0:01

Welcome back to another episode of Big

0:03

Money Energy, where we talked to super

0:06

successful and self made people to

0:08

find out exactly how they did

0:10

how they went from nothing to something.

0:13

I'm Ryan, Sirhands, and today I'm joined

0:15

by New York Times best selling author

0:17

and host of the School of Greatness

0:19

podcast, Lewis Hose.

0:22

We discussed the importance of having coaches

0:24

and mentors throughout life, how

0:27

to look within to find the confidence

0:29

you need to be your best self, and

0:31

what it takes to go from being unemployed

0:34

sleeping on your sister's couch to

0:36

becoming one of the most influential

0:38

podcasters on the planet.

0:41

Let's get into it. Welcome to

0:43

another episode.

0:53

Today is a super super

0:55

special day one. It is snowing

0:57

in the city again. I don't remember the last

1:00

him it snowed so much in New York City. But

1:02

that means I don't have to go show properties. It means

1:04

I can sit here and I can talk to one of

1:06

my favorite people, a former professional football

1:08

player, keynote speaker, now media entrepreneur,

1:11

high performance business coach everyone Lewis

1:13

house Um. We first

1:15

met when my first book Felt Like Sir

1:17

Hnt came out and he was gracious

1:20

enough to help me launch the book in Los

1:22

Angeles back when people used to

1:24

talk to people in person and we used to have

1:26

a book events. That was really really cool. You

1:28

guys know him from everything. One of the biggest

1:30

podcasts in the world, the School of Greatness, which we'll

1:32

get into, recognized by

1:34

the White House and President Obama is one of the top

1:37

entrepreneurs in the country under thirty. He's

1:39

met Tom Brady. Okay, that's really

1:41

really important to me, amongst

1:43

many many other things. Without further ado, Lewis

1:45

House, thank you so much for being here, man, my man, appreciate

1:48

you and congrats on the new book. Excited to have

1:50

you on my show soon to talk about

1:52

it. Yeah, let's do it before we start

1:54

though. You know, I've been on other people's

1:56

podcasts for a long time, right, millionar

1:59

listening started and years ago, man,

2:01

you were like, what two when that happened. Yeah,

2:03

it was twenty and

2:06

now the time goes by real fast, and

2:08

kind of right around that time. A couple of years later, right, you just celebrated

2:10

your your eight year anniversary School of Greatness.

2:13

Yeah. Yeah, this year we just celebrated eight years

2:16

over a thousand episodes, thousand

2:18

episodes. Man, it's crazy and it goes by fast. Like you

2:20

said, I remember the first episode. You probably remember

2:22

your first episode. And you were probably

2:25

terrible on TV and I was terrible on podcasting,

2:27

and you know, look at us now. So can

2:30

we go back though to the beginning before I get

2:32

into all the questions I have about your

2:34

kind of career right in your professional

2:36

life and and what a lot of things mean to

2:38

you. But you graduate college, you go into arena

2:41

football, you get hurt. Whole life leads

2:43

up to that one moment. What

2:45

do you do for me in the moment. It was an identity

2:47

crisis because my whole identity was tied

2:49

to being an athlete and being known and

2:52

being valued for my athletic abilities.

2:54

And so when I was when I'm not able to do

2:56

that anymore, and that's the only

2:59

identity I have. I had to learn

3:02

the hard way. It took a couple of years to figure

3:04

out, Okay, my identity

3:06

does not define me, uh, and I

3:08

can always reinvent my identity. So imagine

3:10

if you lost all the ability

3:12

to sell real estate or talk about real estate, or

3:14

by real estate or invest in it, just for whatever

3:16

reason you lost that ability and that's been

3:18

ten years of your life for

3:21

a lot of people, and transitioning sports into

3:24

real world. Afterwards, they get

3:26

depressed, they get unsure

3:28

of themselves, and they don't have that same confidence when

3:30

they had that identity into the next

3:32

stage. And I lacked the confidence.

3:34

For a couple of years. I was on my sister's couch.

3:37

I didn't have any money. I was trying to figure out how to get a job.

3:39

This was two thousand seven or two thousand nine

3:41

when the UH economy

3:43

was crashing. Yeah, everything, So for me,

3:45

I didn't have a college degree yet. I eventually went

3:47

back and finished, but I

3:50

really didn't know what to do. And so I

3:52

again, I just use what I learned from

3:54

sports and said, what got me to

3:56

being uh, you know, professional athlete,

3:58

What allowed me to accomplish all American status

4:01

and a couple of sports and then break records and all

4:03

these things, was having incredible coaches.

4:06

And why would I do life or

4:09

career or business alone without a

4:11

coach, Because this is what I know, and in

4:13

order to get to the top, I've needed coaches

4:15

in order to stay at the top. The greatest athletes

4:18

in the world invest in better coaches,

4:20

you know, Kobe Jordan's Lebron. They

4:22

don't say I'm the best, I don't

4:24

need a coach. They say, no, I'm going

4:27

on the team that has the best coach because I want

4:29

to win multiple championships. I don't want

4:31

to just get to the top and that's it. And

4:33

so I started to leave look for mentors.

