The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Following Your Passion and Learning to Promote Yourself With Roddy Chong

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 25 Dec 2017 07:00:41 -0500

On today’s show we welcome Roddy Chong.

Roddy is an accomplished Asian American violinist and speaker known for his high energy performances with many of the music industry’s most recognized acts.

Roddy has toured with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Shania Twain and Celine Dion and he has performed for audiences all around the world.

He has performed for the President of the United States, the Queen of England, The Pope and Oprah.

We’ll get into why Roddy wanted to quit the violin after pressure from his parents and how he actually did quit the violin for a period of his life.

Roddy tells us about the importance of following a passion coupled with networking. He also goes into the steps that he took to land an audition and play with Shania Twain and Celine Dion.

For all this and more, tune in!

Key Points From This Episode:

Roddy’s early years playing the violin.
Giving up the violin and the college years.
Jobs that Roddy did out of college and the importance of MTV.
How Roddy picked up the violin again and going on his first tour.
Getting fired from The Jars of Clay touring band.
The ‘failure vibe’ and what it felt like.
Getting back up and finding more work.
The power of the library and the books that Roddy loves.
Auditioning and going on tour with Shania Twain.
Reliability as one of Roddy’s biggest strengths.
Starting a career as a speaker and mixing this with music performance.
The principles of always promoting yourself and your work.
Thinking rich and moving up to major league thinking.
Roddy’s Fail On Challenge to our listeners.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I did want to quit, right around 11 years old, I think that’s very common with all kids and the difference with my parents and other parents is that my parents did not let me quit.” — @roddychong

Tweet This

[0:05:28].2]

“Right after my junior year, I kind of stopped playing. I thought that I’m not going to do this professionally.” — @roddychong

Tweet This

[0:09:50].1]

“I was naively positive. Anything that could possibly work, I was like all in, this is going to work. I still am like that a little bit.” — @roddychong

Tweet This

[0:19:04].2]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Roddy Chong — http://www.roddychong.com/

Roody Chong on Twitter — https://twitter.com/roddychong?lang=en

Todd Herman — http://toddherman.me/

Jars of Clay — http://www.jarsofclay.com/

Boyd Tinsley — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boyd_Tinsley

Dave Matthews Band — http://www.davematthewsband.com/

Charlie Daniels — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Daniels

The Devil Went Down to Georgia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_Went_Down_to_Georgia

Kansas — http://www.kansasband.com/

Payback — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payback_(1999_film)

Rebecca Saint James — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_St._James

DC Talk — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC_Talk

Shania Twain — http://www.shaniatwain.com/

Sylvester Stallone — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Stallone

What You Say When You Talk to Yourself — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/321982.What_to_Say_When_You_Talk_to_Yourself

Think and Grow Rich — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30186948-think-and-grow-rich

Blink — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40102.Blink?from_search=true

Celine Dion —http://www.celinedion.com/

Trans-Siberian Orchestra — http://www.trans-siberian.com/index/home

Rob Kosberg — http://robkosberg.com/

Grant Cardone — https://grantcardone.com/

Kevin Harrington — http://kevinharrington.tv/

What They Don’t Teach You in Harvard Business School — https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/467754.What_They_Don_t_Teach_You_at_Harvard_Business_School

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 042

“RC: I did the best that I could which was I typed the whole thing out. So I had like six pages and I had rehearsed it, I did a lot of things wrong and that’s how I’m able to do what I do now very powerfully because I did so many things wrong the first time. Through that, kind of failing in that first one, a lot of good things happened.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:25.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:51.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that knows publicly sharing your failures is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and real entrepreneurs, not the overnight success stories we tend to hear about.

And this is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of Roddy Chong. Roddy is an accomplished Asian American violinist and speaker known for his high energy performances with many of the music industry’s most recognized acts.

Roddy has toured with The Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Shania Twain and Celine Dion and he has performed for audiences all around the world including the President of the United States, the Queen of England, The Pope, Oprah and countless other notable figures and Rob Nunnery of course, actually he performed in San Diego and Todd Herman’s 90 Day Year event and he was amazing. We’ll be discussing why Roddy wanted to quit the violin at the age of 11 after pressure from his parents and how he didn’t see himself doing it professionally.

He discusses the importance of following a passion and networking in order to find opportunity and he also goes into the steps that he took to land an audition and play with Shania Twain and Celine Dion. Really cool stories and really powerful. But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:30.5] RN: There’s a lot I want to dig in to because your story’s incredibly inspiring but just to take it back and to give everybody some context, why the violin, what got you into playing the violin?

[0:02:41.6] RC: You know, I think that’s something that is very common in Asian families and my family growing up was Chinese American and you know, I think my dad was into a – really the pushing for the violin was from my mom. I’ve talked with her about it here and there, she says that I chose the instrument at age two.

I have a hard time believing that, I don’t remember choosing it, I have a hard time believing it, I think that I did choose it somehow and I did see my two year old niece also choose the instrument at age two but I think that’s because she saw me playing it.

It was kind of something that as a family, an Asian family, that’s something that is very typical, that’s why in my speaking event where we met, people laugh when I say that you have two choices, piano or violin and people laugh, either they knew that nerdy Asian guy in school that had to carry around the violin or even Cello or something.

Or Asians in the audience are laughing because either they had that torture done to them or they’re doing it to their kids. I don’t have any kids but if I ever have kids, they are also going to play piano or violin and the idea that my mom said was, if I can get the right side of your brain going, hopefully the left side of your brain will also kind of grow.

I think it was good, I think the best thing that happened was just discipline, just the constant practice and having to do it because I know a lot of kids grow up having to go to the piano lesson or having to go to the violin lesson.

[0:04:14.9] RN: Back then, it’s like, as a kid, you’re like, for most kids, I want to go outside and play, I want to hang out with my friends.

[0:04:19.4] RC: Exactly.

[0:04:20.3] RN: is that how you felt as well?

[0:04:21.4] RC: Exactly, yeah. They let me do that. But before I could catch fireflies or go fishing or those things, play freebie with my friends, I had to practice and it was about 20 minutes. Any ideas of a tiger mom or six hours or you can’t eat until you’re done practicing, that was not what was going on in my family.

I thought it was very good, actually pretty healthy when I was a kid, I thought I was totally wrong because I could see my kids could just play ball right away. I had to practice first and sometimes they were waiting for me to play. Of course now I am thankful for that and my mom did – I talked to her, these are her words. She said, “I did push you but I didn’t force you.”

I didn’t like it growing up, there was just more something I had to do, kind of like take out the garbage or brush my teeth. These are things that you do, I did notice the other kids in my neighborhood, didn’t have to do that. But at the same time, there was a feeling, I don’t know if we actually had a conversation but there’s a feeling that they kind of envied that, that I could play an instrument, I still thought it was dorky.

That was my lot and life as a two year old, seven year old, 11 year old and I did want to quit, right around 11 years old, I think that’s very common with all kids and the difference with my parents and other parents is that my parents did not let me quit, they never said it but the vibe was you kind of don’t have a choice, maybe later but for now, as any 11 year old, you’re going to keep playing this violin.

[0:05:44.9] RN: What did your parents hope to – did they just want you to have that skill because they knew it would serve you? They probably didn’t know you’d go on to be like a rock star, you know what I mean?

[0:05:52.2] RC: Correct, they didn’t know I’d go on in either, did I. I think that they were good parent in exposing me to a lot of things. They allowed me to get involved with sports and things with friends, things with photography, stuff with the park district. I liked animals so things with animals, they exposed me to a lot of things and the violin and music, they knew that it was something that would be important for the development of my brain and especially that character quality of discipline.

Again, it’s just something that’s very culturally normal for Asian cultures and it’s a developmental thing and then also just that character quality of discipline. I think that’s why they did it, we weren’t really into sports, we watched it but it wasn’t like okay, you’re going to play soccer, I remember most of the kids in my area played soccer and it wasn’t something that was going to be for me.

It was more music that was going to be my way and it wasn’t like I had a huge passion for it, it was just something that I did. I’m kind of repeating myself now but that’s how it was.

[0:06:59.7] RN: In terms of – in your childhood, skill wise, were you just heads and shoulders above other kids or were you just kind of average but you just kept going, kept getting better and better?

[0:07:13.9] RC: Well, I was part of a violin academy so this violin academy was in the suburbs of Chicago and it was called The Haigh Levitan Academy of Performing Arts. This woman Betty Haigh is actually still alive. She taught me and she taught my niece and nephew and she just is instilling fear into these kids to play well and she’s really good actually at making kids play advanced pieces at a very young age.

In that school, there were a lot of us that were doing really well, that were playing well. I wasn’t at the top, I was probably right in the middle. My sister and my parents say that I was actually pretty good but I didn’t know that. I could see Carissa or these different people that could play better than me, they could play pieces that were more difficult than me.

I did practice and I felt like I couldn’t do what they were doing. I was not the best, I didn’t feel. I could definitely play better than most people at my public school though, I did not go through the public orchestra program, I did go through the band program though in junior high and high school. Played trumpet and that was great and I was – I’m glad I was put in that academy though because it made me work harder and it was normal to be a little bit better at this instrument and not just an average training, it was an above average kind of training.

[0:08:38.4] RN: Did you have a competitive nature like in that advanced school? You saw people doing better than you, did that drive you to –

[0:08:44.1] RC: That’s a good point. I think that it got instilled into me and I wasn’t the most competitive but yes, in classical music, there is a competitive element placed in there where there’s kind of two types of...

Building an Email List and Always Pushing Forward With Shanda Sumpter

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 18 Dec 2017 07:00:37 -0500

Our guest on today’s show is the wonderful Shanda Sumpter. Shanda is a bestselling author, entrepreneur and lifestyle specialist and the founder of Heartcore Business, a multimillion dollar enterprise.

During our talk, we discuss the tactics Shanda uses to overcome a negative mindset and the importance of mentorship for building a business.

Shanda presents a step by step guide to take participants out of the daily grind and into a life that they actually love.

Shanda shares what she believes to be the most overlooked area that beginners miss when starting their own company.

If you are just starting out, or looking to grow an already established business, Shanda’s contribution is something you have to hear!

Key Points From This Episode:

Shanda’s redefinition of failure and how its ties into excitement.
The journey of this relationship with failure and learning from experiences.
Breaking through fear and getting to grips with your own power.
Shanda’s lowest point and the stress that characterized that period.
Learning how to dream bigger and bigger.
Just how selfish is growing your own company?
Problem solving as a means to developing yourself and your business.
The experience of others believing in and taking a chance on you.
Building an email list as the most vital first step to starting a business.
Coaches and the help they provide at all points of a journey.
How to start building a email list through network and research.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I get excited when I’m failing on something because I’ve actually done something new” — @shandasumpter

Tweet This

[0:04:47].1]

“There’s nothing like training for a half marathon. Who you are in the process of training for that shows you who you actually are inside your business or inside your life.” — @shandasumpter

Tweet This

[0:10:11].3]

“If you can let go of the stress, you can access ideas and you’re just one idea away from success.” — @shandasumpter

Tweet This

[0:11:24].2]

“The only reason why you haven’t done it yet because there is a part of you that believes that somehow it won’t work out.” - @shandasumpter

Tweet This

[0:46:31].2]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Shanda Sumpter on Twitter — https://twitter.com/shandasumpter

Heartcore Business — http://www.heartcorebusiness.com/blog/

Tony Robbin’s Date with Destiny — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/events/date-with-destiny/

Unbound Merino — https://unboundmerino.com/

Sara Blakely — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sara_Blakely

Infusion Soft — https://www.infusionsoft.com/

A Course in Miracles — https://www.acim.org/

Larry Winget — http://www.larrywinget.com/

Andy Drish — https://andydrish.com/

A Perfect Day Formula — https://perfectdayformula.com/

Jessie Itzler — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_Itzler

Living With a Navy Seal for 30 days — https://www.amazon.com/Living-SEAL-Training-Toughest-Planet-ebook/dp/B00U6DNZB2

Roddy Chong — http://roddychong.com/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 041

“SS: I would spend and hour and a half in the parking lot of our real estate firm and I would be coaching people for $50 an hour while $50 for 90 minutes because I couldn’t stop helping them, I just loved it. Then I had that moment of making a decision to jump and I jumped.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:43.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that knows publicly sharing your failures is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and real entrepreneurs, not the overnight success stories and this is simply a platform for their stories. If you get already, my voice is just completely wrecked after a week at Tony Robbin’s Date with Destiny at Palm Beach Florida.

It was an amazing event but the after effect is that I can’t talk very well. Regardless, today’s story is a beautiful one, it is of Shanda Sumpter, Shanda’s a bestselling author, entrepreneur and lifestyle specialist and the founder of Heartcore Business, a multimillion dollar enterprise, through her business coaching book and tailored series of online marketing courses, Shanda presents a step by step system to take participants out of the daily grind and into a life that they actually love.

We discuss the tactics and methods Shanda uses to overcome a negative mindset and the importance of mentorship for building a business.

She goes into the most overlooked area that beginners miss when starting their own company and Shanda outlines in full detail, her actionable strategy for building a new business if she had lost everything today and started over completely.

But first, luckily, all I travel with is a backpack for one reason only it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino, they have clothes made out of Merino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. This means I can travel with less clothes since they clean themselves. Checkout the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere

If you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:42.9] RN: All right, welcome to the fail on podcast, I am sitting down with Shanda Sumpter, we have probably the best backdrop of a podcast in podcast history right now.

[0:02:52.6] SS: I agree.

[0:02:53.6] RN: We’re sitting, you’ll probably hear it in the background and I think there’s a lawnmower going but we are sitting on a bluff in La Hoya which is nice for me because it’s about 200 feet from my house so thanks for coming to me today, I appreciate that.

Just to get into it, usually I like to ask this later on but just in context, what does failure actually mean to you?

[0:03:17.0] SS: Success, I literally just finished leading a call with a few hundred people and now it’s talking about how your connection with stretching, like your connection with working needs to be one of – I wouldn’t say excitement but obsession in the essence, for instance, right now, I’m building out a new product funnel and the back end of all of everything in my company works really well.

We’re working on the front end. Long story short is we got the front end working, the back end stop working. The back end hasn’t stopped working for years. It was like this moment of obsession of, “Wow, when I solve this piece, what’s going to happen?”

The ripple effect of what that means for not only, inside my company but the millions of people that we get to serve. I was saying, you know, you talk about routine or comfort zone, comfort zone is just another version for another language for routine.

People often don’t realize that they’re in a routine of being frustrated as they’re failing at things but failure is, I mean I’m sure, a lot of people on your podcast have talked about this in the essence of, it’s just a part of it. There’s nothing that we ever do that just works, I mean, it just doesn’t happen like that.

That’s how masters get created, right? I get excited when I’m failing on something because I’ve actually done something new and now I actually know what I need to focus on now to fix something, to get to the other side of that thing.

[0:04:52.4] RN: Exactly, it’s a good point. On that note, you said, the back end broke first time, it’s happened in forever. That was for you, that was like, it’s almost like – and I could tell just by talking to you, it was a moment of excitement because you get to solve something and you get to figure out and dig in why it was a challenge and what happened. To prevent it from happening again.

Has that always been kind of your mindset of looking at challenges and getting excited by them or has it been something you’ve developed?

[0:05:20.1] SS: No, I’ve developed. Tony Robbins movie, I thought was, he said something that I thought was brilliant in it and that was that he built himself. I think entrepreneurs have to understand that you build yourself and that’s the cool thing about your podcast is you’re helping people build themselves, right?

No, not at all, I mean, I used to fail and think I was a loser, I would fail and wonder, if this is ever going to happen. You know, not just in being an entrepreneur but being in corporate America. I mean, I had such low self-esteem, I mean, now getting up on stages, it’s crazy that I do what I do because I was, I mean, I’m asking for one of my first raises and I cried.

Because I felt so unworthy, isn’t that strange?

[0:06:01.3] RN: That’s amazing. What was the mindset shift that allowed you to go from then to now?

[0:06:07.6] SS: A combination of studying a lot, you know, John Assaraf was just sitting with my new husband and they were just having dinner together and Ash is a seven or eight time iron man and he was sharing with John, how when he cuts videos because he now owns this hydration company called high burst.

When he cuts videos, how it takes him so many takes. John said, “Well, how long does it take to do an iron man? How much practice do you really put in,” and it was an aha moment hearing Ash share that conversation with me because I was like, you know, imagine if we actually stopped and realized that if we got obsessed with our thing and we were okay with studying which means there’s going to be – as the helicopter goes by.

If you were okay with that, you’d recognize that you just keep getting better. Life doesn’t get easier, business doesn’t get easier, it just doesn’t. You do get better. If you could walk through those stressful moments without getting stressed. I remember when I had nothing, I was losing my house, I was losing my car, it was a really down moment for me and I hadn’t started my business yet but I was in corporate America. Sales commissioned. I had nothing and I remember what got me out of it was not writing what I was grateful for because as grateful for nothing at that moment.

I have never been good at pretending you know? Because if you don’t really believe it, the pretend – it just doesn’t have the same strength. I remember just saying, what’s the worst that could happen right now? It was moving back to Canada and move in with my mom.

Everything in me didn’t want to do that but I still was okay.

[0:07:48.6] RN: You’d have shelter, you’d have food, you weren’t going to die.

[0:07:51.5] SS: Exactly. But we act as if somehow, keeping up with the Joneses, if we don’t make it, we’re somehow less than. If you could get out from that thought process then you can win this game.

[0:08:05.2] RN: How are you able to do that? Because I know – I hear you, Knows the challenge for me as well. But for somebody listening that’s maybe at that point where they’re at a crossroads, on one hand they know they have more in them, another hand, they’re comfortable in a job. How do you break through that shift of asking yourself that question? What’s the worse that can happen and being okay with downgrading your lifestyle or whatever it may be.

[0:08:31.4] SS: Yeah, not everybody’s okay with that but you have to get okay with that. You know, there’s a couple of key thing that I’ve done. First of all, I did get okay with that, I was like – I actually didn’t think I was going to make it anyway so I was like, “What’s the worse that can happen, I’ll move in with my mom, okay, I’m fine then,” it somehow takes the pressure off, if you can get the pressure off you, you stop retracting and you can actually expand.

From that moment, I was actually able to start writing down what I was proud of myself for and why. It’s funny because I read the bible every day now, I’m very spiritual but I just started reading the bible about a year and a half ago. In the bible, it tells you, pride is a horrible thing.

The truth is that back in that time, I had to get connected with my self-worth. I wrote what I was proud of myself for and why. I would write it for 10 minutes twice a day. I’m not kidding you, on day two, all of a sudden I felt invincible. I felt so powerful and so strong, I started asking people for help which is the same equivalent of asking for a sale at that point in time, right?

Whether you’re an entrepreneur or you are in corporate America, I started asking for help or I started asking for the sale. Then somebody ended up lending me money, I was like $5,000, it was enough to pay my mortgage and then just kind of feel the confidence and go after it, there’s things I’ve done in the meanwhile.

I’ve started endurance sports, there’s nothing like training for a half marathon. Who you are in the process of training for that shows you who you actually are inside your business or inside your life. When you’re close to let’s say, your money - It’s really easy to work really hard but working hard doesn’t mean that you actually create an end result that you want because most people work hard for a certain amount of time and then they stop. Train for an endurance race and see your pattern.

Because you might train while feel good and then not train when you don’t feel good or you get a sprained ankle, you’re like, I can’t run anymore because I have a sprained ankle, I can’t train. Well, a pro would just hit the pool. “But I don’t know how to swim,” it doesn’t matter, just go download something online and just do a workout.

Go to a bar class, go lift weights, go jump on a trainer to ride a bike, they’ll keep going, they won’t stop at the thing that gets in their way, they’ll get around it and when you start to learn how to train your brain to be like that, it’s just the same everywhere.

[0:10:59.5] RN: I want to go back to what actually got you – when you’re in corporate America, what actually got you down to that lowest point, what was the catalyst that was like, I can’t do this anymore, was that the situation?

[0:11:12.0] SS: No, I never let go. I just let go of the stress, right? If you can let go of the stress, you can access ideas and you’re just one idea away from success. I mean, you just are. The only thing that guarantees failure is you stopping. If you just create a habit, so I was a great starter, I was a shitty finisher.

You’ve got to become a good finisher to be able to create anything in life. I had this – my only...

Healing Deep Traumas and Discovering Your Big Lie with Jordan Axani

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 07:00:56 -0500

Jordan Axani is a marketing strategist focused on digital authenticity and well-being.

He was once the focus of the most viral, human interest story in the history of the internet. More on that in a bit.

Jordan is currently a writer and key note speaker addressing marketing strategy and personal development.

On today’s show we’ll be talking with Jordan discussing the challenges he suffered with bullying growing up which ultimately led to the development of his current work.

We’ll also discuss the darkest times of Jordan’s entrepreneurial journey and the steps he has taken to climb back on top.

He now works on a project called What’s Your Big Lie, helping people open up about their fears and problems.

Jordan’s story is unique, surprising and inspiring and is definitely one you need to hear!

Key Points From This Episode:

Jordan’s troubles with bullying from an early age.
The long-term affects of this pattern of abuse
Jordan’s feelings looking back at the younger version of himself.
Relationships and Jordan’s general attitude as an adult.
Career mindedness in the wake of trust issue.
The break-up that led to a viral internet story.
What is was like to be an overnight internet celebrity by accident.
Jordan’s most shameful moment and the deep hurt he caused.
How a long path of self-destruction and pain led a new beginning
Working on What’s Your Biggest Lie as a means to self-love
And much more!

Tweetables:

“It takes people to super vulnerable places” — @jordanaxani

Tweet This

[0:07:41].1]

“Who am I to work with kids, but then it blew up” — @jordanaxani

Tweet This

[0:43:56].1]

“I was very deliberate in hindsight about using the term ‘big lie’.” — @jordanaxani

Tweet This

[1:07:19].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Jordan Axani – @jordanaxani

What’s Your Big Lie – disruptt.com/programs/wybl/

Unbound Merino – https://unboundmerino.com/

The New Yorker – https://www.newyorker.com/

Mark Henick https://markhenick.com

Why We Choose Suicide – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmCIJj-v3q8

Harper Collins – https://www.harpercollins.com

Mental Health Association of Canada – https://cmha.ca/

Danny Iny – https://mirasee.com/about-us/danny-iny/

Reddit – https://www.reddit.com/

BuzzFeed – buzzfeed.com

CNN – cnn.com

Pan Am Athlete’s Village – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Pan_American_Games_Athletes%27_Village

Kimmel – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Kimmel

Ellen – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_DeGeneres

The Fast and the Furious – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0232500/

William Morris Endeavor – wmeentertainment.com

The Daily Mail – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ushome/index.html

Inside Edition – http://www.insideedition.com/

Sunshine’s Sachs – https://www.sunshinesachs.com/

Good Morning America – http://abcnews.go.com/topics/entertainment/tv/good-morning-america.htm

Yik Yak – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yik_Yak

Techstars Accelerator – https://www.techstars.com/

Saas – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_as_a_service

Tom Chi – http://www.tomchi.com/

Google Glass – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Glass

BoJack Horseman – http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3398228/

Cameron Herald – https://www.cameronherald.com/

Runa – http://runa.org/

Steve Nash – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Nash

Nick Kusmich – http://www.nicholaskusmich.com/

Elon Musk – https://www.tesla.com/elon-musk

Brad Feld – https://www.feld.com/

Driven – https://www.amazon.com/Driven-Understanding-Harnessing-Entrepreneurs-Athletes/dp/1619616939

Heart Core Business – http://www.heartcorebusiness.com/about/

Using Business For Social Impact and Ditching Your Corporate Job With Adrienne Dorison

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 07:00:22 -0500

Adrienne Dorison is a business consultant, podcast host and the founder of Good Businesses Do Good and The School of Self- Mastery.

Through her work, Adrienne helps entrepreneurs and businesses get profitable while maintaining a commitment to helping others.

After paying off a $48,000 student loan in just six months, Adrienne quit her corporate job to pursue her business full-time. A brave choice, but one she feels she had to make.

She’ll discuss the pivotal moments in her journey along with the ups and downs she’s faced.

Apart from her business life, we hear all about her beloved dog Church, and how home and family life connects to her professional ambitions.

Through the episode we’ll get a first-hand glimpse at what motivates, inspires and keeps her working. And how you can model her approach for your own life.

Key Points From This Episode:

How different cities have different business energy.
Brick and mortar business versus online business.
Balancing working from home and getting out and about.
The practice of self-definition and introduction.
Exactly what Adrienne’s job entails.
Growing businesses with “baked-in giving”.
Intentions of publicly giving versus anonymous donations.
Just how important her dog, Church, is to Adrienne.
Fulfillment and freedom through business.
Matching income with expenses rather replacing salary.
How Adrienne paid off her loan so quickly.
The familial side of business.
Pursuing and helping the causes that you personally care about.
The School of Self- Mastery and switching it outward.
Possibility of a show or a book in the future.
The ripple effect of earning more to give more.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I help business earn more so that they can give more.” — @adriennedorison

Tweet This

[0:05:49].1]

“I think as entrepreneurs right now, we have this really incredible opportunity to change the world very quickly.” — @adriennedorison

Tweet This

[0:06:49].1]

“I usually go in and provide different ideas for how they could give and incorporate it into their business.” — @adriennedorison

Tweet This

[0:08:30].1]

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong in terms of baking giving into your business model.” — @adriennedorison

Tweet This

[0:23:21].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Adrienne Dorison http://adriennedorison.com/

Good Businesses Do Good http://adriennedorison.com/dogood/

Unbound Morino – https://unboundmerino.com/

BNI https://www.bni.com/

EO https://www.eonetwork.org/

Stella –http://www.stellaartois.com/en/home.html

Adoption America – http://www.americanadoptions.com/

Jordan Axani – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/jordan-axani-the-traveller-who-finally-met-his-ms-right-a6779326.html

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 039

“AD: But for now I don’t know that it’s worth it for me to turn that into, like, higher end consulting service because it does take a lot of time if I were to go in and like – “Here’s the all the selections, here’s how we do that”, so it’s really just typically right now gets tacked on to, like, growing the business because if we can help them grow the business then we can show them, like, you can be giving back right now because I think that’s a big barrier to entry for a lot of people.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:28.9] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:54.8] RN: Hello there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Adrienne Dorison. Adrienne is a business consultant, podcast host and the founder of Good Businesses Do Good. She teaches high achieving entrepreneurs to create the habit of success so that they can achieve their goals and find their personal freedom and fulfillment. We will be discussing how Adrienne helps businesses define their most important social causes and designs a business plan to grow, profit and support these causes at the same time.

Very impactful business that she runs, she shares how she paid off $48,000 of debt in just six months through her side hustle, while still in the corporate job and finally, she goes into how a blog post was finally the driving force, the final push that she needed to leave her secure job to work on her own business full time.

But first, luckily, nowadays, all I travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing form an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino, they have clothes made out of merino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

This means I can travel with less clothes since the clothes, literally, if you just hang them out at night, they clean themselves because bacteria doesn’t build up, it’s crazy but it’s true. Checkout the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else and of course, if you’d like to stay up to date on all The Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:54.4] RN: We’re in New York right now, what are you doing here?

[0:02:56.2] AD: I am here for a mastermind. Here meeting with some peers and mentors and just connecting with people. I live in Florida but being in the city, there’s nothing like being here and taking advantage of where you are and the energy here as well as just like so many amazing people to meet.

I’m here for like, three days of nonstop pouring into my business and connecting with other people.

[0:03:23.0] RN: Tampa doesn’t have this energy?

[0:03:25.1] AD: It’s a little slower.

[0:03:26.2] RN: Yeah, I know, totally.

[0:03:27.2] AD: We do have very small local business community in saint Pete which I like. Very different though, yeah.

[0:03:32.8] RN: Are you pretty involved? Like EO or anything like that.

[0:03:35.9] AD: I’m in BNI which is like business networking international and we meet every week. We just moved there about a year ago but trying to get more involved in my local community because I love working with local businesses and brick and mortars and I find that when I market myself online, I do get a lot more online businesses.

I don’t know if that’s just the nature of being online that online businesses are attracted to you so when I market myself locally or connect with people locally, I usually end up working with more brick and mortars and those types of businesses and just kind of like being immersed in the local community so I’m trying to do even more of that since we moved there relatively recently.

But BNI for me has been like even just the practice of getting out of my house because I work from home.

[0:04:21.9] RN: Yeah, no.

[0:04:25.2] AD: Meeting people, yeah, like getting dressed, I usually try to get dressed anyways, at least from the waist up because that’s what people are going to see but I come back from a meeting and my husband’s like, “My god, you’re like full of energy, what happened?”

“Well I met with people and I had a latte from…” – those are both amazing things that usually don’t happen on a daily basis but you know, practicing introducing yourself, you know, before we started recording, we were talking about that. Introducing yourself in the introductions and now that I’m here in New York, I do that, I don’t know, 150 times in the next three days but as someone who works from home and kind of can be in a little silo or a vacuum, I think it is important to practice that in a pretty low stakes environment, right?
Like these people see me every week, get to practice with them. Hey, does this click? Right? If I introduce myself like this or this.

That’s been huge in and of itself, you know?

[0:05:24.4] RN: Totally. Just in terms of we were talking about Clay Herbert here, he does this six word intro, let’s hear what you’ve got so far.

[0:05:32.0] AD: Want to hear my intro? I’ll give you one and then 10 more. No.

[0:05:37.7] RN: You probably have them.

[0:05:40.2] AD: Well, he says, there is no perfect intro, there are only perfect intros, right?

[0:05:45.6] RN: Each for appropriate times with who you’re talking to, that kind of thing.

[0:05:49.1] AD: Yes, which is so helpful. So I help business earn more so that they can give more.

[0:05:53.7] RN: Awesome. What does that mean? Tell me more.

[0:05:56.6] AD: Tell me more, what does that mean? How do you do that, right? These are all the questions that are going to happen.

[0:06:02.8] RN: It’s good because it’s intriguing and I’m like, well, that sounds cool.

[0:06:08.2] AD: Yeah, I have a background in efficiency and performance improvement so I work with small businesses to help them get better results in way less time so that they can ripple and impact the world in even bigger ways.

I want to work with people and businesses who really want to create a social impact so the “give more” is all about what are we then doing with all this money that we’re earning because I’m happy to show you how to earn a lot more money in your business regardless of what that business is.

There’s some fine tuning that we can do and create massive improvements but I also want to know that you’re going to do something really amazing with it. Yeah, they care about people and the world because I think as entrepreneurs right now, we have this really incredible opportunity to change the world very quickly with limitless income, with these – the global economy that we’re in, the technology space that we’re in.

Where we could reach anyone anywhere and sell them our product or service. But then, what are you going to do with it, right?

[0:07:07.6] RN: Totally.

[0:07:07.8] AD: Well, also not like martyring yourself. I think that that’s important, right? I think a lot of people are like, I just have to give everything away? No, I think you should absolutely have your desires and needs met and then there should still be a lot more to give away. I think that people think that they’ll do that once they start earning a lot more money.

You really need to start right away because it’s really building that habit, you know? I guarantee you, if you’re like, I’ll wait till I’m earning a million dollars, it’s going to be really hard to give away $100,000 of your million.

Start when you make $10 and just give away one, see how that goes.

[0:07:42.5] RN: Do you help businesses like actually implement like the plan of how to give?

[0:07:46.9] AD: Yes. Every business is going to be very different and some businesses like, already have give-back models. Some are you know, fine to do that on their own and they don’t ask for a consulting on that piece of their business but others are like, I don’t really –

The most common thing is, it’s like, I don’t have the profit margins to do that yet or I don’t really see how that’s going to work for me in my business model. I’m like, okay, let’s get creative, right? Let’s brainstorm. Typically if I go into a business and consult on what I see are areas of potential improvement for their performance then I already know the structure and the model of their business and I can see what’s going to be an opportunity.

I usually go in and like, here’s like three ideas for how you could give. Here’s a – I also want to make sure that it aligns what they care about, right? There’s a lot of things that I care about but there’s only a few things that I care enough about to do something about.

Right? I think that that’s really important for everyone to know, you don’t have to also judge yourself around what you care about because I think that’s huge for people there. But I don’t care about the same thing or I don’t care about – I’m sure they care, not enough to do something about.

You know, this specific thing in a third world country.

[0:09:07.4] RN: Totally.

[0:09:08.2] AD: I spoke with someone, one of my clients who was like, I feel bad or selfish that I care about adoption in The United States and I’m like, “That’s amazing, there’s nothing wrong with that”, right? You don’t have to judge yourself about what it is you care about because I think that we all – just like we all have like unique gifts in our businesses.

We all have something that for some reason or another in our life, we care about that thing more than other things.

[0:09:37.9] RN: It’s okay, right?

[0:09:38.4] AD: We need that diversity because that’s how we’re going to help all of these things rise. That’s part of what we do too, is like understanding what do you care enough about to do something about, how is it going to be baked into your business model while also keeping you profitable because long term sustainability of the business is also very important for me because you can’t just give away all your money and then not going to be in business anymore.

[0:10:00.6] RN: And you can’t give anymore.

[0:10:02.1] AD: Exactly, you can’t give anymore money which is not our goal, right? Making sure that it’s sustainable inside the business and then making sure that you know how to position it for your market, right?

Because a lot of people are like, “But this has nothing to do with my clients or what my clients care about”. Okay, there are certain things that we could work into that to communicate that message, right?

[0:10:22.0] RN: Do you mind sharing like a real life example?

[0:10:23.6] AD: Example? Yeah, one of my clients, she really cares about Rhinoceroses.

...

Nerds Helping Nerds Get Fit With Steve Kamb

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 27 Nov 2017 07:00:49 -0500

Steve Kamb is a fitness instructor, publisher and writer, best known for promoting Superhero Workout Regimes and the paleo diet at his website nerdfitness.com.

Nerd Fitness is now a booming business and worldwide fitness community dedicated to helping nerds and desk jockeys level up their lives and their fitness.

Steve is also the author of the book, Level Up Your Life: How To Unlock Adventure And Happiness By Becoming The Hero Of Your Own Story.

In addition to his writing and coaching, Steve has also guest lectured at Google, Facebook, Ted X Emery and many other places.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing Steve’s high school experience that sparked his motivation for working out and led him on his journey to creating Nerd Fitness.

He’ll discuss the deciding moment when he was ready to break free from his nine to five and focus solely on creating the business.

Steve also shares his advice for growing an audience, managing remote teams and how to transition from a full-time job to your own passion project.

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out how Steve ended up in New York.
Steve reveals the genesis of Nerd Fitness.
The 30 days that transformed Steve’s life.
Why getting certified didn’t help Steve much.
How working at Six Man propelled Steve’s writing.
How Steve used his writing to grow Nerd Fitness.
What made Steve quit his job and pursue Nerd Fitness.
Letting go of ego and doing odd jobs for extra cashflow.
How Steve ended up painting a set for Drake’s music video.
Don’t wait until your business plan is perfect – just start!
Why Steve advises us to start something on the side.
Find out why Steve cried on the release of his first ebook.
How ebooks sustained Nerd Fitness for four years.
Mixing Mr. Robot conspiracy theory with fitness.
How Steve manages his remote team of ten.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I was the skinny, scrawny, small nerd growing up.” — @stevekamb

Tweet This

[0:10:25].1]

“When I cracked the code, I wanted to help other people like me crack the code as well.” — @stevekamb

Tweet This

[0:12:13].1]

“I Googled “nerd and fitness” and nothing popped up.” — @stevekamb

Tweet This

[0:12:45].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

The Rising Heroes – https://www.nerdfitness.com/rising-heroes/

Steve Kamb on Twitter – https://twitter.com/stevekamb

Steve Kamb on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekamb/

Nerd Fitness – https://www.nerdfitness.com/

Six Man – https://www.sixthman.net/

The Beginner’s Guide To The Paleo Diet by Steve Kamb – https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-the-paleo-diet/

Level Up Your Life: How To Unlock Adventure And Happiness By Becoming The Hero Of Your Own Story on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Level-Your-Life-Adventure-Happiness/dp/1623365406

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 038

“SK: I ended up getting a personal trainer certification, not because I wanted to become a trainer but rather I wanted to have a piece of paper that I thought would be really important for some reason to convince people on the internet to take me seriously and it turns out, nobody cares. Like, “Can you get me results? Are somebody that I can trust and somebody that I can believe and you’re real?” I found out very quickly that was more important.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:24.6] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:51.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Steve Kamb, Steve is a fitness instructor publisher and writer, best known for promoting Superhero Workout Regimes and the paleo diet at his website nerdfitness.com which is now a booming business and worldwide fitness community dedicated to helping nerds and desk jockeys level up their lives and their fitness.

He’s also the author of the book, Level Up Your Life: How To Unlock Adventure And Happiness By Becoming The Hero Of Your Own Story. In addition to his writing and coaching, Steve has also guest lectured at Google, Facebook, Ted X Emery and many other places. In this chat, we’ll be discussing Steve’s high school experience that sparked his motivation for working out and led him on his journey to actually creating Nerd Fitness.

He’ll discuss that a deciding moment when he was ready to break free from his nine to five and focus solely on creating the business and Steve also shares his advice for growing an audience, managing remote teams and how to transition from a full-time job to your own passion project.

But first, luckily, all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing form an innovative Toronto apparel company called unbound merino, they have clothes made out of merino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to wash it. Yes.

This means I can travel with less clothes since the clothes clean themselves but checkout the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else. And of course, if you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways form each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:00.3] RN: So, in New York City, why are you here, why in New York City?

[0:03:02.9] SK: If you’ll notice here on the walls, this makes for great radio by the way, I have a Captain America shield hanging on my wall and Captain America hanging above my desk where I work from. The funny official answer is, Steve Rogers AKA captain America is from New York City. Where else should I be for a scrawny guy named Steve that was really trying to get bigger and stronger and become Captain America.

No, the reality is.

[0:03:31.8] RN: That wasn’t the reality?

[0:03:34.1] SK: The reality is that I’ve been running a company called Nerd Fitness for seven years now. Two years ago, I came up to New York City. I was living in Nashville at the time. Came to New York City to meet with my book publisher and I’ve been to New York a whole bunch of times, I was like, “Why would anybody live here? It’s big and expensive and there’s people everywhere.”

I decided that week that I was coming up, it’s like, “I’m really going to give New York City a chance.” Instead of coming in and out for a day or two which is what I had done in the past, I gave it a real chance. I rented a place for a week, I setup appointments with friends that I knew, I went out to eat good dinner. I went out to the park, I met up with heroes of mine in the internet business space.

I just had the best week ever and I went back to Nashville and I was like – I was only two months into a 12-month lease and I was like, “Crap. I think I need to move to New York.” I think another month went by and I realized I was like, “I’m mentally am already in New York. Physically I’m still in Nashville.”

“Mentally I’m there. What am I waiting for?” Within two weeks after I made that decision, I had sold all of my stuff, I had found somebody to rent out my apartment, anything that didn’t fit in my Jeep was gotten rid of, donated or sold and I drove in to New York City and rented an AirBNB for a month and as soon as I found an apartment, sold my car and I’ve been here for two years and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

[0:04:55.7] RN: Was it more so the city or the kind of community like you said, you were here that week and you met with a lot of good people and it was like –

[0:05:01.4] SK: Yeah, it was the community, like I said, I was trying to think bigger with Nerd Fitness and I had a few mentors and a lot of college friends actually here in New York City and I knew that anytime I wanted to meet up with somebody, they were always coming to New York City at some point.

Anytime you want to meet somebody, at some point in the next 12 months, they’re going to be here and that’s somebody that likes to sit on my butt and read books – I like when I’m here, I like being here. It’s kind of nice that everybody has to come through so I get to see everybody individually instead of only seeing them in a chaotic three day conference that everybody else is at.

You get to have those one on one moments with a lot of people that are visiting just for a few days.

[0:05:43.4] RN: I feel like, I was talking to Nick Teraso, I know we talked before we got on the air that you know, a mutual friend of ours. I was talking to him because him and I had this in common like socially awkward and like, it kind of social angst and big setting with a lot of people.

It sounds like you’re the same but I find it interesting that we all find our little ways to find deep connection like for him, he does this flight adventures, right? Where he takes somebody like his reasoning behind this was beautiful.

I can meet whoever I want because it’s very tempting for me to reach out to one of my heroes and say “Hey, do you want to fly to Connecticut today, we’ll be back by the afternoon.” That kind of thing and he’s like, well then they’re stuck in this little cockpit with me, they can’t go anywhere so that’s just like an instant bond.

It’s a really deep connection, same kind of reason like I do the podcast because I go talk to people I really admire and like, it’s the same thing. It’s deeper connection.

[0:06:30.8] SK: Speaking of Teraso, did you know he is a phenomenal musician?

[0:06:34.6] RN: I did.

[0:06:35.6] SK: I had no idea, I had met him and hung out with him a few times and then he invited me to this charity event, him and another friend of his, Nick Ganju who is – I showed up to this event and Ganju was on stage in full Prince outfit just crushing Purple Rain and then Teraso comes out and sang U2 and nailed it. I was like, I’d hung out with these guys a handful of times and they were like, “I’m doing this event.”

It’s like, “Okay,” you’re like “Ha, ha. Of course you are. You’re going to play Free Falling on your guitar? Wait, you guys are actually good at music? Okay, that was not expected.” Yeah, two really funny guys.

[0:07:17.5] RN: What were you doing in Nashville?

[0:07:18.8] SK: I went to college in Nashville actually. I went to college at Vanderbelt University and after college, I actually moved to San Diego for about a year and a half and when I was in San Diego, I had the genesis for Nerd Fitness. I was working a crappy job and ended up picking up The Four-Hour Workweek on my lunch break and read it cover to cover in two days and like Neo discovered the Matrix existed.

There’s this completely different world out there that I am completely unaware of.

[0:07:47.7] RN: What was the crappy job?

[0:07:48.8] SK: I worked for a construction equipment sales and rentals company.

[0:07:52.9] RN: Pretty crappy.

[0:07:54.6] SK: Not to belittle anybody, obviously that does that, it takes a tremendous amount of skill and expertise and knowledge in that area and obviously I was working for this company just before the bottom fell out of the construction market back in 2007/2008.

It was tough, it was real cutthroat and sales is not my cup of tea. I very quickly learned that was not for me and started Nerd Fitness on the side and ended up from there, moving to Atlanta and then I traveled a whole bunch and ended up back in Nashville for a few years because I love music.

Here in the apartment I have a banjo on the wall, a violin, a guitar, keyboard. I like to make a lot of noise, I’m never good at it but I like to make a lot of noise so that’s how I ended up back in Nashville.

[0:08:38.0] RN: I actually saw you on your LinkedIn profile and I saw you worked for Six Man and crazy enough, before I got into what I’m – before my last two businesses advertising companies. I was in this period of trying to figure out what to do and I’m originally from Atlanta so – I saw Six Man, I don’t remember where I found them from but I saw they put on this amazing cruises with all these bands.

I can start that business. You just need capital to rent out the cruise ship and then to get this bands and I was like, that’s like – it was a very clear focus for me, I was like, “I can do that” and I obviously didn’t but I just loved the model and I thought like it seemed like a really cool startup company in Atlanta, right?

[0:09:19.9] SK: Yeah, Andy Levine, the owner of former owner of Six Man, you know, they were acquired in a kind of like an amazon/Zappos type experience with cruise lines a few years back but Andy has been a mentor to me, really, since the first day I started working there.

It’s funny, a lot of other companies have come along to try to do what they do and Six Man just does it in such a way – they care and they have done such an amazing job with community building, that the artists that they work with, when they do this events, you know, most of them refuse to work with other companies trying to do similar things.

Just because Six Man actually treats both the artist with respect and the customers and the fans of those bands treats them with respect too. I learned a lot while working at Six Man about community building and taking care of the customer. I applied as much of that – I still applied as much as that as I could to Nerd Fitness.

[0:10:16.6] RN: Got you. Give me like the genesis of Nerd Fitness? Where did it come from, what made you interested in that and how did you actually start growing and building it?

[0:10:26.6] SK: Sure. I was, as I eluded to earlier, I was the skinny, scrawny, small nerd growing up. I would escape into as many games and books and movies as I could, I went through Accutane twice in high school. Puberty hit me very late. I was five feet tall and 120 pounds or something by the time I think I was like a sophomore in high school. It was tough.

Junior year I finally hit a growth spirt and went out for the basketball team and got cut, mostly because I was terrible at basketball. In my head, it was because I was too skinny. I was like, “I’m going to go to the gym and I’m going to start working out.”

I went to the gym, I had no idea what I was doing and ended up spending two years of high school, four years of college, training and going to the

How To Turn A Selfie Into $250,000 With John Romaniello

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 07:00:15 -0500

John Romaniello is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most highly regarded experts in the fitness industry today.

He has written for a myriad of publications, ranging from Men’s Health to Fast Company, and is also the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of digital products.

He’s also an angel investor and serves as an adviser to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies.

Ever wondered how a first-time author could get a seven-figure book deal? Well, John is that kind of guy. In this episode, we discuss John’s first highly successful product launch and hear how he made $250,000 from a single selfie.

John also shares how he builds strong relationships with his audiences through his writing and storytelling process. We discover how John balances writing three books at one time and why talking about butt sex and Harry Potter has helped him grow a loyal following.

Lastly, we find out about his plan for a full immersion writing retreat workshop. And John shares why he decided to give up masturbating and buy a stuffed llama (and much more of course).

By the end of this entertaining episode, you will have a myriad of helpful tips to lead a more authentic business and life.

Key Points From This Episode:

The 7-year-old selfie that landed John $250,000 in revenue.
How John launched his first product from his mom’s dining room table.
The power of the non-pitch and how it propelled John’s business.
Why everyone wants a story – even when it’s written in the back of a cab.
Learn more about John’s history as a Dungeons & Dragon and writing nerd.
Don’t miss John’s upcoming writer’s retreat in the Hamptons.
The article John wrote about Tim Ferris, that Tim Ferris loved.
John’s secret to successfully building his audience.
Butt sex, Harry Potter and the value of just being yourself.
Interacting with your customers on the days of normality.
Why John believes Voldemort could have crushed it on Tinder.
Find out how John recommends keeping track of thoughts.
Hear more about John’s upcoming three books.
Why John decided to give up masturbation and pornography.
Meet Carlos: The stuffed llama John travels with.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Nobody knows that mama Roman was serving my buddy and I chicken cutlets as we’re about to bring in thousands of dollars.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:14:35].1]

“Storytelling is the thing that I’ve trained to do every single day my entire life.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:18:00].1]

“If there’s one rule you should try to apply to your life, it is to take pleasure in the violent exposure to your own ignorance.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:24:43].1]

“Let me tell you about butt sex and the Game of Thrones.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:36:35].1]

“The most interesting thing is when you zig when everyone else is zagging.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:37:25].1]

“I personally believe that it would be criminal to not share every half clever thing that tumbles into my head.” — @JohnRomaniello

Tweet This

[0:43:17].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

The Perfect Day Formula by Craig Valentine – https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Day-Formula-Control-Your/dp/1619613557

How A First Time Author Got A Seven Figure Book Deal – https://tim.blog/2013/04/15/how-to-get-a-book-deal/

Neil Strauss’s book The Game – https://www.amazon.com/Game-Penetrating-Secret-Society-Artists/dp/0060554738

Winning The Story Wars by Jonah Sachs – https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Story-Wars-Stories-Future/dp/1422143562

Everything by Joseph Campbell – https://www.amazon.com/joseph-campbell/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Ajoseph%20campbell

Make Love not Porn by Cindy Gallop – https://blog.ted.com/cindy_gallop_ma/

John Romaniello Website – http://www.johnromaniello.com/

Roman Fitness Systems – http://romanfitnesssystems.com/

John Romaniello on Twitter – https://twitter.com/johnromaniello

John Romaniello on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/OfficialJohnRomaniello

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 037

“JR: I recently got a vape and I have no idea what the dosage is that I should be using and I just got blasted last night. Not realizing that I would not, it’s also like – it’s like a strain that affects your body and I sat and I just – I was glued to the couch watching Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows part two and I just found my mind wandering and for four hours, after the movie ended. I was just like, man, if Voldemort was born like 60 years later, probably wouldn’t have started this cult, probably just would like played a lot of X Box, maybe after high school he would have like gotten in good shape, crush it on Tinder.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:41.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:06.7] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

And today’s story is of John Romaniello. John is a New York Times bestselling author and one of the most highly regarded experts in the fitness industry today. He has written for a myriad of publications ranging from Men’s Health to Fast Company and is also the author of hundreds of articles and dozens of digital products.

He’s also an angel investor and serves as an adviser to nearly a dozen fitness and tech companies. We’re going to be discussing John’s first highly successful product launch and the $250,000 selfie story that came as a byproduct years later. He’s also going to share how he builds strong relationships with his audiences through his writing and storytelling process. Finally, how John balances writing three books at one time and his plan for a full immersion writing retreat workshop and much more.

But first, luckily, all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing form an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino, they have clothes made out of merino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. This means I can travel less since the clothes clean themselves.

Check out the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:59.2] RN: Let’s talk about this $250,000 selfie.

[0:03:02.2] JR: Let’s talk about the $250,000 selfie. Okay, this is a story about a story and the story is that, I like money entrepreneurs, I’m not as responsible with certain things as I should be and creating content is one of those things, right? You get in your head and I’ve been really trying to be more diligent with Instagram and building my Instagram and I see what some of my friends are doing.

I don’t take a lot of selfies, I’m not good at it. And not because I don’t like – I’ve never met a mirror I didn’t like but for whatever – every time I take a selfie, I look at them, I’m like, my nose can’t be that fucking big. I don’t have the skillset and so there’s a folder in your iPhone titled selfies and it organizes them by date and I just went into that because selfies are like – if you want to build your Instagram, you got to post a lot of selfies, people want to see you.

I clicked on it and it brought me to the first selfie I ever took which was on February 20th, super early in the morning, 3:30 in the morning in 2010. I lived my entire life until 2010, never needing to take a selfie and then at some point, I’m being on the cusp of millennialism took over. I’m a story teller by nature and so I thought, “I’m going to post this selfie and tell this story.” The story of the selfie is that it was taken very late at night during the first product launch I ever did.

I had been in the internet marketing fitness world for a little while, I had been doing some online coaching and then it was time to launch my product and so the selfie is the frame where I essentially tell the story of this product launch where I had been working on it for months and everything’s coming to fruition.

You know, I launch what was then called Final Phase Fat Loss, it was a series of ebooks to help people lose the last 10 to 15 pounds and just right there, you know, it’s a really tight niche and the product had everything it needed. The copy was really great, the hook was good, the story was good, I’d spent a lot of time on it, I was very proud of it.

[0:05:08.2] RN: Did you write it?

[0:05:08.8] JR: I did, it was the first piece of copy I ever wrote and that was how I learned that I was a good copywriter because I saw what everyone else did, people sent me, my affiliates who were going to promote the product, sent me a lot of information and they’re just – there was a list of these 11 things that one needs to have in this order and I did it and I went in and I killed it.

It was a lot of very satisfying moments leading up to the launch where everyone was sort of nervous because I had never done this before and I sent the copy to Craig Ballantyne who was one of my mentors and then he sent it to another one of our affiliates. Mike Garry who – a very successful guy.

Had like a 900,000 person list in 2010. The subject line was “Holy shit.” I was CC’d and then the body was just “Read this” and a link to the sales page and I was like, “I guess I did well.” We got all these affiliates promoting, it’s going crazy, you know, I had been running a successful personal training business, blah-blah-blah, I don’t want to tell like the origin story of my business.

The launch went very well. And, you know, it’s this moment where your life is changing and you’re checking, you click bank account and it’s like $120,000, you check it again and it’s $125,000.

[0:06:19.5] RN: Kind of refresh game.

[0:06:20.1] JR: Yeah, the refresh game. But overall, the launch did like $465,000 in revenue, which was the biggest for a fitness ebook launch at that time. That was my goal, I really wanted to just come in and swing my dick around and be like, “I’m fucking here to party guys” and my buddy, Joe Marin who partnered with me on the launch had done the most prior to that like $330,000.

We came in and we broke that. At some point, you know, I realized how my life was changing and you know, the fact that –

[0:06:50.6] RN: This is a written story that you’ve written out?

[0:06:53.5] JR: Yeah, I’m in the cab, I flew to Mexico for my buddy’s wedding, my buddy Joey Persia who is in my Mastermind, he asked me to officiate his wedding. I’m driving to – from the Cancun airport in the back of a cab Tulum which is an hour and a half drive, looking for Instagram content because I don’t want to just start posting Mexico selfies and be an asshole.

I find the selfie and now, in the cab on my phone, I’m writing out the story, talking about the selfie which essentially is the story of the launch and how the online business bloomed around that.

Yeah, it wound up sort of leading me to talk about how coaching was very valuable and how – I just really want to tell the story because the main part of that story is this: People know the legend of Roman and they know that chubby kid, thick guy, they know, I came out swinging with Final Phase Fat Loss.

A lot of people don’t know is that I launched that product and this is the important part from my mother’s dining room table. I had been in a serious relationship, like why I got started in the online business and when it ended, we had lived together, I needed to move out and I was sort of –

In that like really crazy grind mode wherein I would get up at five in the morning, train clients at six, you know, I’d be out until nine PM and then I would get home and write content and work on the product.

Part of it was like I wanted to save a little bit of money but there was really this thing where I was like – I don’t need to – I’ll just move in with my mother, I moved back in at home and licked my wounds and you know –

[0:08:31.6] RN: How old were at this time?

[0:08:32.2] JR: I was 27.

[0:08:33.1] RN: That’s a tough ego hit, right?

[0:08:34.1] JR: It’s a tough ego hit but you know, now, telling everyone – that’s always the part of intentionally left out of...

