt. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of Wake Up to Wealth. We're sure to appreciate it. If you've done so already, make sure you're subscribed to the show wherever you consume podcast.

This will get updates as new episodes become available. And if you feel so inclined, please leave us a review on Apple Podcast and tell your friends about the show. It is how new people find us. Until next time.