4:36

And originally it was people that I've already met

4:38

from you know, professors at school or

4:40

whatever. But then I started reaching out on LinkedIn

4:42

to finding kind of local entrepreneurs

4:45

in Columbus, Ohio, which is where I was basically the time, where

4:47

I'm from, and started reaching out

4:49

to them and essentially begging them to mentor

4:52

me because I had nothing to offer them. I had no skills,

4:54

I had no career, I had no value

4:57

except for a curious heart

4:59

and a listening ear. That

5:02

that I learned how to ask the right questions

5:04

so that people would reply to my emails on

5:06

LinkedIn, so that people would go to coffee

5:08

with me or actually take me to lunch and pay for my

5:10

lunch because I can't afford it. And I would

5:13

find these really successful kind of local

5:15

leaders spending their time

5:17

with me as a twenty four year old

5:19

punk with no job, no nothing, And it

5:21

was all around positioning, and I positioned

5:24

my LinkedIn profile in the right

5:26

way to get people to reply to me. I positioned

5:28

my email messaging the right way so people

5:30

would respond to me, and that position

5:32

in created proximity where then I had

5:35

access to people, people

5:37

that had skills, people that had money, people

5:39

that had job opportunities, people that had

5:41

experience. So I could learn from

5:43

that proximity and from the people that had

5:45

that knowledge. And that was the thing

5:48

that out of necessity because I didn't

5:50

have money. I was living off my sister's couch,

5:52

eating her food, not paying rent for a year

5:54

and a half. But she gave me a gift after

5:57

a year and a half of not paying for anything

5:59

or contribute, she said, it's time for you

6:01

to leave. You don't need to pay rent or you need to leave.

6:03

And it was the greatest gift she gave me because it created

6:06

urgency and it created opportunities to break

6:08

through because I probably would have been on that couch from

6:10

the year, two year, three years. I was a

6:12

grown man at at

6:15

the time, and you know, I didn't

6:17

want to live off my sister, but

6:19

it was also like, I don't have to work hard, So

6:22

she created the sense of like, okay,

6:24

there's hey, they have to go live in

6:26

the streets. What I did is I begged my

6:28

brother to let me stand in his place, and

6:31

he there exactly

6:34

and he gave me a gift. He said,

6:37

listen, you gotta pay two hundree f bucks a month

6:39

for your room. I was like, okay, I gotta do something.

6:41

I gotta figure out how do I make three

6:44

bucks right so that I can pay here and also

6:46

buy some food. And it just got me working

6:48

a little bit more. Okay, what do I need to do? Do I go

6:50

get a job, do I go try to make money? How do I

6:53

make money? And it went down that path

6:55

of just next steps. That's

6:57

insane, but that is a really, really, really

7:00

cool story. What was your

7:02

relationship to money at that time? Because

7:05

you didn't have a whole lot of afraid, uneducated,

7:08

ignorant, uh needy.

7:11

I desired it, but I was also scared

7:13

of it. I didn't know how to make money. I never made

7:16

money before, really,

7:18

I mean I was a truck driver for a

7:21

number of months, making two or fifty dollars a week

7:23

driving driver. I drove NAPA

7:26

Auto car parts from ConA

7:28

from Columbus, Ohio, to Cincinnati and back

7:30

every day. I dropped them off, take two and

7:32

a half hours to get there, doing about

7:35

a thirty to forty five minute pick up of new

7:37

parts and bring them back to the Columbus

7:39

warehouse. And so I was driving the largest

7:42

truck before. It

7:44

was kind of like the massive U haul before

7:46

you needed a trucking license. And it was

7:49

miserable. It was a miserable experience.

7:51

But I also was like, how do I make the most

7:54

of this six hour commute daily driving

7:56

car parts? And so what I did is I said,

7:59

I'm able to play crazy games in my mind.

8:01

The truck only went fifty five miles an

8:03

hour when I put the pedal to the metal, and

8:05

so everyone's passing me and in the middle Ohio.

8:08

I don't know if you've been to Ohio, but there's just corn fields

8:10

for hours, so you're not really there's

8:13

nothing really to look at. And it's where I learned

8:15

how to salsa dance. I learned salsa dancing

8:17

as a truck driver. What

8:19

in my mind, so I would

8:22

that's some inception stuff. I wanted to learn

8:24

how to salsa dance because I was terrified of it.

8:26

And I went to this like jazz club

8:28

one night that had salsa dancing, and I was

8:30

just blown away by

8:33

all the Latin people who were there dancing

8:35

salsa. And I was like, this is the most intimidating

8:37

thing I've ever seen, but it's also probably the

8:39

coolest thing I've ever seen. And I kept going

8:42

back to this place once a week they would

8:44

do salsa dancing. I'd go back once a week and I would

8:46

just watch. I literally the creeper. I wasn't

8:48

trying to be a creeper, but I would sit in the

8:50

corner and just be like, this is amazing,

8:52

this is mesmerizing. And I love

8:54

the music. I love the culture, the people that language,

8:57

everything. And when I started truck driving, I said,

8:59

Okay, I'm going to teach myself salsa dancing.