How To Grow Any Business With A Bestselling Book With Rob Kosberg

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 13 Nov 2017 07:00:00 -0500

Rob Kosberg is a marketing and brand building expert and the founder of Best Selling Publishing. He’s a bestselling author and a syndicated radio show host that has also done over $250 million dollars in negotiated real estate transactions. Rob now specializes in helping his clients become the go-to experts in their respective fields.

Through his trademarked Publish. Promote. Profit. Program, Rob helps his clients to create their own professional bestselling book.

He then teaches them how to use their book to grow their income via speaking engagements, free publicity and lead generation strategies.

In today’s episode, we will be discussing Rob’s rise and fall in the real estate market and how he regained his confidence and totally rebuilt himself after riding the housing market all the way to the ground.

Rob also shares the simple, yet effective business model he used to promote his first book and build his initial client list. Finally, Rob discusses the bold guarantee and strategy that he uses to separate himself from publishers and helps his clients become bestselling authors as well.

Key Points From This Episode:

Rob’s journey into entrepreneurship from a family of entrepreneurs.
How Rob got his real estate license at 18 and started selling houses.
Why it was all about the money when Rob first started in real estate.

The business collapse Rob faced during the financial crash.
Going from $100 million in yearly transactions to selling everything on Craigslist.
How Rob took the fall from business owner to house hustler.
Find out why Rob was encouraged to write his book.
How Rob used his book to get his business back off the ground.
Why Rob sold his business and got into Best Seller Publishing.
Discover what makes Best Seller Publishing unique.
Publish. Promote. Profit: The three phases of Best Seller Publishing.
How Rob has landed authors on TV shows, elite magazines and radio.
Knowing when to quit versus when to carry on.
Why we need to be reminded that money comes from people.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I was the kid, the nine-year-old out in the snow knocking on someone’s door and saying, “Hey, I want my $2.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:02:58].1]

“If you find something that everyone is making money and run, because eventually it’s going to collapse.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:08:33].1]

“It was hard on us. Really hard. We took art off the wall to sell, to have Christmas presents.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:12:23].1]

“I went from owning these companies to now just hustling real estate.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:13:20].1]

“When you get a diversity of smart opinions, it brings clarity. It really does.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:33:00].1]

“So many people, especially in this generation, want a way to extract money without the people.” — @robkosberg

Tweet This

[0:39:50].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Rob Kosberg — http://robkosberg.com/

Rob on Twitter — https://twitter.com/robkosberg

Rob on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/robkosberg/

Unbound Merino — https://unboundmerino.com/\

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 036

“RK: If you’re decent at marketing and you’ve tried X, Y and Z and you can’t make it work, then the market is telling you that you’re trying to do something that the market just is not interested in.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:17.0] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast, where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.1] RN: Hey, there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn, but it’s also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs. This is a platform for their stories. Today’s story is of Rob Kosberg.

Rob is a marketing and brand building expert, a bestselling author and a syndicated radio show host that has also done over $250 million dollars in negotiated real estate transactions. Rob specializes now in helping his clients become the go-to experts in their respective fields. Through his trademarked Publish. Promote. Profit. Program, Rob helps his clients to create their own professional bestselling book, and then teaches them how to use that book to grow their income via speaking engagements, free publicity and lead gen strategies.

We’ll be discussing Rob’s rise and fall in the real estate market and how he regained his confidence and totally rebuilt himself after riding the housing market all the way to the ground. The simple, yet effective business model Rob used to promote his first book and build his initial client list. Finally, Rob discusses the bold guarantee strategy that he uses to separate himself from publishers and helps his clients become bestselling authors.

First, luckily all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only. It’s clothing from innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino. They have clothes made out of merino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. This means I can literally just travel with less clothes as they stay clean themselves.

Channel the show notes page for exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else. If you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for a newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:34.8] RN: Take us back to the first time that somebody actually handed you money – not necessarily handed you, but sent you money, gave you money in exchange for a product or a service that you created.

[0:02:43.5] RK: Yeah. I can think of a couple things. I’ll go back a long way to the roots first.

[0:02:48.8] RN: Let’s go.

[0:02:50.2] RK: One of my first jobs – I mean, this is going way back, but delivering newspapers. You think, you work for somebody else, but the reality is I was the kid, the nine-year-old out in the snow knocking on someone’s door and saying, “Hey, I want my $2.” You know what I mean? I had an envelope and I had to send the money in to the newspaper.

[0:03:12.6] RN: Doing collections too.

[0:03:13.3] RK: I was doing collections, dude. That was the first time. My family, I kind of come from a family of entrepreneurs. I got my real estate license at 18. That was really my first experience of being self-employed and making some big checks, because of work that I did.

Now that’s, again, more of a service than it is an actual product, but same, I think kind of idea. Because I did that through college, paying my way through college, selling real estate, owning a Corvette, I owned three houses at the time. At 19 years old that was pretty cool. It seem like it anyway.

[0:03:55.8] RN: Hustling out of the game. Were you raised in that kind of environment where your parents taught you to be an entrepreneur, or taught you to look for opportunity?

[0:04:03.8] RK: It was by osmosis, right? I don’t know that we ever had a time where I was taught that stuff. But my grandparents owned gas stations in Washington DC. So I mean, they got pictures of me as an infant on the hood of the car, with the hood open, with my feet dangling in the engine while they’re working on the car. I also grew up a gear-head and got my first car at 14. I had two cars before I had a driver’s license. I grew up in Central Florida at that time, so in the redneck places. You could drive around without a driver’s license.

Anyway, yeah, I mean I think it was by osmosis. I watched them out there hustling with their gas station and bringing people in and growing that business. Then my dad opened up a real estate company when we moved to Florida and the real estate company was a whole other avenue of doing the exact same thing, but now it was more about the service of real estate, rather than the service of pumping gas.

[0:05:05.9] RN: Right. Just a different industry.

[0:05:08.5] RK: Yeah.

[0:05:08.9] RN: Got it. Take us to that journey. 19-years-old, successful already, cars. Where did you go from there?

[0:05:15.9] RK: Yeah. I mean, my goal at that time was I wanted to go to law school and be a lawyer. Not because I wanted to be a lawyer, who really wants to be a lawyer? Although maybe there’s someone listening that does.

[0:05:28.1] RN: Yeah. Reconsider if you’re listening. Reconsider.

[0:05:31.7] RK: I thought this is a great way. I loved aspect of it. I thought this would be a great way to have my own business. It was all about having my own business and making money. I started making so much money in real estate and the mortgages that I was like, “Why am I thinking about doing – going to law school?” At that point, I got my bachelors in a worthless field, a Political Science degree.

[0:05:55.0] RN: You’re not using that today?

[0:05:56.3] RK: I’m not using it very much. I tried to stay away from politics as much as I can. Then when I decided not to pursue a law degree, I was actually accepted to law school when I had taken the LSAT a couple of times. When I decided not to, I kind of went all in on mortgage and real estate. Look, that was super lucrative and had a great run in that and really enjoyed it. Remember, getting your license at 18 it was all about the money for me at that point, you know what I mean?

Just prior to that, I was a bellhop, bellman at a hotel, a nice hotel in South Florida. It was a intercontinental hotel and we had a lot of celebrities come and go. So I made really big tips, but I had never seen a check, like when I sold my first house. I was like, “This is as much money as I would’ve made all summer,” and I made pretty good money as a bellman. In my second month, I sold five homes and I was like, “What? This is great. This is easy.” Yeah, so it was all about the money.

As you get a little bit older it’s like, “Okay, I think I can make money in different ways.” It becomes, at least for me maybe I’m a slow learner, but it became more about the meaning also, you know what I mean? Which we were talking about that before.

[0:07:17.2] RN: Right, right. So on this real estate journey, did you have that realization while you were running this company, or did this company come to – I mean, where was this company at when you started having the realization that maybe there is more to it than this?

[0:07:32.1] RK: We were crushing it. Yeah, we were doing fantastic. It was like golden handcuffs, you know what I mean? I was making too much money –

[0:07:40.9] RN: To walk away from.

[0:07:41.6] RK: Yeah and of course, I was also living the lifestyle that –

[0:07:45.5] RN: So expenses were high.

[0:07:46.6] RK: Oh yeah. Expenses were high. I was enjoying the money, I owned real estate all over the place. Had nice cars and a big home and kids in private school and all that, but I was like, “You know, I mean, this is not — I’m pushing through.” It was a grind. I was looking for an exit. Not quite the exit I had, but I was looking for an exit.

[0:08:10.6] RN: Sure. We’re only laughing because we talked about this beforehand. But walk us through what that exit look like and what happened?

[0:08:18.6] RK: Yeah, I mean it looked like the financial crisis. I was in South Florida and –

[0:08:22.6] RN: 2007 and 2008.

[0:08:23.7] RK: Yup. Yup. The companies all in the 2000s were crushing it. We did a lot of advertising, but in those days everybody was making money in real estate, which is always a bad sign. If you find something that everyone is making money and run, because eventually it’s going to collapse.

Everyone was making money in real estate at that time and our companies were doing over a $100 million a year in transactions. I had three primary businesses: real estate sales, mortgage lending and then the actual title escrow. But of course, they were all wrapped up in a house having to sell.

When the financial crisis hit, the kind of real estate that we were doing, which was primarily luxury property, lending mortgages has shut down completely. Home values in Palm Beach County, which is where I lived and worked, that market got hit 50% to 60% drops in values, which who would’ve thought? I mean, that had never happened before in my lifetime and it may never happen again. Certainly not like that. Just totally blindsided by it. We saw maybe a dip coming, but not something to that effect.

When lending shut down, then the only houses that we’re selling were cash. That meant that there was a lot of inventory and supply and demand, so the whole thing kind of collapsed on itself. That ended up being my exit. I had 25 employees and 6,000 square foot of office space and desks and phones and computers. There I am sitting in my office by myself, with people coming because I put an ad on Craigslist to come take my stuff away. They’re buying it for 5, 10 cents on the dollar.

[0:10:00.4] RN: What was your mindset at this point?

[0:10:03.5] RK: Depressed.

[0:10:04.3] RN: This is your first real setback, right? Like in terms of your business journey?

[0:10:08.3] RK: Absolutely. No doubt.

[0:10:11.2] RN: I mean, how low is that low? I mean, were you financially on the personal side fine? Even though –

[0:10:16.4] RK: No, I was not because I had held on way too long. I took money, hundreds of thousands of dollars out of my savings to keep the business going thinking that, “This can’t keep going this way.”

[0:10:31.1] RN: Right. “It will turn around sometime.”

[0:10:31.9] RK: This has to turn around. We rode it all the way to the bottom. Whereas, I had millions of dollars in...

Making The Impossible, Possible With Steve Sims

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 06 Nov 2017 07:00:11 -0500

Steve Sims is the founder of the luxury concierge company, Bluefish.

Ever wanted a private underwater submersible tour of the Titanic? Or maybe a private dinner in the Sistine Chapel with a performance by Andrea Bocelli? Or maybe you just wanted to be married in the Vatican by the pope?

Steve is known for being able to make the impossible, absolutely possible for his clients. There’s nothing Steve Sims can’t get, including his own book. Steve’s new book is titled Bluefishing: The Art Of Making Things Happen.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how Steve got his start in entrepreneurship by taking on an impossible challenge while working as a doorman in Hong Kong. We’ll also go in to Steve’s “ah-ha” moment after a yacht party in Monaco. We’ll find out the biggest fear that drives Steve forward every single day to take on new challenges and why he continues to create one of a kind experiences for his clients, and himself.

Key Points From This Episode:

Discover how Blue Fish was born outside a bar in Hong Kong.
Why defying how one “should” act with rich people gave Steve the leg up.
The client who wanted to get married in the Vatican by the pope.
Steve’s ugly “aha” moment that forced him back to being himself.
Why entrepreneurs don’t need to become “unique” individuals.
Why Steve sold his office, his assets and fired all his staff.
The biggest struggle in Steve’s business today.
The importance of being able to reset yourself.
Find out more about the Blue Fish business model.
Learn about Blue Fish’s smaller, more scalable model.
Why remaining stagnant is Steve’s biggest fear.
Why Microsoft has their own fail-safe garage.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I get scared when things are going smoothly. I get scared when things are running on track.” — @SteveDSims

Tweet This

[0:05:33].1]

“Stay you. Because it’s you that people like.” — @SteveDSims

Tweet This

[0:15:15].1]

“I have never failed in my life… I just learned a million ways not to do stuff.” — @SteveDSims

Tweet This

[0:30:27].1]

“It’s not a fear of starting a new business. It’s the fear of being in the exact same position you were last week.” — @SteveDSims

Tweet This

[0:33:33].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Blue Fishing: The Art of Making Things Happen on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Bluefishing-Art-Making-Things-Happen/dp/1501152513

Steve Sims on Twitter – https://twitter.com/stevedsims1

Steve Sims Website – https://www.stevedsims.com/

Steve Sims on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SteveDSims/

Blue Fish Website – https://www.thebluefish.com/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 035

“SS: But I had wanted, desired and lusted for growth. I hated being stagnant, I hated – I would hate if as we’re doing this podcast now on Friday, I would hate if I had done nothing from last Friday any different. That terrifies the shit out of me, to know that a month from now, I’m going to have done stuff that’s made me broaden my horizons, spoken to different people and experienced a different experience, had my eyes opened to a new perspective, tried a new meal, tried a new sandwich, whatever. Walked a different path.

If I know a month from now, I haven’t gained any of that and I’m in exactly the same spot and even if you fail, even if I take on 10 new projects and every single one of those fail that I’ve learned a million things to do, so that those don’t happen again.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:01:03.9] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:29.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of my buddy Steve Sims. Steve is the founder of the luxury concierge company Blue Fish. He is known for being able to make the impossible, absolutely possible for his clients. From getting a private underwater submersible tour of the titanic to private dinners in the Academia at the feet of Michael Angelo’s David in Florence.

To having a private, romantic dinner in the Sistine chapel with a performance by Andrea Bochelli. There’s nothing Steve Sims can’t get and he also just published his book Blue Fishing: The Art Of Making Things Happen. We’ll be discussing how Steve got his start in entrepreneurship by taking on an impossible challenge, while working as a doorman in Hong Kong.

We’ll go in to Steve’s aha moment after a yacht party in Monaco that he uses to remind himself of his true value proposition for his business even today and we’ll go into the biggest fear that drives Steve forward every single day to take on new challenges and continue to create one of a kind experiences for his clients and himself.

But first, luckily all I travel with now is a backpack and I’m actually packing right now for Peru, going to Machu Pichu but the only reason I only need a backpack is for a simple reason. It’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

This means I can travel with less clothes since they clean themselves. They really do clean themselves as long as you hang them up after even if you’re drenched in sweat and you just hang them up, hang there overnight, you can wakeup in the morning, smell that sucker and it will smell brand spanking new.

Give it a try, check out the show notes page for an exclusive fail on discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:04:01.6] RN: Take me back to the first time where you kind of entered entrepreneurship. The first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?

[0:04:11.3] SS: Yeah, I think that’s two different questions. As an Irish lad in London, I was always questioning things so without realizing, that’s what a mentality of an entrepreneur is. You know, they see something square and they got something round and they got found out how it fits or they don’t.

It’s those that kind of question how it can happen of entrepreneurs. I think before I knew it was a cool thing to be, I always had that kind of inquisitive questionable nature. The first time I actually had that challenge and I remember this very specifically, I was doing parties in Hong Kong and someone said to me, “You’re super connected, I want to go to Monaco.”

He said, “You know, can you hook me up?” It was the Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco and I was like, “Absolutely, no problem.” I went back home and tried – well not Google, we didn’t have Google in the 80’s. I went back and tried to work out where the bloody hell Monaco was.

I’d accepted the challenge and that was I think another sign that I was an entrepreneur. We jump in and go “Yeah, we can do that!” And “Shit, fuck, how do we do that?”

I went back and then tried to work out how to do it and of course, the more I did, the more I was capable of and the more I realized how I was capable and competent in uncomfortable situations.

Joe Polish says, you know, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I always found myself uncomfortable. In fact, I get scared when things are going smoothly, I get scared when things are running on track and I think I purposefully try to interrupt that, you know? I’m not one of these guys that can operate on Zen.

I want the challenge, you know, I love fast motorcycles, I love race tracks, I love motocross, I like boxing, I like MMA. I like to get into a scenario where I actually don’t know anything.

[0:05:58.4] RN: What were you doing – you said you’re doing parties in Hong Kong, what does that even mean?

[0:06:03.7] SS: Yeah, I got the job and there be other places you can find the story so I keep it short. I managed to get a job in Hong Kong as a stock broker and I landed on the Saturday and I was fired on a Tuesday.

They realized that I was just full of shit, didn’t know what I was doing. Being big and ugly, I got the only job that I was competent to do. I ended up being a doorman on nightclubs in Hong Kong and then I just started throwing some of these parties myself to get more bar money out of it, a cut off the door.

Then I started selling the parties sponsored by the banks and the jet shark companies. Because I actually thought of myself, you know, if you’ve got two people, both of them are going to give you 10% commission then work with someone who is spending a million dollars and not someone who is selling 10 bucks.

I always went for rich clients because they didn’t need to spend more for it, minimal. That’s what I was doing, I was just trying to get really affluent clients and my delusion was that once I had all those rich clients, I could go back to the bank and get a job.

Because as a brick layer from London, I wanted the complete polar opposite of how I’ve been brought up, which was riding the shitty motorcycle, wearing a black T shirt and getting into fights. I wanted to be the complete polar opposite to that.

Fast forward now, I’m 51 years old and I’m rolling around in my shitty motorcycles and don’t get into so many fights now but you know, back in the T shirts and stuff like that. I’ve done a full circle.

[0:07:28.0] RN: Got it, was that kind of your entry into what is now Blue Fish?

[0:07:33.2] SS: Yeah, it was.

[0:07:35.0] RN: Not technically Blue Fish, right? Because you were just kind of tussling at that point.

[0:07:39.5] SS: I’ve never changed as of yesterday and I don’t think by naming it Blue Fish, I‘d change anything. I tell a lie, I did try to change it in the early 2000’s, screwed it up and then was able to just hit pause and go back.

Without realizing it, a lot of people have this misconception of when you’re dealing with someone affluent that they’re incredibly smart. Now, the truth of the fact is, Rich people aren’t necessarily smart just because they’re rich. It means that they’re smart, one thing that got them to that – it could be anything, it could be the best maneuver, it could be shoes, it could be absolutely anything.

But for the rest of their life and knowledge, they don’t know. But you get a lot of people that speak to people with money, like “Good afternoon sir.” It’s like the shit don’t stink kind of thing, you know? I didn’t have that.

[0:08:30.4] RN: You were able to connect with them.

[0:08:32.0] SS: I don’t know if I was – I was able to connect because I didn’t shield who I was and I was very ignorant to the fact that other people were given these fake personas.

I was just like, “Yeah, I could do that” and I wasn’t trying to be anything other than me because being me was remarkably easy, you know? Then I suddenly – you know, the whole thing, you know, five years become an overnight success.

After like five years and I’m kind of doing this stuff throughout Asia and in Monaco and I’m now living in Switzerland. I’m flying around the world and I’m doing it and I suddenly started looking, seeing – “What, that person looks weird, who is that?” “He sells jets.” “Why is he looking so stand offish, why is he not getting plastered with us in the corner or the rich people are,” you know?

Because you didn’t know how to communicate by being him in that scenario. Man, I would just go balls to the wall and I didn’t care and if he resonated with you, great. If you didn’t –

[0:09:27.3] RN: Take care.

[0:09:28.2] SS: I’m not your person, you know? I think the stupidity factor and the ignorance to how I “should” in air quotes are half acted in that circle, gave me the leg up and as the years went on, I’ve just refused to call –

If I introduced a client to another client, I’ll introduce them as Mr. and Mr. Okay? But if I’m speaking to any client, it’s Bob, Bill with Sally, you know, first name terms, every single time. I’m not going to jump on your business card title, I don’t care how many people work for you, if your joke’s not funny, I’m not going to laugh at it, you know.

It’s that kind of stuff, it’s very easy just keeping that basic.

[0:10:06.0] RN: Got it. What is – what were the biggest struggles getting started? Because it seems like the Monaco thing, you had to go figure it out, right? Was that the case at the beginning? For everything pretty much? They would give you request and you would just, “Okay, I got to figure out how to do this?”

[0:10:22.9] SS: Yeah, it’s still the case.

[0:10:24.3] RN: Okay.

[0:10:25.4] SS: I kind of like it.

[0:10:26.6] RN: Much better connected now.

[0:10:27.8] SS: I’m much better connected now. It’s a little easier but I do search out those that kind of like make me scratch my head a bit. I had a client that wanted to get married in the Vatican by the pope, you know, that one was kind of – “Well, okay!” You know?

[0:10:40.2] RN: You didn’t know the pope at the time?

[0:10:41.3] SS: No, I didn’t, I didn’t. I just knew it was a guy in a big white dress but apart from that, it was – were I am now, I’m able to go out to people in certain circles and have them guide me or maybe make a phone call, or something like that. Yes, being connected makes things a lot easier now but in the old days, yes, it was kind of “How the hell do I do it?” And of course every time you’d go and ask someone.

They don’t want to help people because it sounds crazy, it sounds stupid but when you’ve got those credentials behind you you’ve already achieved those things and Forbes is writing a seven-page article on you and you’re being seen with everyone.

That makes things a lot easier but in the old days, it was a case of, “Well how do I do that?” I just remember my dad, big thick Irish guy, you just say, you know, “How do you eat an elephant?” You know? “Inch by inch,” and that’s how I kind of took it, you know.

This guy wants to go to Monaco, alright, first thing’s first, where the fuck’s Monaco? You know? Just working from there, what you want to do there and we would then develop form there.

We just really took the big amazing, impossible idea, kind of down into a million easily achievable ones.

[0:11:54.8] RN: What’s been the biggest struggle from looking back from where you started? Any major setbacks or failures or things you couldn’t achieve that you’re like, “Why am I doing this?”

[0:12:06.2] SS: Yeah, again, you got about three

How To Grow Your Failure Muscle To Build Success With James Swanwick

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 30 Oct 2017 07:00:45 -0500

James Swanwick has gone from being a celebrity interviewer to an anchor on SportsCenter for ESPN.

He is the author of ‘Insider Journalism Secrets’, and has sold millions online through various digital and physical products. James is helping people create amazing habits, sleep better and make money online.

He is also the founder of Swanwick Sleep which helps people sleep better through blue light blocking glasses. James is the founder of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and also the 47 Day Habit Hacker Program.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how James interviewed Hollywood superstars including Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Matt Damon with absolutely no credentials and no experience.

James shares his story of landing a job as an ESPN anchor on SportsCenter after bombing his first audition. AND how he was able to land it without any anchoring experience.

He also discusses the resources and mentorship he found to get started in digital publishing and e-commerce. And many other strategies and hacks for navigating entrepreneurial challenges.

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out how James began interviewing movie stars.
How James used the phonebook to access Jack Nicholson.
James’ first big business crash and running away to Argentina.
Why James decided to quit alcohol and work on his relationships.
How James became an ESPN Sports Center anchor with no experience.
Why James quit his job at ESPN to become an entrepreneur.
How Ty Lopez became James’ friend and paid business mentor.
The biggest take away James received from his business coach.
Why you shouldn‘t try to make things perfect initially.
How he created of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge.
James tells us about his e-commerce projects and successes.
Reasons to embrace the chaos and just go!
How James breaks his ‘comfort zone’ by meeting women at the gym.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I was either going to walk out with my tail between my legs or I was just going to keep pushing.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:15:40].1]

“I quit the ESPN job, threw myself into becoming a full time online entrepreneur and I was crap at it.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:20:30].1]

“If you pay money for coaching then you really focus and invest 100%. You take it seriously.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:20:30].1]

“Failure is just another way of getting you closer to success.” — @jamesswanwick

Tweet This

[0:29:32].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

James Swanwick Website – http://jamesswanwick.com/

James Swanwick on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jamesswanwick

James Swanwick on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/jamesswanwick/

Swanswick Blue Blockers – https://www.swanwicksleep.com/collections/all-products/

James Swanswick Inner Circle – http://jamesswanwick.com/innercircle/

James Swanwick books on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/James-Swanwick/e/B00L7N8RB8

Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi – https://www.amazon.com/Never-Eat-Alone-Expanded-Updated/dp/0385346654

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 034

“JS: 2008 I made a stupid decision – well it wasn’t stupid at the time but it was a decision to create a PR company in LA. Started in for six months, I got a swanky office on Sunset Boulevard with a view of palm trees in the Hollywood Hills, I was driving around in a Jaguar. I thought I’d made it. Then I don’t know if you remember 2008, it was like financial Armageddon all of sudden and so these clients that I got, all of a sudden stop paying us and people that ordinarily would have become a client were like, “No, we’re not going to do it” because they’re all cutting cost. Within six months of opening I had to shut the thing down, I lost a lot of money.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:43.8] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:09.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of James Swanwick. From being an anchor on Sports Center for ESPN, to being the author of Insider Journalism Secrets, to selling millions online through various digital and physical products.

James is helping people create amazing habits, sleep better and make money online. He has been a print and TV journalist for over 20 years, writing for newspapers and magazines in the US, UK and Australia.

James is also the founder of Swanwick Sleep, which helps people sleep better thorough blue light blocking glasses. He’s the founder of the 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and also the 47 Day Habit Hacker Program.

We’ll be discussing how James interviewed Hollywood superstars including Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Matt Damon with absolutely no credentials and no experience, it’s crazy how he was able to do this.

We’ll discuss how James was able to land as an ESPN Sports Center anchor after bombing his first audition and again, not having any anchor experience. He’s able to weasel his way into different places and it’s really interesting to see how he does it. Finally, we’ll be discussing the resources and mentorship James found to get started in digital publishing and Ecommerce.

But first, luckily, all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only – it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

I don’t think they recommend that but technically, it wouldn’t smell, so they claim. This means, I can travel with less clothes since they are self-cleaning. Checkout the shownotes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else.

It is amazing stuff, amazing shirts, amazing apparel, check it out. If you like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways form each guest, simply go to failon.com and just signup for our newsletter, that will be at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:31.1] RN: There’s a lot I want to dig into because you have a lot going on. You’ve got the blue blockers product, podcast, 30 Day No Alcohol Challenge and you’ve done a slew of interesting other things including being an anchor on Sports Center for ESPN.

We’ll get into all that in a bit but first, just take us back to the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service you created?

[0:03:52.7] JS: Yeah, well my background was always as a journalist. I was a newspaper reporter for many years and I always had a job and then when I went to London, I got a job as a sports journalist and again, I had a job.

Then when I moved over to the US in 2003, I’m from Australia, but when I moved over to the US in 2003, I was like, “How am I going to make money? What am I going to do?” I figured out that I could interview movie stars and sell the interviews to magazines and newspapers around the world.

I was living in a hostel, the Hermosa Beach Hostel paying $15 a night, living in a bunk bed with a bunch of other snoring backpackers. This is in the first few months that I had come to the states.

I persuaded a movie studio publicist to let me interview the Hollywood actor, Jack Nicholson. He was promoting a film called Anger Management with Adam Sandler back around that time.

[0:04:48.9] RN: Yup.

[0:04:50.4] JS: I ended up interviewing Jack Nicholson at the Amatage Hotel in Beverly Hills and then I sent that story to a magazine in the UK called Loaded Magazine. They published the interview and they gave me money.

[0:05:02.1] RN: How much?

[0:05:03.4] JS: I think it was 400 pounds at the time which was about $750. It was a pretty good exchange rate at the time. That was my first time selling a product.

[0:05:15.6] RN: Which was the interview.

[0:05:16.2] JS: Which was the interview. Yeah, it was the first time outside of a job you know, when you apply for a job, you get a job, they pay you a salary. That was the first time someone really paid me for that and then from there, I just repeated the process and then I interviewed Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was promoting Terminator Three and then Jennifer Aniston and Ben Stiller for the movie, Along Came Poly. Then I just kept doing that and money started to come in.

[0:05:42.5] RN: The first time, what actually gave you the idea that you could do this, that you could figure out how to get access to these people and actually do this interview? What sparked that idea?

[0:05:52.7] JS: Well, my experience was as a journalist and now I’m in this new country where I know no one and I’ve got to try and figure it out from scratch rather. Just go, “What am I going to do? I got to make money, I can’t live in a hostel.”

“I’m a 27-year-old man living in a hostel with backpackers.” It was kind of born out of necessity and then from there, I really asked myself, “Well what do I know how to do? I know how to be a journalist, so how can I create money from this?”

By the way, I couldn’t get a job in America because I didn’t have the right work visa. I couldn’t just rock up to LA Times and say, “Can you hire me?” Because it just wasn’t like that. I had to do anything I could. I was like, “Well, I’m just going to create a freelance journalism business out of nothing and I’m just going to…”

[0:06:36.8] RN: When you reached out to that publicist for the first one, Jack Nicholson, did you have some kind of corporate or business website or anything?

[0:06:44.9] JS: No, I had nothing. I mean, I literally phoned Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, Universal, Paramount from the Hermosa Beach Hostel.

[0:06:56.0] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:06:57.0] JS: I got the phone numbers from – this is how ancient I’m sounding now. From a phonebook. Not like an online thing, on a phonebook. I just cold called and said, “I want to interview movie stars, how do I do it?” Someone said, “You need to talk to someone in the publicity department,” and so they put me through to the publicity department.

Only one publicist from one studio gave me the time of day, it was a woman called Anna Wilan from Sony Pictures. She invited me to go in, I met her at the Sony offices in person and I said, “I don’t know what I’m doing, tell me how can I interview movie stars and get paid for it.”

She kind of walked me through the process and you know, two weeks after that, that’s when she reached out and said, “You want to interview Jack Nicholson?” I’m like, “Sweet.”

[0:07:39.6] RN: That’s awesome, that’s cool. Going from there, you did a slew of those interviews, when did it actually in your head turn into like, “Okay, I can actually not only make a living off this but like this could spark a business.”

[0:07:53.0] JS: I think after I got to interview Arnold Schwarzenegger and then I photocopied those articles as published articles, I literally went to a King Co’s FedEx store on Pacific Coast Highway up there by Hermosa Beach. I went in and I photocopied it like 30 times and then I researched the addresses of Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal and I researched the addresses of newspapers and magazines around the world.

Then I bought 30 stamps and you know, some of them were overseas, I bought 30 envelopes. I put the article into the envelopes and I sent them off and said “Hey, look, here’s my interview with Jack Nicholson.”

“Reach out to me if you want me to interview movie stars for your publications.” When the Schwarzenegger one was offered to me, I was like, “Damn, my first two interviews ever in LA were Jack Nicholson and Arnold Schwarzenegger” and I’m like, “I think I might…”

[0:08:46.8] RN: The bar is set high.

[0:08:47.3] JS: Yeah. “I think I’m on to something here now.” It just kind of like flowed from there, you know? All of a sudden instead of me trying to tell people, “Hey, look at me, I interview movie stars now.”

Magazines were reaching out to me going, you know, “We saw your Jack Nicholson article, could you interview George Clooney for the movie Siriana, can you interview Matt Damon for the movie Stuck On You?”

I remember being in New York City, at the movie studio, I think it was FOX. They flew me from LA to New York to stay at the Regency Hotel on the upper east side of Manhattan and I think it was on November 30th 2003, and the reason I remember that date, because it was the rugby world cup final. I interviewed Matt Damon for Stuck On You.

I think that was kind of like the moment where I realized, “I think I’m on to something here, this is like my third interview I’ve done. Jack Nicholson, Arnold Schwarzenegger and now Matt Damon.“

[0:09:41.9] RN: Not only that, but the studios are paying a lot of your expenses, right?

[0:09:46.0] JS: Yeah, they paid all of those expenses and they sent me over to New York and I was like, “This is pretty cool. This could be fun.” Matt Damon was cool and we were talking about the rugby cup final that night and that was on that night because he seemed to be a rugby enthusiast and yeah, it was cool. I’m trying to find a photo here of me and Matt Damon and I could show you but I can’t find it.

[0:10:09.6] RN: Well, if you do find it, we’ll post it on the show notes page.

[0:10:12.0] JS: Here it is. This is me, it was the 21st of November 2003.

[0:10:17.4] RN: You look so young there.

[0:10:18.1] JS: Don’t I?

[0:10:19.7] RN: Both of you, I mean, you guys both looked young.

[0:10:20.3] JS: Matt Damon looks like a kid.

[0:10:22.6] RN: He looks like – yeah, it’s crazy. That’s cool. Just in the hotel room?

[0:10:27.7] JS: It was in a hotel room in the Regency Hotel in upper east side, yeah.

[0:10:32.9] RN: That’s awesome. Okay, you’re interviewing all the celebrities, where did it go from here? How long did you continue to do that and then what did that transition to?

[0:10:41.2] JS: Yeah, I mean, I did

4-Step Formula To Becoming World Class With Craig Clemens

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 23 Oct 2017 07:00:31 -0500

Craig Clemens is a direct response copywriter with over one billion dollars in sales. Yes, billion with a B.

Craig is currently the cofounder of Golden Hippo Media, a media company focused on bringing sustainable health and wellness to people all over the world.

Craig got started writing copy for Eben Pagan’s program, Double Your Dating, which grew to over 20 million dollars per year in revenue.

Since then, Craig has cofounded three eight-figure businesses in just the last five years in diverse industries ranging from nutrition, to cosmetics, to dating advice.

In this episode, we get to hear Craig’s unique entrepreneurial journey; from selling reptiles, shells and magazines door-to-door, to starting his own company with a team of some of the best young writers in the world.

We’ll be discussing the value of mentorship. How Craig was able to get a world class education, through a well-known mentor, to launch his copywriting career.

Craig also goes into the four-part formula for what it takes to become the best in class at whatever you want to succeed in.

And if you’re not sure where to begin, Craig lays down a 60-day challenge to help us make a permanent lifestyle change to improve our lives.

Key Points From This Episode:

Snakes, shells and magazines: Craig’s first taste of entrepreneurship.
Lessons Craig learnt from door to door selling.
Find out how Craig got into Google Cash and ebook sales.
Why Craig fell in love with copywriting despite failing English.
How Craig received a world class education in marketing.
The value of good mentorship.
Impacts of the 2008 crash on Craig’s business and life.
How Craig picked himself back up after retrenchment.
Discover how Golden Hippo Media was born.
Craig’s business ventures in men’s supplements and skin care.
Challenges in the supplement industry today.
Copywriting for big books on the market today.
Why immersion can be the best education.
The four-part formula to become the best in class.
Writing great copy and the variables of its success.
Accepting that sometimes you’re hot and sometimes you’re not.
The power of the 60-day challenge.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I remember we spent so much money on Google Adwords in our first year that they sent us a refrigerator.” — @craigclemens

Tweet This

[0:14:05].1]

“If you’re trying to become a copywriter you need that mentor to tell you why your shit sucks.” — @craigclemens

Tweet This

[0:18:33].1]

“We have created the best team of young copywriters in the world and I get to work with these guys every day.” — @craigclemens

Tweet This

[0:43:10].1]

“Immerse yourself, do the damn work, have the right mentor and put in the time and you’re guaranteed to become world class.” — @craigclemens

Tweet This

[0:49:50].1]

“You can be a really strong writer and still just write something that tanks.” — @craigclemens

Tweet This

[0:53:00].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Golden Hippo Media – http://goldenhippo.com/

Craig Clemens on Twitter – https://twitter.com/craigclemens

Unbound Merino – http://unboundmerino.com Promo Code – FailOn

Craig Clemens on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigclemens/

The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck by Mark Manson – https://www.amazon.com/Subtle-Art-Not-Giving-Counterintuitive/dp/0062457713

The Plant Paradox – https://www.amazon.com/Plant-Paradox-Dangers-Healthy-Disease/dp/006242713X

Power Of The 60-Day Challenge by Craig Clemens – https://medium.com/@craigclemens/how-to-change-your-life-in-60-days-787b71b7249a

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 033

“JG: I’ve written letters recently that I’ll go back and look at like a year later so let’s say, something I wrote in like 2015. I’ll read it and I’ll be like, you know what? The reason this tanked is tested advertising methods in the 1970’s. It’s so obvious later, you know? You can be a really strong writer and still just get caught up in your own head and write something that tanks and violate basic principles of marketing and never know it. That’s part of the struggle of being a writer, is that you’re going to have your bombs and sometimes you’re hot and sometimes you’re not.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:09.1] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to start a business, quit your job and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is a good one, it’s of Craig Clemens. Craig is a direct response copywriter with over one billion dollars in sales, yes, with a B. He’s currently the cofounder of Gold Hippo Media. He got started writing copy for Evan Pagan’s program, Double Your Dating which grew to over 20 million dollars per year. Since then, Craig has cofounded three eight figure businesses in just the last five years, in diverse industries ranging from nutrition, to cosmetics, to dating advice.

We’ll be discussing the value of mentorship and how Craig was able to get a world class education through a well-known mentor, to launch his copywriting career. Craig will go into the four-part formula for what it takes to become the best in the class at whatever you want to succeed in. Craig lays down a 60 day challenge to help us make a lifestyle change that can become permanent and improve our lives.

But first, luckily, all I travel with now is a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

This means I can travel with less clothes since the clothes apparently clean themselves. Check out the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else and of course, If you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:03.2] RN: Take us back to the first time that somebody gave you money in exchange for a product or service because that’s usually like a big paradigm shift for people that are coming from like working for other people, to actually creating something and somebody gives you money for it? What was that first time?

[0:03:17.5] CC: Yeah, well, my first time, I didn’t actually make anything. I made my first dollar in the internet doing affiliate marketing which is as you know, just kind of putting the pixels in the right places. This is back in the days when people were using the method called Google Cash to do –

[0:03:40.5] RN: It was before my days.

[0:03:41.4] CC: This is before your time? Okay. let me tell you about how it was when I used to market on internet son. Back in the day it was Google Ad Words, that was like the wild, wild west of internet marketing and you could send visitors direct from Google when they’re searching for how to win the slot machines in Vegas.

If someone had a book on how to beat the slot machines, you could buy the ad on Google and if you could grab search terms that people were typing in better than the business owner, you could send them to business owners site and get the commission from them.

[0:04:20.1] RN: Got it.

[0:04:22.1] CC: People came up with all kinds of tools that would allow you to find like a million little search terms, you know, not just how to win at slots but this would be like, how to win at sloth machine S.

If they forgot the space between the E and the S, you know? You might get one click a year on that but that person would buy that freaking book man, then you get your commission you know? Which is usually 50% of the purchase price or something like that.

That’s a real example, the first thing I ever promoted as an affiliate was a book called Slot Machine Secrets by John Carlo Capucio who is still a friend of mine. John, what’s up if you’re listening to this.

Yeah, that was on Click Bank which you know, was a network where you’d go and find these ebooks that people were putting out and you could just sign up for the commission program where you’d get 50% of the commission or whatever the merchant put out.

[0:05:20.6] RN: how did you hear about that? How did you hear about the affiliate marketing? “I can make money online.” Where did that come from? Did you have somebody else that told you about it or you just searching online for something?

[0:05:29.3] CC: Yeah, at the time I was in the internet marketing space. I was working for Evan Pagan at his company which did dating advice ebooks and we had people who would promote our ebooks as affiliates. I saw that making a little bit of money but then I heard about this Google Cash method and I thought it was total BS.

The weird thing about the internet versus reality, right? You know, growing up. I was the kid who would open up the back of the penny saver. Penny saver, there’s all these get rich quick schemes.

I’d open up the back of the penny saver, there’s all these get rich quick schemes in the back and I thought they would actually work. I would call or write in to get all of them and I bet, one of these things has to work, right?

They were all like MLM’s or like, you know, stuffing envelopes from home, shit like that that was mostly pyramid schemes and bullshit. When the internet came along, there was all these things that were kind of like that, like stuff envelopes at home or like you know, this case was like Google Cash method.

But some of them were not bullshit, some of them actually worked. I had a friend and he’s like “Yeah, my little brother is 16 and he’s doing this Google Cash thing and making like 500 to a thousand bucks a month.”

I was like, “Wait a second, your little brother? I got to be smarter than this guy. I could probably do this too.” I heard what he was doing and I downloaded the same course that he did. I went through it and I started doing this Slot Machine Secrets ebook, just buying search terms in Google, sending them straight to the ebook webpage.

[0:07:18.7] RN: There’s a course you actually took to learn this method?

[0:07:22.8] CC: Correct, yeah, I think that was an ebook itself.

[0:07:26.9] RN: It was how to do this right?

[0:07:28.0] CC: That guy was probably getting rich selling ebooks and how to get rich selling ebooks. Yeah, I did this in my first month. I made $330 and I remember that number because it was the exact amount of my car payment. I was like wow, if I could make this every month, my car payment is done.

Then the next month I made $660 and I doubled my money and I was like, now I can make my car payment and I have enough money left over to eat lunch at Baha Fresh every day. Because Baha Fresh was like the baller ship back then, you know? Like Taco Bell was like what I was used to but now I could step it up and get that like burrito with real meat in it, instead of you know, the mystery stuff.

[0:08:10.6] RN: Who knows what else, yeah.

[0:08:13.1] CC: Does that count?

[0:08:14.7] RN: 100%. You didn’t actually – same with me, I got into it the same way. Going back before that though, were you raised around kind of business people entrepreneurs or was that totally foreign to you as you came up through high school, college?

[0:08:32.8] CC: Yeah, my parents had traditional jobs, my mom was a school teacher, my dad was a rocket scientist, actually designed parts for the space station and rocket engines. They really wanted all of us brothers, I have two brothers, to go to college. I just never felt like it was for me but they were making that hard push.

But I was always getting into entrepreneurial stuff. I remember when I was I think seven or eight, I got all of the neighbor kids to bring their pets over to my yard and we collected reptiles, we had like frogs and toads and snakes.

[0:09:07.1] RN: Nice.

[0:09:08.8] CC: And lizards and like, I wasn’t joking, it’s true though, there was at no point in my childhood where there wasn’t at least one snake lose in our house. My mom became an expert at like catching snakes and putting them back in their cage.

[0:09:25.4] RN: Sounds terrifying.

[0:09:25.9] CC: Yeah. I got all the neighbors to bring up their animals as well and put my front yard and I had a zoo. Then we told all the parents in the neighborhood, would like come through and give a dollar to be a part of the zoo.

[0:09:38.0] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:09:38.6] CC: Everyone came through and walked through and like their golden retriever was there and then there’d be like a turtle and a cat and a snake and the lizards. I was always doing things like that.

My brothers and I went to Hawaii and we saw that there’s all these shells in the beach and then we went to the gift shops and they would have...

Acting Faster Than Your Inner Critic With Stephen Christopher

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 16 Oct 2017 07:00:44 -0500

Stephen Christopher is the founder of Seequs Digital Marketing. Seequs is a web marketing agency based in Denver that helps companies grow through online marketing.

Before Seequs, Stephen also started several financial businesses and today, uses his personal business experience to help other companies and business owners develop through online marketing.

Today we’ll be hearing Stephen’s journey; including his first entrepreneurial venture at age 14 and the huge failure he experienced when his mortgage company completely tanked in 2008.

Stephen shares why he believes you should not burn the ships and quit your job until you have a profitable side project.

And he shares how he’s learned to lean into his fears and why he highly recommends quick action and taking any opportunity to be uncomfortable.

Key Points From This Episode:

How Stephen got into entrepreneurship at age 14.
From engineering to business: Stephen’s college years.
How Stephen got into the mortgage industry.
How Stephen’s came out of his first business fail.
Why a business crash is like a breakup.
Assessing risk and turning failure into opportunity.
Find out how Seequs was started on a napkin at Chilies.
Why you need to act faster than your inner critic.
Do your business on the side or burn the 9-5 job ship?
Why you should learn everything you can from your current job.
How Seequs found its niche and grows without its own marketing.
Why clients are the best sales people.
Overcoming imposter syndrome and self-sabotage.
Why it takes two days to get out of a rut.
Looking for any opportunity to be uncomfortable.
How Stephen overcame his fear of public speaking.
Why journaling is one of the most powerful things you could do.
Delegate, duplicate or delete: Stepping away from your business.
The three most uncomfortable things that you need to do next.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Take action before you have time to talk yourself out of it.” — @StephenMChris

Tweet This

[0:24:12].1]

“Take the time to learn from the place where you’re at, whether it’s great or whether it’s terrible.” — @StephenMChris

Tweet This

[0:27:43].1]

“Become so good you can’t be ignored.” — @StephenMChris

Tweet This

[0:38:11].1]

“My internal saying about fear is “Fear is Fake”.” — @StephenMChris

Tweet This

[0:48:12].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Stephen on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenchristopher/

Stephen on Twitter – https://twitter.com/stephenmchris

Seequs Website – https://www.seequs.com/

Power of Focus by Brian Tracy – https://www.amazon.com/Bulls-Eye-Power-Focus-Brian-Tracy/dp/1492630454

The Five Minute Journal by UJ Ramdas – https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber – https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 032

“SC: My internal saying about fear is, fear is fake. You know, when you really look back at like okay, what is the emotion of fear, right? Going back to cavemen days, it’s this thing where your brain is trying to save you from basically death, right? That’s why people are afraid of public speaking.

Your brain is telling you, if you go up on that stage, you’re going to die so that’s why we’re so afraid of certain things. When I have something that seems fearful, I just remind myself, hey look, fear is fake.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:30.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:56.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to start a business, quit your job and live a life of absolute freedom.

In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this show is simply a platform for their stories. Today’s story is of Stephen Christopher, a good buddy of mine who also lives in the Denver area. He is the Founder of Seequs Digital Marketing, a web marketing agency that’s absolutely crushing it now, they tend to focus on more of the local service industry markets and help them grow businesses that may have been stagnant for a really long time.

Think plumbing, construction, electrical, like those types of businesses that haven’t had a huge online presence. Stephen comes in to the rescue, helps implement online marketing and just helps them grow really rapidly when they haven’t had that a long time. What he’s doing is really cool.

Before Seequs, Stephen also started several other financial businesses including a massive failure in 2008, that we’ll go into. But he uses his personal business experience to help other companies and business owners, find growth and development through online marketing. We’ll be discussing a huge failure that he experienced when his mortgage company completely tanked in 2008.

Why you should not burn the ships and quit your job until you have a profitable side project. Not sure I always agree, I kind of flip flop on this a little bit but I know for me personally, I like to burn the ships.

Lastly, Stephen will discuss how he’s learned to lean into his fears and tackle any obstacle that comes his way and he use the example of overcoming his fear of public speaking in the episode. Make sure to stay tuned.

But first, if you travel a lot like I do, you now need to pack less clothes than ever before and it’s for one simple reason only, it’s a shirt from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes made out of Marino wool and this is amazing. You can wear it for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

Talk about a traveler’s absolute dream, never check a bag again, check in the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else and if you like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:03:22.6] RN: How did you first get into entrepreneurship? Do you actually remember the first time that – you know, for a lot of people this is like a weird shift where you created something and somebody actually gave you money for it? Whether it’s a product or a service.

[0:03:34.3] SC: Yeah, I mean, my first kind of stint with entrepreneurship was when I was about 14 and I started a mobile car detailing business. You know, technically I would go to people’s houses, detail their cars and you know, I had become really good at that over the years. So it wasn’t an inexpensive service, it was like 120 bucks and this is what? 20 years ago.

Well, the problem with the mobile detailing business is when you’re 14, you can’t drive. Luckily, I was kind of a cute kid, I had to convince people to drive to my house, let me detail their car and t hen they’d come back and pick it up. But yeah, I ran that for practically a few years.

[0:04:09.5] RN: Nice.

[0:04:10.3] SC: It’s like my first entrepreneurship.

[0:04:13.2] RN: it wasn’t like a one off, your parent’s friends would you do you a favor and drop their car off, it’s actually a legitimate thing where you actually made a little money.

[0:04:23.2] SC: Yeah, I mean, I made money to buy a car or you know, the half of a car, I had to pay for half of my car when I turned 16 and so yeah. I worked for quite a few years getting ready for that.

[0:04:34.9] RN: Was it just you kind of hustling on your own or did you have – you hired an employee? You got your buddies or?

[0:04:41.1] SC: I didn’t, when I looked back in a lot of entrepreneur’s stories, right. They figured out how to get their friends to do stuff for them. I didn’t figure that one out until much later in life so it was just me hustling. And the cool thing was I realized that – or it was the first time I realized that I could control my income. If I wanted more money, all I had to do is go sell another car or work on a Saturday or whatever that was. That was really cool

[0:05:04.8] RN: Yeah, that’s a good point. In terms of how you’re kind of brought up and raised, were you raised by entrepreneurs or was it something you kind of – is it something they encouraged you to do with the car mobile detailing? Or was it something that you just saw a need for?

[0:05:20.4] SC: Yeah, I was not raised in an entrepreneurial family. My parents have had the same jobs for 30 something years and you know, they’re going to be retiring here in the next couple of years. My mom was a principle at a school, my dad was a nurse and eventually started running like a nursing department in the hospital.

No, they didn’t know anything about entrepreneurship and they were actually the first two people in both sides of their family to go to college. That was like their big step and then my big step was entrepreneurship.

[0:05:50.2] RN: Got it, was it something that they encouraged you to do? Is it something you ran by them or are you just 14 years old and just kind of winging it on your own?

[0:05:58.1] SC: Yeah, kind of just happened. I got good at detailing cars and I enjoyed it and then like somebody at church or something, said, “I’ll pay you to do mine” and then that’s how that kind of started. It was never really a plan of any sort and they encouraged it to the extent that it was like, “Hey go make so money so that now you can save up so that when you go to college you have a little bit of cash in the bank and you can buy a car,” and that kind of thing.

It was never – they didn’t really understand business so it was never this thing of like, “Okay, well do this and do this and then get some marketing.” Yeah, they had no clue and then when I went to college, they kind of looked at and said okay, “Well shut down your little fun play toy thing and get ready for the real world.”

They didn’t even see it as like a real opportunity.

[0:06:44.2] RN: Like you said, you were able to make a little money to pay for some things. After you – that was through high school I’m imagining, right? After high school, you do go to college?

[0:06:54.7] SC: I did.

[0:06:55.6] RN: Okay, from there, what did you study, did you take anything that you used in college into entrepreneurship? Because I know for me, well four years of college is great, actually has zero relevance on anything I do today.

[0:07:11.0] SC: Yeah. I went to University of Florida in Gainesville and I studied.

[0:07:15.1] RN: I’m a Georgia fan, that’s painful.

[0:07:18.4] SC: Both of my parents went to Florida state. You can imagine how they felt.

[0:07:22.3] RN: Nice.

[0:07:22.8] SC: Yeah, I went to school, I started out as computer electrical engineering so growing up, I would always build stuff like I would take remote control cars, take all the motors out, build other stuff like cordless drills and hook them all together.

My parents always told me they’re like “Yeah, you’re going to be a great engineer.” I just, when it came time to go to college, I just assumed, well, I’ve been told all my life I should be an engineer so that’s what I went to school for.

Got through about the first two years and realized like one day I looked around in my classes and I was like, these aren’t the people that I want to be around for the rest of my life. I switched to business because it was kind of easy, I was already most of the way there.

[0:07:59.5] RN: What was it about the people in the engineering side?

[0:08:02.5] SC: It was more of like the social aspect of it, you know? They were very intelligent, really great and nice people but –

[0:08:09.0] RN: Hard to connect with?

[0:08:10.3] SC: Yeah, there was just no social. I mean, look at us, we’re sitting here talking on a podcast, most of the people in that room would never do something like this. I crave that connection with people and so that just wasn’t there.

Graduated with a finance degree and a minor in economics, didn’t really know what I was going to do. I’m kind of the same way, the four years of college, they were a lot of fun, I learned a lot about how to deal with people, you know, a lot of those like real world type skills but I took one – there was one class that I had in college that I still use today and it was Microsoft.

I learned like Outlook and Excel and do all kinds of crazy formulas and then Excel Spreadsheet and that was the only class that I actually went to pretty much every class, while I was taking it for that semester.

[0:08:54.7] RN: Got it. It’s funny how valuable Excel is, if you know it well, you can save so much time with formulas and pivot tables and all that stuff. Let’s go to what you would actually consider – moving on past college. How did you first get into I guess real world entrepreneurship outside of the small projects that you had done in the past?

What was your first real entry into creating a business?

[0:09:22.0] SC: I did a couple of things after college, I worked for Meryl Lynch. I despised that, not because of Meryl Lynch but just because of like working a real job and having like seven bosses, it was not for me.

Did a couple of things, moved around a little bit and then in 2005, moved to Colorado and that was about the time when the mortgage stuff was happening. Met a guy that did mortgages, he was like, “Hey, I’m going out on my own, you should come join me.”

I went to go work for him because I was like, “Alright, this could be really fun.” Then over the course of six or eight months, I slowly just became 50% owner of the company and so we grew that until about 2008 which you know, most people know what happened then.

[0:10:02.3] RN: All the stories of everybody I talked to in the podcast, all stories go south to 2008. That’s the common theme. Yeah.

[0:10:09.4] SC: The mortgage industry was really...

How To Be Your Most Influential Self With Sharí Alexander

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 07:00:36 -0500

Sharí Alexander is a persuasion expert known for bringing the “dark arts” of influence into the light.

She’s a speaker, writer and trainer, revealing powerful secrets behind conversational influence. She teaches persuasive triggers and techniques currently used by CIA field agents, hostage negotiators, con artists, trial attorneys and many more.

Her mission is to put this powerful skills and techniques into the hands of entrepreneurs and leaders, so they can bring positive influence into their business and lives.

We’ll be discussing how Sharí landed her first CEO client at the age of 22 without any proven track record or any previous clients, whatsoever.

We’ll be discussing the best coaching advice that Sharí ever received from a mentor.

She’ll share the not-so-obvious technique that she uses every single day to create meaningful and highly valuable conversations with others and how you can actually start using this exact same technique today.