9:01

It's burn a CD of the greatest hits

9:03

of salsa songs and I listened

9:06

to this for six hours a day and I

9:08

would practice on YouTube. Back then,

9:10

YouTube had this channel called Addicted

9:12

to Salsa, which taught you salsa

9:14

tutorials before it's time, and

9:17

I would watch these at night. I would practice in

9:19

the mirror. I would then rehearse

9:21

these moves in my mind for six

9:23

hours a day while listening to the music. So I was trying

9:25

to figure out, how can I learn a skill making

9:28

money doing something I don't like, and

9:31

and that was that was the process. But I didn't

9:33

know how to make money. I was a truck driver. I

9:35

was a bouncer on the weekends, making out

9:37

of maybe a hundred fifty bucks a weekend at a nightclub.

9:40

And I never was entrepreneurial.

9:42

I didn't have the lemonade stand. I didn't

9:44

do the baseball card thing. I didn't garage none

9:46

of that stuff. I relied on my

9:49

dad to kind of be like, okay, you know, here's twenty

9:51

bucks or a hundred bucks when you needed or whatever. Um.

9:54

He never gave me a lot of money, but it was

9:56

always provided, like I had a house and food. I didn't

9:58

need anything else. But when I was twenty one year only five,

10:00

and you're sleeping in your sister's couch and you're not as

10:02

cool anymore, and

10:05

that's when I said, I've got to learn financial literacy.

10:07

I've got to learn and understand what

10:09

it means to make money, how to make

10:11

money on your own, what it looks like to get a job,

10:14

how to manage my personal finance. It's just all

10:16

the basics that no one teaches in school.

10:26

So what was your first job? Then now you're

10:28

crashing, you're paying your brother. You had to figure out how

10:30

to make money? Right? I did? And the

10:33

podcast came years later, didn't it? Yeah? Years

10:35

later? That was actually the dream. Back then, when I was on

10:37

my sister and brother's couch, I was like, what

10:39

do I want to be doing? I had this idea

10:41

of back in two thousands, seven, eight and nine.

10:44

I was like, I just want to interview

10:46

the most fascinating people in the world and ask them how

10:48

they got there, because I

10:50

wanted to be cool if you just get paid to just ask

10:53

questions of smart people. And

10:55

but I was like, no one will listen to me at this moment.

10:57

No one would. I don't have any credibility,

11:00

you know, why would they show up to my show? Why would these

11:02

people even talk to me? So I knew

11:04

there was something I wanted, and

11:06

I spent about five years building

11:08

a business online marketing business to

11:11

where things started to take off pretty quickly.

11:13

It took about two years of being broke

11:16

and on my sister's couch and then my brother's

11:18

place until I made

11:20

really my first dollars online. And

11:23

I remember I did a for

11:25

those two year period, I was obsessing

11:29

over LinkedIn. I was obsessing over because I

11:31

was connecting with these thought leaders in my local

11:33

community. Um And eventually

11:35

people started reaching out to me and saying, hey, Louis, can you show

11:38

me how to use LinkedIn for

11:41

you know, connecting to people or generating leads

11:43

and traffic. And since I was just doing it

11:45

all day long, I started writing articles about

11:47

it. I eventually wrote a book about LinkedIn that was

11:49

one of the first people to write a book about it. In two thousand

11:51

nine, and I started

11:53

hosting LinkedIn networking events. And so I hosted

11:56

a LinkedIn networking event using my

11:59

connections messaging two

12:01

thousand nine, messaging people one

12:03

at a time. I think I started my first one late two thousand

12:06

and eight, and not only just message everyone, I knew

12:08

one at a time custom email message on

12:10

LinkedIn and said hey, and they had an

12:13

events feature, so I said, Hey, we're

12:15

hosting a LinkedIn networking event. Here

12:17

it is please bring three friends,

12:19

It's free. Uh, you know

12:22

all this stuff, And I sold

12:24

four sponsorships at two hundred fifty

12:26

bucks for like a table, like a little booth, and

12:28

I exactly,

12:31

And I called up the local a

12:34

few local restaurants, and I said, what's the worst

12:36

night of the week for you when no one comes in? They were like

12:38

Tuesday night or Wednesday night or something. And I said,

12:40

can I have it for free if I

12:42

can bring people, you know, a hundred people to this

12:45

and they were like sure, and they had food and drinks

12:47

and bar and all that stuff, and I said, you

12:49

can keep all the money that I just want to have this space.

12:52

And the first event we did, we had three d three and

12:54

fifty people show up. I made a thousand bucks on

12:57

the sponsorships, but the coolest thing

12:59

was the connections

13:01

and everyone thanked me afterwards, saying wow,

13:03

like I met so and so, and now we're going to talk

13:05

about doing this. I met so and so who I'm

13:08

gonna hire whatever it is. I became essentially

13:10

the champion of everyone's problems into

13:12

solutions. And I was like, wow, I wonder if

13:15

I did this again. And I charged

13:17

for people to come. So I charged five dollars

13:19

at the door, and I was like, I don't know if anyone's gonna come. And

13:21

we had more people show up, and I was like, oh

13:23

wow, okay, So I sold sponsorships the second

13:26

time and I charged five bucks. I won

13:28

if I can charge ten bucks, and I just

13:30

started going to the next level. Okay, we meant ten

13:32

ten dollars at the door sponsorships. Then

13:34

I started to build a relationship with these restaurants

13:36

and I said, hey, will you give me ten or fifteen

13:39

percent commission on the food and bar and

13:42

they were like, yeah, it's the worst out of the week. No one's

13:44

coming in, of course. And

13:46

so I was getting three levels of

13:48

revenue from one event. Then

13:51

I was doing one on one consulting for people

13:53

that said hey, can you show me how to do

13:55

this on LinkedIn? So I was charging hundred

13:57

dollars and two hundreds and three hundred dollars a session

13:59

for doing one on one. Then I

14:01

was like, okay, let me write a book around this so I can

14:04

have something to sell at these events. So now I had

14:06

five levels of revenue, and

14:08

I just kept thinking, Okay, what else can I do? Then I

14:10

started making money off of connecting people

14:12

and getting commissions on deals, and I

14:14

just kept thinking how can I make more money

14:17

with one event? What can I do?

14:19

Then the thing that really transformed everything is

14:21

when I was branding

14:24

myself and positioning myself in the social

14:26

media world as the LinkedIn guy.

14:28

I was like, everyone's talking about

14:31

being a social media expert. I

14:33

know social media platforms pretty

14:35

well, but not as well as LinkedIn. And everyone

14:37

was like, I'm a social media expert online

14:39

there bio, and I was just like, no, I'm the LinkedIn

14:42

king, Like I don't care about anything else

14:44

but LinkedIn. And because I

14:46

positioned myself as that, that wasn't That wasn't what

14:48

I wanted long term. I wanted to do a show, but

14:50

at the moment I knew I needed to position myself

14:52

as an expert at one thing, as opposed to an

14:54

expert at all things. And by doing that,

14:57

opportunities started to come to me. Every social media

14:59

conference said we need a LinkedIn you

15:01

know room, who's the guy who can

15:04

come speak? Well, I know Lewis, and Lewis

15:06

is writing articles about this, and Lewis has wrote a

15:08

book about this, and Lewis has hosting events on LinkedIn.

15:11

Let's bring Louis in. So I was doing that

15:13

and then Eventually I met a guy at a conference

15:16

and he asked me to come on one of his webinars.

15:18

And I didn't know what a webinar was in two thousand nine. Um,

15:21

but I said, let's do it. He was a pretty big name in kind

15:24

of the space at the time, and um,

15:26

he said, I need you to do a presentation about LinkedIn. It's

15:28

gonna be a free event. You're gonna

15:30

present and at the end, I want

15:32

you to sell something. I want you to sell a course or a program.

15:35

And this is back in two thousand nine, when there

15:37

was no course platforms. There was no

15:39

It was really hard to build a website back in

15:41

two thousand nine and put stuff together. I had no Cluto's

15:44

doing. And I said, Okay,

15:46

I don't have the time to put together a course

15:48

or training. But what I'll do is I'll put together a

15:50

PayPal link and I'll

15:53

give a free presentation. And then at the end,

15:55

I'll say, hey, for anyone who wants more advanced

15:57

training on LinkedIn, like pay

16:00

me here. I charged a hundred fifty bucks pay

16:02

me here, And what I'll do is three weeks

16:05

of more online training, like on

16:07

a live webinar. I'll just give you access to a private

16:09

link and I'll teach you this, this,

16:11

and this every week. And

16:14

at the end and I was horrible. It's my

16:16

first time giving a presentation and no clue what I was

16:18

doing. The slides where Yankee, and you

16:20

know, I was stuttering the whole time. But

16:22

at the end I

16:24

closed down the webinar presentation, I opened

16:26

up my Gmail and it was probably the most beautiful

16:28

thing I've ever seen in my life, more than any

16:31

girl I've ever seen. It was my

16:33

entire email on

16:35

my my screen that said You've received payment.

16:38

Every line said you received payment. You see payment.

16:40

I was like, I was literally screaming.

16:42

I was at my brother's place at this time, living two bucks

16:45

a month and there's sixty in

16:47

my paper account in minutes. And

16:50

I was like, I am the richest man in the world.

16:52

I could do this every day for the rest of my life.

16:54

If I get to teach about LinkedIn and make

16:58

I'll do this all day long and

17:00

for the next six years. That's pretty

17:03

much all I did. I said, Okay, how do I become

17:05

a better teacher, How do I master LinkedIn

17:07

more? How do I understand webinars? How

17:09

do I learn about online marketing, copyrighting,

17:12

How do I create relationships and affiliate partnerships

17:14

to drive traffic? How do I buy traffic? How do I

17:16

how do I do more of this thing? And

17:18

I just obsessed over becoming better

17:21

at that. And after about four or five years, I got

17:23

like tired of just talking about LinkedIn. I was like, this

17:25

is not what I want to do, Like my dream that has

17:27

been to do this interview thing, and

17:30

I don't know the best platform, Like I'd like a TV

17:32

show, but no one's I'm still not really known.