Key Points From This Episode:

How Sharí landed her first coaching job at 22.
Asking the right questions and making it about them.
Learn more about Sharí’s courses and the people she has helped.
How Sharí learnt to fight negativity and trust her own genius.
The importance of looking back on your progress and successes.
Allowing yourself to feel pain in order to move forward.
Recognizing that nobody starts out as their big name brand.
Balancing a high standard without being a perfectionist.
Sharí shares her own personal book-writing process.
Why a good conversationalist listens more than they talk.
Why “should” is the most dangerous word in the world.
Worrying about what can you ask, not what can you say.
Sharí’s challenge: How long can you go without talking about yourself?
The invaluable lessons from simply writing things down.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I don’t talk about myself. I make it about them.” — @sharialexander

Tweet This

[0:07:19].1]

“Very rarely do other people have the negative demons in their mind that you have about yourself.” — @sharialexander

Tweet This

[0:21:14].1]

“It’s okay to have people to model after but know at what point in their timeline you should be modeling.” — @sharialexander

Tweet This

[0:26:38].1]

“You can’t jump out the gate and be Tony Robbins.” — @sharialexander

Tweet This

[0:27:15].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Sharí Alexander Website – http://www.shari-alexander.com/

Sharí Alexander on Twitter – https://twitter.com/sharialexander?lang=en

Sharí Alexander Youtube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/sharialexanderspeaks

Learn to Influence Resources – http://www.shari-alexander.com/store-learning-influence/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 031

“SA: It’s okay to have people to model after but know at what point in their timeline you should be modeling. You can’t start today and be at Gary V’s end point. You need to start today and look at how did Gary V start.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:17.0] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes micro failing in a hyper focused way is the fastest way to start a business, quit your job and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this show is a platform for their stories.

Stories of how they were able to battle through failure after failure to achieve freedom in their lives. Today’s story is of Shari Alexander. Shari is a persuasion expert known for bringing the dark arts of influence into the light. She’s a speaker, writer, trainer, revealing powerful secrets behind conversational influence. She teaches persuasive triggers and techniques currently used by CIA field agents, hostage negotiators, con artists, trial attorneys and many more.

Her mission is to put this powerful skills and techniques into the hands of entrepreneurs and leaders, so they can actually bring positive influence into their business and lives.

We’ll be discussing how Shari landed her first CEO client at the age of 22 without any proven track record or any previous clients whatsoever, it’s actually in a beautiful lesson for aspiring entrepreneurs, looking to get their first sale. We’ll be discussing the best coaching advice that Shari ever received from a mentor and Shari will go into the not so obvious technique that she uses every single day to create meaningful and highly valuable conversations with others and how you can actually start using this exact same technique today yourself.

But first, I just finished three weeks of straight travel and luckily all I needed to travel with was a backpack for one reason only, it’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of Marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

If a company can be a spirit animal, Unbound Marino would be my spirit animal. They’re doing amazing things over there and their clothes are just fantastic. Check in at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else.

If you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:58.5] RN: Welcome to the Fail On Podcast. Today I’m sitting down with Shari Alexander, welcome to the show.

[0:03:02.8] SA: Thank you for having me here.

[0:03:04.7] RN: Just for a little context, we are sitting– and actually, this might be the biggest room I’ve ever done a podcast in.

[0:03:10.5] SA: It’s definitely the biggest room I’ve ever done a podcast.

[0:03:13.7] RN: It’s the convention center in San Diego, the big hall where they’re actually doing some breakout sessions. We’re both here for Tod Herman’s 90 Day Year event but thanks for taking the time during the event to come chat.

[0:03:25.4] SA: Don’t tell them, we’re playing a little nooky.

[0:03:29.3] RN: I know. We were just talking before we got on the air. I use headsets right? That actually you have to put on your head, it’s not just a mic.

[0:03:36.6] SA: Super cool.

[0:03:37.7] RN: It’s like you’re a pilot, it’s so awesome.

[0:03:38.8] SA: Yeah, I feel like I’m in NASA.

[0:03:40.5] RN: My childhood dream come true.

[0:03:42.4] SA: They just want to talk to Houston. You’re like, “Mission control, help us.”

[0:03:45.9] RN: It’s awesome but I was just saying, because I interviewed Nicolas Kush he has the same headset on, probably no more than two hours ago and he couldn’t even put the headset on his head because he didn’t want to mess up his beautiful hair.

[0:03:57.3] SA: His frock?

[0:04:00.0] RN: Exactly. But you, you just threw it on, you’re ready to roll.

[0:04:02.5] SA: With the big curls, my hair isn’t as quite close to what they say in the south as “The bigger the hair, the closer you are to Jesus.”

[0:04:10.1] RN: I’m from Georgia, so it’s very appropriate.

[0:04:12.6] SA: Not quite as close to Jesus right now but I’ll fix it later on.

[0:04:15.3] RN: I love that. Obviously I want to go into what you do, with the persuasion and stuff and the coaching and the speaking. But before we get into that, I’d love for you to take us back to – if you can think of it, the first time that actually gave you money?

[0:04:29.6] SA: I know exactly when it was.

[0:04:30.1] RN: In exchange for a product or service.

[0:04:32.0] SA: Yeah, it was nuts.

[0:04:33.4] RN: Just in terms of the mindset, you’re like, ‘What are they doing? Why are they paying me?”

[0:04:37.9] SA: Yes and no, but that was after the fact, during the meeting itself because I had a face to face meeting with the CEO of a company and his right-hand man assistant. During the meeting, because I am – my previous life I was an actress. From the age of 14, I did a bunch of stage plays and primarily I did a lot of Shakespearian stuff. I think I just tapped in to my acting background, in the room, I totally faked my way through it. I was just like, I’m pretending like I know what the heck I’m doing.

[0:05:07.3] RN: Yeah.

[0:05:07.7] SA: Can we curse on your podcast? Or not?

[0:05:08.8] RN: Yeah, let her rip.

[0:05:09.3] SA: Okay, alright, I forgot to ask that before we started. I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing and it was a really great meeting. I was helping the CEO with his – he was wanting to do more speeches to get more clients. I said I’d help him through coaching and my first project was $1,500.

I was 22 at the time. The fact that my first client was $1,500 and I was 22 years old I was like – still to this day, I still can’t believe it happened.

[0:05:38.3] RN: What made you kind of go after that big target at first? Rather than like starting off with the super low hanging fruit or somebody that would just pay lower?

[0:05:46.0] SA: Well, I got connected to him through another contact of mine. I didn’t actively pursue that person, just somebody had known of me and had heard him say he’s wanting to do this and say, “You might want to talk to that curly headed chick.”

We had the meeting and it was because the meeting went so well and this ties into my whole world of influence which I know we’re getting to. But at the end of it, I remember because I became very good friends with his assistant and she told me afterwards, she said, “Yeah, after the meeting…” because they cut me a check right away, it was like on the spot.

[0:06:21.4] RN: This is amazing.

[0:06:22.0] SA: This is the best thing ever. It’s always going to be this easy, right? This is the norm.

[0:06:27.0] RN: We got to do more of these.

[0:06:29.1] SA: I don’t know why people complain all the time. She said, after the meeting, they said, we looked at each other and we said, “We feel really secure in this decision but we were also wondering, why did we make that decision?” Because the whole time and they shared this with me afterwards. The whole time I asked really solid questions.

At no point during that meeting did they ask me who my past clients were because I had none. At no point in my meeting did they ask me what my certifications, qualifications, degrees were because I had one in theater.

They didn’t ask me anything about me, it’s because I knew what to ask about them and asking questions that they hadn’t thought of and pointing things in a certain direction that they were like, “She’s an expert because she’s clearly – sees a perspective that we haven’t yet.”

[0:07:15.7] RN: And it took to focus off you, right? It was all about them.

[0:07:18.4] SA: Yeah, well, and honestly, even today, even though I can name drop and say like I’ve worked with such and such and so and so. Even to this day when I’m on calls or meetings, I don’t talk about myself. I make it about them. I do it in a way that they realize that it’s almost, like overt pushing power and then there’s subtle power. It’s like you can try to push people towards something or you can be the magnet. I 100% always choose to be the magnet.

[0:07:44.5] RN: Now that you mentioned name dropping, let’s go ahead and name drop. Who are some people you worked with?

[0:07:53.2] SA: I’ve worked with a lot of great companies and individuals. I have clients from the NFL, I have clients from the NBA, I’ve got clients from UPS, a client of mine, gosh, announcers from ESPN and HLN network. I mean those are kind of the bigger – not on certain ones of those.

[0:08:11.1] RN: Not on the Fail On Podcast?

[0:08:13.0] SA: Correct. New York time best sellers and so because in some of the work that I’ve done with them, might have been either speech writings so I ghost wrote their speeches and things like that. I’ve worked in a lot of different capacities with individuals but like for example –

[0:08:26.6] RN: Yeah, so what are they hiring you before they come to you because they have some problem. What’s that problem that they’re trying to solve?

[0:08:31.4] SA: Well, nowadays, I mean, it’s changed. I’ve been in business for, on my own for a little over 10 years now. I don’t want to think about the number anymore. A good enough long while.

Nowadays, I have like basically three verticals in my business. One is I’m a professional speaker so that’s usually like corporate, that’s sales teams, leadership teams and possibly like HR trainers and those type of things.

[0:08:56.5] RN: Speaking on persuasion.

[0:08:58.0] SA: Speaking on, influence and how to be a positive influence in your company, be the leader that people want to follow. Then the other vertical is specifically focused for entrepreneurs and that’s my online courses.

I have one that’s like self-study that’s evergreen and then I have one that I only do twice a year, that’s live.

[0:09:16.0] RN: What does that teach stuff the entrepreneur?

[0:09:18.2] SA: Yeah, that’s Persuasive Profits and basically, I created that course because I was really sick and tired of seeing so many courses and offerings out there for entrepreneurs about one little slice of the business of like, you know, like a software, saying like, “This software is the solution to everything of like…”

“If you just have click funnels, you don’t have to do everything, if you just have infusion software.” There’s nothing wrong with those softwares, I’ve used practically all of them and continued to use a few but they were selling those things as if they’re solutions, they’re not, they’re tools.

There’s so many entrepreneurs that have the tool and then throw out their hands and like – but it’s not working and they don’t understand that the reason why it’s not working is because if you don’t understand the fundamentals of creating an influential message. Then all of it is going to fall apart.

I created the course to be the base code for no matter what methodology you use in sending out your message, the message you create is always going to be based in persuasive strategies. The modules we cover like webinars, we cover speeches, we cover copy writing.

We talk about the methods but I give them the models of how to create the message that goes with that. We’ve had some fantastic successes from the groups and we’re going to tear up possibly right now just because this email came in to me just literally an hour ago.

One of our students, he hasn’t been able to...

Using Data To Make Millions And Avoid Failure With Matt Gallant

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 02 Oct 2017 07:00:28 -0500

Matt Gallant is a serial entrepreneur who has collected over seven million leads in various industries. He has scientifically tested well over 10,000 different marketing ideas, generated tens of millions of dollars online and built his dream international lifestyle.

He’s known by his peers as “the mad marketing scientist.” Matt’s constantly testing new radical ideas inside his companies. He’s a serial entrepreneur, a life optimizer and a practical spirituality student. He has rewired his brain into hyper-functioning by actively exploring his trauma experiences.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing the darkest time of Matt’s personal and professional life. We discuss the single most valuable skill he has learned to create absolute freedom in his life. And Matt shares his interpretation of failure and how he’s totally transformed his mindset around it.

Key Points From This Episode:

Being market-centered instead of self-centered.
Matt’s first real entrepreneurial gig with College Pro Painters.
How MMA events taught Matt the art of hustle.
The darkest moment in Matt’s marketing journey.
Trusting that you’ve got what it takes to make it.
The value of structured experimentation.
Why we need to put knowledge into action.
Balancing the visionary and the integrator.
How Matt overcame his social and spiritual bottom.
Are entrepreneurs more prone to addictive habits?
Why we need to be aware of our character defects.
Karma doesn’t always have to be a bitch.
Cleaning house: Matt’s spiritual awakening.
The power of neuro feedback and forgiveness.
Four things that create trauma, acknowledging and reversing it.
Why great data shapes destinies.
Does failing just mean stopping?
Overcoming fear: Three challenges you can start today.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“To me, it’s just data, it’s just experiences. All of those things lead to bigger wins.” — @mattgallant_tv

Tweet This

[0:05:35].1]

“All those wins help build belief and momentum. I think momentum is one of the biggest keys to success.” — @mattgallant_tv

Tweet This

[0:15:00].1]

“The people that are successful are just always action driven.” — @mattgallant_tv

Tweet This

[0:23:56].1]

“The ultimate edge is to be your market.” — @mattgallant_tv

Tweet This

[0:30:25].1]

“The only time where I feel I failed, is if I stop.” — @mattgallant_tv

Tweet This

[0:58:08].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Unbound Merino – http://unboundmerino.com

Matt Gallant – http://mattgallant.tv/

Bio Optimizers – https://bioptimizers.com/

Dawson Church – https://dawsonchurch.com/

Infinite Profit Solutions – http://www.infiniteprofitsolutions.com/

Rocket Fuel by Gino Wickman – https://www.amazon.com/Rocket-Fuel-Essential-Combination-Business/dp/B012HJOBRY

Power vs Force by David Hawkins – https://www.amazon.com/Power-Force-David-Hawkins-Ph-D/dp/1401945074

Letting Go by David Hawkins – https://www.amazon.com/Letting-David-Hawkins-M-D-Ph-D/dp/1401945015

Matt Gallant on Hacking Your Brain– http://mattgallant.tv/hacking-brain-5-days/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 030

“MG: Even when things don’t work, right? Again, I just locate it as data and I’m a very data driven person because I really feel that great data shapes destinies.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:14.7] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:39.7] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes that failing in a hyper focused way is the fastest way to quit a job, start a business and live a life of absolute freedom in a world that only shares successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Matt Gallant. Matt is a serial entrepreneur who has collected over seven million leads in various industries, scientifically tested, well over 10,000 different marketing ideas and generated tens of millions of dollars online and built his dream international lifestyle.

He made his first sale in internet in 1996, and since then has built over 39 profitable websites in various sectors in industries selling eight figures worth of products and services online. He’s been called by his peers “the mad marketing scientist” since he’s constantly testing new radical ideas inside his companies.

He’s a serial entrepreneur, a life optimizer and a practical spirituality student. We’ll be discussing the darkest time of Matt’s personal and professional life, you definitely don’t want to miss this. The single most valuable skill he has learned to create absolute freedom in his life and how Matt interprets failure and has totally transformed his mindset around it.

First, I’ve got a lot of travel I just completed and I’m actually heading to New York on Wednesday and luckily, all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

You should wash it but you don’t have to. It’s a traveler’s absolute dream, check it out at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways form each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:50.3] RN: Let’s go back to really the first time somebody give you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?

[0:02:57.0] MG: My first product was a service, guitar lessons. I was 16 years old, started playing guitar when I was 12 and really got into Metallica playing every day and it got to the point where I could play most of the solos from Injustice For All. Then I did a show at the school and you know, a lot of people were impressed so then some people started asking me to give them guitar lessons. That was my first ever product.

[0:03:21.7] RN: Did you want to be a rock star?

[0:03:23.5] MG: Yeah.

[0:03:23.8] RN: That was the idea?

[0:03:24.5] MG: I wanted to be James Hatfield badly, desperately. Yeah, that was the dream for a while and did the rock band thing, recorded a CD and that was fun. And then online, my first sale ever, I was 19, my first year in university and I was on a news net board and I just sold the training program. I think the guy sent me 50 bucks and I sent him a training program, that was my first online sale which was 20 years ago.

[0:03:51.2] RN: What was the training program or was that your whole plan to put this training program together then sell it online?

[0:03:56.4] MG: No, it was just kind of organic, you know, it was news net board and I was just sharing about training and then the guy messaged me.

[0:04:04.3] RN: You're saying news net, news net is.

[0:04:06.6] MG: This is before forums.

[0:04:07.6] RN: Exactly. But it’s a same idea as a forum.

[0:04:10.0] MG: Yeah, it was kind of the original news board, bold and board forums.

[0:04:15.5] RN: Got it. You posted there, he saw it and –

[0:04:19.7] MG: Yeah, just organic sale. I didn’t kind of run with it but it definitely gave me a strong dopamine hit and I was like “Okay, this is cool.”

[0:04:27.0] RN: You’re like “Wow, why is this dude sending me 50 bucks. I don’t know this guy, he never seen me before.” It had to be a bit of a mindset shift.

[0:04:35.5] MG: Yeah, it was a mindblower.

[0:04:36.5] RN: Yeah, once you’ve got that you’re like, like you said, it’s like a little dopamine hit, in your mind you’re like, “I got to do this more, I got to get this out there.” What was your thought?

[0:04:45.8] MG: Yeah, then my next big marketing experiment was at national inquirer because my aunt had this huge stack and I’d see these weight loss ads, you know? I’m like, “Let’s run a weight loss ad in there” and so we ran a little classified ad. I think we spent like 150 bucks and we got 130 calls.

People would leave their address, it was a logistical nightmare. Way before the internet. I had no copywriting training but I whipped together like a four page sales letter for a book that had I had never even created before but I’m like “To hell with it, we’re going to sell it. If it sells, I’ll create the program.” I got one sale and the check bounced.

But it was a great experiment, kind of fits to the whole topic of your podcast which is the fail on. To me, it’s just data, it’s just experiences. All of those things lead to bigger wins.

[0:05:42.9] RN: That was a cool little experiment because you had enough knowledge to know, you didn’t have to create the product before seeing if there was a market, right? You knew, let’s do a little test, see what kind of data we get back before we actually spend hours and money building the product.

[0:05:59.6] MG: Yeah, exactly. I think for a lot of people listening. If your coach or if your thought leader, one of the best strategies which a lot of guys have done is to sell the program and then create it as you go.

[0:06:13.4] RN: Based on feedback, right?

[0:06:14.8] MG: Yeah. I know one guy, he created this deep, epic program and had no sales. That’s tough.

[0:06:24.2] RN: Which is super common, right? Because I think most people, I think it’s changing. People are getting smarter about how to start a business, how to create products without putting the cart before the horse but I think it’s super common for people still to have this huge idea, not validate it, put the product out there and then it just you know, goes to the product graveyard.

[0:06:42.1] MG: Absolutely. I think one of the big shift people need to make and it’s a tough one is to be market centered instead of self-centered. That’s really tough because at the end of the day, we all want to do stuff that we’re excited about.

We all want to do things that fit our biases but the challenges, sometimes the market doesn’t care about what we love, right? The more we can get back into the mindset of the people we’re trying to serve. Especially if you become really advanced in what you do and something sometimes I struggle with in certain markets. You forget what it was like and you’re completely disconnected from the beginners and a lot of times that’s where the money is.

[0:07:24.9] RN: Yeah, it’s so true. Just to continue the journey. You sold that first product and you’re like, okay, there’s something to this. What was your journey from there?

[0:07:35.5] MG: Well, I didn’t really go deep down that rabbit hole at that time. The next big journey was College Pro Painters. I saw this ad “Make $10,000 a summer.” That sounds good. I applied and to this day, it was the toughest interview process I’ve ever done, it was very intense and got the gig and to this day, was probably the toughest entrepreneurial test by fire that I’ve done.

[0:08:05.5] RN: For those that don’t know, what is college pro painters?

[0:08:09.7] MG: Well College Pro Painters is owned by a company that has mastered the franchising process and College Pro Painters is a franchise that they’ve built, every year they recruit new university students, they train them on how to build a painting company. The marketing side, the hiring side, how to paint, how to do estimates, the whole nine yards.

Literally, within months, you’re going to take people from zero to a functional painting entrepreneur.

[0:08:41.5] RN: What you’re applying for was to actually have your own painting franchise essentially?

[0:08:46.2] MG: Correct.

[0:08:46.7] RN: Okay, got it.

[0:08:49.1] MG: That was my first real entrepreneurial experience.

[0:08:53.0] RN: Yeah, toughest part about that was what?

[0:08:55.5] MG: There was a lot of things, first, it was February and we had to go on the streets in Canada. Actually knock on doors and say, “Would you like a free estimate to paint your house next summer?”

It’s dark, it’s literally minus 20, minus 30 Celsius and you know, you’re getting rejected. I mean, you’re getting like one lead an hour, right? That was just tough on all levels and just facing the fear of cold calling, right?

[0:09:27.2] RN: Knocking on doors.

[0:09:27.7] MG: Knocking on doors, people I don’t know and there was a lot of fear because I’m selling a product that I’ve literally never delivered. There’s always a part of my, in my thinking saying, “You know, what if I screw this beautiful house up?”

That was a legitimate fear because I’ve never painted before. Then…

[0:09:49.9] RN: Were you comfortable by the way just going into these cold calls or is that something you had never done before? Go to strangers, trying to sell something that you had.

[0:09:57.1] MG: Never done. Yeah. That was again the training.

[0:09:59.5] RN: Super –

[0:10:00.7] MG: By fire. Yeah. Lot of fear facing there and – but then, the...

Turning Anxiety & Overwhelm Into Strength With Tim JP Collins

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 07:00:00 -0500

Tim JP Collins is the creator and host of The Anxiety Podcast and is known as “The Breakthrough Anxiety Coach.” His life’s work is dedicated to helping people who struggle with stress, anxiety and panic attacks and he draws from his own personal experiences to help coach others on overcoming their stress and anxiety.

In this episode, we will be discussing Tim’s first terrifying anxiety attack that occurred during a business presentation. He shares how that actually led to the business model for his current work. We also dive into some of the strategies and examples he uses for getting out of his comfort zone.

He also tells a powerful story that led him to actually starting his business, and what he calls the Superpower of Anxiety; Tim’s concept of turning nervous energy and anxious energy into actual performance energy.

Key Points From This Episode:

Tim’s first steps in his entrepreneurship journey.
The biggest struggles building a business in the baby industry.
Why sometimes luck can play a big role in your business.
How to transition from a salary job to being a full-time business owner.
Experiencing a panic attack; the thoughts and feelings involved.
Devastating emotional after effects of Tim’s first panic attack.
Finding your own voice instead of simply “fitting in”.
Recognizing if your life is creating a situation of anxiety.
Using life experiences to “practice” for public speaking.
Turning failure into opportunities of growth.
Managing your life expenses to diminish the blow of failure.
Overcoming the imposter syndrome; the concept of micro-exposure.
The importance of speaking your truth versus lying for the benefit of others.
A powerful message; don’t wait until you’re perfect to share your message.
Uncovering anxiety in the workplace; shifting mindsets.
Tim’s vision for his company over the next few years.
The challenge: seeking out deeper human connection.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“We kind of never get to know unless we do it. You don’t know until you put your best foot forward.” — @timjpcollins

Tweet This

[0:07:01].1]

“I defy anyone to say it’s easy to not get a pay raise and spend the money. You just do. You can’t help it.” — @timjpcollins

Tweet This

[0:09:07].1]

“Why don’t you start changing your life and see what happens.” — @philipmckernan

Tweet This

[0:20:04].1]

“When you just make a lot of money for the sake of making a lot of money, it doesn’t always feel good.” — @timjpcollins

Tweet This

[0:22:49].1]

“If you think of what anxiety is, it’s almost like a super power because it’s designed to save your life.” — @timjpcollins

Tweet This

[0:39:39].1]

“Anxiety is there to serve as a reminder for us to change something.” — @timjpcollins

Tweet This

[0:46:39].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Tim JP Collins — http://www.timjpcollins.com/

Tim on Twitter — https://twitter.com/timjpcollins

The Anxiety Podcast — http://www.timjpcollins.com/podcast/

Unbound Merino — https://unboundmerino.com/ (Promo Code – FAIL ON)

Philip McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Philip on Twitter — https://twitter.com/PhilipMcKernan

Four-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss — https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357

Giovanni Marsico — http://www.giftedentrepreneur.com/

How To Stand Out, Be Yourself And Start A Business With Michael Gebben

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 18 Sep 2017 07:00:41 -0500

Michael Gebben bypassed college and started his own video production company at the age of 19.

Since starting his first business, he has done video production for successful entrepreneurs all over the world including Richard Branson, Tony Robins, Tim Ferriss, Pat Flynn, Lewis Howes, Derek Halpern and many more.

Michael has an inspiring story to tell and today, we’ll be discussing how he was able to get out of a tiny town and a job at a funeral home to overcome all odds and become one of the world’s most renowned videographers.

Michael will share how he leverages free work and how he landed his first filming gig for Tim Ferriss.

He also shares his simple strategy for creating strong customers relationships and delivering excellent service, through genuine kindness, being yourself and doing your best work for others. Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

Why lack of execution is often the reason for failure.
How Michael made $4,000 in junior high.
Funeral homes and beer joints: Michael takes us through his first jobs.
How a successful career largely happens by accident.
The importance of trying to create new opportunities for success.
Learning to become hyper self-aware; owning who you are.
Figuring out what to pursue by not following your passion.
Learn more about Michael’s Massive Imperfect Action concept.
The power of removing expectation.
Why Michael believes that success is trying.
Learning to be okay with losing; opportunities for self-growth.
Why your network is your net worth.
The impact of living your values and not just speaking them.
Embracing your job and shifting your mindset towards making an impact.
Understanding the hard work that is often associated with opportunity.
Why friendliness and fun go a long way.
Learning to understand the journey behind the person.
The reason why authenticity always trumps a copy-cat.
The process of discovering your way in life; collaborating advice.
Find out why Michael chooses to give and give and give.
The honesty factor: we are the ones holding ourselves back.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“All the things that I either have done or do now or I’m excited about doing, were not my passions at all.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[0:11:29].1]

“When people are looking for their passion, they don’t ever find it sometimes because they’re looking for it.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[0:12:20].1]

“For me, when I’ve just removed expectations, it’s incredible.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[0:30:24].1]

“Success is just keeping it simple and you know, just trying.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[0:35:23].1]

“It only takes one thing, one person, one moment, one anything to literary change the trajectory of our life.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[0:56:00].1]

“Everybody is just in 100% consumption mode. They don’t produce, they don’t create and then they don’t learn.” — @mgebbs

Tweet This

[1:00:00].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Unbound Merino – http://unboundmerino.com (PROMO Code – FAIL ON)

Michael Gebben Website – http://michaelgebben.com

Michael Gebben Twitter – https://twitter.com/mgebbs/

Michael Gebben’s YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/user/michaelgebben

Michael Gebben’s Jumpstarters – http://jumpstarters.net/

The Fred Factor – https://www.amazon.com/Fred-Factor-Passion-Ordinary-Extraordinary/dp/0385513518

Delivering Happiness – https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Book Yourself Solid – https://www.amazon.com/Book-Yourself-Solid-Reliable-Marketing/dp/0470643471

The Four Hour Work Week – https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 028

“MG: I genuinely loved, really, more than anything which is what I still love, making people smile. When I did the same thing at it, they smiled, they laughed, they cried, they hugged, they high-fived, that’s what I lived for.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:15.5] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:39.8] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes failing in a hyper focused way is the only way to create freedom and quit your job in a world that only shares successes. We dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Michael Gebben. Michael bypassed college and started his own production company, gettv.com at the age of 19 and since starting his first business, he has done video production for successful entrepreneurs all over the world including Richard Branson, Tony Robins, Tim Ferriss, Pat Flynn, Louis Howes, Derek Halburn and the list just goes on and on.

The actual story of how he got started in all this is just absolutely inspiring. We’ll be discussing how Michael was able to get out of a tiny town and overcome all odds to become one of the world’s most renowned videographers.

Michael will share how he leverages free work and how he landed his first filming gig for Tim Ferriss and he goes into a simple strategy for creating strong customers relationships and delivering excellent service. Just through genuine kindness and doing your best work for others.

But first, I’m on the road a lot nowadays and thankfully I’m traveling wider than I ever have before, can’t say the same about my wife but hey, that’s neither here nor there. All I travel with now is a backpack and just a few pieces of clothing for one reason only.

It’s a shirt from a really sweet Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of marino wool and get this, you can wear it for months on end without ever needing to have it washed and there is science backing behind that, I just don’t know it.

Talk about a traveler’s absolute dream, never check a bag again, check in at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all The Fail On Podcast interviews and key take away from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:35.1] RN: Hey there and welcome to The Fail On Podcast. Today, I am sitting down with Mr. Michael Gebben and we are going to explore his struggles, failures and how he has been able to work with some of the most influential people on this planet.

Michael’s worked with Tim Ferriss, Tony Robbins and sir Richard Branson and many more. Michael, welcome to The Fail On Podcast.

[0:02:52.2] MG: Rob, thanks for having me buddy. I’m excited.

[0:02:54.5] RN: First, some context here, we’re sitting in a co-working space in San Diego, downtown works. We just saw a friend and I had talked to him, Mr. Clay Heber. You get to follow on the footsteps of the legend trader.

[0:03:09.6] MG: Greatness, exactly.

[0:03:12.1] RN: I want to obviously dig in to how you got started with all the big names and filming for them but first, take us back to the very first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service that you created.

[0:03:26.5] MG: You know, it’s interesting. I’ve always kind of been entrepreneurial and this will tie in to, I think some of the questions you’re going to ask me about failure and that’s what this is really about. What’s interesting, we moved in to this house and it had a football field and my parents tell me that I wanted to cut a hole on the fence and sell hotdogs and popcorn to the opposing team.

Well, that failed. I was like seven years old, I never executed on that like most people with ideas, we don’t execute. Really, what had happened is, my dad’s always been into film and video and he made these silent films in the 80’s and we made these goofy movies and he works at a cemetery. I had made a slideshow for an aunt that passed away and this funeral home caught wind.

[0:04:11.8] RN: How old were you by the way?

[0:04:13.1] MG: Yeah, I was probably 17 years old and mind you, I had a candy machine business in high school. I tried all of these different things and you know, none of it ever really went anywhere and I didn’t know whether I was going to go to college or not or what I was going to do.

I got asked by this funeral home to make these slideshows and that was kind of my first thing in video. I mean, I had had a paper out.

[0:04:37.4] RN: Did they just come to you because it’s such a small town or they just knew that you did this slideshow thing?

[0:04:41.0] MG: Well, my dad, again, worked at a cemetery so they were connected and they knew, it was a small town, they had talked. They had known that my dad and we made these little movies and stuff because we had some showings at our local theater and stuff. I mean, I had a paper out which I’d come to find out a lot of these billionaires out had paper out.

Alright, I’ve got one trait. No, in video production, that was my first thing that I had made some money when I was about 17. I was a junior in high school and I made I think $4,000 that first year as a junior. Doing these slideshows and then I also filmed some plays and my senior year did even more slide shows, filmed some more plays. I also found a video yearbook for my senior class.

I made about $8,000. When I got done and graduated, I have still work in which is another part of my story, the beer distributor because it was right next to the cemetery that my dad works at so I worked there from like 12 to the summer I graduated. I tried to get like a quarter raise.

[0:05:42.8] RN: You started working at the beer distributer at 12 years old?

[0:05:44.5] MG: Yeah. There’s these little nuances. I got a lot, we need like four hours to get through everything, I’m trying to you know, be succinct here. But I started there when I was 12 which is crazy. I mean, I was literally in a room alone with bottles of beer, cans, everything. I was cleaning them up. I was called the breakage boy.

I wanted to get a quarter raise and this is an interesting thing that I think that actually just saw this video in my Facebook feed recently, that was from a couple of years ago where I saw the guy who I went in to, to get this quarter raise and they wouldn’t give it.

I’ve been there six, seven years, I mean, cleaning up the trash, I mean, doing anything for these people. They used to get new cars every year and all the stuff and so I always wanted a quarter more and they wouldn’t give it to me.

I think I made it through that summer of 2005 right after I graduated in May of 2005 from high school and then I quit. I said, “You know what? This is ridiculous” and I thought, I told my parents, I said, “Just give me one year. Just one year and we’ll see what happens.” Because they weren’t necessarily – “You got to go to college.” I know some people’s parents, like, you got to go to college. Mine were more, that’s the thing I should do. But I think where some people go wrong is they might just say “I’m just not going to college, I’m just not going to do this.” But I had a little momentum already.

I made some money and I said, “Just give me one year, let me see what happens with this thing and if it works, great, and if it doesn’t, I can always go back.”

[0:07:08.1] RN: Those previous two years, you went from 4,000 to 8,000. Were you like really hustling to get that 4,000, 8,000 or was it kind of just an organically growing snowball?

[0:07:17.5] MG: No, I would say, I wasn’t hustling, like really. I was you know, I don’t know that I really controlled the slideshows like that was how many people died and then how many people to – I hate to say it but how many people the funeral home convinced to do the slide show and mind you at the time, I mean, I think it was…

For a single one I started as low as maybe $50, got as high at one point in time is maybe $250, $300 but we had a thing where you know, so many...

Get Comfortable Being Uncomfortable With Clay Hebert

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 07:00:58 -0500

Clay Hebert is a crowdfunding genius, a marketing strategist and the creator of the Six-Word Intro. As one of the world’s leading crowd funding experts, Clay has helped over 150 entrepreneurs, and raised over $50 million dollars on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Clay has trained senior leaders at fortune 500 companies, with clients like Accenture, Pfizer, Zappos and some of the top universities & nonprofits in the world. He advises corporations and startups on strategy, marketing, innovation and culture.

We’ll be discussing how Clay was able to transition to entrepreneurship after nine years of management consulting in the corporate world. He’ll be sharing how to make important life decisions based on your future calendar, not your best idea. And how to get comfortable with getting uncomfortable and lastly, why failure is just an opportunity.

Key Points From This Episode:

Selling candy bars in the cold: Clay’s first marketing scam.
Why success and failure are both imposters.
The media’s role in building you up to tear you down.
Why Clay grew up playing it safe in the job market.
Joining Seth Godin’s MBA Programme.
Clay’s 10 magic marketing questions.
Hear more about Clay’s failed startups.
Clay’s advice for taking the leap and quitting your job.
Working backwards from our calendar.
Why there is no perfect idea.
Envisioning your first 10 customers.
Getting comfortable with getting uncomfortable.
Good crowd funding is good marketing.
Creating the win-win: Help them help you.
Documenting your failures.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Failures are sort of like the bricks; you have to stand on them to reach success.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:06:57].1]

“The media loves to build you up so that they can tear you down.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:09:08].1]

“If you don’t have a rock solid fundamental good marketing strategy, Facebook ads are not going to save you.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:16:57].1]

“You’ve got to learn what you don’t know.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:19:59].1]

“Don’t quit your day job until you’ve completely validated your side hustle.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:24:30].1]

“Good crowdfunding is just good marketing.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:43:12].1]

“I think fear should be a signal that the project is worth doing.” — @clayhebert

Tweet This

[0:56:10].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Fail On Website – http://failon.com/

Fail On Podcast – http://failon.com/episodes/

UnboundMerino – https://unboundmerino.com/ (Promo Code: FAIL ON)

Clay Hebert on Twitter – https://twitter.com/clayhebert

Clay Hebert on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/clayhebert/

Crowdfunding Hacks – http://crowdfundinghacks.com/

The Perfect Intro by Clay Hebert – https://vimeo.com/170572720

Purple Cow by Seth Godin – https://www.amazon.com/Purple-Cow-New-Transform-Remarkable/dp/1591843170

Yeti Coolers – http://intl.yeti.com/

The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Winning-Creative-Battle/dp/1501260626

Chris Sacca — https://twitter.com/sacca

Seth Godin’s Alt MBA Course – https://altmba.com/

Kitty-O – http://kittyo.com/

Indiegogo – https://www.indiegogo.com/

Kickstarter — https://www.kickstarter.com/

U-2-Me — https://u-2-me.com/splash

Creative Live — https://www.creativelive.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 027

“CH: As you know, most startups never get to 10 customers. That’s where it all went. In this idea phase and this testing and whatever. You can remove a lot of the difficulty and concern and risk because everyone’s closing their eyes, thinking they’re going to build the next big thing. Just trick yourself and say you’re trying to build a 10 customer company, you’re trying to get 10 customers. You can envision your 10 customers having thanksgiving dinner with you.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:29.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:55.5] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes failing in a hyper focused way is the only way to achieve your dreams. in a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Clay Hebert. Clay is a crowd funding genius, a marketing strategist and the creator of the Six-Word Intro. As one of the world’s leading crowd funding experts, Clay has helped over 150 entrepreneurs, raised over 50 million dollars on Kickstarter and Indiegogo. Clay’s trained senior leaders at fortune 500 companies and his speaking clients have included Accenture, Pfizer, Zap Post and just some of the top universities to non profits in the world. He advices corporations and startups on strategy, marketing, innovation and culture.

He’s just a really smart guy and really well liked by pretty much everyone. We’ll be discussing how Clay was able to transition to entrepreneurship after nine years of management consulting in the corporate world. He’ll be sharing how to make important life decisions based on your future calendar and not your best idea. And a simple focus strategy based on factors of 10 to build your customer base and business, and how Clay would start a brand-new business today with limited funds and resources.

But first, I have a lot of travel coming up and luckily, all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from a beautiful Toronto company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes and apparel made out of marino wool and get this, you can wear it for months without ever needing to have it washed. You probably should have it washed, but you could do it.

Talk about a traveler’s absolute dream. You would never check a bag again, it just really cuts down on everything you need to take when you go on travel, vacation or holidays. Check in at the show notes page for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t get anywhere else. And, if you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On podcast interviews and key takeaway’s from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:59.2] RN: Hey there and welcome to the Fail On podcast. Today, I am sitting down with Clay Hebert. Clay helps people fund their dreams, he’s helped over 150 entrepreneurs and creatives, raised over $50 million dollars on platforms such as Indiegogo and Kickstarter.

Clay, welcome to the Fail On podcast.

[0:03:16.0] CH: Dude, thanks so much for having me, I’m stoked to be here.

[0:03:19.0] RN: Just for a little context, we are in San Diego right now in a co-working space called Downtown Works. They’ve actually got a little studio room, we’re just holed up in here, having a conversation.

[0:03:29.7] CH: Love it.

[0:03:32.0] RN: Obviously I want to go into crowd funding hacks and everything you’re doing in that realm and obviously some of your current projects. But I’d love for you to take us back to really the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?

[0:03:45.1] CH: Yeah, absolutely. I remember it well, I was freezing my butt off, maybe this doesn’t count because I didn’t create the candy bars but this was in elementary school when they gave you the candy bars to go sell. I was determined to win that alarm clock you know?

Looking back, it was probably $10 or $15 alarm clock, so I could have just gotten there a lot easier but I sold like seven boxes of candy bars. So I’d go to the local grocery store, middle of winter in Wisconsin, we go there at night, after school, after practice, it’s dark, it’s cold, bundled up. Asking, you know, costing every person who comes in the door in the grocery store if they want to buy a candy bar and it was really my first marketing lesson.

I didn’t know all the words and hadn’t read all the books at the time about permission and human spam and all that stuff. But what I did figure out is, they weren’t buying the candy bar. They were not the kind of person who supports a little kid who is freezing his ass off who’s selling the candy bar. I went from my first marketing lesson to my first marketing tactic/scam/whatever.

I brought a duffle bag of my brother’s clothes and I would wait, I would sell, I would sell candy bars for two hours or until frostbite set in. I realized that on any given night, after a certain number of people who were the kind of people who bought a candy bar, like I said, none of them were interested in the actual chocolate, overpriced candy bar. There were just like, here’s this kid.

When about four or five of them would go in, in the span of you know, before they came out. I would run around the corner, change clothes, change into my brother’s clothes, go stand at the other exit door and wait for those people to leave the grocery store and hit them up again. They would buy on the way out, again, not because they wanted the candy bar. But because here’s this sad little kid selling candy bars for school. That was the first marketing lesson and first marketing sort of tactic.

[0:05:35.0] RN: Just for context, where was that? Because you said frostbite.

[0:05:37.6] CH: Yeah, small town, Eau Claire Wisconsin, I grew up in a town, not tiny town but 60,000 people, west central Wisconsin called Eau Claire. It was Kermes grocery store in Eau Claire Wisconsin, I was probably about seven years old.

[0:05:49.4] RN: That’s amazing. Just in terms of obviously this is the Fail On podcast and you learned your lessons early on selling candy bars. It’s actually funny because I totally forgot, I did the same stuff, right? The same – I don’t know what it is, I think it’s mainly for sports teams, not for school. But that was typically what it was and you’d sell yeah, like you said this oversized candy bars that were like $5 apiece.

Like go in the grocery store and get it for like 50 cents.

[0:06:13.8] CH: Exactly. Yeah, not the best place to obviously, you know, they’re overpriced, they’re about to walk in to a place like you said, go to a place. I saw a story last year that I thought was hilarious, maybe it was a couple of years ago, this girl scout, you know, girl scout cookies were just sold in their annual drive. This girl scout just blew all the records, all the sales records or whatever because she sat up outside of a legal dispensary.

[0:06:37.7] RN: Amazing.

[0:06:38.2] CH: People going in, buying their marijuana, they walk outside and there’s this cute girl with a cart table and of course, she just blew out the sales records. So another marketing lesson, you know? Context and place matters.

[0:06:48.0] RN: Maybe we should be studying from kids?

[0:06:49.8] CH: I know, right?

[0:06:50.4] RN: They know how to pull the heart strings.

[0:06:51.9] CH: That’s’ right.

[0:06:53.8] RN: How do you actually view success and failure?

[0:06:56.0] CH: Interestingly, so I see them as inextricably linked. You cannot have success without many failures. Failure’s are sort of like the bricks, you have to stand on them to reach success. There’s a poem I love, I’m not a huge poetry...

Authentic Connections In The Air With Nik Tarascio

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 04 Sep 2017 14:53:08 -0500

Nik Tarascio was born into the family aviation business.

While we were probably picking our noses, Nik was working on airplanes by the age of four. He received his pilot’s license by the age of 16, was flying Lear jets by the age of 19 and, today, is the CEO of Ventura Aviation.

Nik is responsible for his multimillion dollar family charter company. He is an excellent musician and is still a practicing pilot himself.

Despite his history of social anxiety, Nik is also now building a YouTube and social media community sharing amazing flight adventures and documenting it for the world to see.

Today, we’ll be discussing what it’s like running a tight-knit family business. Nik shares how to make aviation more accessible and how he gets out of his comfort zone. And he also shares how he is able to leverage his unique talents to cultivate meaningful relationships miles up in the air.

Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

How working on airplanes cultivated Nik’s entrepreneurship.
Why Nik didn’t care about school or college.
Getting a pilot’s license at age 16.
How Nik accidentally became CEO.
The epic fail Nik is still paying for.
Navigating family dynamics in business.
Why Nik and his family love to teach.
When the engine cuts in the cockpit.
How Hamptons chic lead to Summit.
Overcoming the awkwardness of being awkward.
Nik’s no-more-than-24-hours trip.
Making authentic connections.
Is aviation as expensive as we think?
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I knew I never really belonged in school.” – @niktarascio

Tweet This

[0:07:00].1]

“It wasn’t until I accidentally became CEO that things started to make a little bit more sense.” — @niktarascio

Tweet This

[0:12:40].1]

“I learned how to overcome fear in a cockpit.” — @niktarascio

Tweet This

[0:27:19].1]

“I mean, you want to talk about fear and failure? I was the most awkward dude.” — @niktarascio

Tweet This

[0:29:55].1]

“Say who you are without any external characteristics, whatsoever.” — @niktarascio

Tweet This

[0:48:25].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Venture Air Website – http://www.ventura.aero/

Nik on Twitter – https://twitter.com/niktarascio

Nik on LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicktarascio/

Nik on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/rockstarnik

Pilot Nik YouTube Channel – https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCI3Ag4EFVgHpSPBykgtM57Q

Nik on Forbes.com – https://www.forbes.com/sites/entrepreneursorganization/2017/07/14/3-steps-to-overcome-your-negative-self-talk/#31c0de154195

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 026

“NT: You know what? I learned how to overcome fear in a cockpit, and so I really want to do something with that. I’ve thought a lot about taking a lot of that learning from the cockpit, a lot of that high-performance thinking and creating something where I could teach people about the best learning from the cockpit without them having to be a pilot to do it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:21.6] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders faced on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:47.4] RN: Hey there, and welcome to show that believes failing in a hyper-focused way is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs, and this is a platform for their stories.

Today’s story is of Nik Tarascio. He was born into the family aviation business and was even working on airplanes by the age of four. As the CEO of Ventura Aviation, Nik runs a multimillion dollar charter company and is also a pilot himself. He got his private pilot’s license at the age of 16 and was even flying Lear jets by the age of 19. He’s also now building a YouTube and social media community sharing amazing flight adventures and documenting it for the world to see, and it’s just extremely well done.

We’ll be discussing what it’s like running a family business along with the challenges of actually working with people you have personal relationships with. We’ll talk about how Nik is able to leverage his unique talents that cultivate deep relationships and what he constantly does to make sure he is growing and getting out of his comfort zone on a regular basis.

First, I’ve been traveling a lot as is and I have even more travel coming up, and luckily all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from a sweet Toronto apparel company called Unbound Merino. They have clothes made out of merino wool and, get this, you can wear it for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. I don’t know if that’s recommended, but you can do it.

Just talk about an absolute traveler’s dream, never check a bag again. Just please check it at the show notes page at failon.com/026 for an exclusive Fail On discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else.

Of course, if you’d like to stay up-to-date on all the Fail On podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:32.5] RN: How did you get started on entrepreneurship and when was this?

[0:02:37.0] NT: I don’t have a defining moment where it shifted. I grew up in a family business and I think it was a slow progression. I think it was really more of just — I tried to copy everything my dad did and try to master every skill he had.

[0:02:53.6] RN: What was he doing?

[0:02:55.0] NT: Early memories were things like we would go out and fix airplanes. We’d take an engine in our basement and rebuild an engine in our basement. I remember 8 years old literally building engines in our basement. We carry it up the stairs, put it in a wood panel, the Grand Caravan, to drive it out to the airport and put it on an engine. I mean put the engine on the front of an airplane.

I really don’t think I was in entrepreneurship until really well into my 20s actually. I think I thought I was. I was like, “Oh, I’m running a business or I’m involved in the management of a business.” Really, I was acting more just a mirror of my father.

[0:03:28.1] RN: How early were you actually working in the business with your dad though? Were you doing stuff at 10 years old to help out? What was that like?

[0:03:35.5] NT: Here’s the way to think about it. Airplanes are tiny. The ones we work on are small and we were tiny kids, so my dad being an entrepreneur was like, “I see opportunity here,” climbing the tail of that airplane and buck some rivets. We could fit in way better. Literally, from the time I was five or six, I was working on airplanes.

I’d say I started playing a more major role when I was 13 and I was doing aircraft sales form. Again, it was more of like, “What does he need to do the calls for?” I have these — At the time, it was like classified ads that I would call and try to negotiate airplane deals. It was funny because I’d be —

[0:04:10.1] RN: At 13?

[0:04:11.0] NT: Yeah. At 13.

[0:04:12.0] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:04:12.2] NT: I’m negotiating a hundred thousand dollar discount on an airplane and I made $7 an hour. I have no concept of money. It was either, “How about 1.1 instead of 1.3 million?” Versus, “Can I make $8 an hour dad? That would be really nice.” Again, I think I was just more of like — I was just a good worker.

[0:04:30.6] RN: Was that at 13? I mean did that just come from your dad — You were watching your dad just bust his ass all the time? How did that from? Where do that come from?

[0:04:39.3] NT: Yeah, I think so. My grandfather was that way. My dad was that way. He just gets it done and he never complained about the amount of work. He was just, “I’m going to do whatever it takes to make it happen.” He would take stuff and be like, “Hey if something is not right, take it apart and put it back together again.”

Very early on he instilled this idea of like understand the fundamentals of what you’re doing. Look at all the core parts, put it back together, you’ll have a greater understanding. Always very mechanical. I actually started the business when I was 13, but I didn’t start it to make money, because I didn’t know anything about sales and marketing. What I knew is that I buy musical instruments, because I’m a musician and if I’m a company that sells musical instruments, I get to buy them at wholesale price.

[0:05:16.7] RN: Yeah, you get discounts.

[0:05:17.7] NT: That’s all I did. I just bought my own stuff at discount. Again, it’s just actually goes to show, I was a thrifty ops guy. I was not a sales and marketing guy.

[0:05:26.6] RN: Gosh! Did you actually end up selling any of those instruments?

[0:05:30.5] NT: I think I sold to my high school some stuff. My friend was like, “Oh, I’ll buy through you what I need to buy for a stage crew.” I was like, “Okay. Cool.” I think, all in all, I probably made a thousand dollars. It was a joke. Everyone else we meet in our networks is like, “When I was selling candy, I made $450,000 at 11 years old.” I’m like, “I made a thousand dollars.”

[0:05:50.3] RN: Yeah. I was telling you when we’re eating Indian food, I didn’t even know what entrepreneurship was until I was out of college. I’m right there with you. I was not born bring lemonade and building a lemonade franchise in my neighborhood like Gary Vaynerchuck always talks about.

You’re 13 years old doing sales. You’re 5, 6 years old crawling into the back of little airplanes. I don’t know what you said. Buck a rivet? I don’t even know what that means. I’m guess you’re screwing something or hammering something.

[0:06:19.3] NT: Sort of. A rivet is a piece of metal that you hit with an impact gun and it flattens it. It flattens the rivet.

[0:06:26.4] RN: I’ve seen them on airplanes.

[0:06:28.0] NT: Trains have them. Yeah, exactly. On the side of an airplanes, those aren’t screws, those are actually pieces of metal that are formed to hold the skin together.

[0:06:33.5] RN: Got it. So you’re doing that?

[0:06:34.5] NT: Yeah.

[0:06:36.0] RN: At five?

[0:06:36.9] NT: Yeah.

[0:06:38.9] RN: Were you not playing with friends? Did you not have friends? That’s not a normal childhood. You’re negotiating a hundred thousand dollar deals and bucking rivets.

[0:06:47.2] NT: Yeah. I was kind of a nerdy, socially awkward kid. I used to get the crap kicked out of me when I was little. I never really liked people in my school. I wanted to be around my school. Instead, I had friends that were 40-year-old pilots. I would sit around and talk to pilots all the time. That was my group really at the end of the day and they would talk to me in ways that you don’t talk to a 13-year-old, like, “Alright. Tell me about the crazy stuff you get into?”

I had a really strange life where I felt more like I was in my 20s and 30s when I was a teenager. I knew I never really belonged in school.

[0:07:19.8] RN: You didn’t belong in school, but you graduated high school?

[0:07:22.5] NT: Yeah. I graduated high school. I went to college. Again, I was like this super nerd.

[0:07:26.8] RN: You got good grades. You really cared or you didn’t care?

[0:07:28.7] NT: I was in like number 8 in my school graduating. I got a scholarship to college. The thing is that I didn’t give a shit. I was one of those guys that like I was in some talented program, like talented kids, gifted kids, whatever the hell they call it and they were like, “Oh! You have to write a book report every year,” and I’d quit right before the book report every year. I was like I don’t care. I don’t see what this does for me. I knew I had good raw materials, I just didn’t have anything to do. However, flying was really sexy and cool, so I mastered aviation in a very, very young age.

[0:07:58.3] RN: When did you get your pilot’s license?

[0:07:59.8] NT: My 16th birthday.

[0:08:01.6] RN: At 16. Okay. So you’re still in high school. That’s — You’re doing crazy stuff. I played tennis growing up, but I wasn’t like bucking rivets and negotiating a hundred thousand dollar deals and getting my pilot’s license. That’s awesome.

You got a scholarship for college. Did you go to college and graduate?

[0:08:20.6] NT: No. I did about a year and a half. Went to Polytechnic University, which is now NYU Poly. The thing is I was really good at math and science, physics, computer stuff.

[0:08:30.3] RN: All the stuff necessary to be a pilot basically.

[0:08:33.3] NT: Kind of. Yeah. Actually, avionics, I use it all the time. I use all the stuff I learned there. I was one of those guys that never went to class, and then would just get an A.

[0:08:42.9] RN: A on the test, on the exam.

[0:08:44.8] NT: Until in my second year I started having classes where the teacher said they were grading me on my attendance, and that’s when I was like, “I’m already not digging this.” My parents wanted me to go and I wanted to be a dick, so I was like, “Alright. I’ll keep going.” At some point I was like, “Look. It’s my money, because it’s my scholarship and I don’t want to be here and I don’t want to live this lifestyle.” No offense to people that went to computer engineering schools, but it wasn’t exactly the culture of people that I wanted to be around.

[0:09:07.8] RN: Would you have gone if you didn’t have a scholarship?

[0:09:09.9] NT: No.

[0:09:11.4] RN: Just for financial reasons.

[0:09:13.5] NT: I just didn’t care enough. I went because it was easy, and that’s why like as long as I was getting good grades and I didn’t have to go to class. I was in. As soon as they were like, “No. You actually have to work at it and it’s going to cost you something.” I’m like, “No. No freaking way. I’m not doing it.”

[0:09:27.1] RN: What were you hoping to get out of your pilot’s license at 16? Did you want to be a fulltime...

The Entrepreneurial Roller Coaster With Cameron Herold

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 28 Aug 2017 07:00:12 -0500

Today on the podcast we have Cameron Herold, Founder of The COO Alliance.

Cameron is known around the world as The Business Growth Guru. Cameron was groomed as an entrepreneur as a kid.

By age 21, Cameron had 14 employees, by age 35, he had already helped build his first two 100 million dollar companies, by the age of 42, Cameron engineered 1-800-GOTJUNK’s, insane growth from two million dollars all the way up to 106 million dollars in revenue at their peak.

That was with 3,100 employees and he did that in just six years. His companies have landed over 5,200 media placements in those same six years including coverage on Oprah.

Cameron’s one of the most well-respected businessmen in the world, yet he still battles failure, hardship, insecurities and struggles.