17:34

I'm known as a LinkedIn guy, but not known

17:36

in anything else. And

17:38

so I took about a year off where

17:40

I sold the company to my business partner. At that time, had

17:43

saved pretty much everything. I pretty much lived

17:45

like I was on my sister's couch, still saved,

17:48

didn't have a car, didn't have a TV, just

17:50

like walked everywhere, saved money.

17:52

And then I had a couple of years

17:54

of runway where I was like I could do whatever, and

17:56

I was like, I really want to do this interview show. And podcasting

17:59

back in two thousand twelve wasn't

18:01

a thing. It was like Joe

18:04

Rogan was on there some weird like basement

18:06

tech shows were on there or something, but no one

18:08

knew even how to go download a podcast.

18:11

But I had two friends that had just launched

18:13

one in the middle of two thousand twelve,

18:15

and I just moved to Eli at the time for a girl

18:18

didn't work out quickly, and I said,

18:20

but let me stay here. And I was driving

18:22

in l A traffic and was miserable, and I

18:24

was like, man, I just kind of feel stuck

18:27

in my life right now. I feel stuck that

18:29

I moved here for this girl, that it's not working

18:31

out, like it's kind of resenting myself.

18:34

And I was really frustrated because I was supposed

18:36

to go meet someone a mile away and it

18:38

took like two hours to get there in a car, and I was like,

18:40

this is exhausting, and I go, how

18:43

are people doing this every day? Stuck in their

18:45

car, stuck in their life? Like

18:48

there's gotta be a way to serve people who feel

18:50

this type of stuck nous, whether

18:52

it be literally in a car or just in their life.

18:55

And I said, I want to just create a

18:57

free show, like a podcast. I heard a couple of friends

18:59

are doing it. Let me call them, So I

19:01

called them in the car ride literally and

19:03

asked them both like, what is this podcasting

19:05

thing? Is it worth it is? It's going to be a waste of time,

19:08

And both of them said it was the

19:10

most fun they were having of anything they're doing in their business.

19:13

It was the most qualified leads they were getting

19:15

for the things that they were selling eventually, and

19:17

they were just having a blast doing it. And I was like,

19:20

if these guys could do it, I could probably figure this out. And

19:23

probably about four or five months later I

19:26

launched the show and um, yeah, end of January,

19:29

so eight years ago, and it's

19:31

just been figuring it out process every day

19:34

since. Crazy. You

19:42

know, I could listen to you for a year straight.

19:44

I think I don't even have to make noise.

19:47

Your story is just so interesting. You skipped

19:49

over one thing just really quick. You

19:52

coaches got you to a certain

19:54

point. Did you end up finding that life

19:56

coach, business coach or or mentor

19:59

when you were gonna stuck in there? It was mostly

20:01

just leaning on friends. I had three mentors

20:03

at the time. One was um

20:07

it's funny. At the time. Also, when I just finished

20:09

playing football, I

20:11

had to have a surgery on my risk because I broke a bone

20:14

in my wrist, and so I was in a full arm cast

20:16

from my shoulder to my fingers. I kind

20:18

of looked like the kid from Rookie of the Year that I had.

20:21

When it got out, He's like

20:24

it was like a wet noodle. I couldn't I couldn't move

20:26

my arm when he got out. I didn't have power of strength, and

20:28

so I was in this cast for six months. It was miserable.

20:31

Miserable and

20:32

um. During that time is

20:34

when I was just on LinkedIn because I couldn't really work out.

20:36

I didn't have a job, nothing on my sister's

20:38

couch, and I reached out to a few people. One

20:42

was a former like headmaster of the school

20:44

I went to, like the college I went to that I became

20:46

close with. He was an Olympic qualifying athlete

20:48

all this stuff, so I kind of connected to him over

20:50

sports. He was my kind of spiritual leadership,

20:53

compass, great family man, a

20:55

success in business. Then I reached

20:58

out. Um. I had into

21:00

a product during this time that

21:03

I called the cast Comfort because this

21:05

cast I had I had to wear it for so long

21:07

was smelling. I don't know if you ever broken a bone and had a cast,

21:09

but it's smell smelly after a week

21:12

dirty, It's like screw exactly.

21:17

And I was like, there's gotta be a better solution

21:19

if someone's wearing a cast so it doesn't look

21:21

and smell dirty. And so I went

21:24

on Ali Baba at the time, and

21:26

I actually and I had no money

21:29

except for like a hundred bucks or something,

21:31

and I spent I think it was like, yeah, I don't

21:33

know, seventy bucks to get a couple of samples. I designed

21:36

a sample of I was like, there needs

21:38

to be something you can put over this, and

21:40

I actually still have them, and I just

21:42

I was like I needed a double

21:44

thickness sweatband, like an

21:47

armed wrist band, but seven

21:49

times the length. And so I was just

21:51

kind of designing this thing on a piece of paper,

21:53

like uploaded to Ali Baba, found

21:56

some manufacturers in China

21:58

and I was like can you make this? And ended

22:00

to me in Ohio and

22:02

six weeks later I got like my first

22:04

prototype and I was like, this is amazing.

22:07

I had different colors, I had different lengths,

22:10

and I was like, I need someone who can help me design

22:13

this better package it, sell it, you know, marketed

22:15

all this stuff I have no idea how

22:17

to do any of this, And so I met someone at the

22:19

time who knew an inventor and begged

22:22

this inventor to meet with me and showed him

22:24

my design and and everything I had it there,

22:26

and he ended up mentoring me for the next six

22:29

months. He was like, come into the office like a few days

22:31

a week, asked me questions like and work

22:33

for me for free essentially, and

22:37

I'll help you launch this thing. I'll help you get off the ground.

22:39

We ended up not getting that off the ground, but I ended

22:41

up learning about product

22:45

design, product development, naming. He's

22:47

a master of like naming, uh, you know,

22:49

trademarking. We go to design

22:51

shows together. So I would go to trade shows with

22:53

him and just learned about like the business

22:55

of networking, and I just learned

22:57

about how to take an idea in your minds

23:00

and make it a physical reality and manifested

23:02

from every process from idea to manufacturing

23:05

to licensing to PR everything.

23:07

So that was an amazing six month experience.

23:10

He was my creative mentor

23:13

of like how do I take an idea and manifested

23:15

into a physical form. And then

23:17

I at the salsa clubs because

23:19

I started going salsa dancing a lot and

23:21

teaching myself salsa dancing. I

23:24

met um. I met another guy who

23:26

was a professional

23:28

speaker, and at the time I was terrified

23:31

of hope speaking. I could not even speak in front

23:33

of an audience of four people without

23:36

stuttering and being nervous.

23:38

And I was like, man, you go around the country

23:40

and you get paid to speak. That sounds amazing, but I

23:42

could never do it. And he mentored

23:45

me and and said, you need to join

23:47

Toastmasters. You need to overcome the fear, learn

23:49

the basics of public speaking, and I

23:51

want you to go every week for a year to

23:53

Postmasters until you feel

23:56

confident enough in presenting without notes,

23:58

without preparation and for of an

24:00

audience. And I went every single

24:02

week for a year about film It's I would get

24:04

feedback from him all this stuff until

24:07

I finally overcame the fear. And I

24:09

didn't know that speaking would be a thing in my future

24:12

because I was terrified of it. But that

24:14

mentor and coach really guided me to overcome

24:17

those fears. So those three were really instrumental.

24:19

But then every year I'm finding hiring

24:21

new coaches. You know, I'm paying for

24:24

experts at different levels to help me in my health

24:26

and wellness, business strategy,

24:29

relationships, therapy, and her work

24:31

all that stuff. So I'm always looking

24:33

for great coaches. Where do you think your

24:35

or what do you attribute your your sense

24:38

of enthusiasm to, Like, you

24:40

have great energy. I think one thing

24:42

that did big body of energy. Man, you gotta have

24:44

that, you know, I think one thing. People

24:46

are attracted to you about it, and it's

24:48

so fun to to listen to you and

24:50

just to listen to your interviews you do on the

24:53

podcast. I'm sure why people take take

24:55

your courses and everything is that you

24:57

you have this amazingly authentic,

25:00

a new sense of energy

25:02

almost every day. You Graham to tweet you

25:04

said, mindset is everything. The way you think affects

25:07

your energy and actions, change

25:09

your thoughts, and your life will start

25:11

to change, which is

25:14

right. So you're just saying, you're just talking

25:16

about, you know, the things you

25:18

think about now as part of your work end

25:21

up becoming the things that you're doing two

25:23

to three years from now, as long as you put in the

25:25

work. But you mentioned that word energy, and then

25:27

I watch you even now on that amazing

25:30

high resolution camera that you have that my team

25:32

needs to figure out and you've got that incredible

25:34

energy. Is it do you credit

25:36

your parents or just excitement for life?

25:39

Is it something you developed because you were because

25:41

you knew you needed to have it. I think

25:43

I always had something like

25:46

there was always something inside of me. And I don't

25:48

know if everyone else feels this. Maybe you felt

25:50

this as a kid, Ryan that I always felt like, Okay,

25:54

I don't know why I'm here. And there

25:56

are many times that I would get in trouble as a kid and

25:58

get something the principle's office and

26:00

I would tell them all the time. I wish I were dead at

26:02

a darker childhood in a lot

26:04

of ways. I mean, I was sexually abused as a five year

26:07

old. It took me twenty five years

26:09

to open up about it and start sharing and start

26:11

healing. So I I lived with a lot

26:13

of resentment and anger in

26:15

moments of my life, but I had this duality

26:18

of like passion and childlike joy

26:20

and energy as well. But when someone triggered

26:22

me, it was like, don't ever try to take

26:24

an advantage of me or or or abuse

26:26

me. Otherwise I was like,

26:28

I'm going to destroy you. And I didn't understand

26:31

why, but I was sexually

26:33

abuse as a kid. My brother went to prison when I

26:35

was eight for four and a half years, so every

26:37

almost every weekend, I was in a prison visitor

26:40

room with a room

26:42

full of inmates and their families, and

26:45

because there was visiting hours for for my

26:47

brother, and so there were, you

26:49

know, there was just a lot of I was in special

26:52

needs classes until I graduated

26:54

college after seven years of college, all

26:57

the way from as long as I remember, so

26:59

there was a lot of uh, you know, inner

27:02

suffering that I created myself

27:04

based on experiences, and

27:07

I just wanted to be happy. I wanted to be joyful.