We’ll be discussing the best advice he ever got at the age of 20 and how that actually was the defining point of his life. He shares what R&D means and why people overcomplicate business when just getting started. And Cameron openly shares his biggest insecurities and fears even after decades of success and much, much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

“Just do it”: the best advice Cameron got at the age of 20.
Being groomed as an entrepreneur at a young age.
Why your RND should stand for rip off and duplicate.
Listening and just getting started as your two cores.
Building relationships and asking for referrals.
Cameron’s God and Grandmother rule.
Looking for the path of least resistance and working smart.
The importance of transparency in business.
Why Cameron wouldn’t recommend a franchise to someone starting out.
How not listening led to failures along Cameron’s journey.
Discover where the COO Alliance is heading in the future.
The balance between being entrepreneurial and operational.
Listen as Cameron defines failure as not trying.
What the education system should look like according to Cameron.
Hear about Cameron’s challenge for credit idea.
Advice for somebody looking to get into business.
Getting systems in place and growing your business.
How Cameron steps out of his comfort zone.
Assessing risk by starting with your goal and working backwards.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Try it. If you fail, it doesn’t matter but you’ll always regret not trying if you don’t.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:04:33].0]

“Your R&D should stand for rip off and duplicate.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:09:06].0]

“Momentum will create your momentum.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:09:16].0]

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know and your network is your net worth.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:12:23].0]

“I think failure for me would be not trying.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:26:10].0]

“To be successful you’ve got to dive in.” — @cameronherold

Tweet This

[0:33:42].0]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Cameron Herold — https://www.cameronherold.com/

Cameron on Twitter — https://twitter.com/cameronherold

Cameron’s books on Amazon — https://www.amazon.com/Cameron-Herold/e/B00845CG2S

The COO Alliance — http://www.cooalliance.com/

1-800-Got-Junk? — http://www.1800gotjunk.com/us_en

College Pro Painters — https://www.collegepro.com/

Cameron’s TED talk — https://www.ted.com/talks/cameron_herold_let_s_raise_kids_to_be_entrepreneurs

Mastermind Talks — http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Dan Martell — https://www.danmartell.com/

Eben Pagan — https://ebenpagantraining.com/

Connor Blakeley — http://connorblakley.com/

Gary Vaynerchuk — https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Kimbal Musk — http://thekitchen.com/

Peter Rive — http://www.solarcity.com/

UpWork — https://www.upwork.com/

Hire My Mom — https://www.hiremymom.com/login

Fiverr — https://www.fiverr.com/

Dave Asprey — https://blog.bulletproof.com/about-dave-asprey/

Hal Elrod — http://halelrod.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 025

“CH: Yeah, so a lot of times I’ll get people sending me a note saying, “Hey, would you mentor me?“ I’m going to say, “No, I’m not going to mentor you because that’s a long term relationship.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:12.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:38.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure in a hyper focus way is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs. This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of Cameron Herold. At age 21, Cameron had 14 employees, by 35, he had already helped build his first two 100 million dollar companies, by the age of 42, Cameron engineered 1-800-got junks, insane growth from two million dollars all the way up to 106 million dollars in revenue at their peak.

That was with 3,100 employees and he did that in just six years. His companies have landed over 5,200 media placements in those same six years including coverage on Oprah.

Cameron’s one of the most well-respected businessmen in the world, still battles failure, hardship and securities and struggles. We’ll be discussing the best advice he ever got at the age of 20 and how that actually was the defining point of his life. What RND means to Cameron and why people overcomplicate business when just getting started,

and what his biggest insecurities and fears are even today after decades of success and much more of course. But first, I have a lot of travel coming up and luckily, all I need to travel with is a backpack for one reason only, it’s a shirt from an awesome Toronto company called Unbound Merino, they have clothes and apparel made out of merino wool and get this, you can wear it for months without ever needing to have it washed.

It’s a traveler’s absolute dream and it would turn you into a minimalist really quickly. Never check a bag again, check in at the show notes page for an exclusive fail on discount that you won’t get anywhere else. And, if you like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaway’s from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:26.3] RN: So, sitting here with Cameron Herald, we’re in Carmel California, just to give you a little context, we’ve got a beautiful backdrop here of the hills in Carmel, it’s not on the water, we’re inland a bit but Carmel Valley, it’s beautiful.

[0:02:41.4] CH: It’s pretty awesome actually.

[0:02:42.7] RN: You just got in?

[0:02:43.7] CH: Yeah, I got here about half hour ago and then got swarmed in the lobby and started – got into my panic attack right away and I panicked, I get nervous with stuff so I got nervous right away, realizing I don’t remember everybody’s name, they all knew me and I couldn’t remember them and so yeah, I got in my head a little bit but…

[0:02:59.5] RN: It’s stressful a little bit.

[0:03:00.9] CH: Good to be back.

[0:03:01.7] RN: You came straight form Phoenix?

[0:03:03.3] CH: Yeah, flew in from Scottsdale.

[0:03:05.8] RN: That direct American flight?

[0:03:06.8] CH: Yeah, to Monterey, it was great, there were six of us on the plane too.

[0:03:10.2] RN: Nice, I went from so, yesterday I came in, I did San Diego to Phoenix to Monterrey. Which is better than going like san Diego to San Jose then getting a car or trying to figure that out.

[0:03:21.5] CH: Yeah.

[0:03:22.5] RN: It was okay though. Cool, thanks for joining me.

[0:03:24.9] CH: You’re welcome, glad to be here.

[0:03:25.6] RN: Happy to have you here and happy to chat about your journey. Obviously you have COO Alliance, you helped kind of the right hand man, and entrepreneurs scale their current businesses but before we go in to kind of that, I want to go back to kind of your entry into entrepreneurship. Take us back to the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service?

[0:03:48.0] CH: I’m going to go a little later than that then I’ll go back to it because I think that the whole being afraid to fail kind of concept for our audience and our listener right now. There was one defining moment in my entrepreneurial career when I was allowed, I was kind of given permission.

I was 20 years old and I was looking to buy a franchise of a company called College Pro Painters which is the largest residential house painting company in the planet. I was in university. They don’t sell you the franchise, they award it to you but you have to buy a vehicle and buy ladders and hire a bunch of people and you sign a 67 page franchise agreement and I was scared.

You’re getting a theme now, I’m scared. I remember calling my dad who was probably my very first mentor and he said, “There’s never a better time in your life to go bankrupt.” He said, “Try it, if you fail, it doesn’t matter but you’ll always regret not trying if you don’t” and the next day I signed a 67 page franchise agreement and had I not done that, I would not be anywhere today.

It gave me the foundation for all my business learning, it gave me the foundation for other business opportunities that I was presented with, it gave me the launchpad for 1-800-got junk. Literally that night, when he said to the word, “There will never be a better time in your life to fail because you don’t have anything, you got nothing, you don’t have any kids.”

I’ve got four kids now, I’ve got an estate that we live on, I got responsibilities, I’ve got homes in two cities, I’ve got – I have to make it happen.

[0:05:12.5] RN: You had a full-time job right now and you didn’t have any of those other businesses, you had lived your life like job to job.

[0:05:19.3] CH: I’d be too scared.

[0:05:19.1] RN: You have family, you’d be too…

[0:05:20.7] CH: Too scared.

[0:05:21.2] RN: Exactly, I wouldn’t be able to, I’d be paralyzed. Because failure would crush you at that point.

[0:05:24.1] CH: Even today in my business world today, it would be hard for me to pivot and do something completely different because I built a really great business now that the fear of failure is pretty big but I’ll tell you, that was the best advice I ever got at 20 years old was, just do it.

There’s never better time – you don‘t go bankrupt, you know, you’re always going to figure it out, you’re going to find a way. That was probably the defining point. If I go back to the earlier parts when the first time anyone – I was groomed as an entrepreneur, that’s why I had to start at 20 because the first time I ever did anything for money, I was eight.

I actually did a TED Talk about this. I have a talk that’s on ted.com about raising kids as entrepreneurs. It was originally subtitled instead of lawyers and then they cut out the instead of lawyers, it’s still been on the main TED site for seven years now.

My first entrepreneurial venture, my dad had these license plate protectors, you put them on the back of license plates and he made me go sell them door to door, I was eight. I was in grade two and I was knocking on doors and I was scared to death and the first guy said, “No.” I was like, all right, but if I go home and tell my dad, I didn’t sell any, he’s going to be mad at me so I’m going to knock on the...

Dan Demsky On Why You Should Start Anything

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 21 Aug 2017 07:00:14 -0500

Dan Demsky is currently the co-founder of Unbound Merino, the ultimate travel hacking clothing brand and one of my favorite companies on the planet.

But before we find out more about Unbound Merino and how they raised $360,000 in their crowd funding campaign, we get an entertaining inside scoop into Dan’s entrepreneurial business journey.

From burning CD’s, to making skate videos, to selling socks – Dan has been on one hell of a business ride. We discover more about the past businesses that Dan has owned and started. He shares what actually made him get into business in the first place and how he bounced back from his lowest business moment.

Dan is one of the most even-keeled guys I’ve ever met. Never too excited, never too stressed, and never too busy to start something. Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

From burning CD’s, to skate videos, to socks: How Dan got into entrepreneurship.
Why so many businesses start in the basement.
Dan’s first $10,000 check.
How Unbound Merino started.
The trip to Greece that inspired Dan’s new business venture; #thankswifey
The pitfalls of current Merino wool fashion.
The products available at Unbound Merino.
Behind the scenes of Dan’s crowdfunding campaign.
Dan’s lowest business moment.
Keeping chill and focusing on your sphere of influence.
Fear, ball cancer, and trying to be better every day.
How Dan has been spending his Friday nights.
Why you should just start anything, even if it’s making soap.
More about the Unbound Merino women’s line coming soon.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I had to learn everything just by figuring it out. No formal education. Just do it.” — @dandemsky

Tweet This

[0:18:50].0]

“I remember Jeffrey Gitomer saying: “There’s no such thing as failure, it’s only feedback.” — @dandemsky

Tweet This

[0:18:50].0]

“I’m not really afraid of anything that relates to business.” — @dandemsky

Tweet This

[0:43:16].0]

“If you have your health, you have a lot more than a lot of people.” — @dandemsky

Tweet This

[0:45:11].0]

“Just do anything. It really doesn't matter what it is.” — @dandemsky

Tweet This

[0:54:15].2]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Unbound Merino Website – https://unboundmerino.com/ (Promo Code – FAIL ON)

Unbound Merino on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/unboundmerino/

Dan on Twitter — https://twitter.com/dandemsky?lang=en

Dan on LinkedIn — https://ca.linkedin.com/in/dandemsky

Hitsu Socks – https://hitsusocks.com/

Mastermind Talks – http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Hydra Greece – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_(island)

BizMedia – http://www.thebizmedia.com

Merino Wool – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merino

Indiegogo Crowdfunding – https://www.indiegogo.com/

The Art Of – https://www.theartof.com

The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer – https://www.amazon.com/Sales-Bible-Ultimate-Resource-Revised/dp/0471456292

Testicular Cancer – https://www.cancer.org/cancer/testicular-cancer/do-i-have-testicular-cancer.html

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 024

“DD: I remember thinking, “I have no idea how I’m going to ever get at this. I can’t conceive what getting out of this looks like at this point, because it’s just so bad.” But I thought, “Okay. Well, I’m in my early 20s,” I was probably mid 20s at that point. I’d say 25, 26, “Am I even going to be thinking about this when I’m 35? I’m sure I’m going to get out of this by then.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:33.4] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:59.6] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure and sharing their honest struggle is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs. This is a platform for their stories, and today’s story is of Dan Demsky. Dan is currently the cofounder of Unbound Merino, one of my favorite companies on the planet. They sell travel apparel. I also sponsor them on the podcast in exchange for t-shirts. Literally, no money needed. Dan just sends me shirts.

We’ll talk more about Unbound Merino and how they raised $360,000 in their crowd funding campaign, which is about 12-X their goal. We’ll also go into some of his past businesses that he’s owned and started and what actually made him get into business in the first place. Daniel is one of the most even keel dudes I’ve ever met, never too excited, never too stressed. You’re going to love it. Great conversation, fascinating guy.

First, if you’d like to stay up-to-date on all of Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:07.6] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the Fail On Podcast. I am fortunate enough to be sitting here in Toronto with Dan Demsky. Dan, welcome to the show.

[0:02:17.2] DD: Thank you for letting me be here.

[0:02:19.1] RN: It’s awesome man. We actually got connected really recently. Part of the similar community in terms of Mastermind talks, I know we have a lot of mutual friends and you are recommended as somebody to sit down and chat with. So I appreciate you taking the time on a Friday afternoon.

[0:02:34.0] DD: As I was saying before, it’s funny that I got recommended for the podcast about failing. I don’t know who did it or what the context was. It doesn’t hurt my ego that much, but it’s funny to know that I came to mind when we were talking about failure to someone.

[0:02:50.2] RN: “Oh, you have a podcast about failure. You got to talk to Dan. You got to talk to Dan.”

[0:02:53.0] DD: He is the king. He embodies it.

[0:02:56.5] RN: No. I love it though. Just so we have a little context about you and your background, just give us an idea of how you got into entrepreneurship and kind of the journey you traveled to get to what you’re doing today. I do want to get to what you’re doing today because, like I talked to you about before we got online, I think it’s like my dream business. It’s like my dream business and my dream product. Before we get there, I want to hear about your background a little bit.

[0:03:19.9] DD: You often hear this in a lot of entrepreneur stories that it kind of always is in their blood. I remember when CD burners first came out, my business partner and I were the first guys to get it because we can make CDs and try to sell them. That was failure number one. I think we sold one or two.

[0:03:38.7] RN: The whole idea was to have it as a business?

[0:03:40.7] DD: Yeah, and then we just started pirating Playstation games instead.

[0:03:43.7] RN: And playing with them yourselves?

[0:03:44.8] DD: Yeah, just sitting there, but the intent was there. It’s kind of always been a stream through my life . I didn’t have any clear vision that I’m going to have my own business one day, but I was freelancing doing video production because I just enjoyed making little skate videos with my business partner who I started my first business with and through the freelance projects, word of mouth got around that we’re great to work with, just doing shooting and editing and started getting project after project.

[0:04:16.4] RN: What kind of stuff were you shooting?

[0:04:17.1] DD: At the time? Anything. We were shooting many — Some students were doing a documentary about some historical figure and they needed a camera guy for a day and then they want help with the edit. We’re talking $200, $300 projects.

[0:04:31.4] RN: You’re shooting and editing. You’re not actually coming up with ideas?

[0:04:36.1] DD: At that moment in time we were just shooting and editing. We are freelance videographers, freelance editors. But we really enjoyed it because we wanted to make our own documentary films. Effectively we’re getting paid to learn, and we liked helping people do their projects for their film or for their business and just hanging out with the people and getting paid. I’m talking not a lot of money. We get paid 250 bucks, 300 bucks.

[0:05:02.8] RN: Was this the first time that somebody had actually given you money in exchange for a product or service that you gave them?

[0:05:08.8] DD: Yeah.

[0:05:10.9] RN: That’s a pretty cool feeling, right?

[0:05:11.8] DD: Yeah. It was mind blowing to get $250.

[0:05:16.8] RN: For just shooting video and editing? Stuff you probably would be doing if you weren’t getting paid anyways, right?

[0:05:21.4] DD: We were literally doing it. All of a sudden these people were hiring us and we would just completely over-deliver, because we like — We had to add a motion graphics thing in the edit here, so we got books on how to learn motion graphics and we would stay up all night. The amount of time we’d put in to a typical $200, $300 project, it’s like we might as well have just — It’s below minimum wage if you break it down, but it wasn’t about the money obviously.

[0:05:48.5] RN: But you loved it, right?

[0:05:49.2] DD: Yeah. That $300 would go to get a filter for the lens. Every single dollar, because we were doing it in my mom’s basement. This is where we’re doing it all. There’s no expenses. It’s negative expenses because not only do you not have any overhead, you also get three hot meals a day delivered to you. You’re good. It’s the best possible place to ever start a business. That’s why so many businesses start in the basement.

That’s where we were, and we got busy. We couldn’t handle the amount of work, and this is just from word of mouth overtime.

[0:06:19.7] RN: You guys weren’t trying to promote yourselves. It was just referrals, like “You have to use these guys. These guys are doing really work.”

[0:06:26.7] DD: We really cared. We were just so into it, right? To the point where we hired a friend into the basement and we hired another guy. So we had four guys in my mom’s basement and then we got our first corporate gig. We didn’t really incorporate it as a business. It was GE, and one of our clients —

[0:06:42.9] RN: That’s a big first corporate gig.

[0:06:45.7] DD: Here’s the story behind that. One of our clients that would hire us for 300 bucks or whatever, he said, “I’m going to get you a little gig with GE.” He was doing a project with them, “And you guys can give me 10%, but what you’ll get is way more than the type of stuff you’re billing anyways.” “Sure.” We went to this meeting with GE and we had no idea. We didn’t even know how to send an invoice. We’re used to getting cash in envelopes. My business partner, I remember, we had these torn jeans. We didn’t have any concept of how to look or be professional. They were laughing at us, literally. They were cool with it, but they were literally laughing at us.

[0:07:23.9] RN: Like, “Who are these dudes?”

[0:07:24.2] DD: Yeah, “Who are these guys?” But we got the job and it was about $4,000 for this job.

[0:07:32.2] RN: Way more than you’ve gotten for anything else?

[0:07:33.9] DD: More than 10 times. Here’s the thing, we finished this thing in like 2½ hours. It was the stupidest, easiest thing ever. At that point we’re like, “Wow! People spend a lot of money for this stuff.” That was when we said, “Okay, maybe we can make this a business.” We started — We had to incorporate the business and all of these. The business just formed and it became this wild ride of growth that — We’re talking about failure here, so I can get into that perhaps but it grew really rapidly. We ended up moving downtown. We’re hiring. It just happened.

[0:08:07.3] RN: Office space, everything?

[0:08:08.9] DD: Yeah. We got a wicked office right downtown. We’re hiring. The team was just growing. The projects were growing. It was just so fast. It was so crazy.

[0:08:17.9] RN: Just for some context, what years were this where this has happened?

[0:08:22.8] DD: We started probably about almost 10 years ago. I was 22 when we started. We incorporated a year out. I was 23 when we incorporated. That was, I guess when we started to take it a little more seriously. Man! Just a ton of things to learn in the process and I had no career before this. I was still in school. I left school. I was working at a — I was a server at a pizza restaurant. I had to learn everything just by figuring it out. No formal education in any of these. All of a sudden I was a business owner.

[0:09:02.2] RN: Once you started growing, were you still doing the shooting and editing? Or did you kind of morph out of that role into like more of a manager-operator type?

[0:09:10.5] DD: Yeah, very quickly. I remember the moment I stopped editing. When we were working on a project, at that time my business partner and I, we would both do everything including editing and...

Stepping Out of Your Comfort Zone and Into Your Purpose with Dan Martell

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 07:00:17 -0500

Dan Martell is a Canadian entrepreneur and an experienced angel investor who has invested in over 33 companies. Dan is the founder of Clarity.fm, co-founder of Flowtown and founder of Spheric Technologies.

He has also been a mentor at 500Startups, GrowLabs and theC100.org. He believes “you can only keep what you give away,” and is heavily involved in many charitable organizations & community events.

In this episode Dan will be sharing with us how he got his start in business and why actually being in jail led to a completely new perspective on life. He also talks about the two magical questions to ask people that will make networking effortless. And finally, the simple way to remove all risk from starting a business through pre-selling.

And much more!

Key Points From This Episode:

Dan tells us how he made his first dollar online and how that moment changed everything.
How going through chaos as a kid led Dan to uncover his entrepreneurial side.
Find out how Dan learned to code through reading books.
The biggest lessons Dan took away from his time spent in jail and at rehab.
Why Dan explains failure as experiments that ran too long.
The importance of having the right people around you.
Dan’s Dream 100 list and why he divides it into peers, advisors and mentors.
Why being good at asking questions is a magical skill.
Approaching the right type of people and finding a good mentor.
Hear about Dan’s biggest failures while on this path of entrepreneurship.
Discover what the entrepreneurial pendulum is.
Automatic negative thoughts and the effect it has on you and your business.
Choosing to be grateful and changing your mindset.
Getting out of your comfort zone and setting goals that up your game.
Developing your idea muscle.
Three different ways to become wealthy: the artist, the manager and the entrepreneur.
Why the best way to presell is asking for advice.
The person that changed Dan’s life.
Dan’s purpose of helping people and troubled children.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“The world rewards courageous decisions.” — @danmartell

Tweet This

[0:15:12].0]

“The basis of great entrepreneurship is mentoring.” — @danmartell

Tweet This

[0:18:05].0]

“Every entrepreneurial story is a great story because it never works out the way it was supposed to.” — @danmartell

Tweet This

[0:27:20].0]

“You can’t be grateful and angry at the same time; you can’t do it. Can’t. Zero. Not possible.” — @danmartell

Tweet This

[0:36:55].0]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dan Martell — http://www.danmartell.com/

Dan on Twitter — https://twitter.com/danmartell

Dan on LinkedIn — https://ca.linkedin.com/in/dmartell

Clarity — https://clarity.fm/

Unbound Merino — unboundmerino.com (PROMO CODE: FAILON)

Portage — https://portage.ca/en/

Flowtown — https://www.linkedin.com/company-beta/766900/

Spheric Technologies — http://spheric.ca/

500 Startups — https://500.co/

HTML — http://html.com/

Javascript — https://www.javascript.com/

ColdFusion — http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion-family.html

PHP — http://php.net/

Perl Script — https://www.perl.org/

Shark Tank — http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank

Dragons Den — http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/

Airbnb — https://www.airbnb.com/

VRBO — https://www.vrbo.com/

Meetup.com — https://www.meetup.com/

Run for The Cure — http://cibcrunforthecure.supportcbcf.com/

Amazon — https://www.amazon.com/

SEO — https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en//webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf

Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/

The Five Minute Journal — https://www.amazon.com/Five-Minute-Journal-Happier-Minutes/dp/0991846206/

Travis Kalanick — https://www.linkedin.com/in/traviskalanick/

Uber — https://www.uber.com/

Mark Zuckerberg — https://www.facebook.com/zuck

Warren Buffet — http://www.warrenbuffett.com/

WordPress — https://wordpress.com/

Paypal —https://www.paypal.com/

Youtube — https://www.youtube.com/

James Altucher — http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

Richard Branson — https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson

Groupon — https://www.groupon.com/

Intercom — https://www.intercom.com/

Dropbox — https://www.dropbox.com/

Jayson Gaignard — http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

Marc Ecko — http://www.ecko.com/

Tim Ferriss — https://fourhourworkweek.com/

Oprah — http://www.oprah.com/index.html

Block Geeks — https://blockgeeks.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 023

“DM: You got to be a die hard passion about it, it can hurt people because when they start it, they did it because they’re passionate about it and then they realize it’s a job and then they’re like shit, this isn’t fun anymore, it’s like look, business is not the same as being a practitioner.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:17.6] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:43.5] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure and sharing your honest struggle is the only way to achieve your dreams, in a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to open, honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs and this is a platform for their stories and today’s story is a good one. It’s of Dan Martell, if you don’t know Dan.

Dan’s an award winning Canadian entrepreneur and has exited three different venture backed startups. His most recent being Clarity which is acquired by startups.co. In 2012, he was named Canada’s top angel investor having completed over 33 investments with companies like Udemy, Intercom and Unbounce. We’ll be discussing how he got a start in business and why actually being in jail led to a completely new perspective on life.

The two magical questions to ask people that will make networking effortless and the one simple exercise to take to get out of a rut when you are feeling down and obviously much more. But first, I haven’t been traveling as much as I typically do lately but it hasn’t stopped me from wearing my new favorite shirt.

It’s a shirt from an awesome Toronto company called Unbound Marino. They have clothes and apparel made out of Marino wool and get this, you can wear them for months on end without ever needing to have it washed. Yes, I said that. This is a traveler’s absolute dream, it’s a guy’s absolute dream and it will turn you into a minimalist really quickly.

You’ll never have to check a bag at the airport again, but we’ll have a promo code for you on the show notes page for an exclusive fail on discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else so make sure to check that out. That will be at failon.com/023 and moving right along.

If you’d like to stay up to date on all the Fail On podcast, interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter at the bottom of the page, that’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:34.4] RN: So, sitting down here with Mr. Dan Martell. We are in Carmel, California.

[0:02:40.4] DM: Beautiful outside.

[0:02:42.1] RN: We’re sitting on the patio, we’re sitting on my patio from my room, looking out, beautiful setting of rolling hills.

[0:02:49.3] DM: It’s California.

[0:02:51.4] RN: this is it man, you came in from – you’re back in Canada now?

[0:02:53.2] DM: East coast, yeah. Or back – last time I saw you was in San Diego and then I spent the winter there, head back east and then this is about the time of year where things get really magical there.

[0:03:05.0] RN: Yeah, this is like, all the Canada friends are like, this is cottage time.

[0:03:10.2] DM: Yeah.

[0:03:10.5] RN: Cottage life.

[0:03:11.7] DM: It’s good, there’s a few months a year and then the rest of it you run away.

[0:03:14.2] RN: You go to Carlsbad.

[0:03:15.5] DM: Yeah.

[0:03:17.2] RN: Awesome, obviously, you have Clarity and Flowtown that you sold, I want to jump into all that stuff and I want to jump in to what you’re doing now with Danmartell.com but first, just for some context, let’s go way back to the first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?

[0:03:35.3] DM: Yeah, I will say, I’ll go to 17, I mean, when I was a kid, I used to rally the neighborhood kids to build tree forts and snow castles and charge other neighborhood kids that didn’t help out, 25 cents play. I guess, at a young age, you could say I was into real estate but I think the more interesting story is when I was 17, I went through a lot as a teenager.

I had a pretty colorful upbringing, short story is, I ended up in jail twice, rehab at 17, discovered programming through this book I found on java, programming and when I got out, that became my new addiction and the first thing I ever sold way –

My dad had a cottage, he used to rent for a few weeks out of the summer and he was just sick of answering the same phone calls all the time of like, “Yes, it’s free these weeks, no, we don’t allow,” you know what I mean?

Back in the day, before the internet, people had to call to get these same questions answered and he asked me, he’s like “Hey, could you build me these web pages” in 97/98 and just occurred to me that there could be other people like my dad.

I told him, it would cost him 200 bucks and he was like, “Why is it 200 bucks” and I’m like, “That’s how much it costs” and the truth was, I needed the servers because I want to build something a little bit more elaborate and first thing I ever sold, I got a tourism guide, I had built it for my dad, got a tourism, it’s called maritimevacation.ca, it was a vacation rental site which you’d think it would be a 10 billion dollar idea in today’s market but this is a few mistakes made along the way.

I took all the addresses and I didn’t even know anything, I...

Building An 8-Figure Business In 9 Years With Matthew Bertulli

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 07 Aug 2017 07:00:06 -0500

Matthew Bertulli is the Co-Founder and CEO of Demac Media.

Demac Media is a digital commerce agency that Matthew has built in the last nine years, and today, is now an eight-figure business with nearly 100 employees.

Matthew is also the Co-Founder of Pela Case, a six figure – soon to be seven figure – E-commerce brand. He’s also an angel investor in many industries including E-commerce, a tequila brand and even a nightclub.

To top it off, Matthew has also just released his first book called Anything, Anywhere.

In this episode we discuss his nine year journey building Demac to a hundred employees and eight figures. He reveals what the early days were like and what led him to drop out of college. He talks about the moment that he decided to quit his job and actually start the business in the first place.

If you’re looking for some candid advice, take a listen.

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out how Matthew started a business with just two employees.
Redefining what success and failure is to you.
Why losing everything is highly improbable.
Viva the side hustle!
Leading 100 employees: Matthews work philosophy.
E-commerce trends: Doing things at the right time.
Why it is up to you to discover the type of entrepreneurship you wan to pursue.
Entrepreneurship in today’s culture of instant gratification.
Asking for help, networking and realizing that you don’t know it all.
And much more!

Tweetables

“If you’re not failing, you’re not trying hard enough.” — @mbertulli

Tweet This

[0:08:55].1]

“I think the idea that failure is a good thing is a little backwards.” — @mbertulli

Tweet This

[0:10:15].1]

“Wherever you do your best work, we encourage that.” — @mbertulli

Tweet This

[0:15:13].9]

“If you build a great business, there will always be an exit.” — @mbertulli

Tweet This

[0:27:49].1]

[0:32:06].3]

“I think it is up to the person to seek out the kind of entrepreneur that you want to be.” — @mbertulli

Tweet This

[0:34:39].9]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Matthew Bertulli on Twitter — https://twitter.com/mbertulli

Matthew on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbertulli/

Pela Case — https://pelacase.com/

Demac Media — https://www.demacmedia.com/

Net Suite — http://www.netsuite.com/portal/home.shtml

Anything Anywhere on Amazon — https://www.amazon.ca/Anything-Anywhere-Future-Digital-First-Roadmap/dp/1619616211

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 022

“MB: Then we found as we got bigger, so crossing 30, 40, 50 employees, you start to cross these boundaries too. Like it goes form like less family, more village-y type thing that we started to allow, encourage and introduce the idea of wherever you do your best work, we encourage that. If that means that you should he taking a day or two off a week and going away from home or from wherever else because you want to switch up. That’s cool, that was just born out of my own – I work that way.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:30.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders faced on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:56.7] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes embracing failure and sharing your honest struggle is the only way to achieve your . In a world that only shares successes, we share the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of Matthew Bertulli. Matthew is the Founder of Demac media, a company he’s built the last nine years, which is now an eight figure business with close to a hundred employees.

Matthew’s also the cofounder of Palo Case, a six figure soon to be seven figure E-commerce brand, he’s also an angel investor in many industries including E-commerce brands, a tequila brand and even a nightclub.

He’s also just released his first book called Anything Anywhere. We’ll be discussing his nine year journey building Demac to a hundred employees and eight figures, what the early days were like and what led him to actually starting the business in the first place. And the latest company he cofounded Pela Case and what he aspires that business to be.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:03.7] RN: So your company’s a leading authority in digital commerce. Just for a little context, how’d you get into E-com and when was this?

[0:02:13.4] MB: Demac started eight years ago. I grew up retail though. For me to get into E-com was like breathing.

[0:02:20.3] RN: Natural progression.

[0:02:21.2] MB: Yeah, my family owned retail stores and furniture home décor, baby. I’m third generation so like 55 years up in northern Ontario, those stores closed in the early 2000’s. I went to school and dropped out for computer science. I’m a software engineer by trade and then I was working for a company called Net Suite in 2007, 2008.

[0:02:41.4] RN: Yeah, I know Net Suite.

[0:02:43.4] MB: We IPO’d and I left to start this but I’ve been in some form of E-com since the late 90’s. This was just my own thing.

[0:02:43.4] RN: What exactly do you guys do here? How do you make money?

[0:02:56.6] MB: Yeah, I mean, the five word intro thing is we help you – play your intro. We help merchants build and grow E-commerce businesses so we are – the expanded version of that is, I work with a lot of manufacturers, a lot of brick and mortar retailers to either go online or build a bigger com of business.

A lot of the times it’s just somebody coming to us and saying “Hey, I want to do X million dollars now, I want to re-platform, I want new design, we need a whole bunch of shit.” Version optimization.

[0:03:25.9] RN: Traditional offline businesses though for the most part?

[0:03:27.8] MB: We get a good chunk of them that are offline, not a lot anymore that are like – that have no.

[0:03:33.0] RN: Presence at all.

[0:03:34.3] MB: Yeah. It used to be though. Like eight years ago, especially in Canada. When I started here, the idea of starting, like being in E-com, there was no E-com, it was a joke.

[0:03:45.0] RN: Now you have Shot the Fire.

[0:03:46.0] MB: I know, it’s like one of the largest E-com platforms ever and it’s like two kilometers down the road. Yeah, eight years ago, I remember eight years ago, actually talking to Harley and Toby and those guys too but they were getting going as well.

It was a little stupid. We were way early too, probably the first three years of this business, way too early.

[0:04:04.0] RN: In what sense?

[0:04:05.5] MB: Market wasn’t mature enough, you know, retailers here had no idea what this really was, they were unsure. All they’d heard about from the States was everybody was losing money.

Nobody’s actually turning a profit online, it’s still a problem, a lot of news about a lot of retailers failing or even E-com only brands that are going under, like Nasty Gal. It does not help us out that much when these businesses fail.

[0:04:27.5] RN: When you say you’re early like that, the market wasn’t mature enough, how are you acquiring clients that early on?

[0:04:33.1] MB: Really early on, a lot of word of mouth. Because I came from the retail world, I spoke the language really well so I got a handful of intros out of the gate. So when I left Net Suite, I already had a bunch of companies that I was working with at Net Suite that I had been connected to. They made some intros, I went out and it was like a one man show.

[0:04:50.9] RN: Sure.

[0:04:52.3] MB: No business plan, no nothing. I’m going to go do something in this space. I’m just going to go talk to a bunch of merchants. About a year and a bit in, I connected with a company called Magento at the time, they were just getting going as well, The Valet. Turned out they were a rocket ship. We did a ton of business with them and I was the only guy in Canada that could do it, so that helped.

Built a couple of big partnerships really early on about three or four years ago, with Shopify. I’m a big fan of channel partners and I got that from Net Suite because that’s how Net Suite built itself – half of its business came from partners.

That was it, there was not a lot of sophistication in the first three, four years, a lot of it was word of mouth, not at all repeatable, not at all scalable. Scary as hell and not know we’re like you’re next, yeah, your next customer’s coming from.

[0:05:41.1] RN: On that note, when you started Demac, was it just you? Did you bring on employees right out of the gate? Did you have capital?

[0:05:49.4] MB: No, just me, my own capital.

[0:05:53.1] RN: How much did you have to put in before you saw a dollar back?
[0:05:55.4] MB: I was paid from like – we were cashflow positive from day one.

[0:05:56.6] RN: Got it.

[0:05:57.8] MB: Mainly because I can code.

[0:06:00.4] RN: You had no overhead from day one.

[0:06:00.9] MB: No, I’m the only overhead. Like can I pay mortgage? Yeah, when we IPO’d Net Suite, I’d left, got a couple of customers to pay the bills right out of the gate and then my wife joined to designer about six, seven months in. And then my co-founder, our CTO, he joined about a year and a half and that was like the first three people.

[0:06:24.5] RN: What were you doing in revenue roughly at this point?

[0:06:27.7] MB: I think, so year one, which was just my wife and I think it was $80,000.

[0:06:34.1] RN: Was she getting paid either?

[0:06:37.8] MB: No. That was like, pay our bills, pay the mortgage. I think year two, we jumped to three or 400 and then –

[0:06:45.2] RN: That’s what largely bring on.

[0:06:46.7] MB: Yeah, then we started hiring. By the end of year two, I think we were five or six people and it’s sort of like – if you look back over the last eight years, we’ve gone pretty consistently. Somewhere between 30 to 35% up to about 55% year over year growth, we kind of try and keep it in that band.

[0:07:09.4] RN: Not grow too fast.

[0:07:10.3] MB: Yeah, we have no outside investors, everything’s been bootstrapped, this is all our own cash.

[0:07:14.9] RN: Was this the first business you started?

[0:07:16.6] MB: It was the first real one.

[0:07:17.7] RN: Yeah. What was the biggest – I mean, did you have – after leaving Net Suite, did you have any kind of sense of fear starting it that would –

[0:07:25.4] MB: Dude, yeah. Especially coming like a family of entrepreneurs, we were in retail a long time.

[0:07:32.5] RN: Retail’s a tough racket.

[0:07:33.4] MB: Shit yeah, it’s not good. Now, you have to really know what you’re doing, especially if you’re just bricks. That sucks. Today it sucks.

[0:07:41.2] RN: Yeah. Is that impossible today?

[0:07:43.4] MB: Totally. I know a few.

[0:07:46.2] RN: Yeah, it’s crazy.

[0:07:47.5] MB: They’re just very good at uprooting stores. In Canada stores still work quite well. Guys like Amazon, they don’t have the penetration that they do in the States.

[0:07:56.0] RN: Yeah.

[0:07:56.5] MB: They’re getting there but we’re behind.

[0:07:59.2] RN: Got it.

[0:08:00.0] MB: Yeah, I think the idea of like fear and uncertainty, I don’t think it goes away either, I don’t – I think there’s this –

[0:08:07.0] RN: You still feel it?

[0:08:07.9] MB: Shit yeah. Anybody saying I was like totally lying, you’re full of shit man. I see sort of success and failure as this giant spectrum and it’s highly personal. You land somewhere on it and you’re constantly refining what your definition of both is right?

A failure to me today would have been like almost catastrophic in the early days. I may feel a hell of a lot more now than I did early on but I’m also probably taking more swings. I think that you know, looking back, we definitely had a whole bunch of small ones because we were only ever taking small risks.

[0:08:43.0] RN: They don’t want to bet the house right?

[0:08:45.0] MB: Yeah, literally. When you’re starting, literally about that.

[0:08:48.5] RN: House on the line.

[0:08:50.0] MB: I think now, yeah, it’s strange. It never goes away, if you’re not – I’m an avid mountain biker. The joke in mountain biking is if you’re not falling, you’re not trying hard enough right? You’re going to leave the bush with some kind of scratch or dent on you. I look at it no differently, I think that – if we’re not failing, we’re not trying hard enough to evolve. Then, failure is super subjective. It’s almost like –

Failure and success, those two terms are – I hate it when someone’s like, well this guy’s really successful, I’m like there’s not a definition to that. Exactly.

[0:09:29.8] RN: By his? Hers? Same with failure. I was talking to Dev downstairs. You know, before I even had him on the show, he was like dude, I’ve got like a really contrarian view on failure because he doesn’t think failure is a prerequisite for success.

[0:09:42.1] MB: No it’s not. Exactly. This is my first real company by most measures. It is successful, we’re still here eight years later.

[0:09:50.3] RN: Exactly. And like we just talked about, it’s the definition right? What’s failure? Does it have to be a catastrophe? Where you don’t have this business, you lose this business? No.

[0:10:02.1] MB: If something doesn’t work to the expectation that you had.

[0:10:04.5] RN: Exactly.

[0:10:05.3] MB: Whether your expectation was wrong or not is the right thing.

[0:10:07.6] RN: And whether you learn from that right?

[0:10:08.8] MB: Yeah. I’m with Dev. I think he and I have talked about this a few times. I don’t go into anything trying to fail. I think the idea that failure is a good thing is a little backwards. It’s like no, it happens.

But...

Dragon’s Den, Bootstrapping and Scaling With Diana Goodwin

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 07:00:17 -0500

Diana Goodwin is the founder of Aqua Mobile, which is an on-demand at home swim school service, the largest of its kind in North America today.

Diana is an accomplished entrepreneur and a thought leader on boot strapping businesses to seven figures.

She has been featured in a ton of publications including Forbes, Success Magazine, The Huffington Post, Tech Five, Mashable, among many others.

In this episode we discuss why Diana decided to quit her day job and start her own business. She shares why she prefers to bootstrap rather than raise capital. Diana discusses her experience on the Dragon’s Den TV show.

It’s an enlightening conversation about failure, triumph, getting out of your comfort zone, focusing your ideas and leading a balanced life.

Take a listen!

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out why Diana quit her job and decided to start her own business.
How Diana used her MBA to propel her business.
The toughest part about bootstrapping a startup business.
What is the Aqua Mobile business model?
How Diana overcame her first Dragon’s Den rejection.
How Dragon’s Den helped Diana to leverage her business.
The most painful things about being an entrepreneur.
Finding grant money; what is the best approach?
How to break the 9-5 rut and make time for your own ideas!
Diana’s advice for brand new entrepreneurs.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“This misconception that an idea is just going to hit you on the head; It doesn’t always happen that way.” — @DianaMGoodwin

Tweet This

[0:45].50.1]

“It’s easy to say “I want a business” but to actually change your circumstance is a whole other bear.” — @_robnunnery

Tweet This

[0:48].15.1]

“I’m all about hustle, but I am not about burning out.” — @DianaMGoodwin

Tweet This

[0:52:30].1]

“Just go and just try it because if you don’t try you will never know and you will never learn.” — @DianaMGoodwin

Tweet This

[0:55:16].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Diana Goodwin on Twitter — https://twitter.com/DianaMGoodwin

Aqua Mobile Website — https://aquamobileswim.com/

Aqua Mobile on Twitter — https://twitter.com/aquamobileswim

Dragon’s Den TV Show Website — http://www.cbc.ca/dragonsden/

Shark Tank TV Show Website — http://abc.go.com/shows/shark-tank

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 021

“DG: I’ve seen some people who don’t like to get outside of their comfort zone and so they don’t necessarily grow to that same level and you know, I see some of those people, I tell them that you know – I said look, you have to – don’t come down hard on yourself if something doesn’t – don’t worry about what other people are thinking. Just go and just try it because if you don’t try, you will never know and you will never learn.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:26.3] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail On Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:52.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes in embracing failure and sharing your honest struggle is the only way to achieve your dreams. In a world that only shares successes, we share the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs, these are their stories. Today’s Fail On featured guest is Diana Goodwin, Diana is the founder of Aqua Mobile which is an on demand at home swim school service.

Now, the largest of its kind in north America. Diana’s an accomplished entrepreneur and a Thought Leader on Boot Strapping Businesses to Seven Figures, she’s been featured in a ton of publications including Forbes, Success Magazine, The Huffington Post, Tech Five, Mashable, amongst many others, we’ll be discussing why she prefers to bootstrap rather than raise capital. Her experience with Dragon’s Den in Canada and what it led to with her business and the moment she actually decided to leave her day job because her dissatisfaction in that job exceeded her level of comfort.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all The Fail On podcast interviews and keep takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:04.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to The Fail On Podcast. Today we’ve got Diana Goodwin in the house, really excited to have you on the show today, welcome to the Fail On Podcast.

[0:02:11.7] DG: Thanks Rob, happy to be here.

[0:02:13.8] RN: Is Toronto your hometown?

[0:02:16.0] DG: It is my hometown.

[0:02:16.5] RN: You grew up here, high school, university, everything here?

[0:02:20.0] DG: Everything here, yup, University of Toronto, yup.

[0:02:23.6] RN: You guys didn’t roll out the red carpet with the weather.

[0:02:27.3] DG: I’m sorry Rob, I know, I was going to say, today it’s cloudy and rainy, two things they don’t have in California.

[0:02:32.7] RN: Yeah, very rarely. Actually, this winter, this is going to sound super snobbish but we’ve had like terrible weather and what I mean by terrible weather is it rained like, I can count on two hands how many times it’s rained this winter and that’s a lot for San Diego.

[0:02:50.3] DG: I was in California during that torrential downpour that you guys had, I was actually more on LA at that time but people were saying it’s been 10 years and they haven’t seen anything like this ever. I get it, you're a little bit used to it but the whole city shuts down when it rains a little bit.

[0:03:05.0] RN: It’s crazy, people drive like nut jobs. Here, well I grew up in Georgia in the south and whenever, it would like – we’d get a very light snow, I’m talking like, not even like an inch, people would rush to the grocery stores, to get milk and they where just the worst drivers in the world because they’re so terrified of driving in the snow but in California, it’s the rain.

[0:03:26.1] DG: Yup.

[0:03:26.4] RN: It’s interesting. Anyways, let’s just jump right in to it.

[0:03:30.0] DG: Yeah, absolutely.

[0:03:31.7] RN: If you have to go back, what was the first time in your life where somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or a service you created, whether it’s your current business or whether it was a previous business?

[0:03:47.5] DG: When I was a kid, you know, I think it probably started when I was around six, seven years old. I was one of those kids who was always looking for ways to make money. I loved creating things –

[0:03:58.9] RN: The born entrepreneur?

[0:04:00.0] DG: It definitely was in my blood. It could be even things like, you know, trying to put on a garage sale with my parent’s stuff, stuff that I thought they didn’t want or need anymore to go and sell it.

[0:04:10.7] RN: Would you ask them or you just take their stuff and sell it?

[0:04:12.5] DG: It depends. Some of both. You know, I had jewelry that I would make and sell. It was always something that I was trying to create when I was younger.

[0:04:23.9] RN: Was it something that your parents kind of like led you towards or is it something that you feel like it just kind of, you saw the world and that kind of lends?

[0:04:33.8] DG: You know, I think where my parents helped is I was, I was and still am a very strong headed child, I was going to do what I was going to do and to their credit, they let me go and explore, they didn’t force me down one path or another.

If I wanted to, whether it was trying a certain sport or you know, a certain activity, they were very open to that and they never shut me down, they were always supportive of it. Because they were more science background, they didn’t necessarily come from that entrepreneurial background at all. It was something that I think for them to be open minded parents and let me, trust me enough to go and explore and learn that way.

I think that fostered what I was able to become.

[0:05:15.2] RN: That’s cool. You’re starting to be an entrepreneur as a kid, just garage sale stuff. Do you actually remember, maybe not but do you actually remember the first time somebody actually gave you the dollar and you’re like, wow.

[0:05:30.5] DG: I don’t, in terms of money, one thing that with my current business that was – that I remember still is you know, again, because I’m Canadian, I did start my Aqua Mobile in Canada and so when I first expanded into the US, that moment, that moment of checking the online system and seeing that there was a customer in Orlando Florida that had purchased lessons and had booked in with one of our swim instructors.

[0:05:58.4] RN: Why was that so cool? Why the States? Because I’m sure you had customers outside of Toronto in Canada right?

[0:06:04.6] DG: Yes.

[0:06:05.5] RN: Not physically where you’re located.

[0:06:07.6] DG: Yeah, we were across Ontario and you know, across many number of cities but I knew that to get the business to where I wanted to grow it in terms of size, I would need to go in to the US market pretty quickly, just because I mean, 10 times more people than in Canada and in a smaller land mass, you know, more condensed which for a business like mine, where my swim instructors are traveling to client’s homes, it makes it easier.

That was huge because I had put so much work into understanding the US market and building out kind of my corporate structure and getting everything setup so that I could succeed in the US and it wasn’t easy, it took a lot of work at the beginning so, to see that and be like wow, it’s working, people are, they’re buying.

That’s pretty powerful, especially now when I look back to that, that I remember. Now, US revenue is over 70% of our total revenue. Yeah.

[0:07:01.3] RN: When was it that you first went into the US market, what timeline.

[0:07:05.6] DG: That would have been in 2012.

[0:07:07.9] RN: Okay, so about five years?

[0:07:09.2] DG: Five years ago, yeah. Pretty quickly after launching, I knew I needed to go into the US. Florida was my first test market. It was one of the natural spots, I mean, in retrospect if I could do it over again, I would do California first but in any case –

[0:07:27.8] RN: Why?

[0:07:28.1] DG: I think, for me, just – there’s a lot more people in California and I think a lot of people, a lot more people willing to spend money on the best, the top services. I mean, Florida’s been great for us, it’s still our biggest state, we’ve also been there the longest but you know, for me, it was a great place to go because my family also had – this is a common Canadian thing. Exactly.

I had a place where I could work on my business low cost, get a lay of the land, spend some time there and you know, not have to spend money renting a place, I could deal with that, you know, use their car to get around, it was just a low risk way to do things especially because I was bootstrapping the business, I wasn’t looking for venture capital, I was doing it on my own and so, you know, every dollar counts.

[0:08:21.3] RN: What was the size of the business before you moved into the US market?

[0:08:25.9] DG: Let’s see, it was probably only around I would say, 100 to $150,000 I would say before moving in.

[0:08:35.8] RN: How long had you been operating business at that point that you’d gotten it to six figures like that?

[0:08:40.4] DG: Technically about a year but I had a small client based, very small from kind of my, you know, I had another business called Swim For Life Aquatics from when I was younger, when I would go and teach clients, I myself –

[0:08:52.9] RN: Just instructor.

[0:08:54.2] DG: I was a swim instructor, I did everything, I did the marketing, the book keeping and that was, you know, just a little business that I’ve kind of left on the side.

[0:09:02.2] RN: Trading time for money type deal.

[0:09:04.1] DG: I didn’t really have, it was never meant to be anything big but once I got into the corporate world, I kept it running but have you know, friends or other instructors on staff and so – you know, I basically went away and did my MBA for a year and while I was there, I kind of transitioned, I was like look.

This is a time, I’m going to turn this into an international company. You know, all that to be said, I had a little bit of a client base from that old business that I kind of carried over. I didn’t have to – when I started, I didn’t have to start at scrap.

Right at zero dollars revenue, I had a little bit so I knew there was that market there and so once I finished my MBA, end of 2011, that’s kind of where I just kind of worked full time on the business. Finished out that year and then 2011, 2012 is then when I started to go west.

[0:09:54.8] RN: Did you get the idea for the company while you’re doing your MBA and that’s what made you transition into it?

[0:10:00.8] DG: No, because I’d had this idea. To give you a little bit of context, when I graduated from my under grad. I had a commerce background, commerce undergrad. I was recruited to go work at a management consulting company, Bane and Company which is a fairly well known company, well known and a very great place to learn. While I was there, again, I still had that entrepreneurial spirit and drive and I was starting to become burnt out, not as happy with my job, I would brainstorm ideas with a friend who was also unhappy in her job.

Then one day, it kind of came to me, wait a minute, what am I doing wasting my time, trying to come up with all these new business ideas when I have this old business that I had totally been ignoring because I just didn’t have enough time because I was working so much.

[0:10:45.1] RN: Wasn’t that business still running at that time? Other instructors that kind of thing?

[0:10:48.8] DG: There were a few other instructors but I mean, on my end, you know, a couple of hours a week, I really didn’t have much time and it was like a two-hour work week. Plus, my 60 hours plus at another job.

That’s where I was like you know what? This is where I’m going to take that and make it something big and that’s where I said I’m going to take that idea and use it, I did a one year MBA and I took courses that would – I’d be able to focus on that business. Market research course, business plan writing course, where I’d be able to bring you know, a group of smart students who come from different background.

[0:11:23.3] RN: Smart, yeah.

[0:11:24.2] DG: Yeah, bring everyone’s brains together and get this thing done and use that for our class project.

[0:11:28.7] RN: That’s awesome, to actually use your MBA as almost like a tool, most people just get their MBA to get their MBA and to like propel them into like a corporate job that pays better than it would if you just had your undergrad degree.

You actually used it to strategically figure out how to direct the business that...

Bootstrapping A Digital Agency to 7 Figures And Beyond With Dev Basu

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 07:00:41 -0500

Dev Basu is the founder of Canada’s fastest growing digital agency, Powered By Search.

He is a polymath who wears many hats – CEO, author, professor, public speaker, startup advisor, investor, amateur chef, and travel hacker.

Dev helps companies double or triple how fast they grow through world class marketing. Over the last 10 years, he’s consulted for some of the world’s largest brands, accelerating their digital marketing performance while generating millions of dollars of value for them. Since 2009, Dev has grown his company into a multi-million dollar digital marketing agency, recognized as one of Canada’s top growth companies in the PROFIT Hot50 and on the Branham300 awards.

Today we discuss how going from intrapreneur to entrepreneur is often the best way to get started in business. Dev shares how he plans on scaling from seven million dollars in revenue, currently, to 28 million by 2019. And also how he plans on going from 30 employees to 100 employees. Dev reveals how you should niche down when just getting started in business to go from being a generalist to being a specialist.

Key Points From This Episode:

Dev tells us about his family background in India and returning to Canada.
Hear how working at Microsoft sparked Dev’s interest in search engine optimization.
The three lessons Dev learned from his first web design project.
Find out what initiated the change for Dev to go from intraprenenur to entrepreneur.
Dev’s biggest struggles in growing Powered by Search.
Understand how Dev’s focus on the hiring process has shifted.
Discover more about Powered By Search’s Vivid Vision.
Dev tells us about some of his three year goals.
The different types of channels used for customer acquisition.
Find out more about Dev’s conference, Inbound Con.
The core value of Dev’s company, especially surrounding failure.
How Dev defines failure as the inability to learn when you make mistakes.
Discover how Dev pushes himself out of his comfort zone.
The crucial role that the support of key people played in Dev’s life.
Hear how Dev managed his partnerships and merging of companies.
Understand why codifying strategy is one of Dev’s biggest challenges in his business today.
Why Dev encourages entrepreneurs starting out to be curious and niche down their solution.
How to figure out what the problems are in growing your business.
Discover who has had a profound impact on Dev’s life.
The benefits of a community like Mastermind Talks.
Why Dev believes that the strength of the network is in recommendations.
The definition of the Theory of Thirds and how it is applied.
How to approach and reach out to successful leaders in your industry.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“You need to scope before you quote.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:09:51].1]

“You have to have a separation sometimes between work life and home life.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:17:49].1]

“When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:30:48].6]

“Failure is the inability to learn when you make mistakes.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:30:59].9]

“Sales is really just a transference of emotion.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:47:00].1]

“I really see the value in networks; being able to leverage somebody else’s hard work and experience.” — @devbasu

Tweet This

[0:49:53].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dev Basu — http://devbasu.com/

Dev on Twitter — https://twitter.com/devbasu

Microsoft — https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/

VBulletin — https://www.vbulletin.com/

Enron — http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/enron.asp

Vivid Vision of Powered By Search — http://www.poweredbysearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Vivid-Vision-Powered-by-Search.pdf

Inbound Con — https://www.inbound.com/

Center for Social Innovation in Toronto — https://socialinnovation.org/

CBC — http://www.cbc.ca/

Jayson Gaignard — http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

The Intent Engine: Powered By Search — https://www.poweredbysearch.com/intent-engine-webinar

Tony Robbins — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs — https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

Robin Williams — https://www.biography.com/people/robin-williams-9532797

James Altucher — http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

Sara Blakely — http://sarasnotebook.com/

Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth — https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280/

Dale Carnegie’s book, How To win Friends and Influence People — https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034/

Zig Ziglar — https://www.ziglar.com/

Ryan Holiday’s book, The Obstacle is a Way — https://www.amazon.com/Obstacle-Way-Timeless-Turning-Triumph/dp/1591846358/

Jon Goodman — https://www.theptdc.com/jonathan-goodman/

Todd Herman — http://toddherman.me/

Charlie Hoehn — https://charliehoehn.com/

Tim Ferriss — https://tim.blog/podcast/

Noah Kagan — http://okdork.com/

Why A Successful Exit Was A Complete Letdown With Corey Wert

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 17 Jul 2017 07:00:53 -0500

Corey Wert is the founder of Digital Blue Moon, a boutique digital agency in Toronto that is disrupting the outdated multi-vendor model. He has also started, grown and exited Free Flow Marketing back in 2014, a successful digital agency focused on providing services to only Fortune 500 companies.