27:09

I was a loving kid, but also when

27:12

I was triggered, there's a lot

27:14

of anger and resentment. And it took me many years

27:16

to learn how to heal and learn how to accept

27:18

and love myself. And I was about

27:20

eight years ago when I learned that process, and I'm stilling

27:22

that but still in that process. I'm not perfect. But

27:25

I've also had a deep sense of gratitude

27:28

at the same time for my

27:31

life. So there was like a knowing even

27:34

though I was like angry and upset and resentful

27:36

as an younger kid, the

27:38

older at God, I was just like God, I'm supposed to

27:40

do something for the world. I don't know

27:42

what it is, but I know my life is more

27:45

meaningful than being a dumb kid

27:47

and just being an athlete. But it's I don't

27:49

know what it is, but I need to figure it

27:51

out. And that listening

27:55

to that voice, trusting it, or

27:57

that knowing nous is what's

28:00

allowed me to wake up every day, literally,

28:02

I kid you not, with just so much gratitude

28:04

that I have another day to express myself,

28:06

to enjoy life, to meet cool people, to share

28:09

what I've learned, to learn new stuff. I mean, I

28:11

woke up this morning seven am. I did

28:13

a Spanish class because I committed to learning Spanish,

28:16

and it's I've been doing

28:19

it for six months. This one on one Spanish

28:21

class, I have, uh some of that teaches

28:23

me on zoom.

28:25

And for twenty years, Ryan, I've been telling

28:27

myself I want to learn Spanish twenty years.

28:30

Every year I say I'm gonna buy this course,

28:32

I'm gonna download this learning

28:34

app, I'm gonna take this thing. And

28:36

I try it and it's so hard on my brain

28:39

that I get exhausted, and I'm like the

28:43

hardest thing I've ever done. And

28:46

the middle of last year, I said, you

28:49

know what, Every year I tell myself I'm gonna

28:51

learn the Spanish, and every

28:53

year it's New Year's Eve and

28:55

I say, I haven't done a squat, and

28:58

I feel like I always let my self down. And

29:01

I said to myself this year, I was like, I

29:04

don't care if this takes me ten years to learn, Like

29:07

I need to stop speeding

29:09

up the process of being fluent in Spanish

29:12

and I needed to enjoy the process of like

29:14

just a small little wind, you're like

29:17

just figuring out one thing every

29:19

class and being okay with sucking.

29:22

And I'll tell you what, the first six months have been the

29:24

most challenging, humbling thing for

29:27

me because I feel like I've got nowhere. But

29:30

today, literally this morning

29:32

was the first morning where I was like, I'm

29:35

understanding some of these things. Maybe I'm

29:37

a slower learner, and maybe it's extremely

29:39

challenging based on how I learned, but

29:42

man, I'm like, it just

29:44

felt good to be like, Okay, even though I'm

29:46

probably not gonna be fluent for many, many years, I

29:49

understand more than I did six months ago, and I can

29:51

be proud of the progress. And that's been

29:53

that's been fun, dude. I am so

29:55

excited for the future day

29:57

whenever. That's good. When you put out

30:00

there you're one episode at School of Greatness

30:03

complete exactly,

30:06

It's gonna be awesome. You like, I don't even

30:08

understand how I'm here right now, but this is happening.

30:11

Yeah. You

30:13

something you also said you spent so much time

30:16

on kind of one on one with people, whether

30:18

they're your coaches or the people that work with you,

30:20

or or kind of students and stuff. And I remember

30:22

when you and I met a couple of years ago. You

30:24

know, you're on you're on your phone, um,

30:26

and it's like, what do you do when you're like answering d M? It's

30:29

like answering d M S. I just remember the

30:31

look you gave me, and it is probably just, you know,

30:34

random moment, but it's like one of those moments that stuck with

30:36

me. It's like, holy sh it, Like he

30:38

put so much passion and care into the responses

30:41

to total strangers on social

30:43

media, where I think

30:45

you even said like you were you responded to

30:47

almost everybody. Still, even this morning, I

30:49

was responding to d M. Yeah, dude,

30:52

that is that is. I don't know if it's the

30:54

smartest use of my time. But you

30:57

know you're probably smarter by not doing it. But I

30:59

feel like, um the stage of that. With

31:01

my life, I'm trying to be as connected to

31:03

as many people as possible. It's I want to

31:05

have a pulse of what people are saying and what

31:07

their challenges are, what they're you know, their

31:10

feedback, what their feedback is, what's working,

31:12

what's not working, so that I can be

31:14

like, Okay, I never want to lose touch

31:17

and think I've figured it out and think I've

31:19

made it or I think I've mastered something,

31:21

because the beginner's mind for me

31:23

is always benefit in

31:25

me at any stage of my life. And when I feel

31:28

like I'm the man, that's

31:30

when I slip up. That's when I make mistakes. That's

31:32

when my audience can feel that,

31:34

Okay, he's got a big head now and he's not you

31:37

know, caring and compassionate. So if

31:39

I'm not constantly reminding myself, the

31:41

world will remind me in a way that's not as

31:43

pleasant. I have so many questions for you,

31:45

and I'm never gonna ask them all because we're

31:48

totally burning into time. But what do you bullish on

31:50

in the twenties, like where do you think the world goes?

31:52

Where does the world go? For podcasting? Like what's this?

31:55

What is this business? I'm bullish on team,

31:57

and I've realized that I've only been a

32:00

I've gotten so far with a very small

32:02

limited team before the last year, and

32:05

a lot of it just being myself and saying I'm

32:07

gonna bet. I was betting on me, I was blush

32:09

on me. But I realized

32:11

what what got me here won't necessarily

32:13

be the thing that's gonna give me to the next level of where my

32:16

vision is my mission. And so I

32:18

know that I need amazing people on

32:20

our team. And I go back to sports, you

32:22

know, Um, I need all stars. So I need people

32:24

that are invested in a mission, who

32:28

are hungry, excited just like me.

32:31

And that's what we've been investing in. We brought

32:33

on I think seven or eight people in the last

32:35

six months and I'm looking

32:37

to bring on another seven people in the next three

32:39

or four months. So I've been uh

32:42

learning the skill of, you

32:45

know, being a better coach to teams

32:47

as opposed to me being coached and being the star player.

32:49

How do I now coach people I've never really

32:52

done that. You know, I have a little bit, but I've never done

32:54

it in my business context. And

32:56

so learning how to build an amazing

32:58

team because the more I spend time, I mean,

33:00

you're around a lot of wealthy people, successful

33:02

people who scale businesses. They

33:05

don't they don't get a billion

33:07

dollar exit or a hundred million dollar exit with five

33:09

people on the team. I mean, that's probably extremely

33:11

rare. It's like, yeah, we've got three employees,

33:13

we have a thousand employees, we have seventy employees.

33:16

It's just you can't do it all in your own And so

33:18

for me, it's how do I build team better? How do

33:20

I build culture better so that they're integrated

33:23

with each other and feeling connected without

33:25

me um and and how

33:27

do we how do we reach more

33:29

people uh in the service of what

33:31

we're creating. So that's what I'm excited

33:33

about building team because then I know that's

33:36

the thing that's going to get us from you know,

33:38

thirteen million downloads a month uh

33:41

to a hundred million downllards a week, and the

33:43

mission is to serve a hundred million people weekly to

33:45

help them improve their life. And we can't I can't do

33:47

that alone. I can't do it as a small team. I

33:49

need the right team who is all

33:51

in on the mission to help us

33:54

create more meaningful content that is

33:56

scalable, that has better distribution,

33:58

production value, all that stuff. Um,

34:01

so it's scaling every aspect of the team

34:03

and the different tentacles we have in our business. And

34:06

also, I don't know if people have bought your book yet, but

34:08

it just came out with congrats in the success I've

34:10

been diving through. Man, I read it like everything

34:12

you're sharing in there and uh the

34:15

you know. So for me, if people are having bought the

34:17

book, they need to buy the book Big Money Energy, because

34:19

it's a it's a game changer. And I love how you talk about confidence

34:21

in there, because I think a lot of people don't have

34:23

the ability to believe in themselves. That the skill

34:26

of learning how to believe in yourself is one of the greatest

34:28

skills that we can have. And it doesn't matter

34:30

how much experience you have, it doesn't matter the credentials

34:32

and years all this stuff. But

34:35

and you teach that skill well in the book.

34:37

So I want people to to get that and

34:39

buy a couple of companies in their friend as well. So

34:42

thanks for the plug man. Of course, of

34:44

course, man, and I can't wait to have you on our show,

34:46

and I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you things that no

34:49

one's ever asked you, and I'm gonna get you to share

34:51

things you've never shared before. So people

34:53

should listen to that too, right, Man, Go about your

34:55

day, keep crushing it, keep being great. I will talk

34:57

to you soon. Man, see you if

35:00

you're ready to take action today. Based

35:03

on lewis Houses entire blueprint

35:05

for how he got to where he is, go

35:08

to Big Money Energy dot com

35:10

slash podcast to download

35:13

an action plan that I put together for you,

35:15

as well as the show notes. That's

35:17

Big Money Energy dot com

35:20

slash podcast. Find more

35:22

podcasts like Big Money Energy

35:24

on the I Heart Radio app or wherever

35:27

you get your podcasts. Big Money

35:29

Energy is hosted by me Ryan

35:31

Sirhant. It's produced by Mike Coscarelli

35:34

and Joe Loresca and executive produced

35:36

by Lindsay Hoffman.