Corey sits on multiple boards and is incredibly well respected within the entrepreneurship community.

In today’s episode we dive deep on why exiting his first company was the biggest let down of his life and how he was able to get out of a deep depression after selling that first business.

Corey explains his most important steps to set a solid foundation when building a company.

We’ll also discuss why he decided to outsource his first six employees from the Philippines when getting started.

Plus Corey shares how he completely got blindsided on his latest venture with an untrustworthy partner.

Key Points From This Episode:

Corey tells us how he got into the world of entrepreneurship.
Hear Corey’s story as he transitions from corporate to entrepreneur.
Learn about Corey’s biggest struggles when he started Free Flow Marketing.
Find out how Corey got Free Flow Marketing up and running.
The most important steps to help you set a solid foundation when building a company.
Understand the growth trajectory of Free Flow Marketing.
Discover why Corey started outsourcing overseas.
Hear Corey’s experience exiting the company and what he went through.
Why Corey strongly believes that failing forward is a must in life and business.
Find out how Corey worked through his depression and what turned it all around for him.
Why it is so critical to structure your day and make time for yourself.
Understand how Corey got involved with his new company, Digital Blue Moon.
Discover Corey’s biggest takeaway and learning lesson from his experience.
The importance of having a good support network.
Learn how Corey forces himself to get out of his comfort zone.
Find out why failure, to Corey, means learning.
Discover who has had a profound impact on Corey’s life.
Hear what’s next on the horizon for Corey.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“For me, failing forward is an absolute must.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:12:44].1]

“My value wasn’t really around the money, it was around helping other people.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:29:06].1]

“Don’t be afraid to fail; be afraid not to take the lesson from the failure.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:32:21].1]

“It was really just identifying what my real value system was, not what my ego was telling me it was.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:36:21].1]

“We live in a high stakes game and the highs are really high but the lows unfortunately are really low.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:37:43].1]

“Always when you want to give up, it’s literally just on the other side.” — Corey Wert

Tweet This

[0:58:21].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Corey Wert — http://bluemoon.digital/

Corey’s LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreywert/?ppe=1

Email Corey — corey@bluemoon.digital

Free Flow Marketing — http://freeflowmarketing.ca/

Timothy Ferriss’s book, Four Hour Work Week — https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357/

123 Employee — http://www.123employee.com/

UpWork — https://www.upwork.com/

Elance — https://www.elance.com/php/landing/main/login.php

Re Perez — https://brandingforthepeople.com/

Philip McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Mastermind Talks — http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Mark Zuckerberg — http://iammarkzuckerberg.com/

Richard Branson — https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 019

“CW: I’ve traveled the world, I’ve seen things I never thought I’d be able to see, I’ve been able to carve out good time for myself instead of just trading my time for two to three weeks’ vacation a year, I’ve met some fantastic people and I’m grateful and all of that is sponsored by an entrepreneurial lifestyle.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:45.8] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today, we are sitting down with Corey Wert, Corey is the founder of Digital Blue Moon, that’s a boutique digital agency in Toronto that is disrupting the outdated multi-vendor model.

Corey is a good friend, he’s a brilliant guy, super humble and has successfully started built, grown, exited another digital agency back in 2014. At that time, they were focusing on providing services to only fortune 500 companies. Corey’s incredibly well respected in this community and entrepreneurship community.

He sits on several boards and we go deep on why exiting that first company in 2014 was actually the biggest let down of his life. We’ll be discussing why he decided to outsource his first six employees from the Philippines when he first got started, how he was able to get out of a deep depression after selling that first business and how he completely got blindsided on his latest venture with an untrustworthy partner.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:03.1] RN: Corey, welcome to the fail on podcast my man.

[0:02:05.7] CW: Hey, thanks for having me Rob.

[0:02:07.6] RN: Sweet, just for a little context, we are in the beautiful city of Toronto right now, actually a mutual friend of ours, I guess he called it a game room, I don’t know if I’d call it a game room, there’s a little couch.

[0:02:20.1] CW: There is a foosball table.

[0:02:21.8] RN: There’s a foosball table and some creepy looking camera equipment that I wouldn’t know if this is SEO company or –

[0:02:29.8] CW: You know what? He did call it a game room, not a games room so it’s very appropriate there’s only one game in here.

[0:02:35.2] RN: That’s a good point. I just want to dig into it man. You’ve had some highs and lows as an entrepreneur.

[0:02:42.4] CW: Absolutely.

[0:02:43.7] RN: Like all of us but just so we have some context, how did you first get into the world of entrepreneurship?

[0:02:49.6] CW: I’ve always kind of had like a hustle to me, you know, very young, I would do things like sell gumballs and everything like that to the kids in my class but my first step into entrepreneurship was really around 2008, I was working for a big consumer package goods company here in Canada, they did about six billion in sales.

I worked in the marketing department there and I just really saw that there was like a massive shifting trend that that was coming. IT really felt like a sweet spot for me in the sense where I knew I loved marketing but I’ve always had a fascination for technology in the digital space.

At that time, you know, people were considering digital to be experimental at best.

[0:03:36.8] RN: Yeah, it was still early.

[0:03:37.9] CW: It was still early for the bigger companies right? The innovators were grabbing on and making the most out of it and good for them. For me, there is just this disruption that was coming, I thought that I was in a good spot with a good knowledge on both sides of the fences and really was never…

I was very fortunate to have the job that I had, I did well but I was never really content working for someone else, you know, to steal a quote from you actually, you know, you’re either working on your dreams or you’re working on somebody else’s.

I realized that it was time to take the leap and get out there and take what I knew and try to bring that to the world.

[0:04:12.0] RN: Cool man, I want to actually dig in to kind of like the details there because you’re working at this company, I mean, did you get laid off or fired or were you just kind of proactive and like, “I want to make something happen.”

[0:04:22.3] CW: Yeah, funny story actually. I was doing well, I was on the fast track, I was moving up to management ranks, you know, good salary, everything was going really well but I always had a certain discontent on the speed with which things happen in a big company.

You’re always waiting for someone to bestow the honor and tap you on the shoulder before you can kind of get to the next level and while you have to learn to play that game patiently, it’s also something that was a constant and eternal struggle for me.

At that point, you know, I had done a digital campaign and it was extremely successful and kind of blew the lights out compared to all of the more traditional stuff that we were doing.

[0:05:04.4] RN: What were the metrics based on? Was it based on performance? How did you gauge that you blew it out of the water?

[0:05:10.7] CW: One, the level of insight that we were able to get from that campaign, you know, traditional media and traditional marketing like you sit there, you activate your campaign and then three months later you see the sales data start to roll in and then you try to retrospectively connect the dots and figure out what happened. We were able to see immediate traction, we were able to make immediate pivots.

It ended up garnering kind of like more social engagement, we ended up doing really well through a contesting promotion and again, we were able to actually identify a subset of our target base which we always assumed was X.

We saw that there was this whole other opportunity out there. For me it just like, the instant data was something that just immediately kind of like sparked with me.

[0:05:55.6] RN: Just so I understand better, is this like a Facebook ad campaign? What exactly was it?

[0:05:59.3] CW: I remember sitting down and doing a presentation on YouTube to my president and he was like, “that’s interesting but I don’t think that’s ever going to catch on.” This is before Google had even bought YouTube right? I remember sitting there and saying like, “this is going to be the future of kind of like video advertising” and the cost for which you could do it compared to a traditional media buy for TV was insane and so it was literally just kind of like foraying into that.

Facebook was still like university Facebook back then.

[0:06:29.3] RN: yeah, that’s true. 08, 09.

[0:06:30.4] CW: Yeah, it was really kind of before that but they were all sorts of platforms where you were really starting to see a two way conversation right? Like commenting was starting to become a thing and again, that instant connection with the consumer was something that you just never really had through traditional marketing.

It was always one-way messaging. You know, kind of you vomiting your message on everyone, the exact same way where digital really allowed you to connect and forge a relationship and build some loyalty with your customers.

[0:06:58.0] RN: And measure the results.

[0:06:58.3] CW: And measure the results and be able to take that and leverage it for insightful, meaningful campaigning down the road right? There was always discontinuous improvement that you could do in the moment with digital data.

[0:07:12.0] RN: You created this campaign at this company.

[0:07:13.7] CW: Created a campaign, it did really well and for me, it just kind of like a light bulb had turned on. You know, I really loved the marriage of marketing and technology and I remember sitting down and doing a presentation and showing the results and this was supposed to be like my moment right?

They were instantly going to make me president of the company and I just remember it being you know, that was a great experiment and we weren’t going to do that anymore For me, I couldn’t really understand what was happening so I literally sulked back to my office. I sat down and you know, I just looked out and it was a very...

How To Start A Business Working For Free With Nicholas Kusmich

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 10 Jul 2017 07:00:54 -0500

Nicholas Kusmich is best known as the World’s Leading Facebook Advertising Strategist and for having the highest ROI’s in the industry.

He works with A-List clients including top thought-leaders, NYT Best Selling Authors, Inc 500 and fast growth companies creating advertising campaigns that convert.

He specializes in using his proprietary Contextual Congruence methodology, which creates mass conversions on social platforms.

Nicholas is the bestselling author of the newly released book Give: The Ultimate Guide to using Facebook Advertising to Generate more Leads, more Clients and Massive ROI.

We have an inspiring conversation, a heartbreaking conversation at times, and one that will surely bring you enormous value.

We’ll be discussing how it’s okay to give up and how to know exactly when to move on.

He shares the precise moment he saw the opportunity in starting his business and the value in mastering Facebook ads.

He shares how entrepreneurship isn’t glamorous and can actually be extremely painful in so many different ways.

Key Points From This Episode:

Nicholas tells us what he was doing before entrepreneurship and how he transitioned.
Hear what was the toughest struggle for Nicholas to get started and gain traction.
Learn when Nicholas thinks it’s an appropriate time to quit.
Learn how having a destroyed marriage was a blessing in disguise.
Understand the tipping point that made him leave pastoring.
Nicholas gives advice to people wanting to get out of something that isn’t right for them.
Nicholas shares with us how most people aren’t cut out to be entrepreneurs.
Hear Nicholas talk about some of his lowest points in life and how he overcame them.
Understand Nicholas’s journey and how he got to a point of wanting to take his own life.
Learn how Nicholas pulled himself out of that rut.
Find out how Nicholas embraces the present.
Discover why Nicholas encourages people in similar situations to find their WHY.
Hear what lead Nicholas into the business he is in now.
Learn how Nicholas started growing his business.
Find out how to decide which route to take in terms of promoting your business.
Understand what has been the toughest parts at the beginning for Nicholas.
Discover how failure effected Nicholas’s mindset.
Hear why you need to get out of your comfort zone and make yourself uncomfortable.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Whenever it felt like truly a burden, not a blessing, it was time to quit.” — @nicholaskusmich

Tweet This

[0:10:43].1]

“I don’t think most people who are in entrepreneurship are cut out to be entrepreneurs.” — @nicholaskusmich

Tweet This

[0:19:24].1]

“Not everybody needs to be a premium service.” — @nicholaskusmich

Tweet This

[0:44:03].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Nicholas Kusmich — http://www.nicholaskusmich.com/

Nicholas on Twitter — https://twitter.com/nicholaskusmich

Nicholas’s book, Give — https://www.amazon.com/Give-Ultimate-Facebook-Advertising-Generate/dp/1619615762/

Vector Marketing — https://vectormarketing.com/

CutCo. — https://www.cutco.com/

Hal Elrod — http://halelrod.com/

John Ruhlin — http://ruhlingroup.com/

Dan Sullivan — https://www.strategiccoach.com/

Shark Tank — http://www.cnbc.com/shark-tank/

Brian Tracy — http://www.briantracy.com/

Robert Kiyosaki’s book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad — https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Sharon-Lechter-Robert-Kiyosaki/dp/3442217784/

Eckhart Tolle — https://www.eckharttolle.com/

TEPP — http://tepplist.com/signup/

Jayson Gaignard — http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

Giovanni Marsico — http://www.giftedentrepreneur.com/

The Berkeley Church Toronto — http://berkeleyevents.com/

Todd Herman — http://toddherman.me/

90 Day Year — https://www.90dayyear.com/90DYwaitlist/

Michael Gavin — http://www.michaelcgavin.com/

Tim Ferris — http://fourhourworkweek.com/

Dean Jackson — http://www.deanjackson.com/

Brian Smith — http://briansmithspeaker.com/

Noah Kagan — http://okdork.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 001

“NK: Again, I think the bigger needle mover would be for the person to do what I did and make some offers to people that you might be afraid to make offers to and you’ll see if you can deliver on the goods, it will be a game changer for you.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:43.1] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today, we are sitting down with Nicholas Kusmich. Nick is the world’s leading Facebook ad strategist and is the guy behind the highest campaign ROI’s in the world. He’s also the bestselling author of the newly released book Give, the ultimate guide to using Facebook advertising to generate more leads, more clients and massive ROI.

It’s an inspiring conversation, a heartbreaking conversation at times and one that will surely bring you enormous value. We’ll be discussing how it’s okay to give up and how to know exactly when to move on, the precise moment he saw the opportunity in starting his business and the value in mastering Facebook ads and how entrepreneurship isn’t glamorous, it can actually be extremely painful in so many different ways and much more.

[EPISODE]

[0:01:54.7] RN: Nicholas, welcome to the fail on podcast my man.

[0:01:56.6] NK: Hey Rob, I am excited to be here and excited to talk about failure.

[0:02:01.7] RN: I love it. We last met about a year ago and we had some really interesting conversations around kind of what you did in your past, how you got into entrepreneurship, even faith. Before we start talking about your current ventures and stuff, let’s go back to what you’re doing pre-entrepreneurship and how that kind of transitioned into starting a business?

[0:02:21.2] NK: yeah, looking on it at hindsight, it almost feels like the whole journey was in some way entrepreneurial, let’s rewind back to – I witness my dad have his first heart attack when I was four years old. I’m an only child, because I’m an only child, I remember when I was – I don’t know, 16, 17.

Mom coming home tears in her eyes crying literally and I’m thinking, “what just happened” and dad had a heart attack so it meant that they had to stop working, they had a little business that they ran together. Dad had stopped working because of this heart attack and mom comes home crying and I’m thinking, “what on earth just happened.”

She had gone through a job interview and didn’t get the job because she’s older and she couldn’t speak English well. I just remember sitting in my living room, thinking to myself, “I’m never going to let that happen again, I’m never going to let mom be in a situation where she feels like she has to work to support the family.”

With my back up against the wall, being an only child, I was almost like forced into entrepreneurship if you will. I started looking at opportunities, unfortunately, that’s not a good thing because when you're desperate, you look at opportunities and most opportunities are not the best but it got me open you know, to trying these new things and I remember one of my first endeavors outside of my desire to make an impact through my faith which led me into a pastoring role, I was a kind of on two parallel paths at the same time.

One on the business side was, I just got to figure out a way to make some money, pay for my – not for my even my lifestyle, to support my family.

[0:03:43.4] RN: Coming out of school, did you get a job like the topical route that most people go, school, job, family, that kind of thing?

[0:03:49.8] NK: No because I just was finishing up high school and then this happened, my parents lost their business. You know, on this path. I joined in multilevel marketing company, I was joining in all this kind of make money online type of thing.

[0:04:04.8] RN: Is that your first kind of business? How you’re introduced to it really? That’s funny.

[0:04:09.0] NK: They made it seem so easy, “I’m going to be a kazillionaire in like three weeks, this is it, this is amazing” and obviously very quickly realize that’s not the case at all. Then I went down the path of, I remember again, I’m desperate, I saw a newspaper ad back when those existed that said “hey, make something like $17 an hour” and I remember at the time, minimum wage at least where I lived was like four or five bucks.

“17 bucks an hour, what is this?” I remember going in an interview walking in, there’s a bunch of like people my age like high school and just a little older, “what the hell is going on,” it was a group interview, it’s not even the same and the guy gets up in the front of the room and he cuts a rope in half with a knife and he’s basically – you’re going to sell these, that’s my introduction to Vector Marketing and Cutco.

I’m like, “well, if I can still get paid – the pitch was like $17.29 an hour guaranteed. Well, whatever, I’ll cut rope all day long.”

[0:05:00.2] RN: Cutco is the way a lot of guys, I think we both know, got into entrepreneurship. Hal Elrod, John Ruhlin. Who else, there’s quite a few.

[0:05:07.2] NK: Almost everyone I know.

[0:05:10.3] RN: It teaches such a valuable skill right?

[0:05:11.4] NK: It does. Would I do it again? Maybe not but the fact that that’s what was presented before me and I had to get really good at a skill really quickly. Now fortunately, for me, I don’t know where this came from, maybe just came from my genes because I was told dad was a salesman in his career.

I did well, they called me Mr. Ultimate because the most expensive knives that you could sell there was the ultimate set and was a $2,200 knife set and something just clicked in my mind to say “well, I could either sell the $500 one or I could sell the $2,000 one. If I’m going to be in the person’s house anyways, I’m going for the $2,000 one and even if they say no to that, then the $500 one seems like a bargain.”

They called me Mr. Ultimate because I was just like “hell, we’re just going to sell ultimate’s” and I had the most ultimate sales ever. Not because I think I was great but I think I was the only guy who had the balls to like let’s just sell ultimate’s.

[0:05:59.0] RN: just focus on that, yeah.

[0:05:59.9] NK: Yeah. That was like my Parlay into entrepreneurship. Again, you’re a contractor, you got to pay your own bills, you got to pay your own expenses.

[0:06:07.5] RN: It’s hard right? You’re going out selling. Exactly.

[0:06:11.7] NK: You’re selling them stuff that they don’t kind of want, I mean, nobody is thinking, “I’m going to spend $2,000 on a pair of knives or a set of knives.”

[0:06:17.8] RN: We shook up my house.

[0:06:19.8] NK: Nobody is thinking that. You’re in a position which is very anti my ethos right now. My ethos never says go try to sell someone something they don’t want.

[0:06:28.0] RN: Like interruption type marketing which is what you're totally…

[0:06:31.1] NK: And like super manipulative is not the right word but almost. If you see some of the world’s best salesman, they’ll call it influence but really, it’s persuasion and manipulation. That’s just so against my ethos but I guess at the time, I’m like, “well I’m going to learn a skillset.”

We went on, I did well for a 17-year-old kid. That opened me up into a direct selling company and then basically my job there was to get on stage and people would bring people into a room, a hotel room and I’d give a presentation try and sell this thing and that kind of parlayed into things and things until I was kind of introduced to the internet marketing world.

That is again, I mean, it’s super slimy, some of the worst people in the world are there and some of the best people in the world are there but introduce me to another way to do business. Long story short of that is, that was a rabbit hole that I went down that led to one thing that led to another that

The Simple Way To Crush Your Dreams Via Mentors

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 03 Jul 2017 07:00:35 -0500

Chris and Eric Martinez are the twin brothers behind the Dynamic Duo Training brand. They are the co-authors of the bestseller, The New Era of Fitness.

Also known as the “Dynamic Duo,” they have quickly become the leading authorities on health, training, nutrition, and lifestyle in the fitness industry. They provide world class trainings and services with safe, ethical, scientific, and healthy approaches. With a heap of success stories from clients, Chris and Eric have shown time and time again that they know exactly how to get you results.

Their online training programs and communication are some of the most talked about in the industry. They get results where others haven’t. They have done an incredible job transitioning from hourly personal trainers to creating leverage, building a scalable business.

In today’s episode we’ll be discussing why long-term business growth is much more important than sacrificing quality just to make a quick buck. They discuss why mastermind groups and mentors will completely change your life and how it completely changed their lives. And finally, how focusing on amazing customer experiences will always be better than focusing on making money.

Key Points From This Episode:

Chris and Eric gives us some context about who they are and their background.
Hear what the core of their business was at the beginning.
Find out why you need to develop skills in person to help you in the online world.
Learn why it’s key to hire a coach or mentor to accelerate the learning.
Discover how Chris and Eric’s biggest struggle was choosing faith over fear.
Understand the difference between getting coached/mentored versus just jumping in.
Hear how getting into fitness came about for Chris and Eric.
Find out what are all of Chris and Eric’s different revenue streams.
Learn how Chris sand Eric get outside their comfort zone by being open minded.
Discover why Chris and Eric look at Cole Hatter as a mentor for putting on their live event.
Hear as Chris and Eric share more on the first live event they are planning.
Learn about the 5 components spoken about in the book, The New Era of Fitness and how that will be incorporated into the event.
Find out what are some of the painful parts of being an entrepreneur.
Discover how Chris and Eric are similar yet different in some ways.
Hear more about Chris and Eric’s strengths.
Learn how Chris and Eric categorize the business into different segments.
Find out how Chris and Eric’s corporate jobs taught them skills they now use.
Hear how you have to make a mindset shift to grow in your purpose.
Discover how Cole’s event,Thrive, changed things for Chris and Eric.
Learn how Chris and Eric’s business is all about the customer and the product.
Find out how Chris and Eric has a growth mindset.
Hear what failure means to Chris and to Eric.
Discover one directive or action item Chris and Eric would give to someone getting started.
Find out who has been the person who has had the most profound impact in their lives.
Hear what’s on the radar for Chris and Eric and what you can look forward to.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“You have to develop those skills to help people in person, they will carry over to the online world.” — Chris Martinez @Dynamicduotrain

Tweet This

[0:06:19].1]

“To me failure, it’s not as big as I used to anticipate and it’s because I have reframed my mindset that way.” — Chris Martinez @Dynamicduotrain

Tweet This

[0:33:20].1]

“It comes down to practicing patience and just really sticking to your core values and your long-term vision.” — Eric Martinez @Dynamicduotrain

Tweet This

[0:17:13].1]

“For me, failure is just another opportunity to grow and to get better.” — @Dynamicduotrain Eric Martinez

Tweet This

[0:33:26].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dynamic Duo Training — https://dynamicduotraining.com/

Dynamic Duo on Twitter — https://twitter.com/Dynamicduotrain

Chris and Eric’s book, The New Era of Fitness — https://www.amazon.com/New-Era-Fitness-Well-Balanced-Lifestyle/dp/0998146005/

10 week Strong Mind, Strong Body program — https://dynamicduotraining.com/store/

Chris and Eric’s Ebooks — https://dynamicduotraining.com/store/

Layne Norton — https://www.biolayne.com/

Cole Hatter — http://colehatter.com/

Cole’s event, Thrive — http://attendthrive.com/

Tai Lopez — http://www.tailopez.com/

Marc Cuban — http://blogmaverick.com/

Tony Robbins’s book, Unshakable — https://www.amazon.com/Unshakeable-Your-Financial-Freedom-Playbook/dp/1501164589/

Philip McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Ben Greenfield — https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/

Gary Vee — https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Nicholas Kusmich — http://nicholaskusmich.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 017

“CM: My first mentor told me that it’s only failure if you quit everything else is just a setback so that’s always stuck with me. So never quitting because if you look at the worst outcome from the failure, I think that’s what you have to do to reframe your mindset, just kind of reverse engineer. Like Gary Vee says, just figure out what is the worst possible outcome if you fail, right? From there, that just kind of puts you at ease a little bit, right?

It’s not as bad as you think man. You’re not going to end up on the streets kind of homeless in a box, you know what I mean? So it’s true what the whole thing says, “Where there is a will there is a way,” you know what I mean? So to me failure, it’s not as big as I used to anticipate and it’s because I have reframed my mindset that way.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:05.5] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we’re sitting down with Chris and Eric Martinez, they are the twin brothers behind the dynamic duo training brand and the coauthors of the bestseller, the new era of fitness.

They are two of the nicest people I know and have done an incredible job transitioning from hourly personal trainers to creating leverage, building a scalable business. We’ll be discussing why long-term business growth is much more important than sacrificing quality, just to make a quick buck. Why mastermind groups and mentors will completely change your life and how it completely changed theirs. And how focusing on amazing customer experiences will always be focusing on making money.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:04.9] RN: Chris, Eric, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the fail on podcast. You guys are traveling an inspirational road to get to where you are now, just so we have some context about who you are and your background, take us back to what you’re doing before you got started in entrepreneurship and what made you actually want to take that leap forward?

[0:02:23.2] CM: First I just want to say thanks a lot for having us on the show, it’s a real honor being on your show and to be able to sit there and share our story with your audience and see if we can help anybody out by one of these stories or nuggets that we have for you guys.

What we did before we started our business was, we went to college, we kind of took the traditional route of graduating from high school, going straight to a university and that was a struggle itself right there being in college and not knowing exactly what we wanted to do after that, what our major was going to be we ended up doing business communications because it’s a little bit more broad and we figured we could do different things within that scope.

[0:02:56.9] RN: Sorry, you guys are twins, right? You say we, so, did you guys pretty much have the similar path, did you guys do the same things for the most part?

[0:03:03.5] CM: Pretty much the same path, yeah. That’s what’s funny, he went to JC, I went to like University and then he did his undergraduate, his core classes at the JC, then went over for the last said year, he was doing the classes with me so pretty much the same path.

From there, you know. We graduated and we knew we had a passion and a gift for helping people out and for fitness because we lost our father at 18 years old and really, the only way they alleviate that pain was through fitness, throwing weights around, getting rid of that anger and that aggression. We knew there was something there with a gift, with helping people out and fitness.

We hired a coach and we were mentored under him for about five years, his name is Dr. Layne Norton. Always have as much gratitude towards that guy for teaching us everything that we know and getting us to where we’re at today.

[0:03:48.0] RN: Did you hire him as a fitness coach or actually like a business coach?

[0:03:52.4] CM: As a fitness coach but after a couple of years we’re kind of like, “you know what?” We love what this guy is doing, we say we have a gift for fitness and helping people out and we’re like, “why can’t we do this?” It’s still very early in this niche, there’s still plenty of people to go around with the pie and we ended up just you know, kind of watching everything he did, kind of picking his brain very slowly with some questions.

We did our own research as far as like with business, marketing, stuff like that and we just grew the business very slowly, that’s what his advice was, “don’t rush it too quick, you have one reputation to keep.”

[0:04:24.9] RN: What year is this that you were starting to get it rolling?

[0:04:27.6] CM: I want to say it was around 2010/2011 because we graduated in 2009 so it was about a year or two after that. Yeah, we just started taking it very slow, bringing on clients, taking care of them, getting them results, keeping our integrity, customer service at the forefront and from there, just adding different elements as the years went on, joining masterminds, building our personal network to grow, things like that.

[0:04:49.2] RN: Sure, what was the core of the business at the beginning, was it purely personal training or what were the different revenue streams and products and offerings?

[0:04:57.9] CM: Right, it was just purely online personal training pretty much, we had a background with personal training people but…

[0:05:03.2] RN: It’s like virtual type coaching?

[0:05:04.7] CM: Yeah virtual, through Skype, through videos, phone calls, things like that, we would build them a structured program, they would follow it, they check in with this once per week so it was just all just one kind of shot thing and just all personal training online pretty much.

[0:05:16.5] RN: Got it, had you ever done anything one on one in person in terms of training and…

[0:05:22.0] CM: We’ve done a lot of like one on one personal training and you know, probably priors for about two years, we used to personal train at a little private gym so we had a lot of experience with that. We knew that we could Segway into the online realm and I think that’s where a lot of people make mistakes if they’re trying to get in to be an online coaches and trainers, they don’t have any background in the trenches.

You know, with people and then Segway in that they jump too quickly into the online because – they want to scale and they just want the shortcut pretty much you know what I mean? You got to put the work in.

[0:05:48.4] EM: Yeah, I want to add to that because it’s too different compete worlds when it’s online as supposed to you know, actually helping people in person, guiding them you know? Actually building that relationship in person and it’s just something that’s huge. There’s so many different trainers that come our way and ask us you know, what did you do and what is some good advice?

The first thing I’ll tell them is, “build...

Overcome Fear And Create Your Dream Life

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 26 Jun 2017 07:00:14 -0500

Jonathan Goodman is a bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker and one of the most influential and well-respected guys in the fitness industry. He is the founder of the Personal Trainer Development Center (the PTDC) and the Online Trainer Academy. He has sold tens of thousands of copies of his books including non-fiction, children, and the first-ever textbook for online fitness trainers. He writes about personal training, online training, and enjoys philosophizing and experimenting with new media. Through The Personal Trainer Development Center Jon helps fitness trainers leverage their expertise to stop trading time for money. He loves fitness, hates bad socks and considers himself to be a key lime pie connoisseur.

In this episode we’ll be discussing how he creates businesses and books from a place of fascination and curiosity. Jon discusses a concept that he calls “the ignorance quotient,” and how it’s key in not being paralyzed by fear. He also shares the fastest, most logical way to replace your income and get to your “freedom number.”

Key Points From This Episode:

Jon shares his background and how he got into entrepreneurship in the first place.
Hear how Jon gravitates toward doing stuff that is highly engaging with him.
Learn what Jon refers to as the ignorance quotient.
Find out how to find that level of where you have enough information but not too much.
Listen as Jon tells us how personal training forced him to be entrepreneurial.
Understand the pros and cons of starting a gym versus scaling online.
Discover how creating content is what gets Jon excited in the morning.
Jon tells us about his first book, Ignite the Fire, that he wrote at the age of 24 years.
Hear how Jon promoted his book, Ignite The Fire, through activation.
Learn how Jon uses mutual relationships to get noticed by highly respected entrepreneurs.
Find out how Jon optimizes his life to make it more efficient.
Listen as Jon tells us how he has tried to master his writing.
Discover how pen and paper is something Jon is very passionate about.
Hear more about what Jon has defined as the freedom number.
Learn to look at what skills you have and what’s the highest yield.
Find out how to figure out what your skill is.
Understand what failure means to Jon and how he gets past it.
Hear Jon talk about how he shut down a membership site that didn’t fit his model.
Learn how it affected Jon’s business and about his other revenue streams.
Find out how a certification for online personal trainers is Jon’s biggest revenue stream.
Discover the biggest mistake that Jon sees up and coming online trainers make.
Understand how to try a bunch of things but ultimately focus on the main things.
Hear what social media platforms Jon uses in his business.
Understand more about Jon’s books and how well they sell.
Discover why Jon’s wife is the person who has had the most profound impact on his life.
Find out what’s on the horizon for Jon.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Fear is simply an irrational response to the unknown.” — @jon_ptdc

Tweet This

[0:07:38].1]

“The first step to fixing any problem is defining a problem.” — @jon_ptdc

Tweet This

[0:25:39].1]

“We have way too many solutions and we have way too few good questions.” — @jon_ptdc

Tweet This

[0:30:20].1]

“The beautiful thing about working online is you can build the perfect model for you in your life.” — @jon_ptdc

Tweet This

[0:38:46].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Jonathan Goodman – http://www.jonathangoodman.ca/

Online Trainer Academy – http://onlinetraineracademy.theptdc.com

Jonathan on Twitter – https://twitter.com/jon_ptdc

Jon’s Book, Ignite the Fire – https://www.amazon.com/Ignite-Fire-Building-Successful-Personal/dp/1505787610/

Jon’s Book, Personal Trainer Pocketbook – https://www.amazon.com/Personal-Trainer-Pocketbook-Reference-Questions/dp/1505839793/

Body and Soul Fitness Toronto – http://www.bodyandsoul.ca/

Dan Demsky – https://unboundmerino.com/

James Altucher – http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/

Audible – http://www.audible.com/

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 016

“JG: The first step is to get yourself to what I call free, I mean this free number right? With the buzz word but get yourself to the point where you’re free because once you’re at that freedom number then you can breathe and then your mind can relax and I think that’s the really beautiful tipping point. When you know that you’re taken care of and your people that you love are taken care of, you can fail and that’s - I mean, freedom is providing yourself the opportunity to fail. Like you can fail forward, you can do all these things that business guru’s tell you to do. Try and don’t care if you fail and fail, it makes you stronger. Well that’s nice if you know that failing won’t crush you.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:40.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:03.6] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we’re learning from Jonathan Goodman, Jon’s a bestselling author, entrepreneur, speaker and one of the most influential and well-respected guys in the fitness industry.

Jon loves fitness, hates bad socks and considers himself to be a key lime pie connoisseur. I actually consider myself to be a strawberry cheesecake connoisseur so we’ve got to compare notes but he is the creator of the Personal Trainer Development Center where he helps fitness trainers leverage their expertise to stop trading time for money.

We’ll be discussing how he creates businesses and books from a place of fascination and curiosity. His concept of what he calls “the ignorance quotient” and how it’s actually the key to taking action and not being paralyzed by fear and the fastest most logical way to replace your income if you are currently employed and trying to get to what Jon coins the freedom number.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:19.2] RN: Hello and welcome to The Fail On podcast, I am sitting down today with Mr. Jon Goodman, he has been nice enough to host us in his office here in Toronto so welcome to the show Jon.

[0:02:29.5] JG: Thanks for making the trip.

[0:02:30.8] RN: Thanks for putting us up in your office right now. Just a little context, what part of Toronto is this? Just so they have an idea?

[0:02:37.9] JG: Yeah, absolutely, this is just west of Toronto, it’s kind of like the border of what’s called Mimico Topico, right on the water. Toronto has got this incredible water front, it’s like a U shape so we’re on the lake and we’re looking across the water at the city, it’s the best place to be.

[0:02:52.2] RN: No, I always loved Toronto, I’ve come probably three or four times this past year and actually the weather’s usually like, I know it’s April now. Weather’s usually better than this.

[0:03:03.0] JG: Yeah. I mean, this is…

[0:03:05.1] RN: This is the guy that spends every winter outside of Toronto.

[0:03:06.1] JG: Right. I was just telling you before we started recording that this is the first year that I’ve been back in six years. I haven’t spent a winter here in a long time so I don’t know what winter is like anymore.

I haven’t put on hockey skates in six years. I picked up a hockey puck yesterday and I was like “yeah, this is what this thing looks like.”

[0:03:21.7] RN: So funny because I was out with some friends last night for dinner and it’s just so different because everybody’s talking about like hockey, because everybody grows up playing hockey, where I’m from in Georgia it’s like baseball or soccer. It’s just so different because hockey’s not even a thing in Georgia.

Although it did have the Atlanta Thrashers for a hot minute.

[0:03:40.6] JG: Yeah, that was unfortunate.

[0:03:44.3] RN: Yeah man, just to hop in to it, why don’t you go through some of your background and what got you into entrepreneurship in the first place?

[0:03:50.9] JG: Sure, I guess if I looked back, I was always kind of an entrepreneur, I never actually worked for anybody else but I studied kinesiology in a university like excess science. I was a personal trainer in a university from years two to four at the university gym and then when I graduated, the goal was always to go into medicine to be honest.

I was like, “I’ll take a couple of years and be a personal trainer full time” and I obviously never went to medicine. I was a personal trainer so I worked for myself. I mean, the best trainers are entrepreneurs, we got to develop our own business.

I kind of hit a point at like 23 years old where I was making as much as I could make as a trainer in Toronto, I was referring my overflow clients to other people, I was managing a group of 10 trainers at that point.

[0:04:25.1] RN: Where were you training people? You don’t have your own gym right?

[0:04:27.1] JG: No, I was training out of a gym called Body and Soul Fitness in Toronto.

[0:04:30.4] RN: It’s your own business, they just…

[0:04:31.5] JG: It wasn’t my business.

[0:04:32.9] RN: Got you, so you were working for them.

[0:04:34.3] JG: I was a contractor for them.

[0:04:35.1] RN: Got it.

[0:04:35.6] JG: I just decided that I needed to figure out a way to make money when I’m not on my feet and wrote a book for trainers at 24 years old and started a website at 25 and now we’re here somehow.

[0:04:46.7] RN: I can relate man, I grew up playing tennis and played tennis in university and then coached afterwards and it’s just like you said, you’re on your feet all day, you have to be enthusiastic, super engaged, it’s taxing work. People don’t feel like tennis coach or a personal trainer, you just stand there.

It’s a lot of mental and physical work actually.

[0:05:05.4] JG: Yeah.

[0:05:05.9] RN: Yeah, along those lines, what made you kind of have the entrepreneurship itch to actually try to scale that into doing something else?

[0:05:15.1] JG: That’s a good question. Hindsight is 20/20 right? I don’t’ really know, I guess if I looked back and I was just kind of making it up as I went, I was very fortunate I graduated that free.

I was able to have a lot of success early on and put a lot of money in the bank early on so I could fail and not really have a lot of risk. I never really knew what an entrepreneur was, like this is before like being an entrepreneur was sexy right? I never knew what it was, I’m from a family where every adult I ever knew was a doctor, a lawyer or accountant, business man, teacher, whatever.

I don’t know. I felt like writing a book so I wrote a book. Then I was like “well, crap, I need to figure out a way to promote this book” so I started a website and then the website just started to grow so I was like, “well this is fun.”

That’s kind of what I do now to be honest. I just chase things that are fun and interesting. I mean, there’s some strategy involved obviously but for the most part, it’s whatever is highly engaging with me. I mean, I think – there’s not that much to it, I wish that there was like a masterplan that I could like, “you see, I had all of this balls in my cord and I organized them strategically”. No.

I just kind of piled – I just produced stuff and piled stuff because it was fun.

[0:06:29.4] RN: It’s an important lesson right? Because I think a lot of people get paralyzed by thinking they have to have that masterplan when in reality, you just put one foot in front of the other and actually do something right? Take the first step.

[0:06:41.1] JG: I’ve got this concept that I play around with a lot that I call the ignorance quotient and I don’t know where it is exactly, I haven’t been able to quantify it yet but I feel like one of the plagues today in society is that we know too much, that we have access to too much information and it paralyzes us always thinking that we need to know more before we do something.

I’m of the belief that there was probably a point where you need to know enough about something and then just so you don’t really screw up right? Anything beyond that is actually a disservice.

[0:07:11.5] RN: How do you find that level of where you know you have enough information but not too much where you’re stuck.

[0:07:17.6] JG: I think you find that level, again, I haven’t been able to quantify this, I’d actually love to quantify it somehow.

[0:07:22.2] RN: it would be so cool, yeah.

[0:07:23.9] JG: I believe that that level is somewhere between knowing what action to take next, like being able to basically map out a trajectory but also being...

Finding Blessings In Failure And Choosing The Positive

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 07:00:16 -0500

Nick Unsworth is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and founder of Life on Fire. Through Life on Fire, Nick helps teach ambitious entrepreneurs how to make more money and work less doing work they actually love. Nick sold his first business by 30 years old and has coached over 2,500 people to learn to do the same. He has consulted clients including Daymond John from Shark Tank, Mark Levine from NavySeals.com, Keller Williams Realty, Safeco Insurance, and many more.

Nick is frequently one of the top rated speakers at major conferences both online and offline. In this episode we will be discussing the best first step in taking the leap into creating a business. He shares the pitfalls and struggles that he experienced along his journey and how you can avoid his mistakes. You will also learn more about Nick’s four-step coaching process that leads to mastery of any subject.

Key Points From This Episode:

The common characteristics of individuals who achieve high levels of success.
The pros and cons of having a free mentor versus a paid coach to guide you.
Why every industry is plagued by unqualified individuals and the impact the it has.
Hear the story of Nick’s very first failure in the world of entrepreneurship and how it happened.
Find out how Nick when from setting company sales records to being close to bankruptcy.
How Nick recovered from losing everything he had worked to build, and how he chose the positive.
Why Nick believes in shifting your mindset to be uncomfortable with being comfortable.
Learn how to be motivated to do something by the challenge of it being impossible to do.
What it means to choose faith over fear and how it can help you to find success.

Tweetables:

“I don’t want to just make money. I want to make a difference.” — @NickUnsworth

Tweet This

[0:07:29].1]

“Who you are today is not the person that’s going to get what it is that you want.” — @NickUnsworth

Tweet This

[0:23:11].1]

“Every single day, you’ve got to choose faith over fear.” — @NickUnsworth

Tweet This

[0:23:24].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Nick Unsworth — http://nickunsworth.com/

Nick on Twitter — https://twitter.com/NickUnsworth

Nick on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/nickunsworthlifeonfire/

Life on Fire — https://www.lifeonfire.com/

Daymond John — https://daymondjohn.com/

Mark Levine — http://www.marklevinshow.com/

Keller Williams Realty — http://www.kw.com/

Safeco Insurance — https://www.safeco.com/

Life on Fire TV — https://www.lifeonfire.com/category/life-on-fire-tv/

Life on Fire YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/user/LifeOnFireTV

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 015

“NU: Instead of a bucket list, I call it a Life on Fire list. You know, I've got doing that Men's Physique contest and then I'm going to do other things. I want to learn how to play the guitar, be a black belt. I will continue to do these crazy things because it's just, you feel alive, and you only get one shot at life.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:22] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[00:00:49] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we are sitting down with Nick Unsworth. He's an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and founder of Life on Fire. Through Life on Fire, Nick helps teach ambitious entrepreneurs how to make more money and work less doing work they actually love. We'll be discussing the best first step in taking the leap into business, pitfalls and struggles along his journey and how you can avoid his mistakes, and you'll learn Nick's four-step coaching process that leads to mastery of any subject.

But first, if you'd like to stay up to date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to Failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:41.1] RN: All right, welcome to the show. Today we have Nick Unsworth. He's a high-performance coach, international speaker, and bestselling author. As CEO of LifeOnFire.com, Nick's mission is to help you love what you do for work, relentlessly pursue your passions, and live the dream. Nick sold a business by 30 years old, coached over 2,500 people, and has consulted clients including Daymond John from Shark Tank, Mark Levine from NavySeals.com, Keller Williams Real estate. Safe Co. Insurance and many more.

Nick brother, welcome to the show.

[0:02:15.8] NU: Awesome, well thank you. Fired up to be here.

[0:02:17.9] RN: Awesome. To hop right into it, as the high performance coach, you’ve worked with obviously very successful individuals as well as individuals, probably just getting started out on their journey, what’s the commonality that you’ve seen in your clients and students that have achieved high levels of success?

[0:02:35.7] NU: People who take off fast or people that just create the success hands down, they’re the ones, they’re just relentless. They’re relentless with their action and they’re just taking fast action and I like to call it fast imperfect action.

Because it’s like so many people just try and think of what to do and they try and like make it perfect before they start, and it’s just so paralyzing and it takes so much time and you will never guess, you can never speculate the right product launch, the perfect product, you just got to get out and you got to get – it’s trial, error, it’s iterations, it’s quick pivots and it’s freaking action and so the ones that are just, that are coachable. I guess it’s two things. One is the fast action and two, they’re just coachable, they’re willing to listen to people who have done it.

[0:03:26.9] RN: Got you. So for people that actually don’t have a coach or don’t have a coach yet that are sitting at home or maybe have a job and they want to get something started, they just don’t know what that business idea is, they don’t know how to start or what to do. What advice would you give to that person?

[0:03:45.4] NU: I would do whatever you have to do, whatever you need to do to get the right coach and here’s why. Because if you’re finding yourself in a scenario where you’re listening to a lot of podcast, maybe you’re watching webinars, maybe you’re buying courses, you know, you’re going to events, that’s kind of like a progression, it kind of starts with you know, listen to a podcast. Then it moves to maybe buy a course and then you get a book, you get to an event.

Next thing you know, you’re spending money but you’re not really moving and you go from being the spectator that’s just kind of watching or listening and seeing other people have success and they kind of like, it inspires you, it excites you but in some ways and some cases, it kind of pisses you off. Maybe hear the person that has the podcast and you’re like, “I could do better than them and you know.”

There’s like this phases before you get started and what I found after coaching and teaching many people on how to clarify their life vision is that it is very difficult to just do it in your own strength. When you try and just keep doing it all alone, it’s hard to identify because you’re in your head, you’re not – as an outsider, I can sit down with someone for 30 minutes and by the end of that conversation, we know where they’re going. We know where they’re going, we know their next action, we know how to get them into business.

So I would say, whatever you got to do to get resourceful to hire the right coach that can help you get clear on the vision because when you’ve got the vision of where you want to go, taking the action isn’t, it actually isn’t the problem. People can’t take action because they don’t know what action to take. Once you get the vision of where you’re going, it’s like, it all of a sudden, you go from like being stuck, overwhelmed, pushing and pushing in life to like, it’s like someone just busts through a dam, you know? You’re just like, it’s like being pulled through life and you’re fired up, you’re waking up early, you’re taking action.

That for me is huge and so of course, you know, people may view that and say well, of course he says that, “He’s a coach, he’s probably trying to sell me but here’s the thing.” Dude, I am a coach because that’s what a coach did for me and it changed my life so much that I said, “This is now my new life vision, this is what I’m going to do.” It was so powerful and changed my life, it helped me build and sell a company and then since then, I said, “You know what? I actually want to do what this guy did for me.” I was a user first, you know?

[0:06:06.2] RN: Obviously there’s - you know, mentorship’s a huge deal in terms of finding success. Going through somebody that’s hit all of those roadblocks along the way already themselves so they can help navigate and speed up the learning curve for you. What would you say getting like a free mentor pursuing a free mentor versus going with a paid coach, what are the pros and cons there?

[0:06:31.4] NU: Yeah, I mean, you know, I would say, it’s a progression so you know, there’s a lot of great information out there. There’s a lot of great podcast like yours. There’s a lot of content out there. It’s just, you know, what action are you taking on that content? Now, when we think about — so that to me is a step in the progression. Now, as far as like working with someone for free, you just have to keep in mind that you know, we’re talking about your life here.

If you work with a coach that isn’t qualified or maybe they’re doing it for free, well they’re probably not a coach that’s been doing it for very long, you know? Unless they’re super successful and they just love you, they want to just like mentor you for free. I mean, if you’re in a scenario like that, that can be amazing. But here’s the thing; it’s all about where has that person been, do they have the values that you have and did they have the life that you want?

There’s tons of coaches that ruthlessly make a ton of money but I don’t want anything to do with them, right? Because I don’t want to just make money. I want to make a difference. I want to have free time and hangout with my wife and my child that we just had. I’m not in this business to be this workhorse workaholic that just puts myself into the ground by just grinding eight hours a day and “hustling”. It’s like, that’s not what I want to do.

Now, I will outwork many people so I am a workhorse for sure, but I want, you know, you want to have a coach that’s got the life that you want. That to me is super important and you know what? Oftentimes, that person, if you’re lucky and maybe it’s a relative or a family member hey, if you can get a free mentorship like for example like Daymond John from Shark Tank, he’s done some free mentorship for us. You know, some consulting for us because we added value for him, that’s incredible right?

[0:08:24.8] RN: That’s exactly what I was going to say. You know, that free mentorship’s not actually free right? It’s free in the sense that there’s no money exchanging hands but there has to be a value add on both sides, right?

[0:08:34.3] NU: Exactly. It’s like the ultimate decision factor comes down to, do they have the life that you want and are they qualified? Because if you're catching free advice from like, someone that just bought a course online about how to be a life coach, you’re playing with very dangerous fireworks that the fuse is so small, it will instantly blow up because the last thing you want is to confuse your life or have someone that doesn’t know what they’re doing point you in the wrong direction.

[0:09:02.5] RN: On that note, it’s shocking how many life coach certifications, business coach certifications there are that people have access to get without having any actual business experience. It’s actually nuts.

[0:09:15.7] NU: It really is. I think at some point there’s going to be a regulation that comes in because one knuckle head is going to give someone some advice and there’s going to be a suicide or who knows what, and someone’s going to come in and clean it up. Because what’s happening is that marketing online, if you market a business opportunity, it’s way easier to make money and marketers have figured that out. You’ve got this people with zero qualifications, zero results and experience and all these people are becoming life coaches.

I mean, it irks me especially because I put in the work, you know, I put in the money, I invested in myself and I’ve been through so many different types of legit trainings and I have all this classifications and certifications, we have hundreds of success stories and then you get these Yokels that are out there just like, “H about a course for $30 bucks,” and you know, as a coach, hey. That same phenomenon, you got to figure.

Shoot when I was a realtor I experienced that and not to knock on realtors but the hardest part of my job as a realtor was dealing with realtors because my commission, my livelihood was contingent upon me doing a deal with another realtor and if that realtor had no education, that somehow fogged a mirror and got a real estate license, the problem was that, what if they don’t call you back?

What if your client’s like, “Hey Nick, we put in the offer four days ago, where is it at?” The other realtor just hasn’t called me back in four days. I’ve called their office, I called their cellphone, I’ve emailed them. That’s the kind of stuff that you get in to. So every industry is plagued by it, it’s really just got to be heads up, you’ve got to trust your gut and you got to go with someone that has references, call those references, do your diligence because it’s your life you're talking about.

[0:10:53.2] RN: Totally. Even outside the actual certifications and stuff like that, you know, there’s nothing better than actual real world experience and failures and having been through the battles and journeys and I know it hasn’t been a completely smooth journey for you nor, I don’t think it’s been a very smooth journey for a perfect elder for anybody that’s found success.

There’s always – I always see that little graph in social media that shows and entrepreneur’s road to success and it’s like a bunch of circles and squiggly lines because there’s no straight line to it. With that said, let’s go back to what you would consider your very first failure in the world of entrepreneurship. What was it, how did it happen?

[0:11:35.7] NU: Man, there’s literally so many. Let me think of my first one, you know? First failure I would say that was when I was in network marketing. I sold telecom. This was back in 202 and so 2002, cellphones were actually brand new. I had just gotten a cellphone, I mean it’s pretty recent, you know?

So part of this failure had to do with timing part of it, how to do with not trusting my gut. Part of it had to do with being naïve you know? And people BS’ing in industry and hyping things up and me being young and excited and susceptible. What happened was, you know, I always have...

How To Remove Fear And Why Chasing Money Will Destroy You

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 12 Jun 2017 07:00:02 -0500

Re Perez is an entrepreneur, speaker, and brand builder. He has built an inspiring business called Branding For The People. They bring Fortune 500 branding to small and medium-sized businesses. He is an inspiring entrepreneur and has really unique insights on getting started in business and creating a life full of impact.

In today’s show we’re discussing the best way to get started in business. Re shares how chasing money is not only shortsighted, but can also be soul crushing without the right mindset.

We dive into the shortness of life and making it matter, because every single moment is not only precious but an opportunity.

Finally, we get into why the absolute simplest way to get started in business by asking one single question and exactly what that question is.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear when Re first took the leap in entrepreneurship and what made him take that route.
Find out what Re means when he says he’s in the business of transformation and branding.
Discover the three things Re looks for when working with clients.
Hear what advice Re has for people wanted to make the change from the corporate world.
Learn which struggles along the journey really made an impact on Re’s life.
Find out how to balance not having financial resources and still living your higher purpose.
Hear what fears Re has in life.
Find out one directive Re gives to people just starting out in business and entrepreneurship.
Discover how Re has been able to add value to people’s lives and help them.
Hear how Re gets out of his comfort zone on a daily basis.
Find out why Re believes failure is a necessary ingredient to living.
Re tells us who has had the most profound impact on his life and what they’ve taught him.
Discover which books had a great impact on Re’s life.
Learn what self development Re has done to grow as a person and as a business leader.
Find out how to keep life fun and light while trying to achieve your dreams and goals.
Re shares on some upcoming ventures and what gets him jazzed.

Tweetables:

“Branding is just sort of the paint brush that we use to transform people’s lives.” — @bftpagency

Tweet This

[0:08:32].1]

“You either create your own urgency or it’s created for you.” — @bftpagency

Tweet This

[0:17:52].1]

“It’s less about a balance; it’s about a mindset of what comes first.” — @bftpagency

Tweet This

[0:26:38].1]

“Failure is a necessary ingredient to living.” — @bftpagency

Tweet This

[0:40:55].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Re Perez — https://brandingforthepeople.com/

Re on Twitter — https://twitter.com/bftpagency

Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week — https://www.amazon.com/4-Hour-Workweek-Escape-Live-Anywhere/dp/0307465357/

The 5 Love languages — http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now — https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808/

Deepak Chopra’s book, The Path to Love — https://www.amazon.com/Path-Love-Spiritual-Strategies-Healing/dp/060980135X/

Dalai Lama’s book, The Art of Happiness — https://www.amazon.com/Art-Happiness-10th-Anniversary-Handbook/dp/1594488894

Nick Unsworth — http://nickunsworth.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 014

“RP: The one recommendation or advice that I would give is to identify what and how you can add the most value to another person’s life.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:16.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way to get there.

Today, we’re sitting down with Re Perez, he’s an entrepreneur, speaker and brand builder. Re has created inspiring business called branding for the people where they bring fortune 100 branding to small to medium sized businesses. Re is a great friend, he’s an inspiring entrepreneur and has really unique insights on getting started in business and creating a life full of impact.

We’ll be discussing the best way to get started in business and how chasing money is not only shortsighted but can be soul crushing without the right mindset. About the shortness of life and making life matter, now every single moment is not only precious but an opportunity.

And the absolute simplest way to get started in business by asking one single question.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:47.1] RN: Re, welcome to the fail on podcast my friend.

[0:01:49.8] RP: Rob, how’s it going, thanks for having me.

[0:01:51.2] RN: You got it man. Just for a little context, we’re sitting in a little Air BNB in San Diego in Hill crest that Re rented out because he just put on a branding intensive this week which I actually attended and was awesome.

[0:02:05.1] RP: A lot of fun.

[0:02:06.3] RN: Just for a little context on where we’re sitting, I’m moving to a lot more in person interviews and they’re a lot more fun because I get to hang out with my friends in person. But, just to get right into it Re, for a little context and know a little bit more about you and your background.

When did you first take the leap in entrepreneurship and what made you want to go that route?

[0:02:27.0] RP: You know, interestingly, I’ve been thinking about this because I’ve really been technically an entrepreneur for just a little over seven years but I think I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset, I’m being at 14 years old just wanted to figure out how I can make money and at the time it was just mainly so I can buy the stuff that I wanted to buy.

I can kind of toggle between that past versus the true entrepreneurship which is about seven years ago when I left, I worked at some of the top global branding firms and my last post was in Dubai in the UAE in the Middle East and there was just something, I went through a series of personal life changing events that had me leave that.

I was trying to figure out if I wanted to work for someone else again or if I wanted to do something on my own and I wanted to charter my own history and create my own economy, to go out six months off to just figure it out and I knew that I needed to do something on my own, that I wasn’t wired to work for someone else and started my own agency. I knew that I wanted to do branding and that I had no longer wanted to work with Fortune 500 companies. Working out some of the big firms. I decided to essentially start my own agency.

[0:03:48.6] RN: Just on that note, how long ago did you start Branding for the People and just for a little context and a timeline, what were you doing directly before that, were you working with the agency in New York?

[0:04:01.2] RP: Yeah, so I left New York, my story just to go back a little bit, just inconsistent with the theme of this podcast, you know, I was in New York and I was just trying to figure out what I wanted to do and I kept getting recruited to work for all these other firms and I was like, I don’t want to live here anymore.

I didn’t want to live in New York anymore. I got recruited to go work for this position in Dubai and I also fell in love around the same time and that’s someone I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with but through a series of events we said, let’s go to Dubai and we did.

I was out there for about six months and I thought it was going to be a big position, it was tax free income when you’re working as an expat and it was a high profile position and it was exciting, it was different. Different part of the world and I was going to use that as a jumping point to go to different countries and travel and explore that side of the world.

You know, as life would have it, I went through a breakup and I went and came back to New York and I decided that that wasn’t the trajectory that I was going to go on and so I left that position, that opportunity.

[0:05:14.5] RN: What year was this?

[0:05:15.1] RP: This is in 2010.

[0:05:16.8] RN: Okay.

[0:05:17.4] RP: Yeah, 2010 so yeah, it was actually a dark period of my life because that breakup was more impactful, it wasn’t life threatening by any chance but it was certainly life impacting for me but it was also an awakening thing for me just being able to look at, you could say that that opportunity was a failure, you know?

Going to Dubai and chasing the money and my relationship, that was a failure but yeah, that was the catalyst, Like I said, I took six months off and I said, well, what was my purpose you know? I even went to Sedona, Arizona, I did a lot of reading and journaling, read a lot of spiritual books but I also read some business books.

I read The Four Hour Work Week, trying to figure out well, what should I do next? Through a series of events, I came up with the idea branding for the people. The vision was to do all the things that I love doing with regards to branding but to work with brands that were making some sort of economic and social impact in people’s lives and that led me to entrepreneurs.

[0:06:23.8] RN: It’s an interesting spot right? Because if you don’t mind me asking, how old were you in 2010 when you decided to do that?

[0:06:30.2] RP: I’m trying to remember what’s the age that I am now. Let’s see, I’m 45 now so do the math.

[0:06:37.4] RN: Okay. Like late 30’s.

[0:06:38.8] RP: Late 30’s.

[0:06:40.7] RN: Which is an interesting spot for somebody that has worked in some big companies, working in kind of the corporate world right?

[0:06:49.1] RP: Yeah, it was corporate even though with the creative environment, it was still corporate.

[0:06:53.2] RN: You had somebody to report to every day, you had a place to go?

[0:06:55.9] RP: Yeah, there was a hierarchy, there was a certain politics that you needed to manage and wrestle with.

[0:07:01.7] RN: I think the easiest for you to do after that Dubai stint right? Would be okay,”Let’s regroup and let’s find another high paying job somewhere else” because that’s the easiest path right?

[0:07:10.4] RP: That’s the easiest path.

[0:07:12.0] RN: What made you really say you know what? “Screw it, let’s do my own thing, I’m here, I have more potential than working with somebody else, I can build my own thing,” what was kind of the catalyst that really made you go that route versus just getting another high paying job?

[0:07:27.8] RP: Well all this things were happening to me at the same time and this happens to everyone differently, entrepreneur in terms of why they get into it. For me, kind of was a series of all this different things that were impacting my life and I just knew deep down in my gut that how I wanted to spend my time.

Time is actually one of my highest values right? Giving my time, you know, I don’t know if you ever studied the whole Five Love Languages.

[0:07:56.9] RN: Actually yeah.

[0:07:58.5] RP: It’s like time and physical affection is like my top two love languages but when it comes to time, I could care less about material things and what not but my time is really important and so I looked at how do I want to spend my time and with the time that I have.

I knew that it had to be purposeful. I mean, to answer your question, that was really my driving force, what was my higher purpose and yes, it’s branding but I’ll say a term which is overused in many different industries but it’s meaningful in the context of this conversation.

The business that I’m really in is transformation and branding is just sort of the paint brush that we use to transform people’s lives.

[0:08:42.7] RN: Give me an example of that?

[0:08:44.4] RP: Well, there’s a couple of different levels, the first level is that a lot of the clients that we work with are transformational leaders. Personal development leaders, experts, authors, speakers and they’re doing some form of transformation whether it’s transforming people’s finances, transforming people’s mindset, transforming people’s businesses. There’s some form of that so we work with a lot of those leaders.

[0:09:10.7] RN: Was that the intention as you got into the business that you wanted to work with those types of people or do you kind of just gravitate towards it?

[0:09:16.6] RP: It kind of gravitated towards that and you know, they say you attract that which you are so I’ve done a lot of personal development work. You know, I’m trained in being able to coach large groups of people and I’m training a lot of distinctions in personal developments so I guess when you’re in a conversation, you kind of surround yourself with people who speak the same language so I definitely attracted that mainly because I can understand what they’re saying and I knew that while what they’re doing is important and meaningful.

They might not be the best at marketing it and branding it. I was like well, that could be my gift, that could be my contribution to helping them be able to do what they do better or at least make it visible and relevant and meaningful.

That’s one level and then the other level too in terms of transformation. They might not be experts or speakers but they might be consumer products right? That are making people’s lives better so I look at that as transformation.

[0:10:15.7] RN: When you look to work, when you look to take on a client, are you specifically looking for that? Something that’s actually making a difference in the world, like would you turn down somebody that’s selling Amazon widgets that don’t...

Trim The Fat, Elevate Your Network And Eliminate Startup Risk

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 05 Jun 2017 07:00:25 -0500

Andy Drish is an entrepreneur, a speaker and co-founder of The Foundation. He helps people create the mindset and skills needed to create software businesses without upfront risk and absolutely no business idea. His company, The Foundation, has been absolutely crushing it over the last five years. They have success stories from students that have gone on to create eight figure businesses.

In today’s episode we will be discussing the three different ways to elevate your network. Andy shares how to completely eliminate risk when starting a new business. He also walks us through how he first made money in entrepreneurship and why the only thing that matters when you start is simply getting sales.

Key Points From This Episode:

Andy tells us where his passion for business came from and how he started out.
Find out how Andy started his business in Etsy and how it became successful.
Learn how helping an influential person who has experience in business can help you.
Hear about Andy’s biggest struggle in terms of his journey of getting to where he is now.
Understand why it is important to know exactly what you want and not deviating from it.
Learn why you have to reach out to people that have done what you want to do.
Understand what is meant by elevating your network.
Find out how to surround yourself by people that are doing better than you.
Hear how Andy defines failure.
Learn more about The Foundation, what it is, how it makes money, and its future plans.
Understand why emotions play such a big role in entrepreneurship and how to deal with it.
Discover ways to assess risk in terms of whether to pursue ventures or projects.
Andy tells us about the last time he got outside of his comfort zone and what he was doing.
Find out about one directive or step to helping you with a business idea.
Hear who has had a profound impact on Andy’s life.
Andy shares on some exciting new ventures.
Find out about the different two realms for entrepreneurs when diving into a business.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Knowing exactly what you want and not deviating from that as an entrepreneur, I think, is so important.” — @andydrish

Tweet This

[0:16:43].1]

“I think failure happens when you stop, when you give it up.” — @andydrish

Tweet This

[0:23:22].1]

“There is no failure, there’s only progress.” — @andydrish

Tweet This

[0:23:16].4]

“It’s actually those negative emotions that will propel you forward into the next experience.” — @andydrish

Tweet This

[0:27:10].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Andy Drish — https://andydrish.com/

Andy on Twitter — https://twitter.com/andydrish

Andy Drish Email — andy@thefoundation.com

The Foundation — https://thefoundation.com/welcome?

Chiat Day — http://tbwachiatday.com/

Etsy — https://www.etsy.com/

Clay Collins — https://www.leadpages.net/

Tim Ferris — http://tim.blog/

Jason Fried — https://basecamp.com/

David Hauser — http://davidhauser.com/

Phil McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Jayson Gaignard — http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

Adam Caroll — http://www.adamspeaks.com/

Chandler Bolt — https://self-publishingschool.com/

Tesla — https://www.tesla.com/

Cathryn and Allen, The Self Journal — https://uk.bestself.co/

Carl Mattiola — http://www.carlmattiola.com/

Nicholas Kusmich — http://nicholaskusmich.com/

The book, Nature in the Human Soul — https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Human-Soul-Cultivating-Fragmented/dp/1577315510

Transcription Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 013

“AD: Here’s the first thing I would do is I would make a list of everybody you know who has had some sort of success in business or who is running a business or like who is an entrepreneur at some level. I would make a list of all of them and I would shoot them an email and I would have the email say something like this:

“Hey, I really want to get into business, I know you’ve been doing it for a while, I want to get into business by helping people who have painful problems. I want to solve something for you so I’m wondering, can we talk for 30 minutes and I can just ask you questions about your business, about what’s working for you and what isn’t and see if there’s anything that I can help with?”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:35.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:02.1] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today, we are sitting down with Andy Drish, he is an entrepreneur, a speaker and cofounder of The Foundation and he helps people create the mindset and skills needed to equip new entrepreneurs with the tools to create software businesses without upfront risk and absolutely no business idea.

His company The Foundation has been absolutely crushing it over the last five years, creating success stories and testimonials from students that have gone on to create eight figure businesses, that’s a big business.

We’ll be discussing the three different ways to elevate your network, how to completely eliminate risk when starting a new business and Andy walks us through how he first made money in entrepreneurship and why the only thing that matters when you start is simply getting sales.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:04.3] RN: today I’m joined by Andy Drish, cofounder of The Foundation, Andy, welcome to the Fail on Podcast.

[0:02:09.4] AD: Dude, thanks man, stoked to be here, we’re sitting in a hotel lobby right now.

[0:02:14.9] RN: It’s not even a lobby, on the second floor of like, I wouldn't even consider this a lobby.

[0:02:18.5] AD: Yeah, totally.

[0:02:19.4] RN: A hallway in a hotel, yeah. Anyways, thanks, this is actually as I was telling you earlier it’s my wife and I’s first time in Boulder and I’m a mountain guy so I’m in heaven right now, I’m loving it.

[0:02:30.0] AD: It’s beautiful here.

[0:02:31.7] RN: Just to jump into it man, obviously I want to dig in to your current ventures and The Foundation in a bit but I always like to start with is going back to the first time that you remember that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for something that you created.

Whether it be a proctor service?

[0:02:46.5] AD: Yeah, I think there’s a couple of moments that really matter in an entrepreneur’s life and there’s a handful of things from when I was a kid you know? I started mowing lawns, I mowed my grandma’s lawn a lot you know? $10 a week or something.

[0:02:57.4] RN: Iowa kid.

[0:02:58.4] AD: Iowa kid yeah. Grew up in a farm.

[0:02:59.3] RN: I can imagine, it’s probably a big yard.

[0:03:01.5] AD: Yeah, you know it and we used to — my friend had a mowing business, we used to get up before school and trim cemeteries like with weed eaters, it was terrible, I hated it. I hated every aspect of it except hanging out with my friends like doing work with your friends is okay but — that was one of the first times I started — we de tasseled corn in Iowa which is where you get up at 4:30 in the morning and then drag through the cornfields in these machines and you have to pull tassels off of corn but all of that was like, you know, it’s pretty much like job, it’s not work. I just started working young. When I went to college, I started a bar in my dorm room and I sold fake ID’s for a little bit. I was smart enough to not make them good so that if we got in trouble, the cops would be like, “Are you kidding, what is this?”

That didn’t last very long. In college, I had a handful of these experiences but the moment that really mattered for me was when I was 22 years old. Graduated, I was working in Corporate America and one of the things I’d always want to do was get paid to speak, that was something that was really fascinating to me and when I was 22, I started doing all these presentations in Corporate America around what’s happening with social media, how it’s shifting landscape for corporations and companies.

The Iowa Association of something, really weird thing, heard about the presentations and they asked me to do it and they asked me how much I charge and I was like, $500 and they’re like okay, I got paid $500 to go talk for three hours and that was the moment where I was like holy shit.

[0:04:24.0] RN: It’s a pretty long talk, that three hours.

[0:04:25.0] AD: Yeah, it was a whole workshop.

[0:04:25.7] RN: You consistently through…

[0:04:27.4] AD: Workshop style, there’s talk and then we had exercises and stuff but at 22 years old, to get paid 500 bucks for three hours of my time doing something that I absolutely loved doing, that was the key. Because all of the stuff in the past was like, I enjoyed it from time to time but that was something that was really dialed with what I wanted.

[0:04:42.9] RN: That kind of changed our thought process? Okay, I can actually do this and make money and this could actually be something.

[0:04:48.5] AD: It was just like wow, you can — growing up in southeast Iowa, work was always hard, it was always construction, it was always manual labor, it was like pain in the ass and I was making like 10 bucks an hour to make $500 bucks for three hours doing something I loved was a complete game changer for me in terms of what’s possible in reality.

[0:05:08.8] RN: So what did that lead you to? Once you did that, were you like, man, I want to do these workshops every day.

[0:05:12.6] AD: Yeah. I was like holy shit, I can actually do this and I ended up starting a company where I did training for college students so I partnered with professional business fraternities and I would speak at their regional and national conferences teaching college kids how to land a job after college, how to do personal branding and how to start businesses and I would speak at their regional and national conferences and then the students would invite me back to their campuses and so I did a stint of that for a year, year and a half or something like that.

And then it became not so enjoyable, like every weekend, having to go, fly out, go somewhere and you know, I was making better money then, it was one to two grand for a talk, something like that.

[0:05:52.6] RN: What kind of drove you to always want to speak?

[0:05:55.8] AD: I don’t know.

[0:05:56.7] RN: So is this always a thing since you were like a child?

[0:05:59.3] AD: Yeah, it was fun.

[0:05:59.5] RN: Always wanted to be in front of people, that’s just kind of your personality, just want to be in front of people talking, explaining stuff?

[0:06:04.4] AD: Yeah, I really enjoyed it and there was something that in college, we taught a course on helping people with presentations because it was just something I think if you want to influence people, it’s a skill you have to have. Whether it’s one on one like just sitting here like this or whether it’s one on a thousand people in front of an audience like the more ability that you have to be to communicate in front of people, the more influence and impact you can have with people.

[0:06:28.7] RN: 100%. After you did that and going around the colleges and stuff, what was your next play after that?

[0:06:35.6] AD: Well, it’s so funny because I was doing multiple things at a time so I was still working full time in Corporate America doing this and so this was just like on weekends and stuff. Yeah, I would fly out from Wednesday afternoon, come back Sunday night.

[0:06:45.9] RN: What were you doing in corporate America? What was your nine to five job?

[0:06:48.6] AD: I was in a leadership rotation program. Fortune 500 company, big financial services and doing marketing, I was working in new media marketing technology pretty much similar to what I’m doing now.

[0:06:59.8] RN: Sure, did you actually enjoy that work or did you — or were you just a guy that hated the nine to five, hated having to report to somebody?

[0:07:05.9] AD: You know, I go back and forth, I had my up days but down days, I hated not having control of my life, I hated being surrounded by people who felt like they were dying inside but some of the work was really interesting, we got to work with Chiat Day who’s into ad agency who does all the campaigns for Pepsi, Apple, Visa, Gatorade and they flew out the top 30 marketing executives and company and me. Because I was like this young guy that understood social media.

I got some really amazing opportunities and got to learn some really cool stuff from the program that we’re in but overall, so not sure. Not what I wanted.

[0:07:41.6] RN: Yeah, just...

UJ Ramdas, Jayson Gaignard and Chris Plough On Partnerships and Burning The Ships

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Thu, 01 Jun 2017 06:00:46 -0500

Today, we have a crazy episode from inside a jeep in the Bahamas with three rotating guests. First, there is UJ Ramdas, co-founder of Intelligent Change and the co-creator of the Productivity Planner and the hugely popular Five Minute Journal. Next, we have Chris Plough who you became familiar with in Episode 011. Chris built, ran, and sold an eight-figure global consulting and hosting company. We also have Jayson Gaignard who you heard from in Episode 001. Jayson is the founder of MastermindTalks and the author of Mastermind Dinners.

The first half of the episode will be myself, Chris, and UJ. Jayson joins us for the last half of the show. We discuss why it’s so crucial to always be looking for ways to get uncomfortable. We also chat about whether it is better to go solo in business or find a partner. UJ shares how to figure out your strengths and improve your self-awareness, and how to properly build a team.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear as UJ Ramdas shares more about his vision for Intelligent Change.
Learn more about the goals and intentions of the Fail On Podcast and why it was started.
Find out at what point Rob overcame his fear and turned his knowledge into action.
Hear how your point of comfort makes it harder to make decisions versus a point of pain.
Discover how different personalities in business lead to different business decisions.
Find out more about solo endeavors versus having a partner in business.
Understand why you need to make sure you are aligned with what you really want.
Hear why Chris says that having core knowledge of yourself is critical.
Learn about the difference between control of a company and partnerships.
Find out why UJ defines failure as data.
Jayson talks about his take on partnerships and why he prefers working solo.
Understand what it means to get clear on and truly define your perfect day.
Hear why having a really strong value fit cannot be overstated in any kind of partnership.
Find out about some of UJ’s struggles and challenges in building a great team.
Learn why respect is fundamental when it comes to partnerships and relationships.
Understand why getting to know people before diving into partnerships is crucial.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I’m a human being having experiences through time and space that are evolving over time.” — @ujramdas

Tweet This

[0:04:02].1]

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” — @ujramdas

Tweet This

[0:29:09].1]

“This is what it’s all about; leaning into something that is different.” — @chrisplough

Tweet This

[0:30:12].1]

“The common feature of all your dissatisfying relationships, is you.” — @JaysonGaignard

Tweet This

[0:33:38].1]

“Business at its core is to make money.” — @JaysonGaignard

Tweet This

[0:37:28]:1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

UJ Ramdas — http://www.ujramdas.com/

UJ on Twitter — https://twitter.com/ujramdas

Intelligent Change — https://www.intelligentchange.com/

Productivity Planner — https://www.intelligentchange.com/products/the-productivity-planner

The Five Minute Journal — https://www.intelligentchange.com/products/the-five-minute-journal

MastermindTalks — http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Jayson on Twitter — https://twitter.com/jaysongaignard

Jayson’s book, Mastermind Dinners — https://www.amazon.com/Mastermind-Dinners-Relationships-Connecting-Influencers/dp/0692360026

Jayson’s podcast, The MastermindTalks Podcast — http://www.mmtpodcast.com/

Chris Plough — https://chrisplough.com/

Chris on Twitter — https://twitter.com/chrisplough/

Kolbe Personality Tests — http://kolbe.com/

Richard Feynman — http://www.feynman.com/

James Wallace — http://www.wallace.vc/

Daniel Pink — http://www.danpink.com/

Malcolm Gladwell — http://gladwell.com/

Phil McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Cameron Herold — https://www.cameronherold.com/

Spoke Club — http://www.thespokeclub.com/

Luxy Hair — https://www.luxyhair.com/

Alex Ikonn — http://www.alexikonn.com/

John Gottman — https://www.gottman.com/

Malcom Gladwell’s book, Blink — https://www.amazon.com/Blink-Power-Thinking-Without/dp/0316010669/

Andy Drish — https://andydrish.com/

The Foundation — https://thefoundation.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 012

“UR: Having a really strong value fit cannot be overstated in any kind of partnership. You have marriage, or business partnership, or whatever. Even with the employees that especially like along kind of core team that you’re looking to build. That kind of fit, it’s so important to have that. Because if you do, then everything seems like magic and if it don’t and everything seems like hitting your head against the wall.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:31.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:57.1] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today, we have got a crazy episode from inside a jeep in the Bahamas with three rotating guest. We’ve got UJ Ramdas, cofounder of Intelligent Change and the co-creator of the Productivity Planner and the hugely popular Five Minute Journal. We’ve got Chris Plough who you became familiar with in the previous episode. Chris built, ran, and sold an eight figure global consulting and hosting company.

We also have Jayson Gaignard who you heard from in Episode 1. Jayson is the founder of Mastermind Talks and the author of Mastermind Dinners. The first half of the episode will be myself, Chris and UJ and then Jayson will join us for the last half of the show but we discuss why it’s crucial to always be looking for ways to get comfortable whether it’s better to go solo in business or find a partner, how to figure out your strengths and improve your self-awareness and how to properly build a team.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com and just as an a side, the episode gets cut short and very abruptly around the 45 minute mark due to an ultimate power outage.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:30.1] RN: Hello and welcome to a very special edition of the Fail on Podcast. We are in a beat up jeep driven by Jayson Gaignard here in the Bahamas. We got UJ Ramdas, we can’t stop laughing, we have Chris Plough also on the headsets.

[0:02:46.8] CP: I’m the only professional here I think, you guys are a wreck.

[0:02:50.6] UR: We’re doing the first ever podcast on the road in the Bahamas on the island called Eleuthera and it’s going to be a fun time.

[0:02:54.8] RN: UJ, who are you? So people know who you are?

[0:02:57.3] UR: I don’t know man. I forget sometimes.

[0:03:01.2] RN: We got the peanut gallery Jayson who doesn’t have a headset because he only has three.

[0:03:06.8] JG: Equipment.

[0:03:08.8] RN: But he does own the podcast equipment so he did contribute a little bit.

[0:03:12.6] CP: I’ll introduce my friend UJ. UJ is one of the most systematic people I know at hacking productivity, getting to the center of the world and slowly, this robotic man is gaining empathy and a soul. I am proud to be on that journey with him.

[0:03:28.6] RN: Just looking at him. Fantastic intro.

[0:03:31.5] UR: Okay, that was unexpected and interesting. I do not know how to process this.

[0:03:46.0] RN: UJ, would you agree with that or…

[0:03:47.3] UR: I think that’s an interesting kind of take on a side of our personality.

[0:03:55.8] RN: What would your take be?

[0:04:01.1] UR: I’d say I’m a human being having experiences through time and space that are evolving over time.

[0:04:16.5] RN: Now I’m trying to process that.

[0:04:22.2] JG: Journaling. So, UJ helped to create both the Productivity journal, The Five Minute Journal as well as other products and he is…

[0:04:29.6] UR: Productivity Planner but I appreciate your…

[0:04:30.6] CP: Productivity Planner, I do apologize, yes. I’m a user, I just apparently don’t know the title.

[0:04:36.0] RN: Or you used the knock offs.

[0:04:38.4] CP: only on the android but the real thing is coming. But he is, he’s incredibly good though at taking a look at systems, at life, breaking them down, understand them in a much more granular level and then using that to help people forward. If I were to think about UJ, absolutely a life hacker, absolutely a productivity and focus hacker and definitely a student of life.

[0:05:01.1] RN: What’s your vision with intelligent change? Are you looking at creating more products or are you looking to scale the current products?

[0:05:06.3] UR: I don’t see the difference between first and second point, I think both makes sense. New products and scaling current business also makes sense. We’re also — we have about 15% chance of dying on this car ride. The Cliff hangers. Cliff hanger is living man, at this point.

[0:05:30.1] CP: May simply be for us. This is an experience for us.

[0:05:35.1] RN: In the Bahamas, you can drive on the left side of the road and Jayson chooses to drive on the far left side of the road, also called the ditch.

[0:05:42.3] JG: That’s my joke, the group reaction.

[0:05:46.4] RN: Everybody’s laughing, you just can’t hear.

[0:05:48.9] JG: You can add in that.

[0:05:49.6] RN: Well, UJ can’t laugh so he’s processing it still.

[0:05:53.6] UR: No, I can laugh. You guys have heard my laugh.

[0:05:56.5] JG: He’s asking everybody else. What is your intentions with this podcast?

[0:06:02.5] CP: To repeat for those who can’t hear, Rob, what are your intentions with this podcast?

[0:06:07.2] RN: With today’s episode or in general?

[0:06:08.1] CP: No, I mean, in general, what do you hope to accomplish through this beautiful something — insert a word that makes sense there.

[0:06:15.0] RN: Sure. My intention is to — this is an issue I struggled with starting out in business was I was — We’re having a tickle fest. I’m tickling the driver just so you know. No, my intention was, I was really paralyzed by fear starting out and I really wish I had something that was pushing me outside my comfort zone, pushing me to take action rather than just analyzing everything too much.

My intention is to talk to — I want to say inspiring guests like you guys but to talk to guys like you that are really good at taking action and inspiring the listeners to do the same essentially.

[0:07:02.6] UR: All right, cool. Now back to your questions.

[0:07:07.8] RN: All right. What kind of additional products would intelligent change create? Yeah, that’s all I got, no follow up questions, no nothing, awesome, thanks guys. Hope that was…

[0:07:19.3] CP: to be fair, I was leaving space for more and UJ is like, now talk about me.

[0:07:24.8] RN: I just thought it was dead. Everybody’s waiting and there was like five seconds of open time, I just wanted to spare him some discomfort.

[0:07:35.1] CP: I’m very comfortable with open...

Overcoming Extreme Adversity To Creating A Life Of Fulfillment

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 29 May 2017 06:00:24 -0500

Chris Plough is a big time adventurer and explorer. He founded a company called MavenWire, which became an eight figure global consulting and hosting company before selling it. Chris is someone that has always really intrigued me. He is always doing really interesting things and going on new adventures. He is known for leaning hard against his limits and fears in order to enjoy a great story. From performing naked on a stage in front of hundreds to trekking across Siberia in subzero temperatures on a motorcycle to reach the Arctic Circle

In this episode we will be discussing what three primary factors one must look at in starting a new business. Chris shares how extreme tragedy completely shifted his perspective on both life and business. He discusses how adventures and experiences have allowed him to grow personally and professionally, and why he wants to share that gift with others.

Key Points From This Episode:

Chris shares with us at what point in his life he got started in business and entrepreneurship.
Find out how selling his company has helped Chris realize what he actually wants to do.
Understand why Chris wants to equip entrepreneurs for the world that is coming.
Hear Chris’s advice to young entrepreneurs looking to start a business.
Learn why it is important to have motivation, desire, ability and to know the market needs.
Understand why you need to keep momentum in order to be continuously learning.
Find out why you need to get a clear idea of who you are at the core.
Hear how skills and lessons start relating to your life as you make sense of who you are.
Learn more about the differences between fear and anxiety.
Discover how Chris leads into his fears through his adventures and day to day life.
Find out why shifting your perspective can help you overcome your fears.
Hear what’s the craziest adventure Chris has done and how he has had to overcome fears in his own life.
Learn how to be more intuition driven amongst other things.
Find out what’s next on the horizon for Chris.
Hear what shifts Chris is trying to create for people on his retreats/adventures.
Discover different ways to find clarity by understanding yourself and surrounding yourself with the right people.
Hear how Chris steps out of his comfort zone in his day to day life.
Find out how Chris has grown to be so self-aware.
Understand why helping somebody is the one directive Chris believes in.
Hear why Jim Kelly and Al Smith are the men Chris most looks up to.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Sometimes you just need to do something to learn the lesson.” — @chrisplough

Tweet This

[0:08:25].1]

“The path is never direct.” — @chrisplough

Tweet This

[0:12:39].1]

“You serve somebody else and you get served in return.” — @chrisplough

Tweet This

[0:22:28].1]

“When I get to the goal, it’s not about the accomplishment, it’s about what have I learned along the way.” — @chrisplough

Tweet This

[0:27:23].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Chris Plough — https://chrisplough.com/

Chris on Twitter — https://twitter.com/chrisplough/

Chris on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/chrisplough

Exponential University — https://exponentialu.org/

Oracle — https://www.oracle.com

Jay Georgi — http://nadvia.com/

Bright Order — http://www.brightorder.com/

Wayne Gretzky — http://www.gretzky.com/

G Log — https://www.oracle.com/corporate/acquisitions/g-log/index.html

American Dream U — http://americandreamu.org/

Hair the musical — http://broadwaymusicalhome.com/shows/hair.htm

Groupon — https://www.groupon.com/

Richard Branson — https://www.virgin.com/richard-branson

Al Smith — http://www.alsmith.com/

UJ Ramdas — http://www.ujramdas.com/

Jayson Gaignard — http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 011

“CP: So for me, everything coalesces. It’s like is it in line with exploring? Is it in line with teaching and guiding? Is it in line with helping the entrepreneurs or the artists or the explorers of this world shape it? If so, that’s what I’m doing.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:20.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:47.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we are hanging out and learning from Chris Plough, he is a big time adventurer and explorer, he founded a company called Maven Wire which became an eight figure global consulting and hosting company before selling it.

He’s just a great dude overall and I will be chatting directly from Eleuthera in the Bahamas and we’ll be discussing what three primary factors one must look at in starting a new business, how extreme tragedy completely shifted his perspective on both life and business and how adventures and experiences have allowed him to grow personally, professionally and why he wants to share that gift with others.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:46.5] RN: Hey there and welcome to the fail on podcast, today’s show has me really excited, we have Chris Plough joining us today. Chris is someone that has always really intrigued me, he’s always doing really interesting things, going on new adventures, he’s known for leaning hard against his limits and fears in order to enjoy a great story.

From performing naked on a stage in front of hundreds to trekking across Siberia and massive subzero temperatures on a motorcycle to reach the Arctic Circle. And, I’m really excited to jump into his journey. Chris, welcome to the fail on podcast. My man.

[0:02:18.4] CP: Thank you man, glad to be here.

[0:02:20.5] RN: Let’s just jump right into it man, let’s go into your journey, how did you get started in business and entrepreneurship and at what point in your life was this?

[0:02:28.2] CP: Yeah, no problem. I tried to start a few very crappy businesses starting from when I was like man, I think it must have been like 19 years old. I had traveled across the country to live in Pennsylvania, one of the pretense of going to school at Pen state but really it was because I was in love with this girl right?

[0:02:49.4] RN: Of course, it’s what it comes down to right?

[0:02:51.4] CP: Yeah, I was making next to nothing and I was trying to find ways to make money, I think my first was I created this forms on a disk program and I called the company like Riven Ware, it was crap. It was a horrible nothing, it never went anywhere with it. I kept trying like little ideas like that over the years, nothing really came through.

Ended up working for a startup and giving a sense of what a real business was like. Especially in the software realm and that really formed a lot of my vision of entrepreneurship and then when that startup was acquired by Oracle, I left because Oracle just wasn’t my cup of tea and I started a company called Maven Wire.

We had the expertise there, I was the one who designed the technical architecture for what was then Oracle transportation management so I had a distinct advantage and a lot of the original developers and people had worked software in so we had a competitive advantage against everybody else. Now, I’m telling you this in hindsight, it wasn’t all necessarily planned out that well, trust me.

[0:03:48.4] RN: It never is.

[0:03:49.2] CP: It never is. That was the company for me that really solidified my entrepreneurship and I learned most of my lessons through and where I found the bulk of my success through.

[0:04:00.0] RN: Just first some context. When was this and are you still involved with that company today?

[0:04:04.3] CP: Yeah, started the company in May of 2006 and had been a 10 year journey and was just sold acquired last year and is now part of a company called Bright Order which is run by a friend of mine, Kentin Hoe and another friend, Jay Georgie. Kentin Hoe is the owner and the beautiful part about that is number one is they’re continuing and taking care of a family that I really care about because I became evident to me that the mission of that particular company just wasn’t in line with what I wanted to do with my life.

I feel very fortunate for that and then second, they actually have better capabilities to help Maven Wire in this case Bright Order, achieve what I’d hope to do would achieve from the beginning, it’s almost this continuation of I saw this path of the company and there became another way to achieve that that I didn’t have to spend my life doing. There was a lot of fulfillment in that particular choice and made it easier to go down that route.

[0:05:00.5] RN: That said, what is it that you want to do with your life if obviously that’s not it? What are you drawn into now?

[0:05:06.4] CP: You get to a point, I mean, you can talk about Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs , you have needs and everything else right? We get to a point where we’re looking for something deeper than traditional success right? Sometimes, I can’t say everybody but I can say a lot of people that I know that I get the opportunity to hang around, get to a point of traditional success, there could be money and things or prestige or fame or whatever it might be.

Find it empty and hollow and then spend time trying to figure out, okay, what is it that actually fulfills me? What is it that actually drives me, gives meaning to my life, how can I use this massive skills that I have in whatever area right? Whether they’re entrepreneurial, artistic or whatever else and how can I take them and apply them into the world in a way that it makes a difference?

That’s what I care about. I want to equip entrepreneurs specifically for the world that’s coming because you look at all the shifts in technology, you look at this movement from ambition to fulfillment. I think that that’s the incredible journey that I want to help other people through and I think by doing so, we can create a world that is full of world shapers.

And people who can take this world into the direction that it’s meant to go in and those might be hard words right? I think that you can create an army of good, let me put it that way. That army of good using these tools and technology and everything, it’s coming, we can have a phenomenal impact upon the world as we know it.

[0:06:24.1] RN: So you’re looking to help entrepreneurs that are pretty much already established, kind of forego the empty hollow feeling that maybe you felt, just to get quicker to more of a place of fulfillment, is that pretty much accurate?

[0:06:38.0] CP: Yeah, because that’s a journey I understand right? There’s people within that realm that I know. However, I’m really glad you brought this up so I thank you. What I’m also finding which is incredibly interesting is that I talk to more and more younger entrepreneurs and by younger, I’m talking entrepreneurs who are in like 20’s, especially early to mid-20’s.

Sometimes later 20’s and whose business are just getting going. They’re making six figures, they’ve accomplished a lot but they see that the path that a lot of us have followed in the years previous with the generation previous isn’t the path that they have to go down right?

Instead of going A to B. B being that point of emptiness and hollowness and then trying to find a way to see, they’re asking the question directly. How do I get to see directly, that’s the path I want because I want more meaning fulfillment in my life. I think that you have this two groups, the ones who have been there and done that and don’t know where to go and the ones who say why would I even want to do that? Why can’t I just go directly towards where the future is going right?

I never thought about this before but it also kind of reminds me that Wayne Gretzky quote, go where the puck is going because that’s what the younger entrepreneurs are looking for. Rather than trying to follow where his puck been.

[0:07:49.2] RN: This analogy, yeah. What would you say to somebody that’s not necessarily at that six figure business yet? They’re not necessarily even thinking about fulfillment, maybe they are in the back of their mind but they just want to get business up and running and get something off the ground, that’s their number one priority.

What would you advise to them if you were to sit somebody down or maybe it was even your younger self. What would you say to that person with the path that you’ve already gone down?

[0:08:17.1] CP: It depends right? I think every advice is contextual, depends on who you’re talking to, what’s going on in their life right? But if we generalize this a little bit, first, sometimes you just need to do something to learn the lesson.

I’ll be honest with you, I needed to run Maven Wire as it was even though it wasn’t my ultimate life mission to learn some incredible lessons. When I went into

Keeping Customers Versus Acquiring Customers And Why No One Is Talking About It

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Thu, 25 May 2017 06:00:42 -0500

Joey Coleman is an entrepreneur, an incredible speaker, and founder of Design Symphony and the creator of The First 100 Days Methodology. Joey transforms businesses by helping them turn customers into raving loyal fans in the first 100 days.

We’ll be discussing how the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you’re willing to have in your life. Joey discusses how customer attention is the absolutely most overlooked aspect of business. He shares his mission of changing the way that businesses are structured with a much larger emphasis on retention rather than acquisition.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear Joey’s perspective on accepting friend requests and followers on social media is currently evolving.
Understand why Joey is a firm believer in the message of improving customer experience.
Find out more about the evolution of how Joey started out and what brought him along.
Hear about Joey’s first pseudo entrepreneurial venture, starting a branding agency.
Learn why support for an entrepreneur from his inner circle of family and friends is vital.
Find out why it’s important for entrepreneurs to maintain a healthy balanced life.
Understand how you have the choice to make a better life for yourself.
Hear why you have to look at the level of risk and uncertainty you are willing to tolerate.
Find out what have been some of Joey’s biggest mistakes and struggles he’s had to face.
Learn how to analyze situations and know when it’s time to explore something else.
Understand what it means to set and manage expectations.
Hear who has had the most profound impact on Joey’s life.
Joey shares with us more on The Methodology of the First 100 Days.
Find out why it’s so important to nurture your existing customers.
Understand some of the fundamental structural flaws in the typical corporate set up.
How can small business owners or solo entrepreneurs implement Joey’s methodologies.
Hear about the eight phases that a customer goes through.
Understand how everything is an opportunity for personal connection.
Learn how to start practicing your ideas in your day to day life.
Find out why it’s important to give thanks in the market place.
Hear why it’s the little things that really matter.
Learn why you need to start focusing on what’s working rather than what’s not
Understand why you need to see the lesson in the challenges.
Joey tells us about exciting projects happening in the future.
Find out a bit more about Joey’s upcoming book that will be available in 2018.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“The last great differentiator is the experience that your customers have.” — @thejoeycoleman

Tweet This

[0:09:15].1]

“I have, and am, and will be a student of the human condition for my entire life.” — @thejoeycoleman

Tweet This

[0:10:34].1]

“The more uncertainty you’re willing to have in your life, the greater the quality of your life.” — @thejoeycoleman

Tweet This

[0:23:57].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Joey Coleman — http://joeycoleman.com/

Joey on Twitter — https://twitter.com/thejoeycoleman

Email Joey – helpmejoey@joeycoleman.com

Social Media Marketing World – http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/smmworld/

Michael Stelzner and Phil Mershon – http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/

Philip McKernan – http://philipmckernan.com/

James Altucher – https://jamesaltucher.com

Tucker Max- http://bookinabox.com/

Jay Baer – http://www.jaybaer.com/

Sara Stibitz – https://sarastibitz.com

Ryan Holiday – https://ryanholiday.net/

Clay Hebert – http://clayhebert.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 010

“JC: Imagine if this month, you did business with every customer you’ve ever done business with, how big would this month be?”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that failing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today, we’re sitting down with Joey Coleman, he’s an entrepreneur, an incredible speaker and founder of Design Symphony and the creator of The First Hundred Days Methodology. Joey transforms businesses by helping them turn customers into raving loyal fans in the first 100 days.

We’ll be discussing how the quality of your life is in direct proportion to the amount of uncertainty you’re willing to have in your life. He discusses how customer attention is the absolutely most overlooked aspect of business and he shares his mission of changing the way that businesses are structured with a much larger emphases on retention rather than acquisition.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:49.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the Fail on Podcast, I feel very fortunate for the opportunity to chat with today’s guest. Joey Coleman. Joey is the founder of Design Symphony, a customer experience branding firm that helps organizations create breath taking interactions for their customers. In short, Joey helps companies keep their customers and he does it through a methodology called The First Hundred Days which we’ll dig into in just a bit.

Joey, thanks for joining us today and welcome to the fail on podcast.

[0:02:14.7] JC: It is my pleasure Rob, I really appreciate you having me on the show.

[0:02:18.0] RN: It’s my pleasure. So, just for a little context, we’re sitting in Joey’s suite at the Grand Hyatt in San Diego because Joey’s in town for a key note at Social Media Marketing World correct?

[0:02:29.2] JC: Yes, so fantastic event put on by Michael Stelzner and Phil Mershon and just wrapped that up late last night with the final party that I think ended around two AM and it was a great event, about 4,000 people from 55 countries I think when it was all said and done or something like that. I mean, it was insane.

[0:02:49.0] RN: It’s crazy how big it’s got.

[0:02:50.0] JC: Incredible, yeah. Great group of people, very welcoming, especially for the newbie who is the keynote and yet has 67 followers on twitter, or at least at the time of the key note. They were very kind, one of the guys said, you were trending.

I was like wow, I feel like I’ve arrived so it was very nice, they were very gracious to let a complete novice into the ranks.

[0:03:12.7] RN: Yeah, that’s funny, I was going to mention that because we were talking about that before we got on the line is you typically, with your social media, you’re pretty protective and you really only have people that you’re connected with that you have actually met in person, that you’ve had a conversation with that you know.

[0:03:25.9] JC: Correct, yeah, that’s been my philosophy with Facebook and LinkedIn from day one. I only accepted friend request of people that I had actually met in person and where that was really great with LinkedIn, especially in the beginning. You thought sometimes people would go on LinkedIn and they’d say, I want to get connected to Bob, do you know Bob?

As I noticed, as the years went on, people would actually say in their message to me about getting an introduction, do you know him or is it something that you just accepted the request. I’m like, no, of course I know them. Why would I accept a request from somebody that I didn’t know?

I must admit, my thinking on that is evolving, I don’t know that I would categorize my original position as a fail but it’s certainly has evolved into getting ready here in the very short timeframe and by that I mean, within the next week to reevaluate what my criteria is for accepting a friend request on certainly LinkedIn, followers on twitter, absolutely and Instagram of which twitter and Instagram I’ve almost been entirely on for almost a whole week now.

[0:04:32.7] RN: Sure.

[0:04:32.8] JC: It will be interesting to see.

[0:04:35.1] RN: So, are you looking to grow your social media platform for promotion for future projects?

[0:04:40.6] JC: You know, I think the thing that I’ve realized is it’s certainly that’s an added benefit but that’s not the purpose for the drive. The purpose of the drive is, I’m a big believer in the message of we need to treat our customers better and I get the pleasure of traveling all over the world, doing keynotes, leading workshops, teaching people how to do a better job of retaining their customers and delivering remarkable experiences to them.

If I’m excited about standing on stage in front of an audience and sharing that message with people that I’ve never met before. Why wouldn’t I be excited about increasing the scope of that message by delivering it via social media?

I think that’s more the driving factor than any. I do not envision ever being the guy who is promoting stuff in tweets all the time and…

[0:05:33.9] RN: Getting sponsored.

[0:05:34.6] JC: Yeah. I mean, maybe because I’m open to whatever comes in the future but that is certainly not the intention. Right now, it’s all about how can I share this message and methodology more broadly with a hope of getting more people to change the way they run their businesses which is my end goal because I believe, if we improve the customer experience in your business, your competitors then have to improve to keep up with you.

And then an entire industry improves, well when your industry improves, people who do business with you that also do business in other industries start to expect that level of experience. All boats rise together and that’s really the life mission if you will as it relates to this message and getting it out to as many people as possible.

[0:06:24.4] RN: That’s cool. I definitely want to dig in to the First Hundred Days Methodology. Just to give the audience a little bit more context about you and your background, you have a really crazy diverse background.

[0:06:36.6] JC: Eclectic, one might say?

[0:06:38.8] RN: One might say, yes. You know, all the way from working with the CIA, the secret service, to being an attorney, to working corporate America, to teaching college classes, the list goes on.

[0:06:49.4] JC: It’s been a crazy ride.

[0:06:51.1] RN: Tell us about that evolution, how did it start and what brought you along?

[0:06:54.0] JC: Sure, if it makes sense, I’ll give you a little bit of a chronology and then we can dive in to the aspect that seems interesting. Growing up, I grew up in a family of politicians and lawyers and had this idea that I wanted to study government and international relations. That was my major in under grad. After under grad, I went immediately to law school which my father was a criminal defense lawyer.

I always knew I wanted to go law school, didn’t know I always wanted to practice law. But felt there were some real benefits to the education in that way of thinking. Went straight to law school in Washington DC while I was there, ended up working with the Secret Service, The White House and the CIA, incredible experiences. Got to work on some really fun and fascinating issues as a young man in my early 20’s.

Being exposed and in front of things that people would go a whole lifetime and never experience. I was absolutely incredible. After that, I graduated from law school and immediately went to work for basically a for profit think tank, consulting business where I worked in their sales and marketing division, convincing fortune 500 senior execs to join our membership.

After that, went back to Iowa where I grew up, practiced law with my dad for about five years doing criminal defense. Court room litigation work. Hometown where I grew up, yeah, a little town in Northwestern Iowa called Fort Dodge. But we traveled from there, our practice, we have clients all over the country and would kind of go where folks found themselves in predicaments with law enforcement. We’ll say that.

Then after that, moved to Massachusetts, spent a semester up there teaching, doing executive education courses while I was there. Got a job offer to come work at a promotional products company that moved me back to DC, worked there very briefly before leaving that business and going on to start my own marketing and branding business.

Where I focused predominantly on logo creation and websites and things like that. In doing that, I realized that businesses can differentiate on price and that’s a race to the bottom. They try to differentiate on quality and thanks to the total quality movement in the 80’s, everybody expects high quality, they try to differentiate on their online presence but now we live in a world where everybody expects 24/7, 365 access.

What else could you differentiate on? I realized, the last great differentiator is the experience that your customers have. It is difficult if not impossible for your competitors to mimic, it creates a deep emotional connection which I think in an increasingly digital world, that is something that human beings are craving more today than any point in human history.

It’s really fun to work on the experience side because it’s about, how can I make this customer feel something that is unexpected, that touches them deeply and if I really do my job right is so unique, is so remarkable that they want to tell all their friends about it. Whether that be in person or on social media or whatever methods of communication they might use.

It just kind of evolved and throughout this entire process. People often ask me, this is such a desperate career, how does one go from working in the White House to defending alleged criminals, to teaching...

Building ClickFunnels And Getting Partners That Love Doing What You Hate

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 22 May 2017 06:00:59 -0500

Dylan Jones is an entrepreneur and cofounder of ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels has grown into a massive, massive online success allowing anyone to create sales funnels online with just a few clicks of the mouse. Their goal this year is to hit $100 million in revenue up from $30 million a year ago.

We’ll be discussing how he started ClickFunnels with Russell Brunson and how he was able to buy a condo for his mom. He discusses the growth trajectory of the business and how the business generating $30,000 the very first month was actually a huge failure. He also discusses how free self-education online can absolutely change your life and the best way to get started in business today.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear as Dylan shares more about what he did prior to starting ClickFunnels.
Find out why Dylan dropped out of high school early on in Grade 10.
Why Dylan’s first product was an absolute failure, and what he would have done differently.
Understand the importance of knowing your customer, and not trying to do too much at once.
Learn more about ClickFunnels and the different roles each founder plays in the company.
Dylan shares more about how their team at ClickFunnels is structured and functions together.
Hear about the management and communication tools Dylan’s teams uses to work remotely.
Find out more about the ultimate vision for ClickFunnels as a company, going forward.
Learn why Dylan believes it’s crucial to find company partners who love doing what you hate.
Dylan shares how he gets outside of his comfort zone by not overthinking the situation.
Find out what failure means to Dylan, and why he believes it is just a part of life.
Hear Dylan’s advice and action steps to those just looking to start a business.
The quote that had the most profound impact on Dylan’s life, and what it taught him.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“You’re always going to try and figure out what's worked best.” — @getnodo

Tweet This

[0:26:50].1]

“You should be producing more than you’re consuming. If you’re not, you’re doing something wrong..” — @_robnunnery

Tweet This

[0:43:57].1]

“You have to attach yourself to what you’re actually trying to do rather than the thing itself.” — @getnodo

Tweet This

[0:45:42].1]

“Failing means you just haven’t figured it out yet.” — @getnodo

Tweet This

[0:46:36].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Dylan Jones — dylan@clickfunnels.com.

ClickFunnels — https://www.clickfunnels.com/

Dylan on Twitter — https://twitter.com/getnodo

Dylan on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/dylan.dub.jones

ClickFunnels Facebook Group — https://www.facebook.com/groups/ClickFunnels/

Pivotal Tracker — https://www.pivotaltracker.com/

GitHub — https://github.com/

Slack — https://slack.com/

Flowdock — https://www.flowdock.com/

Trello — https://www.trello.com

Stripe — https://stripe.com

Braintree — https://www.braintreepayments.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 009

“DJ: I remember even going out, I didn't — I don't really drink. I didn't start drinking until I was like 20, and I would go with my friends on the weekend and they’d drink, because you’re like just doing that. I remember thinking, “This is such a waste the time. You guys are going to spend here four or five hours going drinking and doing stuff, or I can go home and learn C++.” I would just leave and then spend my whole night trying to learn something. I just felt like I needed to learn and I needed to do it before anyone, because I didn't want to wait for anybody anymore.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:32.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:56.9] RN: Hey there, and a welcome to the show that believes you are destined for more and that bailing your way to an inspired life is the only way to get there. Today we are sitting down with Dylan Jones, he is an entrepreneur and cofounder of ClickFunnels. ClickFunnels has grown into a massive, massive online success allowing anyone to create sales funnels online with just a few clicks of the mouse. Their goal this year is to hit $100 million in revenue up from $30 million a year ago.

But first, if you'd like to stay up-to-date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and signup for our newsletter that's at the bottom of the page. Again, that’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:09.6] RN: Hey there and welcome to the Fail On Podcast. I'm extremely excited about our guest today, it's Dylan Jones. Dylan is the cofounder of ClickFunnels, which allows individuals and businesses to set up online marketing funnels in just minutes.

Dylan, welcome to the Fail On Podcast my man.

[0:02:29.4] DJ: Hey man, I’m excited to be here. This is awesome.

[0:02:32.6] RN: Beautiful. Obviously, ClickFunnels has turned into a massive success. You guys just hosted that event in Dallas, which my entire social media for I think, the 3, 4 days was literally of just funnel hacking. That’s literally my entire Facebook feed during that time.

[0:02:51.1] DJ: I felt like the whole world was there. All my Facebook was just like, “Is there anybody not of this event at this point?”

[0:02:56.7] RN: It looked awesome. You guys had Tony Robbins. It looked just, it looked phenomenal. All the feedback that I got was great.

[0:03:03.3] DJ: That’s awesome. Thank you man.

[0:03:04.3] RN: The thing is I don't think many people actually know you exist, not in a bad way of course, but I mean Russell Brunson's obviously the face of the company doing most of the promotion and marketing and I just don't think many people realize that there's a lot more going on behind the scenes. So I'm really excited to hear and share your story with the listeners.

[0:03:22.1] DJ: Perfect. I'm excited too. There's a lot to tell.

[0:03:25.2] RN: Can’t wait to get into it. So what were you doing before even getting on that crazy ride with ClickFunnels? Give us an idea of how you got started in business pre-ClickFunnels days.

[0:03:34.3] DJ: Pre-ClickFunnels, I was basically doing what a lot of internet markers do which is like the whole launch thing. Basically I was a web designer and a developer partnering with other people that were the face which is exactly the situation I'm in kind of now, which is Russell is the face. He’s the one that can sell everything, but we’re the ones that can actually create the software and do a lot of that kind of stuff. This is a pretty normal situation for me to be in where I’m behind the scenes doing all these launches.

The problem with before was we did launch constantly, like every month we did a new software. So I think I created like at least 50 different software products doing the designs and programming. It just gets exhausted. Finally, when we partnered with Russell to do all this awesome stuff with ClickFunnels, it was like, “We’re only going to do one product, right? It’s just going to be the one thing and we’re going to do it for the next five years.” Like, “Sweet. Thank God. Let’s just do that.” That's what I was doing before ClickFunnels.

[0:04:25.0] RN: That's crazy. 50 different software products. That’s obviously —

[0:04:27.8] DJ: That’s what I can remember. There’s probably even more.

[0:04:31.7] RN: Just take me back to one of those projects. For example, how long would it take you to create that software? Were they all pretty similar, or were you rebuilding it from scratch? Was it an ongoing product that people used for years and years, or was it kind of just a smash and grab type thing?

[0:04:47.1] DJ: That's a good question, because a lot of them were WordPress related, so back in the day, like a few years ago, WordPress and WordPress plugins was the easy way and that was because you can create software and people can just use it right away because the issue was they have to install it and they have to setup PHP, and it was just harder. WordPress came out and it was just easy to develop on it and everyone was using it, so we just made a bunch of WordPress plug-ins.

Honestly, near the end of it, I just built my own framework so it was easy to make plug-ins. The hard part was the idea and the design and making sure people wanted it. It actually was maybe a few weeks of just actually making the stuff. Most products are pretty easy, like they do this and then they output this and you just keep doing that. So it wasn't a big thing.

[0:05:28.8] RN: Got you. Going back to all of those, I mean I'm sure even before that, how did you get into — Are you more on the design side? Are you more on the development side?

[0:05:39.6] DJ: I’m on both. This is the Fail On Podcast, I have some interesting story of how I actually started doing this. So I'll start when I was young and how I got basically into the whole entrepreneur game and everything like that. That would kind of answer the question that you just asked.

When I was in high school, my mom was sick. She has a disability, right? When I was in grade 9 I wanted to be a video game designer. So I found out that all or most videogame designers work with Epic or Ubisoft and all these places actually were like modders for video games. I was like, “Sweet. If I can get a videogame and I can mod the videogame, show what I can do and then I get a job at Ubisoft so I can go to college and do the whole normal career path thing.”

Then in grade 9 I started a rock 'n roll kind of hard-core punk band. I was kind of a rebel when I was a kid, and we needed a website, so I was like, “Oh, man. I’ll do that.” I was making videogames and stuff, so I was like, “I’ll make a website. That’s no problem. I probably needed needed a website for my videogame anyway, so sweet. That works.”

I started making that, and then near the end of grade nine, I remember one teacher came up to me — It was like part of the class and these people in the class were kind of being annoying. Then he just stopped everything he was doing and he's like, “What’s the point of teaching you math,” that's what it was, “You’re just going to be working at McDonald's anyways.” I was like, “What?”

[0:06:57.5] RN: Motivational teacher of the year, huh?

[0:06:58.2] DJ: Yeah. Yeah, great, but he actually was the favorite teacher of the school. Everyone loved this dude, and so I was kind of excited to have him teach me, and he just became this huge jerk and then I was like, “This is the guy who’s teaching me? He says the best I can do is McDonalds? What the heck?” That’s when I was kind of getting started to be disillusioned by the whole system as a punk rocker.

So I remember one class I had, I was doing some web design stuff and a teacher came over, a different teacher came over and he’s like, “Oh! That’s great. You should maybe do web design as your career.” I was like — The first thought I had was like, “F that! I will never work for a client.” For some reason in my head I thought this was working for the man. I was like, “I’m never going to do this. I’m not going to work for the man,” like a punk rocker dude.

[0:07:39.8] RN: What year was this, by the way?

[0:07:41.9] DJ: What’s that?

[0:07:42.4] RN: What year was this? Just for some context. Was web design still really new at that time? Where it was like a —

[0:07:47.5] DJ: It was like 12, 13 years ago, so I’m not sure what year that is. Whatever the math is. But yeah, I wanted to be like a web — Or, he told me I should be a web designer. I was like, “No. That’s not what I want to do. I never want to work for a client.” For some reason, I thought that was the worst thing ever.

Then I started getting more disillusioned with school, and then school stopped becoming about learning and more about just going to work at McDonalds and then also started becoming, “I just have to go to school, because if I’m not in school my mom doesn’t get her disability check, or at least to support us, right? Like a thousand bucks extra a month.

So school stopped becoming being relevant at all only for me to actually just be physically present and I was always skipping school because I was learning coding and I was like, “It’s more important for me to stay up all night and code than it is to go to school.” So again, all these pressures to go to school, but only because I needed to — Basically it was framed as “if you’re not going to school, you’re screwing your mom over money and you’re being the worst kid ever”. I was like, “That’s terrible!”

Then a week later after the teacher told me to be a web designer, I went and find — I was like, “How to get a job as a web designer?” I found this website, getafreelancer.com, and then I found a little job for $200 bucks. I did it. It took me a day to do, and I did a few more jobs and then I made a few thousand dollars. Then the week after, I dropped out of high school because I realized the biggest F.U. to the system is to go my own way and not let them stop me and give me all these bullshit, really. That’s how I started being a web designer. From there —

[0:09:15.3] RN: What grade were you when you dropped out?

[0:09:17.1] DJ: All that kind of stuff happened in grade nine and it’s basically the start of grade 10.

[0:09:21.1] RN: Oh wow. So pretty early on in high school then.

[0:09:22.6] DJ: Yeah. No, totally. Like right from the start, basically.

[0:09:25.6] RN: What was your process there, like your thought process? What did your mom think in terms of you doing that to not be able to get that disability check?

[0:09:37.2] DJ: I think everyone was kind of scared, but I just knew that like if I can

Quitting A Successful Real Estate Business To Create a Life of Impact & Fulfillment

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Thu, 18 May 2017 06:49:15 -0500

Giovanni Marsico is the founder and president of Archangel Academy and the Gifted Entrepreneur, which is a coaching and mastermind organization that shares marketing, innovation, and revenue generating strategies with big-hearted entrepreneurs all around the world. Giovanni’s dream is to solve the world’s biggest challenges like poverty and hunger by empowering other gifted entrepreneurs who want to do the same.

We’ll be discussing how he shifted from a life of chasing money to a life of impact and bliss. Gio shares how he plans on growing his Archangel Summit to over 10,000 attendees. We discuss how first being an employee for a company that serves entrepreneurs can be the absolute best way to get started and learning about business, and of course, much more..

Key Points From This Episode:

Giovanni shares about where he started producing events at the age of 16.
Learn why working at Strategic Coach was the best way for Giovanni to learn about business.
Understand why four years later, Giovanni left Strategic to venture out on his own.
How friendships and fitness helped Giovanni get through some of the lowest times in his life.
Find out why Giovanni went from working in real estate to starting Archangel.
Hear more about Giovanni’s vision for Archangel and the Archangel Summit.
Understand how leaving real estate got Giovanni back into alignment.
Find out why Giovanni says that all or most growth happens outside your comfort zone.
Learn about how Giovanni explains having ‘new firsts’.
Discover how Giovanni reframes negative thoughts regarding entrepreneurship.
Hear more about Archangel and getting into Angel Investment.
Find out what guidance Giovanni gives to people wanting to take the first step in business.
Understand what failure means to Giovanni and how he sees it as a learning opportunity.
Hear what’s next for Giovanni in terms of dreams and growth.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“All or most growth happens outside your comfort zone.” — @GiovanniMarsico

Tweet This

[0:26:07].1]

“Don’t look at things as problems but think of them as puzzles.” — @GiovanniMarsico

Tweet This

[0:29:23]:0]

“Do whatever it takes to uncover your gifts or strengths or superpowers.” - @GiovanniMarsico

Tweet This

[0:33:13]:0]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Giovanni Marsico — http://www.giftedentrepreneur.com/

Giovanni on Twitter — https://twitter.com/GiovanniMarsico

Archangel Summit — http://www.archangelsummit.com/

Dan Sullivan, The Strategic Coach – https://www.strategiccoach.com/

Workopolis – http://www.workopolis.com/shared

Kris Simpson – http://www.bodiesbydesign.ca/

Peter Diamandis –http://diamandis.com/

Ray Kurzweil –http://www.kurzweilai.net/

We – https://www.we.org/

Lisa Ferguson – http://1000wattlife.com/

Phil McKernan – http://philipmckernan.com/

Gary Vaynerchuk – https://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

Real Talk Summit – http://realtalksummit.com/

One Last Talk – http://onelasttalk.com/

Naveen Jain – http://www.naveenjain.org/

James Altucher – http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

James’s Book, Reinvent Yourself – https://www.amazon.com/Reinvent-Yourself-James-Altucher/dp/1541137132/

Strengths finder test – http://www.strengthsfinder.com/home.aspx

Kolbe test – http://www.kolbe.com/

Transcript

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 008

“GM: 2012 I joined the Genius Network, Joe Polish’s $25K group, and at my very first meeting they sat me next to Peter Diamandis and Ray Kurzweil and [V. Jane]. I was like at the genius table, I was the dumbest person. But that was fun.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:22.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:50.0] RN: Hey there and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way.

Today, we are sitting down with Giovanni Marsico. He is the founder and president of Archangel Academy and the Gifted Entrepreneur which is a coaching and mastermind organization that shares marketing, innovation, and revenue generating strategies with big-hearted entrepreneurs all around the world. Giovanni’s dream is to solve the world’s biggest challenges like poverty and hunger by empowering other gifted entrepreneurs who want to do the same.

We’ll be discussing how he shifted from a life of chasing money and unfulfillment to a life of impact and bliss, how he plans on growing his Archangel Summit to over 10,000 attendees, and how first being an employee for a company that serves entrepreneurs was the absolute best way to get started and learning about business, and of course, much more.

But first, to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:08.9] RN: All right, hello and welcome to the fail on podcast, today I am sitting down with Giovanni Marsico, welcome to the show.

[0:02:15.5] GM: Thanks.

[0:02:18.4] RN: Just for a little context, tell us about your entrepreneurship background, what did you get started in when you first got into business and kind of take us to the timeline of then to what you’re doing now?

[0:02:29.9] GM: Awesome, my first venture was when I was 16 and my best friend Steven, I used to go to parties for teenagers and dance parties and we thought, we love this but we can do something better. I don’t remember, have a vague recollection but I couldn’t believe how much we accomplished our — were able to do at 16 years old but we — Our first event that we produced was in a banquet hall, we were negotiating contracts at 16.

[0:02:57.8] RN: Sure.

[0:03:00.6] GM: We managed to have a thousand people show up.

[0:03:02.1] RN: No way.

[0:03:03.1] GM: Which for a first time event at 16 years old.

[0:03:05.4] RN: That’s nuts.

[0:03:06.0] GM: It’s crazy.

[0:03:07.1] RN: For 16, that’s nuts now.

[0:03:08.5] GM: Yeah, it’s nuts now. Pre-internet, pre-social media, pre cellphone.

[0:03:12.9] RN: How are you doing that, how are you getting the word out?

[0:03:14.7] GM: We actually had an affiliate model which is hilarious, we didn’t know that’s what it was but we had friends in all kinds of different schools and we said, we want you to sell tickets in advance. If people buy a ticket, they get a discount so now there’s value there and we’ll give you a dollar per ticket you sell.

[0:03:30.4] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:03:31.7] GM: We had this crazy affiliate model before that was even a thing. Old school. We had a thousand people show up to the first event and it was one of the best days ever for us.

[0:03:40.7] RN: That’s so cool. What were you charging for a ticket?

[0:03:45.0] GM: 12 at the door and 10 if you…

[0:03:48.7] RN: Pre paid? You had that model down. Pay in advance, you get a discount. You guys didn’t do any of the promotion? You just had affiliates go do everything?

[0:03:58.0] GM: Pretty much, we had an army of promoters.

[0:04:01.9] RN: Their sole motivation was just getting a buck per…?

[0:04:04.2] GM: They would have done it for free because — yeah, the idea that they took ownership of the event as if it was their own so they felt good saying come to my party.

[0:04:13.5] RN: Got it. You’re okay with letting them take kind of ownership of it, it’s all good, we’re all partners in this kind of thing? Got it, was that the first time somebody ever had given you money in exchange for something that you created?

[0:04:26.2] GM: Yes.

[0:04:27.0] RN: Okay, cool. What made you guys even think about doing it or wanting to do it? Had you always looked for different ways to make money?

[0:04:38.1] GM: That was our first experience creating something for profit or for money or for exchange of value. I’m sure the seed was always there and we just felt, this was a thing we could do.

[0:04:50.9] RN: Nice, is this something that you did year after year there on out? Because you saw that it worked, let’s do this again.

[0:04:57.9] GM: No, right after that, we planned our second event and it went really well and then our third event we got crushed.

[0:05:03.1] RN: What happened?

[0:05:04.7] GM: We were renting banquet facilities or banquet halls and giant restaurants and it worked but there were also night clubs in the city that would maybe one day a week or one day a month allow teenagers to throw parties.

[0:05:17.2] RN: Got it.

[0:05:19.5] GM: On our third event, we were selling out, going really well but then one of the huge clubs in the city was closing down and they were having a last party ever event and they promoted it two weeks before and completely crushed us, we had to deal with failure at 17 years old on a bigger scale.

[0:05:38.4] RN: How much did you guys end up losing on that?

[0:05:41.5] GM: We managed to break even.

[0:05:43.0] RN: Okay, so it wasn’t necessarily a huge financial failure but it was at that time, it was…

[0:05:49.4] GM: It felt like it though because we would have had, we would have had…

[0:05:51.9] RN: You would have made a lot of money right? and breaking even was basically a loss because you put a lot of time and effort into it.

[0:05:56.3] GM: Correct.

[0:05:56.7] RN: Got it. After that one, did you do any after that? You kept going? Got you. How frequently were you hosting these things?

[0:06:07.7] GM: During high school, it was probably two or three a year.

[0:06:10.0] RN: Okay.

[0:06:10.7] GM: And then after high school, when we got ourselves into night clubs, the biggest venue, our biggest event had 5,000 people inside a 2,000, in line that couldn’t get in because we were over capacity.

[0:06:22.8] RN: No way.

[0:06:23.3] GM: That place, we’re doing weekly.

[0:06:25.2] RN: Got it. That’s kind of your first world of entrepreneurship is hosting events right?

[0:06:34.7] GM: I’ve been an event producer my whole life. It is one of my gifts to create immersive experiences, I didn’t understand it back then but I was just so passionate about it.

[0:06:44.4] RN: How did you transition out of that? I know you did real estate, is that where you went directly into or is there stuff in between?

[0:06:49.6] GM: In between, I eventually listened to my teachers and guidance counsellors and parents who kept bugging me that this is not a real thing, you should go to school, get a job and that’s when I quit doing events to go back to university, that’s when my depression started because I was not aligned.

But I went to the university for first engineering and then I dropped out of that because I didn’t want to be an engineer but my guidance counselors would say, get your engineering degree first and then get your master’s in business. Which was the programming, they will put it to every — it’s terrible.

I did go to business school and after that, I had the best job which was my last job ever but it was running the marketing at strategic coach.

[0:07:34.3] RN: Nice.

[0:07:34.6] GM: Dan Sullivan.

[0:07:35.7] RN: Yeah.

[0:07:36.2] GM: I was there for four years and it was life changing.

[0:07:40.2] RN: In what way? Did you have exposure to Dan and like his teachings, his philosophies, all that stuff?

[0:07:44.8] GM: Well, if you’re entrepreneurial, having the opportunity to work at a place like that. Being behind the scenes, seeing how teams are structured, seeing how operations work, all accounting, all those kind of things with a company doing really well.

And then, being exposed to the type of people that are clients are…

[0:08:02.6] RN: Yeah.

[0:08:04.3] GM: I volunteered to sit at every workshop they would allow me.

[0:08:07.9] RN: that’s awesome. Smart.

[0:08:08.8] GM: Right. For most people who were team members or employees, you know, 5:00, whatever the time, they would go home and I would stay and go into the stock room where all the products were and read for hours.

[0:08:22.2] RN: that’s amazing.

[0:08:22.7] GM: Because I was like, this is the best stuff ever.

[0:08:24.6] RN: Yeah. Within that, did you actually have the awareness when you were working there to actually start like you said, you could see how the business was run right? Not necessarily in the client side but you could see how marketing worked, how operations ran, how customer support rant, all of that.

Did you actually have the awareness to so call that in and see how, okay, this is how Dan runs a company, from the inside.

[0:08:49.1] GM: It was the best entrepreneurial school ever and part of me felt like I was cheating because clients were paying a lot, investing a lot of money to be clients there and I was making a lot more than that to sit in the same room and to learn and be behind the scenes.

[0:09:04.4] RN: I think it’s one of the best ways to get into entrepreneurship without just jumping in. You know what I mean? Going to work for a company that you find really interesting, that you can — that’s a small team right? He doesn’t have a huge company in terms of 500,000 employees.

[0:09:21.2] GM: At the time, it was 120 I think.

[0:09:22.9] RN: All in Toronto? Yeah. Small enough to where you can have exposure to almost every department right? I think...

Philip McKernan On Why It’s Impossible To Fail Pursuing Your Gift And How To Uncover Your Calling

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 15 May 2017 09:00:32 -0500

Philip McKernan works with entrepreneurs and business leaders all over the world. When people are seeking clarity about their future or want to move through roadblocks, seen and unseen, they call Philip. As a speaker he has inspired and challenged the Canadian Olympic Team and The Pentagon to name a couple.

What separates Philip from a lot of coaches, speakers and gurus is originality. He brings new conversations to the table and spends an obscene amount of time thinking and challenging the status quo, instead of simply repackaging business & life hacking strategies. Today, Philip talks about pursuing people’s truths, delving into the core to understand problems and focusing on how important self worth is.

Key Points From This Episode:

Philip tells us what set him on the course to doing what he does today.
Find out when Philip realized he was not living the life he was meant to, at the core.
Hear Philip’s thoughts on fear and the things that hold people back from living in alignment.
Learn why Philip believes no one can ever fail at doing what they are destined to do.
Philip talks to us about low self-worth and how it impacts people.
Philip shares his number one question in helping people recognize and understand their own behaviors towards others.
Understand why Philip focuses on the origin of a problem rather than on the outcome.
Find out how Philip uncovered his gift.
Learn how Philip gets himself out of his comfort zone to take action in new areas.
Hear why Philip feels strongly about people doing things on earth not only for themselves.
Find out who had the most profound impact on Philip’s life.
Understand why Philip believes it’s necessary for being to go through their pain.
Hear about significant events in Philip’s life that led him to who he is, and where he is.
Find out what’s next for Philip McKernan.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Who I am, and who I'm trying to be, and who I’ve become is not a reflection of who I am at the core.” — @PhilipMcKernan

Tweet This

[0:04:01].0]

“It's not possible to fail when you fully align yourself to what you're destined to do” - @PhilipMcKernan

Tweet This

[0:10:20]:00]

“In the absence of clarity, take action.” - @PhilipMcKernan

Tweet This

[0:26:07]:00]

“Whatever it is you do on this earth, do not make it about you.” - @PhilipMcKernan

Tweet This

[0:33:14]:0]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Philip McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Philip’s Twitter – @PhilipMcKernan

Philip’s Vlog – http://philipmckernan.com/vlog/

Philip’s Book, Rich on Paper Poor On Life – https://www.amazon.com/Rich-Paper-Poor-Life-Meaning/dp/1492758094/

Philip’s Book – Dead man walking: A journey from mindset to soul set – https://www.amazon.com/DEAD-MAN-WALKING-Journey-Mindset-ebook/dp/B009KA3CTM/

Cole Hatter – http://colehatter.com/

Cole’s event in San Diego, Thrive – http://attendthrive.com/

Jayson Gaignard –http://www.jaysongaignard.com/

Philip’s Retreat, Brave Soul – http://philipmckernan.com/product/bravesoul/

Philip’s Film, Give and Grow – http://giveandgrow.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

“PM: Ultimately, everybody that's had a serious wake-up call, if they choose to act in an aligned way and authentic way as a result of it, all they simply do — All they simply do, if I can wrap it up in one sentence is they simply give themselves permission to do the shit they've always wanted to do all their life. That's it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:23.2] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result. Now, please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:50.2] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the podcast that believes if you want to create the life of your dreams, then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today we’re sitting down with Phil McKernan. We’re here in the Bahamas on the island of Eleuthera. Just a little bit more about Philip, he's an inspirational speaker, writer, and filmmaker. He's worked with celebrities, very well-known entrepreneurs, Olympic and pro athletes, and even high-ranking government officials.

We’ll be chatting about how to gain clarity around what you are actually on this planet to do. How living in unaligned life will leave you with nothing but regret, and how it absolutely impossible to fail if you are actually pursuing your true gifts and calling, and obviously much much more. First is stay up-to-date on all the Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest. Go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

[INTERVIEW]
[0:1:50.6] RN: Hey there, and welcome to the Fail on Podcast. I am really excited for a couple reasons today. One is — I don’t know. This might be the first podcast beachside in Eleuthera, in the Bahamas. I’m sitting here with Mr. Philip McKernan. He's an inspirational speaker, writer, and filmmaker. He's got one of the biggest hearts of anybody that I know. He told me the fail stuff. No, but he was really able to help me get through a tough transitional period in my life that actually led me to start Fail On. So for that, thank you Philip, and it's an absolute honor to have you on the Fail on Podcast. Welcome.

[0:02:21.7] PM: Thank you. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.

[0:02:23.5] RN: You have got it. For some context in the setting, we’re staring off into this beautiful, crystal clear, the picturesque view that you would imagine when sitting in the Bahamas, and we've got piña coladas. We’re partying today.

Just to get back into it. Having worked with celebrities, billionaires, Olympic athletes, high-ranking government officials, what set you on the course to be doing what you're doing today and what is it that you actually do?

[0:02:49.1] PM: I think at some level I believe as corny and this clichés as it sounds, I do believe at some level I was put on this earth to do what I do now and I think I did everything in my power to not see it, to complicate my life, to head down avenues and paths that actually were almost bringing me in the opposite direction of who I was. I think I failed and floundered and meandered my way through so much of my life. I mean I'm 44 years old now. By the way when I say this, I’m not trying to imply that I’m at some perfect destination even though right now it's hard to argue that one in a physical context.

I think I spend probably most of my life trying to be anything but me, like anybody but Philip McKernan, and I think probably the most powerful thing I did was I actually just stopped and it wasn't a moment or a day, but it was a period of my life where I stopped and I allowed the pain and the realization that I was lost and I wasn't happy grip me and consume me to some extent. A lot of people today, and I was one of them, which I was staying so busy and I was running and running and running, and of course I was running from something I did know what that was. For me, it was just the realization that who I am and who I'm trying to be and who I’ve become is not a reflection of who I am at the core.

I stopped, and number one is I had to recognize the pain of that. Number two is start to consider the cost of that if I didn’t do anything about it. Then number three, in no particular order, was actually delving in and saying, “Okay. Forget about what's next. Forget about living in the now. Who the fuck am I? Who is Philip McKernan at the core? Am I the story I’ve been telling myself? Am I the byproduct of this surface story, like my name is Philip and I grew up here, and I have two older brothers and whatever, or is there something deeper? The reality was there’s something way deeper. When I started to uncover that, then I started to show up using that and allowing that to be a part of myself in a way that was never there before.

[0:04:42.2] RN: We’re probably — I don’t know. Maybe a few hundred yards from the airport and we got a plane landing right now. If you hear a little background noise, that's an airplane landing not far from here, and if you hear another clink or some ice, that's Mr. Philip drinking his piña colada. Don’t mind us.

[0:04:58.9] PM: Are we trying to piss people off? We’re trying to actually inspire them here.

[0:05:02.7] RN: Maybe a little bit of both.

What you said there was interesting in terms of knowing in your core that you were living the life that you are meant to and you weren't being who you are at the core. Tell me more about that moment. How were you able recognize that? Was it a gut feeling? Was it something intellectual, or what?

[0:05:23.3] PM: I'd love to tell you it was more proactive, and I think there was a bit of proactiveness in it and I am. Typically, unfortunately, in the world that we live in today, men and women have to almost find that they’re reacting to that place. In other words, they hit a place of lowness. They hit a place of depression. It manifests itself physically, mentally, emotionally. In other words, they hit a wall.

I have this idea of writing a book. I'm just about to give it away for the first time ever publicly, but this idea of writing a book called Wake-up Call and the idea of this book is inspired with the question you just asked. For somebody who says, “What is that? It sounds interesting. What is it?” I said, “It would be basically interviewing people who’ve had a type of wake-up call and some type of physical, mental, or emotional sledgehammer or wall, and who they were before, what happened? As they move through it, what did they do as a result?

For example, I would interview people who’ve had a serious physical ailment that one could argue was brought on by ultimately a lifetime of misalignment. Somebody has some mental or emotional kind of breakdown, which again is brought on by a series of misalignments or longevity of misalignment in the life, like doing shit that they weren’t meant to do, and then what they do.

Here's the very basic so no one ever has to write by the book by the way if it does go live. All of your audience can just basically, “Here's the beginning, middle, and end all wrapped up in one thing,” is ultimately everybody that's had a serious wake-up call, if they choose to act in an aligned way and authentic way as a result of is, all they simply do — All they simply do. If I can wrap it up in one sentence, is they simply give themselves permission to do the shit they've always wanted to do all their life. That's it.

I've interviewed enough people to know that there is — I’m simplifying it for obvious reasons, but there is some commonality, like if somebody says, “I have nothing to lose at that point, so I decided to open up the pizza parlor,” or “Nothing to lose, so I end up writing the book.” “I had nothing to lose, and I told her I loved her and asked her to marry me,” and whatever it was. Ultimately, I think, sometimes — And it's unfortunate that we have to waste — You asked me what do I actually do now.

I suppose in a way, I'm trying to wake people up. I’m trying to wake people up to the realities in which they exist in and letting them know and give them permission and assisting them to get clear on, number one; that it doesn’t need to be that way, and sometimes we settle for ordinary where it doesn’t need to be. It can be more extraordinary. It can be whatever. I help guide people in a coaching mentoring capacity to make those decisions and transition into a place of more alignments, so they love what they do, they love who they are, and they love who they’re with.

[0:07:46.2] RN: What do you think is holding most people back from living in alignment?

[0:07:50.6] PM: I think there’s a few things. I think people use fear, and I think fear plays a part for sure. The most common one I’ve found is people almost feel undeserving. They don't feel that they deserve. They’ll talk a great, they'll have the vision boards, they'll write their mantras, they’ll write their vision statement, they'll create their goals and dreams and the aspirations in writing or, and as I said, in a vision board of some sort or whatever. Often, deep down, they don't really feel that either, one; it's available to them. Two; is they’re good enough to deserve that. For various different reasons; stories, lack of belief, self-worth is a huge huge challenge in the world today. Some might call it confidence, but self-worth is a foundational thing that I can't speak for you Rob.

As a kid, no one ever took me by the hand guided me to understand what my self-worth meter was and how to reconcile it and how to maybe shift it. When I shift my self-worth and I started to believe I deserve more, I'm worth more, and therefore what I do is I invite and I go after things in my life that represent that. To me, self-worth is a huge one.

Sometimes people are just genuinely scared of actually achieving something that really is part of who they are because they rather run the risk in failing doing something that's not aligned than run the risk of actually uncovering what they're here to do, because, fuck, if you fail doing what you're here to do, there's nothing left. There’s nothing left.To me, actually, really, sometimes people are really afraid of how powerful they could be.

[0:09:14.7] RN: That brings an interesting question. Can you fail at what you're here to be doing?

[0:09:20.2] PM: Never. Never been asked that question, an extraordinary question, and I don't believe it's even remotely possible, because what you're here to do is literally what you're here in this earth to do. It might be singular but it can evolve into something. For example, I’d love to tell you I woke up someday, I realized I was misaligned — aligned my life to do what I do now, and I will literally — As you said before we went on air, I'll be doing this to the day I die. How I do it will pivot and shift and change, it will be a book, it will be a movie, it will be a documentary, it will be a...

Ben Greenfield On Making $48K In 7 Days In His First Online Launch And Balancing Hyper-Productivity With Family Life

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Thu, 11 May 2017 09:00:05 -0500

Ben Greenfield is an entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author of the book, Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health & Life.

Ben was named in the Top 100 most influential people in health and fitness.

He’s a biohacker constantly looking to increase human performance by thinking outside the box.

I’ll be talking to Ben about how he was able to shift from an offline business to an online business and his true “ah-ha moment”.

We also dive into how he was able to generate $48,000 in just seven days on his first online launch.

Finally, Ben shares how to balance being hyper productive in business and fitness while also being a great husband and father, and much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

Ben tells us how he was influenced by his father and got started in business and entrepreneurship from a young age.
Ben his journey of extensive education, the places he worked, and what he learned.
Find out how Ben had to shift his mindset from being goal-driven to letting go.
Learn more out how Ben manages to balance his personal life and work life.
Hear how Ben went from personal training in a gym to being a successful entrepreneur.
Ben tells us about his failures and how those drove him to being even more successful.
Understand exactly what it takes to have a thriving membership website with Ben’s insights.
Hear as Ben shares all about his fears and the strategies he uses to overcome them.
Find out more about Ben’s mission to change, evolve, and expand his brand.
Learn how reading and education gets Ben outside his comfort zone and helps him to keep pushing the limits.
Find out how Ben handles and conquers the day-to-day lows that come his way.
Find out why Ben’s wife has had the single most profound impact on his life and what she taught him.
Get a glimpse of what is next on the horizon for Ben and what he is excited about.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“I’m a fan of, if something works, just keep on modifying it and revising it.” — @bengreenfield

Tweet This

[0:25:09].7]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Ben Greenfield — https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/

Ben’s Podcast – https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/podcasts/

Ben’s book, Beyond Training — https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Training-Mastering-Endurance-Health/dp/1628600128

Ben on Twitter — https://twitter.com/bengreenfield

Neil Strauss – http://www.neilstrauss.com/

Enneagram Assessment – https://www.enneagraminstitute.com/

David Hawkins’ Book, Letting Go: The Pathway of surrender – https://www.amazon.com/Letting-David-Hawkins-M-D-Ph-D/dp/1401945015/

Zig Ziglar – https://www.ziglar.com/

Vince Del Monte – http://www.vincedelmontefitness.com/blog/

Fitness Book by Ben, Shape21 – https://www.amazon.com/Shape21-Complete-Lean-Body-Manual/dp/1434898024/

The Ben Greenfield Fitness Inner Circle – https://bengreenfieldfitness.com/innercircle/

Laird Hamilton – https://www.lairdhamilton.com/

Tim Ferriss – http://tim.blog/podcast/

Tony Robbins – https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

Dave Asprey – https://blog.bulletproof.com/about-dave-asprey/

Aubrey Marcus – https://www.aubreymarcus.com/

Michael Singer’s Book, Untethered Soul – https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379/

Michael Singer’s Book, The Surrender Experiment –https://www.amazon.com/Surrender-Experiment-Journey-Lifes-Perfection/dp/080414110X/

TRANSCRIPT

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 006

“BG: The struggles that you go through, whether they are physical stressors, or mental stressors, or very hard times in life, ultimately, it doesn't matter that much as long as your spirit is well and as long as you're able to bring happiness in the lives of others. As long as you're able to be grateful for even the tiniest thing, you can be grateful for that day.”

[INTRODUCTION]

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:51.4] RB: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes if you desire to create the life of your dreams, then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, you and I get to learn from none other than Ben Greenfield, an entrepreneur and New York Times bestselling author of the book, Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health & Life. Ben was named as one of the top one hundred most influential people in the health and fitness industry and he's a biohacker constantly looking to increase human performance by thinking outside the box.

I'll be talking to Ben about how he was able to shift from an offline brick-and-mortar type business to an online business and his true aha moment. How he was able to generate $48,000 in just seven days on his first online launch and how to balance being hyper productive in business and fitness while also being a great husband and father and much more.

First, if you'd like to stay up-to-date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. Again, that’s failon.com.

Now, without further ado, Mr. Ben Greenfield.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:12.4] RB: All right, welcome to the Fail On Podcast, another episode in Eleuthera in the Bahamas. Right now I've got Ben Greenfield sitting with me.

[0:02:23.2] BG: I have a piña colada headache right now. I’m sipping my piña colada too fast.

[0:02:28.0] RB: That didn't take long. That didn’t take long — Brain freeze.

[0:02:30.3] BG: No. No. The rum didn't even hit my system yet, just the freeze. My motor cortex is failing.

[0:02:37.9] RB: All right. Just to get a little context and background on Ben. How did you get started in business and entrepreneurship and at what point in your life was this?

[0:02:45.1] BG: My dad was this funky serial entrepreneur, ex-fireman growing up. So when I think I was 11, he had being a firefighter paramedic all my life growing up, and then he started ordering coffee beans from all over the world and became like a gourmet coffee roaster, which was a head-scratcher for me because I was used to just something that people ask what my dad does , that I told them he was a fireman. That's easy. It was like, “What did your dad do?” I’m like, “He’s a coffee roaster,” and then he started like a pager service. Back when pagers were in. It was really annoying me, because me and all my brothers would carry pagers wherever we went, like drug dealers, except it’s mostly so mom could page us be like, “Pick up eggs on your way home from basketball practice.”

Yeah, exactly. Then he started like a non-emergency ambulance transportation service and then he started a bagel restaurant franchise. The he started a water filtration —

[0:03:40.8] RB: Were all of these simultaneous?

[0:03:43.0] BG: No. It’s like total — Seriously, serial entrepreneur, do this, do that, move on. For me, watching that, I guess maybe it kind of like set the context for me early that it’s okay to not have — Not to be a fireman, or as I wanted to be, at that point, the president of the United States or a policeman. Probably influenced by him, I was 15 years old. I had been playing tennis for a couple of years. I just love tennis. I know you played tennis as well even though we haven't had the chance to match. We could grab the badminton rackets over there.

[0:04:19.1] RB: We could, whip it out.

[0:04:20.2] BG: Yeah, try something. Anyways though, I, at 15 years old started contacting all of my friends’ parents and some of the local families in the community. We lived in a small community in North Idaho offering tennis lessons. I would have kids show up and I would teach them lessons, group lessons, and individual lessons, and I actually save up for college just teaching tennis lessons for a couple of years, I mean every single day, because I was home-schooled. I’d finish homeschool by the time it was 11 or 12 p.m.

[0:04:52.9] RB: How old were you by the way at this time?

[0:04:52.9] BG: 12pm. I was 15. Then I would teach tennis lessons from about 2 p.m. until about 5 p.m., just in and out like all day long, Monday through Friday.

[0:05:03.3] RB: Is it on the public court?

[0:05:04.1] BG: No. I help my dad build a court at our house, we have asphalt. I painted all the lines in. That was my first business. I did that for a couple of years, and there was like a brief stint before I started going to college where I wanted to be a computer programmer, and so I started making computer games and computer programs and coding websites and I was like one of the first guys to play online World of Warcraft back when nobody knew what it was and it wasn’t cool. We’d use terminal to pull up browsers and play this little like multi-level — I forget. It’s like MMOPG. It's multiplayer games, which is a huge industry now. I shouldn’t have stopped with it because Esport, you paid like a million bucks or more in Esports.

Anyways though, I wounded up playing tennis in college and most student athletes do, I declared myself like a kinesiology, personal training type of manager and I got my personal training cert my first year of college and it started training clients. I worked at two different gyms and eventually four different gyms during college. I worked at a pub at night as a bartender and a coffee shop by day. I worked at the little French bistro in the morning, so I had five jobs through college.

[0:06:06.9] RB: That’s crazy man, because it’s a full time — May people don’t know, full-time student athletes —

[0:06:11.7] BG: Yeah, but I've always been driven and I know your podcast is kind of about failure. I think for me, my early drive was not just like seeing my dad and all his businesses and having like that early success just like my own tennis coaching business, but because I was home-schooled I kind of always had this — You’re making my glass clink against the microphone as i set my.

[0:06:30.0] RB: It’s okay. It’s just a pina colada.

[0:06:31.5] BG: It’s hard to drink a pina colada with a microphone. Anyways though I had a perception growing up that I was weird because I was home schooled. I was the odd man out, the lone wolf, whatever. So, even through college, I wanted to be like the guy who was the best of the best so I could prove that, “Hey, even though I come from a different background than the rest of you, I’m something special.” That's the way the Greenfields grew up too. I did a podcast with Neil Strauss from my show.

He liked psychoanalyzed me on my show which he is really good at and he's like, “How did you grow up? What was your upbringing like?” I like, “The Greenfield's have to be perfect. We had to be like these standout student-athletes who got perfect grades and had the perfect hair and wore the cool clothes because a big part of it was I think that trying to defy the status quo, like the Prairie Muffin home schooler who wasn’t cool.

I had that going into college like that drive to just achieve and achieve better than anybody else. I went to college for four years and then I had — I had another failure that looking back really was a huge blessing in disguise. I decided a couple of years into college I didn't want to be like a strength conditioning coach or an athletic trainer, I want to be physician, like a sportsman physician or an orthopedic surgeon.

I took all the pre-meds, hardcore. I was like 28 credits a semester. I was studying my ass off. I was 4.0. I know sound like I’m bragging right now, but I’m trying to tell I was driven. I was driven. I’ve done the Enneagram assessment. I’m a type one achiever, completely, completely driven. I completed four years of college, my pre-meds, my MCATs got accepted to a bunch of medical schools. Did not get accepted to Duke or Harvard, the two schools I wanted to get accepted to. Again, I’m not the guy who wanted to settle. I wanted the best of the best.

I wanted to get a master’s degree, and I wanted to get a master’s degree so that I would be more attractive to some of the bigger IV League institutions that I wanted to attend even though I’m a white male. I was fighting an uphill battle.

Yeah, I went back and I got my master’s degree in biomechanics and exercise physiology, and then I got offered a job for a surgical hip and knee sales company called BioMed, and I saw dollars signs.

[0:08:45.2] RB: As a salesman?

[0:08:46.5] BG: Yeah, that’s a good freaking job. For coming out of college — I think it was as starting salary for me is sort of been 2005. They offered me something like 80, 90,000 bucks a year coming out of college and I’m like, “I’ll do that.” My perspective way, “Hey, even this turns out to be a short stint, it would look good on my medical school resume too.”

I had failed getting into these medical schools that I wanted to get into.

[0:09:11.1] RB: Let’s be honest, you failed getting into Duke and Harvard.

[0:09:13.9] BG: For me, it was a right.

[0:09:14.9] RB: For sure, yeah.

[0:09:16.3] BG: I really wanted to do well at sales and I did it for four months and absolutely hated it. Sitting there with the laser pointer, showing surgeons how to implant overpriced hips and knees in a broken medical system and that morbidly obese people who could have done all the things to fix their joints.

[0:09:34.0] RB: What were you able to learn from that job, from that stint?

[0:09:36.1] BG: What was I able to learn from that job?

[0:09:36.9] RB: Yeah.

[0:09:37.7] BG: Hardcore. Biomechanics and exercise science. We’re doing everything from that. The implantation of joints which is huge in terms of biomechanics joint angles, joint lever arms, et cetera, because if you implant something incorrectly, the incorrect angle, shits hits the fan when somebody wakes up from the surgery. We also did things like platelet-rich plasma injections, like way before anybody was doing them, which is very similar to like a STEM cell injection, take somebody’s blood and you spin it, you re-inject the growth factors at the bottom of the tube. Just really got me...

Sol Orwell On Building & Stepping Away From 7 Figure Businesses And Failing Nonchalantly

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 08 May 2017 07:00:56 -0500

Sol Orwell is an entrepreneur and business developer most known for his work as the cofounder of Examine.com. He was recognized as a 2014 Game Changer by men’s fitness and profile by Forbes as a seven figure entrepreneur. He’s also on the fitness advisory board for Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I’ll first be talking to Sol about how a speaker at high school taught him to look at business and failure in a very nonchalant way. He’ll touch on how every single business that he has started has originated from him solving a problem that he had for himself. And we discuss his belief that almost anyone can downgrade their current lifestyle to get started and survive in business if they really want it bad enough. And much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

Learn more about Sol’s story of how he lived in so many places all over the world.
Sol shares about how he came to understand that it’s okay to fail and how easy it is to start a business.
Hear the advice Sol has for new entrepreneurs who are scared of losing before winning.
Find out how Sol would start a business from scratch today, if he had no experience at all.
Sol shares how he got started on a free site, selling targeted advertising from his gaming site.
Hear the story of how Sol took a loan shark loan of $100,000, which cost him $180,000.
Find out why entrepreneurship might not be for everyone, and why someone would quit it.
Learn how freeing up your time as the boss can lead to bigger growth for your business.
Understand the importance of being yourself online and offline; consistency is key.
Discover why paying attention to the details when reaching out to other is key.
Find out how Sol grows by putting himself outside of his comfort zone on a personal side.
Hear Sol’s perspective of what he defines as a failure, and why he believes it’s irresponsible not to take opportunities.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“The idea of anyone else telling me what to do is completely unacceptable to me.” — @sol_orwell

Tweet This

[0:19:57].1]

“I’m never too exerted, never too stressed out, never as rich as I could be, but that’s okay.” — @sol_orwell

Tweet This

[0:30:52].1]

“The reality is, entrepreneurship is full of failure. In general, you are more likely to fail than you won’t.” — @sol_orwell

Tweet This

[0:32:47].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Sol Orwell — https://www.solorwell.com/

Sol on Twitter — https://twitter.com/sol_orwell

Examine — https://examine.com/

SJO — http://www.sjo.com/

The Great Canadian Bagel — http://greatcanadianbagel.com/

BELAY Solutions — https://belaysolutions.com/

World of Warcraft — https://worldofwarcraft.com

EverQuest — https://www.everquest.com

Baldur’s Gate — https://www.baldursgate.com/

Side Hustle Podcast — http://www.sidehustlenation.com/side-hustle-show/

Derek Sivers — https://sivers.org/

John Romaniello — http://romanfitnesssystems.com/

BetaKit — http://betakit.com/

MastermindTalks with Jayson Gaignard — http://www.mmtpodcast.com/

Transcript Below

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 005

“SO: Honestly, to me business is basically in the most simplistic manner, it’s someone’s got a problem, you're going to solve that problem for them and you’re going to charge to solve that damn problem. That’s it.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:13.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:40.1] RN: Today, you and I get to learn from none other than Sol Orwell, an entrepreneur and business developer most known for his work as the cofounder of Examine.com. He was recognized as a 2014 Game Changer by men’s fitness and profile by Forbes as a seven figure entrepreneur.

I’ll be talking to Sol about how a speaker at high school taught him to look at business and failure in a very nonchalant way, how every single business that he has ever started has originated from him solving a problem that he had for himself, and how almost anyone can downgrade their current lifestyle to get started and survive in business if they really want it bad enough. Finally, what Sol would do to start a business without any money and without a business idea, and much more.

Now, without further ado, Mr. Sol Orwell.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:57.4] RN: Sol, really excited to have you here today man. Welcome to the Fail on Podcast.

[0:02:00.5] SO: Man, I’m excited to be on, thanks for having me.

[0:02:02.4] RN: You got it. So just for a little context, we are in Toronto Canada right now. Your home? Not your hometown, but your current city.

[0:02:09.9] SO: I consider it my hometown. I’m an immigrant, I’ve lived in I think now like 11 different cities, I have lived in seven different countries, so Toronto is my home. You know I’m from Toronto because I dropped the second T, that’s how you know I live here.

[0:02:25.5] RN: Just out of curiosity, because I think we both have traveling in common as a huge passion, what other countries have you lived?

[0:02:32.1] SO: So I’m actually Kashmiri, what Pakistan and India keep fighting over. I was born Pakistan, lived in Saudi Arabia, also lived in Japan, back to Saudi Arabia and then I’ve been all over the states, I’ve been in Houston, LA, Phoenix, El Paso, and Manhattan and then there was obviously Toronto and I’ve lived in Argentina.

[0:02:47.7] RN: That’s a crazy mish-mash in the states. What took you to those random cities?

[0:02:52.1] SO: Originally Houston and LA were with my dad or with my family. My dad worked for Saudi petro chemical company and every time they did a new plant, they had to outsource so Houston was Halliburton, LA was Kellogg, which is actually not just a cereal company. There’s separate one that’s in oil and what not.

Afterwards man, skip a lot of time, I essentially retired when I was in Toronto. To me, money was just a means to an independence and so I was like, “Yeah, we’ll wonder around, we’ll gallivant around,” and that’s when like Phoenix happened. I was married at this time, my ex-wife, she was from El Paso, she was like red and I somehow ended up in El Paso. Then eventually I did Manhattan, which I think everyone should try if they can. New York’s an amazing place to live. I lived in Greenwich, so it’s just literally ground zero of everything that was going on there.

[0:03:36.3] RN: How long were you there?

[0:03:37.5] SO: I was there for two years, but eventually New York wore me out.

[0:03:41.1] RN: Wore me out in six months, I was in the East Village.

[0:03:43.3] SO: There we go. It’s fun, but it’s too intense. I think there’s a reason why so many people in New York are on cocaine because that’s the only way you can have enough energy to keep going in that crazy place.

[0:03:52.5] RN: 100%

[0:03:53.3] SO: Then eventually Toronto called me back and I was going to move to Panama City in Panama, not Florida. But the recession hit. I had some friends there, they got crushed by it and so I just ended up being in Toronto, but I’m glad. It’s nice to have roots, it’s nice to be able to go to the community store guy and be like, “Yo, I forgot my wallet, can I have a coke?” Or go to my favorite cookie place, and it happens all the time, where I’m like, “Yo, I forgot my wallet,” they’re like, “Of course you did, but here’s a cookie anyway.” I’m like, “Yes!”

[0:04:15.4] RN: That’s awesome.

[0:04:16.9] SO: So yeah, I’m glad to be in one place.

[0:04:17.5] RN: I think one thing that most people probably don’t realize is that Toronto has got an amazing community of entrepreneurs.

[0:04:23.3] SO: Oh for sure man. I think what really happens is part of it is like the Canadian style. We’re a little bit less of self-promotional, we’re a little bit self-indulgent, if I even may. The other thing is like, when you think of the value, when you think of New York or even areas of Boston and Austin and even Seattle, you think, “Oh, you know, cooperation, we’re going to help each other.”

But in Toronto it’s almost like little schisms between these different areas where you’re just like, “I’m going to keep my head down, I’m going to kick ass, I’m going to work hard.” I was in SEO from early 2000’s and I had no idea our friend Dev was here in Toronto and he’s got 30 employees and he’s kicking ass and taking names, right? So I think it’s just part of our persona and that we just are more busy spending our head down just trying to acquire clients and being like, “Hey man…”

[0:05:06.9] RN: I’m crushing it.

[0:05:08.0] SO: Yeah, “I got to get in TechCrunch and New York Times or Business Inside or whatever.” So I think that kind of leads to that.

[0:05:12.5] RN: Got it. Just to get things started and to get a little context about you and your background, there’s actually one quote that I have from you, you probably don’t even know it or know where it is or where it came from or what, but you actually said that it was one of the defining moments of you in your business life. It was, “The combination of it’s okay to fail, plus how easy it is to get started, made a switch go off in my brain, made me understand how a business can be operated.” Do you remember this at all?

[0:05:40.0] SO: It sounds vaguely familiar, it sounds like something I would say.

[0:05:42.1] RN: Yeah, so it was actually around two points that you made. One was that you had heard a speaker give a speech about failing three times before he hit it big and this guy is worth, what? Like $50 million dollars I think you said.

[0:05:53.4] SO: He’s worth quite a bit.

[0:05:54.5] RN: Yeah. And then, the second point, do you remember the second point?

[0:05:57.6] SO: That it’s easy to startup a business, yup. Absolutely.

[0:05:59.5] RN: Yeah, exactly. That you saw a guy that incorporated a bunch of different businesses and you’re like, “Oh man, that’s all you got to do?”

[0:06:04.9] SO: Yup.

[0:06:05.3] RN: “It’s simple.” Based on that, can you give a bit more context around the statement and how you came to understand that it’s okay to fail?

[0:06:13.2] SO: For sure. Of those two points, the first one was basically, a dude came to our high school and he basically owned the second largest bagel company in Canada, The Great Canadian Bagel, or whatever the hell it’s called and he was like, “I did this and I failed and I did this and I failed,” and more than anything else, it was his nonchalance to it.

[0:06:32.6] RN: Yeah.

[0:06:32.6] SO: Where he was like, “Meh, shrug.” I was like, “Holy shit, this guy totally bounced it off.” and he didn’t seem like one of those supremely confident kind of guy, you know, who looks a little bit slick, “Oh, he’s always been a business man.” He was just, and I say this with love because that’s what he called himself, he was just this random Jewish dude who tried this thing, failed, tried another thing, failed in the bagels worked for him.

A lot of times people think entrepreneurship is some kind of like, “Oh, you’re born to be a leader or you’re some kind of an amazing person.” Not really, maybe a little bit organized, maybe a little bit more mean streak or independence streak, but I don’t think there’s anything specially unique about it.

That’s kind of where that mindset hit me, we’re like yeah, and it even makes sense, right? In real life, and I always try to put myself in someone else’s shoes. If someone comes up to me and like, “Man, I tried this business and it failed.” I’m not going to think, “Ha, ha you idiot.”

[0:07:21.7] RN: Yeah, of course man.

[0:07:22.3] SO: “Loser, get away man, cooties.” No, right? You’re like, “All right, this guy at least had the cojones to try it.”

[0:07:27.5] RN: But most people that did fail would think that you’re going to say that, right?

[0:07:31.6] SO: Exactly, right? It’s so true for everything though, it’s not just about business, right? You could be dancing in a club, no one’s watching. You could be at a concert and dancing around awkwardly, no one’s watching you. Unless you’re like Elaine Benes in Seinfeld where you’re just throwing shoulders and thumbs around, right, and you’re just making a scene, sure. Otherwise, the reality is, if you think about it, you’re self-obsessed, I’m self-obsessed. You don’t care what someone else is doing. So if they’re failing, you don’t care, you’re like, “Fuck this guy, I’m busy worrying about myself, I’m busy being selfish about me,” which is fine.

I think that realization finally kind of like set me free where I’m like, “All right, no one cares.” So that was the first point. The second one, this is kind of hilarious, I used to be in the domain name industry and there’s this one guy who owns all the best .ca domains. So he owns like travel.ca, sex.ca, home.ca, whatever. I was asking him how he got it, and so back in the day, and I think this is like ’94, ’95, the University of British Columbia, UBC, they controlled the entire .ca domain and if you wanted a .ca domain you had to write a letter.

So he wrote them a letter saying, “Hey, I want to buy travel.ca,” and they’re like, “No, you need to be incorporated as a business first.” He’s like, “Sure, okay.” So he incorporates the business, he writes them a letter,” they’re like, “No, you need to be travel.ca to get travel.ca.” So he’s like, “All right.” So he registered travel.ca, he sent it and he got it. They registered I think like 56 different other businesses to do it. Again…

[0:08:53.0] RN: Charging him or? Selling it to him, or what was it?

[0:08:56.0] SO: Well back in the day, domains were free, right. Back in the day, .coms were free, back in the day, .ca…

[0:09:01.0] RN: They just owned it basically.

[0:09:03.0] SO: The university basically administered it. So you had to, I guess, apply to say, “Hey, I’ve got a business called travel.ca, this is why I need travel.ca.” He just created all this businesses and again, it’s the nonchalance to it and I’m like, “Wasn’t it a headache?” He’s like, “Why would it be a headache?” I’m like, “I have literally no answer for you.” Because in Canada, we don’t have LLC’s, we have two levels of corporations and he’s like, “Yeah, I just incorporated it and that’s it and once a

Cole Hatter On Tragedy, Finding Strength Against All Odds and Partnering With Tai Lopez To Help Millions

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Thu, 04 May 2017 04:00:51 -0500

Today, we’re chatting with Cole Hatter. Cole is an entrepreneur, investor, speaker, philanthropist, and creator of Thrive: Make Money Matter Conference.

Cole started his life with a dream to become a firefighter, which he did. However, by the age of 21 he was in a tragic accident. He had to learn how to walk again, learn again, and live again. Today, Cole is an entrepreneur with a passion for helping the victims of social injustice, and mentoring aspiring entrepreneurs.

In this episode, I’ll be talking to Cole about losing his two best friends within 64 days of each other in separate tragic accidents and how he honors them. We discuss how to start a business with no idea, no money and no idea on how to get started. Cole shares how partnering with Tai Lopez generated 7 figures in less than a month. And finally, we discuss how to approach setbacks and failures so they motivate you rather than define you.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear how the entrepreneurship bug was sparked inside of Cole as a child, selling mistletoe.
Learn more about Cole’s story of how he lost his two best friends within 64 days of each other.
Find out how a decision and a mindset shift helped Cole get back to living his life.
Cole shares how he got into real estate simply because that’s what his neighbors did.
Discover the biggest struggles Cole faced when he just started out in the real estate industry.
Find out why Cole quit his job and moved to Mexico to work with orphans.
Learn more about Cole’s conference, Thrive: Make Money Matter.
Understand why any publicity can be good publicity and why the key is to be polarizing.
Discover how one relationship alone was able to generate millions.
Find out more about Cole’s big picture and ultimate goal with his life and with Thrive.
And much more!

Tweetables:

“Change happens in an instant, you make a decision, it’s done.” — @colehatter

Tweet This

[0:14:56].1]

“Age is totally irrelevant; knowledge is what matters.” — @colehatter

Tweet This

[0:24:02].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Cole Hatter — http://colehatter.com/

Thrive: Make Money Matter — http://attendthrive.com/

Cole on Twitter — https://twitter.com/colehatter

Tai Lopez — http://www.tailopez.com/

Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club — http://www.clubcorp.com/Clubs/Coto-de-Caza-Golf-Racquet-Club

Tony Robbins — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

TOMS Shoes — www.toms.com/

Blake Mycoskie — https://twitter.com/BlakeMycoskie

Re Perez — https://twitter.com/bftpagency

Branding for the People — https://brandingforthepeople.com/

Inc. Magazine — https://www.inc.com/

Huffington Post — www.huffingtonpost.com

Entrepreneur Magazine — https://www.entrepreneur.com/

Than Merrill — www.thanmerrill.com/

FortuneBuilders — www.fortunebuilders.com/

Sam Ovens — https://www.samovens.com/

Mixergy — https://mixergy.com

The E-Myth by Michael Gerber — https://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-About/dp/0887307280

Water.org — http://water.org/

Stella Artois — http://www.stellaartois.com/

Jayson Gaignard — https://twitter.com/JaysonGaignard

MastermindTalks — http://www.mastermindtalks.com/

Tony Hsieh — https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyhsieh/

Zappos — http://www.zappos.com/

Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh — https://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446576220

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 004

“CH: People can sniff out people doing this as a gimmick. If you’re just wanting to get on the bandwagon it won’t work well for you. But if you believe in the mission and use your business as the vehicle, people can sense that.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:15.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:41.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, you and I get to learn from none other than Cole Hatter, an entrepreneur, investor, speaker, philanthropist, and creator of Thrive: Make Money Matter.

Today I’ll be talking to Cole about losing his two best friends within 64 days of each other in separate tragic accidents and how he honors them, how to start a business with no idea, no money and no idea on how to get started, how partnering with Tie Lopez generated $1.8 million dollars in just 30 days, and how to approach setbacks and failures so they motivate you rather than define you and much, much more.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all Fail On Podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

Without further ado Mr. Cole Hatter.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:53.5] RN: All right, we are here at Coto de Caza Golf & Racquet Club, kind of sitting in Cole Hatter’s backyard. Actually we’re more along the lines of the — what hole is this?

[0:02:06.9] CH: This is the third hole on the south course, it is a par five.

[0:02:12.3] RN: We actually have a couple of golfers right in front of us, one guy is hitting out of the woods right now.

[0:02:17.5] CH: Which is a good metaphor to take into the conversation, we’re going to have a failing on, right? He’s not calling a mulligan, he is deep in the woods right now.

[0:02:27.4] RN: So, as you can probably gather, I’m sitting here with Cole Hatter and I would just like to welcome you Cole to the Fail On Podcast.

[0:02:35.7] CH: Thanks for having me man.

[0:02:37.4] RN: You got it. Obviously this is a pretty casual episode and I try to keep most of my episodes pretty casual, but we are either going to — just to get a little context, we’re in Orange County, California. What is this? South Orange County?

[0:02:48.3] CH: Yeah, this is Southern Orange County, yeah.

[0:02:49.6] RN: Okay. And Coto de Caza is a community country club, racket club-type place and yeah, we’re literally sitting on the third hole, right beside a sand trap, seeing a couple of guys hitting away. It’s a beautiful back drop, we’ll actually take a picture so you have some context and can see what we’re seeing.

Anyways, let’s get right into it man, and again, thanks for coming on and hosting me, I appreciate it.

[0:03:13.6] CH: Yeah, this is by far the best podcast scene I’ve ever had.

[0:03:19.2] RN: Well you don’t have to say scene, you can say the best podcast too.

[0:03:21.7] CH: Yeah, for sure, we’re one minute in and you’re already the best. No, we’re like 40 feet from my house but still, this is rad, I’m normally looking at this through my office window, podcasting, you know, using my equipment and my house but you’re on the go gear is pretty fantastic.

[0:03:37.9] RN: Yup, only thing we’re missing is a beer.

[0:03:40.6] CH: I know, I can’t believe I was out, I’m going to text my wife right now and it will show up during this episode.

[0:03:45.9] RN: That would be amazing, service from the golf course.

[0:03:48.8] CH: Just watch, it will happen in the next 20 minutes.

[0:03:52.4] RN: All right, I’ll let you text that real quick.

[0:03:55.1] CH: I can multitask.

[0:03:55.6] RN: Oh, you’re a multi-tasker okay. I do want to just, to get the listener a little context and background about you and your story, how did you get into entrepreneurship? Were you always an entrepreneur and take us along that journey to get started.

[0:04:10.4] CH: Yeah, there’s that always an entrepreneur, which I always, I don’t want to say struggle with but I think that they’re — because I don’t want to say, for somebody who may be is their 30’s or 40’s and has never done anything entrepreneurial to count themselves out and say, “Oh, I guess I’m not.”

But I was one of those stories where you feel like you’ve just been called to it if that makes sense. For the listeners, whether you’ve done anything entrepreneurial or not, we all can be if we choose to be and follow the correct course. But I was one of those kids that was seven or eight years old, Christmas was coming and I wanted to buy gifts for my family and like most seven or eight year olds, mom or dad, front the bill and I said that I wanted to do it on my own.

I distinctly remember we were in a shopping mall here in Orange County and they were selling mistletoe and I was like dude, this stuff grows for free right next to my parent’s house because I was eight years old, I climb trees all day long. I went back and I started pulling mistletoe out of the trees that lived near us and got some red bows and went door to door and sold one for three dollars, two for five and literally hundreds of dollars’ worth of mistletoe at like eight years old.

[0:05:17.0] RN: Did you actually have the idea or thought that this stuff grows for free or did like somebody say that to you?

[0:05:21.1] CH: No.

[0:05:23.0] RN: You had enough awareness to realize that?

[0:05:24.7] CH: I literally will never forget the moment where it like clicked where I said, “They’re selling this for money and I know I can get it for free.” Maybe that was the moment that entrepreneurial spark happened and then at the end of going door to door, this little eight year old boy is like, “Hey, you want a mistletoe?” And it was weeks before Christmas so my close ratio was pretty insane. I came back after making a few laps in the cul de sac with enough money to buy everybody in my family presents.

[0:05:49.5] RN: This is the easiest thing in the world!

[0:05:50.4] CH: Exactly, it was like printing money. That puts a little seed in my mind that, fast forward into my adult life, I think that’s where the entrepreneurial endeavors began. The question was, have I always felt of been an entrepreneur? And I guess to a degree, yes.

[0:06:07.0] RN: Did you go to traditional college?

[0:06:08.9] CH: Sort of. I decided in about Junior high school that I want to be a fire fighter, god’s put on my heart to want to help people and so I looked at a career where I could help people and be compensated for it. So being a doctor, being a police officer and playing with fire and saving lives and getting paid for it was a good fit for me.

In high school, I would go to high school during the day, college at nights and weekends to take care of all my prerequisites. So I took care of my EMT certificate and a lot of my fire fighter certificates while still in high school.

[0:06:37.5] RN: Good grades or bad grades?

[0:06:39.3] CH: Actually, I got better grades in the college than in high school because it was subjects had interested me. I’m one of those guys where I’m not a dummy, I can learn but it’s really hard for me to learn if it’s French poetry from the 16th century. But when it’s on the weekends and at night firefighting, I actually did very well. I aced everything because I found that actually fascinating.

When I graduated high school, I went right into the fire department. So I did do some college, enough that I got my firefighter certificates, my EMT, and then all of my prerequisites to go to paramedic school taken care off. But I didn’t do any general Ed-type stuff so I don’t have a degree. Did do some college, not a college dropout, I did what I needed to do and I moved on but no degree either.

[0:07:22.9] RN: Got it, went straight into firefighting and then just for context, how old were you at this point, where were you?

[0:07:28.0] CH: 19, Seattle, Washington. Here in Southern California, it was very competitive to become a firefighter, so moved up to Seattle, Washington and…

[0:07:35.4] RN: Did you know anybody up there?

[0:07:36.6] CH: Yeah, my sister and her husband lived in Seattle, Washington. So that was my only connection literally two people in the whole state. Went up there and again, started life, made friends, all that good stuff.

[0:07:47.8] RN: Got it, where did it go from there?

[0:07:50.0] CH: That’s where I thought I was going to do my whole life, I’d put on my 30 years, I’d retire full pension, benefits, you know, that’s one of the perks of firefighting is that they have fantastic retirement options. Two years into that, career at 21 years old, got in a really bad car accident where I was ejected out of the car, they estimated going around 80 miles an hour and so hit the pavement at a tremendous amount of speed, I got very hurt to the point where they actually had to fly me in a helicopter to the hospital, they didn’t think I would survive in an ambulance.

[0:08:17.5] RN: Not work related at all, right?

[0:08:18.8] CH: No, this was just with friends. Yeah, this was not a work related injury and so, got in that really bad car accident and long story short, almost didn’t make it. Did survive, obviously, here I am but was in a wheelchair for a while, had to learn how to walk again, had a traumatic brain injury so my brain was real foggy for a while. I had to learn how to learn again and so it was a pretty crippling accident and although it looked like I had a strong recovery, how long and how much of recovery, 80%, 100%, was uncertain and so for sure, firefighting was out for the time. You can’t be a firefighter if you can’t walk.

So, you know, as I was getting out of my wheelchair and on to a walker and then crutches and then eventually a cane, it looked like firefighting could someday be an option again. I would have had to come through all the physical exams and all of that. But bottom line is in that...

How AJ Jacobs Documented Failure & Became A New York Times Bestselling Author

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 01 May 2017 06:00:37 -0500

Today, we get to learn from none other than A.J. Jacobs, a four time New York Times bestselling author whose work combines memoir, science, humor, and a dash of self-help. A.J. Jacobs is not only an author, but also a journalist, lecturer, and human guinea pig. He has appeared on Oprah, The Today Show, and Good Morning America, just to name a few, and has given several TED Talks.

On today’s podcast episode, I will be talking to A.J. about reframing moments of failure as amazing opportunities to tell a great story, being okay with failure while also being delusionally optimistic about your goal, how to manufacture confidence and belief when tackling a new project, and how to actually know when to give up and quit on a project that you are working on, and much, much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out what failure means to A.J. and why he believes it is hugely important in our lives.

Hear the story of when A.J. went to the Oscars pretending to be a well-known actor.

Learn how to reframe failures into opportunities to tell a story in the future.

Understand why it is easier to act act your way into a new way of thinking than to think your way into a new way of acting.

Find out how to actually know when to give up and quit on a project or endeavor.

A.J. shares how being grateful for everything can completely change you outlook on life.

Learn how to learn into failure and not be terrified of it.

Discover how A.J. pushes himself to get outside his comfort zone often in life.

Hear as A.J. shares about the person who has had the most profound impact on his life.

And much more!

Tweetables:

“You have to be delusionally optimistic to undertake anything huge.” — @ajjacobs
Tweet This
[0:13:41].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

A.J. Jacobs — http://ajjacobs.com/

A.J. on Twitter — https://www.twitter.com/ajjacobs

A.J.’s Books — http://ajjacobs.com/books/

Paul Ekman — http://www.paulekman.com/

James Altucher — http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

Ancestry — https://www.ancestry.com/

My Heritage — https://www.myheritage.com/

The World Family Tree — https://www.geni.com/

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 003

“AJ: For me, you know, they say write about your life, write about what you know and for better or for worse, I did not have an interesting childhood. My childhood was very dull.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:15.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:52.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, you and I get to learn from none other than AJ Jacobs, a four time New York Times bestselling author. I’ll be talking to AJ about reframing moments of failure as amazing opportunities to tell a great story, being okay with failure while also being delusional optimistic about your goal, how to manufacture confidence and belief when tackling a new project, and how to actually know when to give up and quit on a project that you're working on and much, much more.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

Without further ado, AJ Jacobs

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:44.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to The Fail On Podcast. Today I am sitting down with AJ Jacobs, a New York Times bestselling author, four times over and the ultimate human guinea pig. AJ, welcome to The Fail On Podcast.

[0:01:56.2] AJ: Thank you, I am a huge fan of failure so I’m honored to be here. It’s a great idea for a podcast.

[0:02:01.3] RN: I love it and just to give everybody some context, you're sitting in your New York apartment upper west side?

[0:02:07.2] AJ: That’s right.

[0:02:07.9] RN: 83rd central park west, beautiful spot. Do you actually want me to telling — do you care that I just mentioned where your house is?

[0:02:14.1] AJ: No, I mean, you don’t need the address and apartment number but yeah, general area.

[0:02:18.2] RN: Phone number, email?

[0:02:21.7] AJ: Yes, it is where I’ve done a lot of failing so I’m glad you're here.

[0:02:25.5] RN: On the note of failure, I usually wait to ask this question further in to the interview, conversation but you know, with you, a human guinea pig, self-experimenter, what does failure mean to you? How do you approach it?

[0:02:37.7] AJ: Well, failure I think is hugely important and I’m always telling my kids how important failure is and I always highlight all of my failures to them so I think they think I’m a total loser. I’ve got to remind that sometimes I do succeed. I’ve got to try to stress that so they have a little bit of respect for me. But in general, I think you know, of course, there’s no success without — oh sorry. See? This is a great podcast because you can screw up.

[0:03:07.3] RN: See, this is actually why I started the whole podcast and project, right? In the business. It gives me permission to just embody failure.

[0:03:16.8] AJ: Totally.

[0:03:18.4] RN: If I screw up, awesome, it’s good for my brand, right? If I win, it’s great because I’m winning.

[0:03:24.4] AJ: It is wonderful. You really cracked something there, it’s sort of like Larry David and how his brand is he’s a total jerk so he can like act like a jerk and everyone’s like, “Oh that’s so great.”

[0:03:36.4] RN: That’s who he is, right.

[0:03:38.2] AJ: He can be the worst person in the world and people love it.

[0:03:40.2] RN: I love it.

[0:03:41.7] AJ: Yeah, I think you can achieve anything with failure and anything I’ve done has been you know, 80 failures to one’s success and you talk to experts on creativity and how you know, Picasso, he’s got a bunch of crappy paintings you know? Everyone fails, everyone’s got — it’s a numbers game. You’ve got to just throw out so many ideas and so much product and some of it’s going to suck and some of it’s going to hit.

[0:04:18.6] RN: How did you first come to this realization that you have to kind of embrace failure and know that it’s part of life and know that it’s going to happen a lot? Were you always like, as a kid, were you always just trying crazy stuff, or did this come like later in life?

[0:04:31.9] AJ: A little bit. Certainly, when I started my career as a freelancer, it was, you’re going to get — it’s like being an actor, you’re going to get 99 failures for every one article and I have, there were some particularly humiliating ones. There was one where I had a book idea and I wrote a proposal, I sent it to an agent, he said a couple of publishers were interested, could I send a headshot? A photograph? I was like, “Oh, you know, a little weird but sure.”

He’s like, “Yeah, it’s just to make sure that you don’t have two heads so you can go on a talk show.” So I do that and I send out to them and then two days later, he’s like, “Well, they decided to pass,” and I’m like, “I’m not good looking enough to be an author? An author, you’re supposed to allow to be allowed to be…”

[0:05:20.6] RN: It’s just words, right.

[0:05:21.8] AJ: That’s like one of the few places you can be ugly. So yeah, that was unfortunate.

[0:05:28.1] RN: Was that before you had published a book before?

[0:05:30.1] AJ: That was my first book, yeah. I really — I don’t know what it was, but I decided I’m going to just be okay with failure and rejection and, you know, I’ll give it like three years and if I get no successes then I’m going to reevaluate and go, you know, do something, I don’t know.

[0:05:50.2] RN: In the traditional publishing world, you have to be okay with failure, right? Because you just hear all the stories of people sending out a million proposals and just getting destroyed.

[0:05:59.9] AJ: Exactly and I mean now, luckily I’ve had some measure of success but I still get rejected all the time. It’s hard but you really, you have to try not to take it personally and all that. Yeah, actually, one thing is a nice thing is to try and reframe it as “well I can tell a story about this failure”. Actually…

[0:06:23.5] RN: This is why I love talking to you about this because it’s my whole strategy right?

[0:06:28.2] AJ: Yeah, that’s your job.

[0:06:28.9] RN: How about this, for example? I interviewed a buddy, Nick Tarascio last night and I was telling him this story that I was interviewing James, right? For whatever reason, throughout the whole interview, this is brutal for me because I was a little bit intimidated and nervous to talk to James, even though I had talked to him before.

[0:06:45.0] AJ: Right.

[0:06:45.5] RN: But for whatever reason. We’re going to the interview and he starts calling me Ron. Just like, “Oh brutal.” Nick last time was like, “Man, you should have just started calling him Jake.”

[0:06:58.3] AJ: Nice.

[0:06:59.4] RN: I didn’t, hindsight but like that, that’s a bit of a failure because James just called me Ron the whole interview but I’m going to have to — I gave him a hard time after we got off the air but I didn’t correct him during the interview because I would have felt a little bit like an asshole, you know? It’s like, “My name’s Rob.” But, so like that, but now I’ve got a story about it.

[0:07:16.7] AJ: You have a story, that’s right.

[0:07:16.9] RN: I got a story, I can write an article about it and boom.

[0:07:18.9] AJ: I actually once wrote an essay on something called self-schadenfreude. You know, schadenfreude is when you take pleasure at other people’s pain. This is when you take pleasure at your own pain because you realize it will make a good story later. Even in the most awkward moments, and I’ve had many, at least in the back of your mind trying to remember, “Well, this is so horrible but it’s going to be a good story.”

[0:07:43.2] RN: What’s been one of your more awkward moments where it’s just been like, “Oh this is painful.”

[0:07:48.4] AJ: Well there’s been many. One was I was working at an entertainment magazine, entertainment weekly, this was a long time ago and I looked like a B list actor named Noah Taylor who was in a movie that was very popular at the time it was called — I can’t remember what it is, about a piano player.

Shine, it was called Shine. It was nominated for an Oscar and I looked exactly like this guy. We found out he wasn’t going to be at the Oscar so we were like, “You know what? Maybe I should go to the Oscars.” So I put on a tux, we did have a ticket but I got out of the limo and everyone’s like, “Oh my god, it’s Noah Taylor,” and I was like, waving and signing autograph.

[0:08:34.5] RN: Were you really?

[0:08:35.1] AJ: Yeah.

[0:08:35.2] RN: What year is this by the way, just for some context?

[0:08:38.1] AJ: This was late night, probably 99 or 2000, it’s almost 20 years ago, crazy. At one point I went up to his coast, I got so cocky, I went up to his costar.

[0:08:50.2] RN: No way. That far?

[0:08:51.7] AJ: Oh yeah. Jeffrey Rush, he was a really famous actor, you know? I was like — he was Australian so I had this bad Australian accent, it sounded sort of like the lucky charms leprechaun and I was like, “Hello Jeffrey, it’s me, Noah.” He just looked at me. He knew I wasn’t this guy.

[0:09:11.6] RN: Of course.

[0:09:13.6] AJ: He looked at me, backed away, he’s like calling for security and he’s just so horrible but even in that moment I’m like, “All right, this is really one of the worst moments in my life but I will be able to write about it.”

[0:09:27.7] RN: Were you doing it for the story? So you're doing it for the story, to have an amazing start to write about. Is anybody filming it or what?

[0:09:34.3] AJ: No, no one was filming but I was writing an article about it. I didn’t expect it to go that badly but when it did, it was kind of good and I actually, you know, you mentioned before I do a podcast and some of the best interviews I find are when I just make an idiot of myself and I ask them a terrible question and they kind of get angry at me and yell at me. That’s much better radio than just…

[0:10:06.3] RN: Canned answers that they’ve told everybody before.

[0:10:08.2] AJ: Exactly.

[0:10:08.9] RN: Yeah. This was in the late 90’s and it sound like an amazing stunt. Have you always been doing this crazy stunts to have something to write about?

[0:10:18.4] AJ: I think so, I think for me, you know, they say write about your life, write about what you know and for better or for worse, I did not have an interesting childhood. My childhood was very dull and relatively happy, not happy but uneventful.

Unhappy in a boring way. I figured if I’m going to write about something, I better make it myself. Put myself in interesting experiences and then I can write about that.

[0:10:48.2] RN: Got it. What was — do you remember the first time you did it? Well, not even the first time you did it but the first time you were like, “If I’m going to be a great writer, I’m going to have to create great circumstances and put myself in this situations.”

[0:10:59.6] AJ: Right, that’s like a great way to put it and I think one of the earlier ones was the Oscars. I also did one where I — while I was working in entertainment weekly and La-Z-Boy, the chair company, they come out with the newest highest tech La-Z-Boy ever. It’s like a butt massager, a beer fridge. Yeah.

The idea was, I don’t think I even came up with it, my editor was like, “You got to take this to the extreme, you’ve got to road test this and stay in there for 24 hours without moving.” It did not have a toilet so I did get up once or twice but other than that, it was like, extreme leisure, pushing my body to the limit of laziness. I was like, “This is a nice way to make a living.”

[0:11:50.6] RN: Sit in a La-Z-Boy, the highest tech La-Z-Boy?

[0:11:53.7] AJ: Yeah, not bad.

[0:11:55.8] RN: Beyond that, what made you, I’m sure you did a series or string of articles like this by pure experimentation. Take us back to the first book you did where you wanted to go explore that route?

[0:12:07.5] AJ: Yeah, When I was growing up, my dad, he loved reading and at one point, he started to read the Encyclopedia Britannica. But he didn’t get very far, he got up to like the B’s, Bolivia or something and then he realized he had a life and have probably should do something else.

[0:12:27.3] RN: Can’t read this whole thing, right?

[0:12:28.6] AJ: Yeah, but I just loved the idea of taking this extreme challenge. You know, I’m not very athletic and I don’t — I like oxygen, I like oxygen so I’m not going to climb you know K2. I get cold at around 72 degrees. That’s just not my thing. I like this intellectual Mount Everest’s or social Mount Everest’s. Take on this huge challenge and see what happens. It’s going to be interesting and know that, as you say, you very well might fail. That’s okay, that’s part of the experience.

[0:13:10.8] RN: Is that how you go into it with that kind of mindset of, “You know what? I’m okay if this doesn’t work out.” Were you okay starting that project? Where you read the entire encyclopedia Britannica if you actually weren’t going to get the whole way through?

[0:13:23.1] AJ: Right.

[0:13:23.6] RN: But you’re okay with that or was it just kind of like a do or die, you’re documenting it and writing about it.

[0:13:28.5] AJ: Right, well it’s interesting because I think there are two sort of warring ideas going on and our brains or my brain anyway and one is, being okay with failure and the other is this idea that you have to be delusionally and optimistic to undertake anything huge. If you're not delusionally optimistic and at least some part of you isn’t saying, “I could do this,” then you are more likely to fail because you’ll just give up.

It’s balancing this two parts of the brain; being okay with failure and when it happens, accepting it and turning it into a story and on the other hand, being like, you know, “I can go to the moon, it’s crazy.”

[0:14:13.2] RN: Self-belief that just kind of comes from nowhere. Or like, how do you manufacture that belief to where you feel like, “I can do this, I can stick with this and make it happen.”

[0:14:23.2] AJ: That’s a good question and I think that for me, the most effective method is to act delusionally optimistic. This whole idea I talk a lot about is like, it’s not my quote...

James Altucher On Losing 9 Million Bucks And Coping With Failure

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 04:00:33 -0500

Today, we get to learn from none other than James Altucher, author of self-published bestseller Choose Yourself: Be Happy, Make Millions, and Live the Dream, along with his most recent bestseller, Reinvent Yourself.

I’ll be talking to James about how to bounce back from some of life’s toughest challenges and struggles, what losing nine million bucks taught him, how being creative every single day can completely transform your life, and the best way to grow your network and connect with almost anyone, and much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

Find out why James believes that the key to learning from failure is what you do directly afterwards to succeed.

Hear the story of how James lost $9 million dollars in company stock, within seven days.

Discover how James implemented his own advice on failure and lots to turn a devastating situation into a positive.

Understand how identifying the choices you are in control of can make you overall happier.

Hear how James spent two years going out at 3 AM to interview people on the streets.

Find out how creativity and ideas helped James get out from under a deep depression.

James shares about how he pushed himself outside his comfort zone to do standup comedy.

Discover why James’ kids had the biggest impact on his life.

And much more!

Tweetables:

“Everything has to do with energy. So you want to do the things that keep you as energized as possible.” - @jaltucher
Tweet This
[0:50:05].8]

“You always want to have an evil plan. You always do your thing and then you have your thing on the side.” - @jaltucher
Tweet This
[1:12:15].1]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

James’s Website — http://www.jamesaltucher.com/

James on Twitter — https://twitter.com/jaltucher

James’ book, Choose Yourself — http://amzn.to/2odc4D2

James’ book, Reinvent Yourself — http://amzn.to/2p0FsJO

Philip McKernan — http://philipmckernan.com/

Herbie Hancock — http://www.herbiehancock.com/

Miles Davis — https://www.milesdavis.com/

Brian Koppelman — http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002718/

Billions — http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4270492/

HBO — http://www.hbo.com/

Damian Lewis — http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0507073

Paul Giamatti — http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0316079

Diamond Cutters — http://diamondcutters.com/

Stanley Bard — http://www.chelseahotelblog.com/living_with_legends_the_h/2017/02/-stanley-bard-former-owner-and-manager-of-the-chelsea-hotel-dies-at-82.html

Chelsea Hotel — http://www.chelseahotelblog.com/

American Express — https://www.americanexpress.com/

Time Warner — http://www.timewarner.com/

Miramax — https://www.miramax.com/

Disney — http://www.disney.com/

Peter Thiel — https://twitter.com/peterthiel / Zero To One Book

Larry Page — https://plus.google.com/+LarryPage

Sergey Brin — https://plus.google.com/+SergeyBrin

Jerry Yang — https://www.forbes.com/profile/jerry-yang/

Craig Silverman — https://twitter.com/CraigSilverman

Marissa Mayer — https://twitter.com/marissamayer

Warren Buffet — https://twitter.com/warrenbuffett

Louis C.K. — http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0127373/

AJ Jacobs — http://ajjacobs.com/

Joe Rogan’s podcast — http://podcasts.joerogan.net/

Tim Ferriss’ podcast — http://tim.blog/podcast/

Tony Robbins — https://www.tonyrobbins.com/

Garry Kasparov — http://www.kasparov.com/

Coolio the rapper — https://twitter.com/coolio

Kickstarter — https://www.kickstarter.com/

WhatsApp — https://www.whatsapp.com/

Oculus — https://www.oculus.com/

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 002

“JA: Then I got a job as a programmer for HBO and I really just wanted to make TV shows, to be honest, and I wanted to write novels. I didn’t really want to be a business man.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:14.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:40.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, you and I get to learn from none other than James Altucher, author of self-publish bestseller Choose Yourself: Be happy, make millions, and live the dream, along with his most recent bestseller, Reinvent Yourself.

I’ll be talking to James about how to bounce back from some of life’s toughest challenges and struggles, what losing nine million bucks in a single day taught him, how being creative every single day can completely transform your life, and the best way to grow your network and connect with almost anyone, and much, much more.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

Without further ado, Mr. James Altucher

[INTERVIEW]

[0:01:54.7] RN: Hello and welcome to the fail on podcast, today we’re sitting down in New York City with Mr. James Altucher. James, welcome to the show.

[0:02:01.4] JA: Rob, thanks for not only having me on your show but you’ve been so good about scheduling, you came straight to where I am. I know I was horribly inconvenient, so you did a great job just kind of showing up. As they say, 90% of the job is showing up.

[0:02:19.4] RN: Hey, it’s 100% true and I’ve actually got to come clean. I was telling you as well as I know I reached out to Pam as well, your girlfriend, and I was like, “I’m going to be in New York City April 1st to 3rd,” zero plan in New York City April 1st. I knew I was going to be in Toronto and actually…

[0:02:33.6] JA: Wait, that’s my trick. You’re stealing from my book. You’re not allowed to do that, that’s what I do.

[0:02:40.9] RN: So I had a flight booked back from Toronto to San Diego and I was like, “Well,” and I finally heard back and we connected and we made it work. So I canceled that, got a flight to New York City and here we are.

[0:02:49.6] JA: By the way, it’s not all, I moved today from one Airbnb to the next so I made room on moving my schedule.

[0:02:58.1] RN: On moving day. No, yeah. No, trust me.

[0:02:59.7] JA: We literally moved in to this place three minutes ago and then you rang the bell.

[0:03:03.5] RN: That’s amazing. Just for a little context, we’re sitting what floor is this? You know?

[0:03:08.5] JA: 34th floor.

[0:03:08.6] RN: 34th floor, looking, I’m thinking that’s directly north, right?

[0:03:13.0] JA: Yes.

[0:03:13.2] RN: North facing view in Manhattan, see the Chrysler Building, do you see the Empire State Building?

[0:03:18.2] JA: I see the Empire State Building, yeah.

[0:03:19.4] RN: Just a gorgeous view though. Thanks for hosting, I really appreciate it. It’s number one on… I’ve done one of the beach with Philip McKernan, like I told you, a podcast and I think sorry Philip, but this takes the cake.

[0:03:31.7] JA: Well it depends what kind of view you like. Like a beach ocean view is of course this beautiful natural setting that humans are, it’s almost like an evolutionary thing. Like they always liked the beach, ocean view. But there’s something about kind of like these vertical cities like Manhattan where it’s just, there’s everybody on the ground and then there’s millions of people even at this high up level that we’re at right now. Just looking across, this is not the tallest building, there’s a thousand buildings out there.

[0:03:55.7] RN: Yeah, just driving in, like I in to Newark and I took a car under the Lincoln Tunnel you come out and you’re just like boom, you get hit with the energy right away. I love this city.

[0:04:06.3] JA: Yeah.

[0:04:07.8] RN: Just to get back on track, obviously this is the Fail On Podcast and, no offense, but you’re like the king of failure.

[0:04:13.8] JA: I’m the king of failure. Get out of here.

[0:04:16.1] RN: Yeah, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. No, but in a good way, right? Because you don’t just let failure kind of define you. You take lessons from it and you turn things around and you learn from it and you get better.

[0:04:28.1] JA: You know, I read this beautiful quote the other day. Herbie Hancock, you know who Herbie Hancock is? So I’m not into jazz or whatever but I liked Herbie Hancock when I was a kid and then he’s talking about how he used to play with Miles Davis and one time, Miles Davis was doing some kind of improv thing and Herbie Hancock was doing his thing and he hit a cord that was just a total mistake.

He says, “I made a total mistake, there is no way you could say I was in any way in sync with what Miles Davis was doing. Miles Davis,” he said, “paused for like a micro second and then he started playing and he made my cord that I had, that was a total mistake, he made it fit right in.” He said, “There is — no musical note is a mistake until you hear the note after it.”

I’m paraphrasing the quote because I don’t remember it exactly but it’s that same sentiment and I thought that makes so much sense that you can’t make a mistake and say that’s a mistake. You do what you do and then everything is determined by what happens next.

Miles Davis of course, again, I don’t know Jazz, I don’t know blues, I barely know who he is, I don’t know what instrument he plays if you told me, but clearly he was the best in the world at what he did. He was able to take anything he had in front of him and turned it into a work of art. So I think that’s the key is how quickly can you take an event and let’s not label it failure, but how quickly can you take an event and turn it into something amazing. That’s the key. I just read that quote two days ago but it’s really stuck with me.

So I’m going to add one more thing. You know, one key to writing, I think, is that if you think about something a couple of times in a row then that’s something worth talking about and writing about. I’ve been thinking about this one quote and to that something that’s I’m going to either write about or talk about or think more about.

[0:06:26.3] RN: No, I love that. Kind of on that note as well. I was just looking at the front cover of the Reinvent Yourself book, right? There’s a really cool quote by Brian Koppelman, the creator of Billions and just so I don’t mess it up. James is on a very personal journey, he’s telling you the story on Saturday. Sunday he’s talking about how it felt and on Monday he’s talking about how about doing it a different way, right? It’s taking action, screwing it up, and then reengineering it to find a new way, right?

[0:06:55.2] JA: Yeah, but let’s not even — I don’t even like using the phrase screwing it up because, and I’ll tell you a story that involves Brian and the show Billions but, you know, when you think about things in terms of experiments often. Life, this is a cliché, right? But clichés are worth kind of paying attention to. So life’s so short, if you waste any time in kind of this state of, “Oh I screwed up,” then that’s wasted time.

I’ve spent many years in that state. It’s not like I can avoid it. I think the key, everybody’s got ups and downs every year of their lives, I don’t know, the biggest billionaire in the world will of course age and have death in his life and get sick and have bad relationships and so on.

Everybody’s got ups and downs and it’s how quickly you can bounce back and you bounce back because of your internal sense of wellbeing, you bounce back because of the energy you have from physical house, you bounce back because of the people you’re surrounding yourself with are good people. You bounce back because you're creative and you have ideas that excite you and so on. I think that’s what really makes a life.

Do you mind if I tell you a story about Brian Koppelman and Billions? I always tell all the stories about how, “Oh I lost all this money in my first business, I was going to kill myself, I bounced back.” I’m going to hold off on that. I was on the set of Billions, before show time even fully picked it up and so Billions, for anybody who doesn’t know is a show about hedge fund manager versus a DA. The hedge fund manager, yeah, it’s a great show.

Damian Lewis plays the hedge fund...

Why Jayson Gaignard Bought 4,000 Books From Tim Ferriss When He Was Dead Broke

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 04:00:12 -0500

Welcome to the first episode of The Fail On Podcast, where we believe that if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, we get to learn from none other than Jayson Gaignard, a super connector, the creator of MastermindTalks, and the author of Mastermind Dinners.

In this episode, Jayson shares with us his knowledge about elevating your network along with the best and worst ways to find mentorship, how he bought an $84,000 book bundle from Tim Ferriss while being absolutely broke, and how embracing failure, taking risk, and getting out of his comfort zone completely transformed his life, and so much more.

Key Points From This Episode:

Hear the story of the first time Jayson provided a service or product in exchange for money.

Jayson shares the first failure he experienced in the world of entrepreneurship.
Find out about Jayson’s first lucky break, where things finally clicked for him in business.

Discover the best, organic way to approach a potential mentor and why it is key to remain teachable.

Understand the aspects Jayson considers to be the most painful parts of being an entrepreneur.

Learn more about MastermindTalks, how it got start, the goals and where it is going next.

Hear the story of how Mastermind Dinners got started during the time that Jayson was considering bankruptcy.

Jayson shares how he bought an $84,000 book bundle from Tim Ferriss when he was broke.

Discover the ways the Jayson forces himself to get out of his comfort zone.

Find out who the one person was who had the most impact in Jayson’s life over the long term.

And much more!

Tweetable:

“Never tarnish your word and always invest in your network.” - @JaysonGaignard
Tweet This
[0:29:50]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

MastermindTalks
Jayson on Twitter
Jayson’s book, Mastermind Dinners: Build Lifelong Relationships by Connecting Experts, Influencers, and Linchpins
Jayson’s podcast, The MastermindTalks Podcast
Tim Ferriss
Joe Polish of the $25K Group
Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Chef: The Simple Path to Cooking Like a Pro, Learning Anything, and Living the Good Life
Philip McKernan

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 001

“JG: If I could boil down the success of last 13 years is I’ve always surrounded myself with people who are one or two steps ahead of me and what that does on an unconscious level, I mean, we all have a deep desire to belong to a peer group and when you surround yourself with people who are ahead of you, unconsciously it pushes you to get to their level as quickly as possible so you could feel like you belong.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:25.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:52.1] RN: Hello and welcome to the podcast that believes, if you desire to create the life of your dreams then embracing failure by taking urgent and bold action is the only way. Today, you and I get to learn from none other than Jayson Gaignard, a super connector, the creator of MastermindTalks, and the author of Mastermind Dinners.

I’ll be talking to Jayson about elevating your network along with the best and worst ways to find mentorship, buying an $84,000 book bundle from Tim Ferriss while being absolutely broke, and how embracing failure, taking risk, and getting out of his comfort zone completely transformed his life, and much, much more.

But first, if you’d like to stay up to date on all fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page.

Now, without further ado, Mr. Jayson Gaignard.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:02:02.9] RN: Hey there and welcome to The Fail On Podcast, I’m so excited for today’s show for two reasons: One, we’ve got Jayson Gaignard in the house, the founder and head talent scout of MastermindTalks, an annual invite only event designed for lead entrepreneurs with an acceptance rate lower than Harvard. And reason number two that I’m so pumped is that we’re sitting here together in beautiful Eleuthero, an island in the Bahamas. Thanks to Jayson and Candice, his wife for organizing the trip, for a small group of MastermindTalks members.

Jayson, welcome to the show my man.

[0:02:30.7] JG: Excited to be here dude, this is by far the earliest interview I’ve ever done. Especially for somebody like you because you’re Eastern Time, it’s 6 AM eastern time, so for you it’s like 3 AM. So thank you for having me on.

[0:02:43.1] RN: Whatever it takes to get you on the line man.

[0:02:46.6] JG: I’m freshest in the morning, I’m excited.

[0:02:47.9] RN: No, I am too. Not usually at 3 AM but usually at 5 AM. But we’ll go into MastermindTalks and your current products in a bit, but I really want you to take us back to the first time that you provided a service or product in exchange for money. When was that and how did it come about?

[0:03:01.6] JG: That’s a great question. I guess, two incidences come to mind. First was, I guess one on some level, I was used as a contractor. I had a newspaper route where I had to collect money and I got a portion of that. That was one thing I don’t know how old I was then, but then I had a snow shoveling business in Canada and a lawn mowing business and the funny thing is I remember making flyers, my mom still has thousands of these bloody flyers I made for some reason.

I made it with like clipart on the front and you opened it and had this like text or copy that was full of spelling errors and that kind of stuff and I handed out like probably like 900 of these things, didn’t get a single call and then on the last like 50, I ended up writing a handwritten note at the bottom saying, “I’m a 13 year old guy,” just like this kind of — there were all these like crappy copies that were full of spelling mistakes and then I gave like just this vulnerable transparent copy of really who I was and that kind of stuff. Because I was trying to be this big business getting lawn-cutting clients.

[0:04:02.2] RN: How old were you?

[0:04:03.3] JG: Probably about 13.

[0:04:04.5] RN: Okay.

[0:04:06.3] JG: Ended up getting, out of the 50 I sent out, I end up getting response of eight or something like that. So my conversion rate went through the roof by being vulnerable in that copy. So that would be the first time I kind of I had some kind of product or service to offer in exchange for money.

[0:04:20.3] RN: That’s cool, you’re being transparent off I think before it was cool.

[0:04:23.2] JG: Dude, before it was hip.

[0:04:25.1] RN: Man, that’s awesome. Let’s go to what you consider your very first failure in the world of entrepreneurship, whether it’s a macro large scale failure or micro failure that you ran into just getting started. What was it and how did it come about?

[0:04:37.4] JG: Well that was kind of a failure right off the gate, I mean, as far as hand delivering 950 of these things.

[0:04:43.4] RN: Were you going door to door?

[0:04:44.4] JG: Yeah, locally in my neighborhood and it wasn’t the first time my direct mail efforts failed miserably. But that was like a micro failure and just thankfully for some reason I felt like writing a little note as far as — I didn’t realize the spelling mistakes until last year. I originally thought, “Oh, this is actually some really good marketing.” That would be like my first thing and then my first official business, I did a similar mistake with direct mail, which I got zero response rate period.

Which was I launched a concierge firm, which we’d run errands for people. So what happened was, I was — I dropped out of high school, became an automotive performance mechanic, did that for about a year and a half and then realized I was not going to change the world being mechanic and there’s no shots in mechanics. But I was clearing like $500 every two weeks when it came to my paycheck so I’m like, “This is not really the path to freedom and wealth that I was looking for.”

And then I quit on like a Thursday after like a year and then I got a job in car sales on a Saturday and ended up one day, I did it for a month, I did exceptionally well in that month. I think it was like second in sales and then I had somebody come in to buy a car and he knew the year make, and model and color and everything but he took three days off of work to do it and I’m like, “Well, it’s a poor use of your time to take all this time off of work, away from making money to save a couple of hundred bucks.” Like the opportunity cost is huge.

So I’m like, “Well, I’m going to start a business geared towards car shopping for people on their behalf,” and ended up starting a concierge firm instead. Which was really we’d do anything as long as it was legal and moral and would save people time. People were willing to pay $50 an hour and most likely do it. So I broke up with people’s girlfriends, I did all this — I walked their dogs, I would drive them around.

[0:06:22.3] RN: What was the one thing that kind of got really close to that line on the side where you’d say, “I can’t do that.”

[0:06:27.8] JG: the breaking up with somebody’s girlfriend was tough because I didn’t even break up with my girlfriend, so I was terrible at it but it was easier for me to break up with somebody else’s girlfriend on their behalf. So that was probably one of the more interesting ones.

[0:06:39.1] RN: That’s one an epic way to break up with somebody, right?

[0:06:41.5] JG: Yeah. It was also even more dick-ish by the fact that I was — I’d wear a tux. So I showed up at this lady’s house with like a box. I remember exactly like where she lives and all that kind of stuff, and I showed up to her house with a box and I’m like, “Are you so-and-so?” And she’s like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “Unfortunately, Joe doesn’t want to be with you anymore,” and I handed her a box.

[0:07:01.8] RN: The only thing that can make that better is if it was like in song and you’re singing it.

[0:07:05.7] JG: No, it would not make it better. It would make the situation way worse. While I’m wounded waiting, to answer your question, when I started that business, I had this genius direct market — I didn’t know about like online marketing or it was even a thing. So I had this genius direct mail marketing idea, which was I had this boxes made, again, a thousand. I do everything in large quantities for some reason, and I still have a bunch of these boxes and a bunch of these fortune cookies.

But I had these boxes and then you open up the box and there was like a little flyer about the business and then there was a fortune cookie in it and then the fortune cookie, there was a message about the business like, “Let us save you time over this holiday season,” or something like that. I hand delivered a thousand of this in my local area or in the areas that I thought was rich people. Zero response rate and I did it in dead of winter and I had these boxes, I could only deliver 200 at a time because it would fill up my car with all these bloody boxes.

So that was another failure for sure but I’ve been very lucky along the way, a few little lucky breaks. One thing about me that I’ve come to realize after being an entrepreneur for 13 years is that I think we all tend to have lucky breaks in business. But I’ve been smart enough to be or present enough to be able to identify those lucky breaks and I really leverage them and double down on them in essence.

[0:08:17.8] RN: Yeah, take us back to that first lucky break, where things started to actually, whether it be the concierge service or whether it would be a business after that, where something finally clicked and you're like, “Wow, I’m actually…”

[0:08:27.1] JG: I think two lucky breaks when it comes to my first business. The first was my accountant was like the first person I had contact with business wise, because he had to like setup my business and I had no clue even to where to go when it came to accounting. He became my first client and my biggest client for the first year.

So if it wasn’t for him becoming my first client, I would have no business for the most part of the year one and I may have given up. Very good chance I would have given up. So if it wasn’t for him and that just struck of luck, that wouldn’t have happened. I looked back and at like all I’ve done and accomplished in the last 13 years and I’m like, something so small as far as like that first client, I may not be here.

[0:09:01.4] RN: It could change your whole course, right?

[0:09:02.4] JG: Oh, most definitely. Then the second thing was my first mentor and how that happened was he was featured in this magazine called Profit Magazine in Canada which was similar to like Inc. They did like a half page spread on him on his business and what he did was, back then, was he helped companies get government grant money and at the time I was 18 so I’m like, “There has to be some grant money for me. I hear of all these people who get all this money from the government and I haven’t got anything and I don’t even know where to look.”

So I reached out to him and he’s like, he specialized in like Shred and tech, getting money from the government on the tech side of things. I ended up reaching out and he’s like, “You know, I can’t help you.” Pretty much just short and sweet and then the following month, I was featured in the same magazine and they had a three page spread on me and when he saw that, he ended up reaching out and he’s like, “Okay, let’s do dinner.”

So we did dinner and he was my first mentor and definitely again, without him, if I could boil down the success of last 13 years is I’ve always surrounded myself with people who are one or two steps ahead of me and what that does on an unconscious level, I mean, we all have a deep desire to belong to a peer group and when you surround yourself with people who are ahead of you, unconsciously it pushes you to get to their level as quickly as possible so you could feel like you belong, and with him — So we’ve got to give context for this episode. We have Ben Greenfield who is making some kind of concoction over there who is also a part of this trip, which was yeah, was doing a little dance for us and then we also have personal chefs who are behind us cooking us breakfast. So we’ve got to set the tone for the environment.

[0:10:26.8] RN: Yeah, there’s a little chaos going on.

[0:10:28.4] JG: But yeah, I had got him as a mentor and I was incredibly impactful. Mentors have been huge for me but one of the biggest things that he did as I remember looking back, I was doing maybe like $5,000 a month in sales at the time, like super small and he’s like, “Imagine a time when you’re doing like $80,000 a month,” and I’m like, “Oh yeah, yeah. I see it.” Intellectually I got a bit emotional, I’m like, “There’s no way I’ll ever do $80,000 a month.”

However, he helped me kind of reposition the business a little bit because I was going in service base direction and he really kind of pushed me to go on a product based direction and shout out if he listens to this. His name is James Pearly. Yeah, then after probably two and a half years later, I remember we did our first like $900,000 month and I was like, at that point, it hit me. I’m like, “Oh my god, I’m like two and a half years ago, I couldn’t imagine making $80,000 a month and now we’re doing like almost a million.”

It just goes to show like the power of like big thinking and how the people you surround yourself with can have a huge impact on that. That was definitely a lucky break. Since then, I’ve noticed the importance of surrounding yourself with people. That’s why I surround myself with Ben Greenfield. He’s so in shape, every time I’m around him, I feel like a slob. So I always feel like doing laps and pushups. Yeah, that was a definitely lucky break that I’ve leveraged ever since.

[0:11:39.6] RN: Cool. I think that’s an interesting topic is people that are just starting out that want to find mentors, right? It seems like in your case, you’re just reaching out, having zero experience. You were actually doing something and the mentor saw that at that time, right?

What would you say to somebody that hasn’t done really anything in business yet but still want that mentor, maybe they’re looking for a shortcut, they don’t realize they have to go tough work at first before they can get somebody to recognize them and be like, “Okay, this person’s serious,” right? Because they see a lot of tire kickers and people that want help but don’t necessarily want to do the work and go through it themselves first.

[0:12:13.8] JG: Yeah, so here’s five easy steps. No, I’m joking! I think there are a lot of factors. I am blessed to be on the other side of things now where people come to me for mentorship. I mean, the biggest thing, being on this side of things now is like, time is scarce obviously and people make this conception that A, if you talk to them conversational like young entrepreneurs or inspiring entrepreneurs, they put mentors on a pedestal now that like they get a mentor it’s go to like solve everything and everything’s going to change for them, which is far from the truth.

And then what...

Fail On! Your Safe Place to Take Action and Fail

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life — Mon, 24 Apr 2017 03:00:26 -0500

Welcome to Fail On, a podcast based on the belief that the only way to create your dream life is by taking urgent, bold action and embracing failure.

Links Mentioned In Today’s Episode:

FailOn.com/itunes – Subscribe and leave a rating & review to be featured in an upcoming episode!

FailOn.com/facebook – Like our FB page to stay up to date on upcoming guest, Fail On Challenges and key actionable takeaways.

FailOn.com/twitter – Share a tweet already written out for you!

FailOn.com/stitcher – Subscribe and leave a rating & review to be featured in an upcoming episode!

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 000

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:00:25.1] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:00:32.8] RB: Hey there, and thank you so much for joining me. I have literally just tried to record this same intro episode like 20 times and every time I listen back, it just sounds so staged. So you know what? I’m just going to let it rip, we’re going to have a conversation, I’m going to do a little freestyle. I’m not going to read the script I wrote out and I’m just going to tell you a little bit about what I’m trying to achieve here with Fail On and what this podcast is all about.

Just to kind of break it down in simple terms, it’s like the main belief we have here is that if you’re not failing, you’re not growing. The whole idea with fail on is to have you embrace failure, embrace the fear of potential embarrassment and failure and don’t let it consume you and don’t get analysis paralysis where you’re just not doing anything. The whole idea is to actually get momentum, get activated, and get doing essentially anything, because as my good friend, Jayson Gaignard, who you’ll hear from next episode always says, “You can’t stir a parked car.”

On that note, we really believe that success is the byproduct of three key ingredients. Number one, like I said, it’s actually moving. It’s consistent trying. Secondly, it’s consistent failing, because it’s inevitable. Nobody has a perfect learning curve where you’re just going to straight up to success. Three, it’s consistent learning. It’s actually those failures and learning from them and then repeating the process a second time but actually doing better, because you’re taking those lessons that you’ve learned.

That’s really at the core what we’re here for, so if you are somebody that has a deep desire to grow personally, professionally, maybe you want to start a business, maybe you want to learn new skills, this applies massively, because one of my goals through this podcast is to actually provide you actionable advice and directives direct from guests and industry leaders, entrepreneurs that have already experienced these massive, massive failures before and turn them into super successes.

You’re going to learn lessons from these folks, apply them to your life, actually get off your freaking’ rear-end and go do something and you’re going to screw yourself up. That’s what fail on is, it’s going out and failing on.

We’re also going to have challenges to where you’ll have a challenge to go out and do in the real world — It’s such a handful of a — Mouthful of a combinations of words? How did they even have a TV show that put those two words together, because it’s so damn hard to say? Like I said, you’re going to take these actionable items, go out into the real world and put them into play, come back, report on them, and you’re going to do this all the time. It’s getting you outside your comfort zone to experience a little bit of growth. That’s what this podcast is all about. We’re going to dig in to people’s hardships, their struggles, their failures, their toughest moments and we’re going to see how they dug in and turn those hardships into successes and to opportunities.

What this is not — What The Fail On Podcast truly is not, because there’s so many of them on iTunes already, is just a podcast where you’re doing interviews from business people and entrepreneurs that have books coming out and they’re just promoting their books. While I obviously commerce, business is great, this isn’t kind of the platform for that. We’ll still share authors’ books, their courses. If they’ll actually help you, we’ll share that stuff. The meat and potatoes of this podcast is actually digging in to the failures, the struggles, the hardships, and seeing how our guests turn those into successes. That’s the meat and potatoes. That’s what we’re here for. We’re not just going to go to success theater and talk about all these overnight successes that happened. It’s just nonsense.

I think success in entrepreneurship and business is so glamorized that people don’t have the true idea of what entrepreneurship is and the struggles and hardships that people actually go through, literally just so we could go — At was at one of my lowest points. Story for another day. I do plan on sharing it eventually, but I’m too much in the thick of it right now to really dig into and talk about it and share it, because there’s still too much emotion involved, but I will get back to that. I digress.

That’s a little bit about what the podcast is. A little bit about what the podcast is not. You’re probably also wondering about who I am. Why am I doing this? Why am I starting a podcast about failure? I’m just a guy in my early 30s. I’m, most importantly, a husband to my beautiful wife Jacqueline and a father to our crazy, crazy two-year-old golden retriever, Lucy. I know plenty about failure. I’ve been jobless, homeless, I’ve been moneyless. I’ve slept on friends’ couches literally during three different periods in my 20s. I even slept in a friend’s closet once for about a month now that I think about it.

Yeah, on that note, a sincere thank you and shout out — this is probably a good time to do it. A sincere thank you and shout out to Erin in New York, that was the closet that she let me to live in for a month. Jeff in Florida, he took us in when we didn’t have a car, job, or money. Literally, less than $100 in our bank account. I remember this. Three months into our marriage. Long story, but Jeff put us up. Let us sleep at his place and super grateful for that. Thank you, Jeff. Then, Kenny in San Diego put me up before all of that when I quit my job, quit/got fired from my job in Dallas, and Kenny was like, “Hey, got a couch, your name on it.” I said, “San Diego sounds a lot better than Dallas. Let’s do it.” Thank you, Kenny. I appreciate that dude.

I’ve quit or been fired from at least 14 jobs in the last decade alone. You could probably ask any of my former employers, I am not exactly the role model employee. That’s for damn sure. Over that same time period I started nine businesses or side hustles kind of in conjunction with those jobs I had that failed miserably for the most part. Maybe a couple generated actually a little money. The others didn’t generate any money.

You always hear about these child prodigy entrepreneurs, like Gary Vee. had a lemonade stand franchise the age of 10 or something. Crazy, but that wasn’t me. I didn’t even know what business or entrepreneurship even was or meant until after college. When I was growing up I was just super focused playing sports and playing tennis and went to college on a tennis scholarship. That was my world then. Once I got out of college, it’s like, “Well, crap! I got to actually support myself, and job suck.” Any job I ever had sucked. I don’t know about you guys. Maybe I just had the wrong job, most were on sales and they were all pretty awful for the most part, but did teach me a lot.

Yeah, I can’t hold a job and I fail a lot. It’s not all bad, right? Because in 2014 I did achieve my dream. I supported myself and my wife without having a job, which was literally the best feeling I’ve ever had. It was just — Because I always wanted is to badly, I just didn’t know what it was going to be. In 2014, my partner and I, we built a seven-figure performance marketing company which allowed the freedom for my wife and i to really travel whenever we want and live where ever we want.

Then, to move the timeline up a little bit, in 2015 we saw an opportunity — My partner and I saw an opportunity to start a new company and passively invest in a couple of guys that we just purely believed in. The harder you worked, the luckier you get. This is one of those lucky moments where the guys absolutely just crushed it. We just had blind faith. They turned that into a multimillion dollar business within five months in 2015. Last year, in their first full year of operation, they did low eight figures. These guys were just studs and they’re crushing it and all the props in the world to those guys.

Then, kind of that brings us up to speed, right? The current. Both these companies continue to operate. However, on my end, I’ve actually walked away from the marketing business to focus solely on building fail on and hanging out with you guys which is literally like a dream come true to me to actually be able to work on a passion project of mine full-time. Because the marketing business, while it was a cash flow business, it did well financially.

For me, it was kind of soul-sucking. It didn’t have a purpose behind it. If I can inspire people into action by embracing failure, I know that’s where growth is and that’s where the magic happens. If I can inspire you guys to get up and actually doing stuff and start trying stuff and start failing, I now you’re going to see success, because I know that’s the first step.

The fact that I could work on that full-time is my heart is extremely full and I’m very grateful. I’m full of gratitude. That kind of brings us up to speed. I’ve seen a ton of failure. I’ve seen a little success. Absolutely no way am I like a business expert or some guru, whatsoever. I have learned a lot over the past few years, that’s a fact, but I still feel all the time, I still know very little. At least I recognize that. I know I know very little, but I’m continuing to try to grow and learn and get better every single day. Actually doing these interviews and talking to all of these folks is amazing, because I’m learning from my heroes every single day, and it’s just a ton of fun. Really grateful to be here.

More importantly, I’m super excited to connect with everybody, connect to the community to help support each other, so you can support me in my failures as I start building this business, and so I can support you in your failures. If you’re failing, it means you’re actually doing something, which is so powerful, and that’s where — Like I said, that’s where the growth happens. As long as you take lessons from those failures and keep trying you will see success. It’s just inevitable.

That’s what this community is all about, we celebrate failure. We share a journey with others. We embrace our hardships. We lift each other up over the hurdles. In essence, like it sounds, we fail on. If you do enjoy the podcast, just to wrap everything, I would be so grateful if you could rate it in iTunes and leave a one or two sentence review. All this is going to do is simply increase the likelihood that somebody will find this podcast and somebody that appreciates these types of stories like you do will find it and hopefully it will help them.

To rate and review the podcast, super easy, just go to failon.com/itunes. Another way to get involved and figure out what we’re doing is by liking our Facebook page. Again, very easy, failon.com/facebook. If you want to share this podcast with others; friends, family, super easy as well. To share a tweet that we’ve actually already written out for you, all you have to do is go to failon.com/twitter, and on the Fail On homepage, I invite you to enter your email address, first name, just to be added to our newsletter.

Currently, I plan on sending an e-mail probably about once a week. That’s just going to provide kind of unique insight into the guest interviews as well as key takeaways and action items from each guest that you could implement in your life on a daily basis which that’s what this is all about, actually getting out and doing stuff in the real world. Of course, I highly doubt you remember any of these URLs, so you can find everything I’ve mentioned by going to our show notes page, that’s going to be at failon.com/000.

Guys, super glad to have you here. Thanks for listening. Just remember, if you’re not failing, you’re not growing.

[OUTRO]

[0:12:04.4] ANNOUNCER: That’s all for this episode of The Fail On Podcast. For more resources, show notes and action items to help you find success in your failures, sign up for our mailing list at failon.com.

For more actionable inspiration, we’ll catch you next time right here on The Fail On Podcast.

[END]