Category: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Ep 539: 5 Keys to Being Financially Secure as an Entrepreneur | Markus Kaulius Episode Recap

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. I wanted to share with you as part of that go, I just wanted to off the top of my head, grab five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. So as I look back over like my career and mine and AJ’s journey as entrepreneurs to go, what are some things that have, have really led to our financial security, at least to the level that we have at now?
RV (01:04):
And I just thought, man, let’s rattle these off ’cause these are good. And, and, and I would’ve wanted to have known these or, or heard them over and over again as an entrepreneur. So here they are, five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. Number one, get debt free to own your freedom. Get debt free to own your freedom. And this is one that I just, I will be forever grateful to Dave Ramsey because he has the program that teaches people how to get debt free. And we followed that thing to a t Now, I don’t know, it was coming up on 20 years ago when I went through financial peace, but those principles became a part of my financial psyche that I adapted and adopted that are ingrained still to me today that have, I think, set me up in a completely different financial capacity from several of my friends and colleagues and clients and, you know, even mentors and people I look up to.
RV (02:06):
And a huge part of it is just being debt free, because people try to make mathematical arguments for why maybe you shouldn’t be debt free, right? They try to make mathematic mathematical arguments for like, well, think of all the money you have tied up in your house, right? And going, if you took that money out of your house and instead had a, you know, debt on your house, you could be investing that money in other places and making more money. And sometimes, and in some markets, that’s sometimes true. But here’s what’s always true. When you don’t have debt, you are free. I mean, the Bible says this, right? The borrower is slave to the lender. And what’s, what is more powerful in your life than having millions of dollars is just being free to do whatever you want to do. And that comes, that’s a mental thing.
RV (03:07):
And it’s a spirit that’s a spiritual condition. And that has more to do with not owing people money than it does to do with how much you make. And one of the things that you’ll realize as you make more money, and hopefully you realize this, this is one of the things that AJ and I learned over the years, is that we don’t need more money. We need less stress. We don’t need more money. We need less, less complexity. Peace is the new profit. It’s not about going, oh, I have some number in my account. And then that number’s bigger and bigger and bigger. Like it’s just a number in an account. What really matters is your peace of mind. How, how are you feeling? How secure are you? How stable are you? Versus how worried are you that if a change in the interest rates in the are, are gonna completely, you know, tank your business?
RV (04:01):
Or are you worried that if you don’t get a customer to pay in time, you’re not gonna have a chance to pay your vendor and you won’t make payroll. And like all of the stress that comes from leverage, which is like basically playing arbitrage with money, that is risky business. And it’s not that it can’t ever work, sometimes it does, but more often than not, it all nets out to be about the same as just doing it the simple way anyways. And regardless of it, it’s just when you come to a decision to go, I don’t need more money, I just need less stress. That is powerful. And that’s buying your own freedom. When you, when you’re debt free to go, once you’re debt free, you can buy whatever you want as long as you can pay cash for it. Like it, everything becomes simple.
RV (04:48):
But when you’ve got multiple investments in multiple, you, you know, loans from different people at different rates, and some are variable and some are fixed, and like, it’s all of this stress to manage, even if you’re healthy, it’s like you have to keep an eye on all of these different things. Stressful. So get debt free and buy your own freedom. And I just go start small. Be willing to go start small and be willing to go slow. And over time, it adds up to be something that will be far more than you ever need and you won’t have the stress along the way. So that’s number one. Number two is invest in yourself First. Invest in yourself first. If there are, when, when you, when people think of investments, what they, they tend to think of like, ooh, buy real estate or invest in the market, or maybe do non-traditional investments, right?
RV (05:37):
Like, you know, artwork or crypto or you know, wine or like whatever. There’s all these different things. You, you, you can, you know, currencies, there’s all these things you can invest your money into, but the number one thing you should invest your money into is yourself, your own mind, your own personal development. The, the, the greatest return on your money that you will ever get is strengthening your mind, your education, your knowledge, your, your mental capacity, and just you’re building your own confidence and your own strength and your ability to create wealth and create opportunity for yourself and those around you. And we just don’t hear about it. And people don’t think about investing in themself in enough of a literal way of like, if I could put money into the stock market that might grow at, you know, maybe 7%, maybe 8%, maybe 10% over years.
RV (06:30):
But if I put that money into myself, I go, I could grow my income exponentially over time, like in a, in a short order. If, if I learn how to do it and I learn and I’m, and I’m, I get in environments where I’m around other successful people. So invest in yourself first. Then the second thing I would invest in is invest in your business, right? Before I’d be looking at investing in the markets and all these things that you may or may not understand, and maybe you understand ’em better than I do. Like, you know, I consider myself reasonably smart, but there’s a whole lot of investment stuff that I don’t understand. I don’t understand all these fancy terms. And I have an MBA, like I have a, I have an MBA from a private university like I was a millionaire by the time I was 30 years old.
RV (07:13):
I have, I have, you know, been the, an entrepreneur now for a couple decades and there’s a whole bunch of this like speak this, this financial speak, I don’t understand. And all these, you know, you know, just weird terms. And I go, when I look around the people who have a lot of wealth and a lot of security, the big, the best investment is into yourself and then into your business. Because if you think about, like, you know, even trying to find, try to find a company that is gonna give you a 20% return, would, would be outrageous to be so difficult. But if you can grow your profit margin as a business to 20% of profits a year, then that means every dollar you invest in that business is gonna give you back 20 cents. So if you can build your own business, that can, that can, can, can grow over time.
RV (07:59):
And maybe it’s, you know, it’s not a lot at first. You might, you know, break even, hopefully and make a little bit of money, 1%, 3%, 5%. But that business starts to grow. You inch it up and you’re gonna start, you build a business that clocks 15% a year, 20% a year, every single year for the rest of your life. Like you’ve built the greatest investment machine you have for yourself. Now, you don’t wanna have all your wealth tied up in your business ’cause then you don’t have diversity. ’cause If something happens and you get sick or you lose key employees or customers or vendors, or the market changes or regulation or competitor kills you, like, there’s, there’s risk right there. But, but a lot of that risk is a much more in your control than investing in some other asset that you have nothing to do with it’s performance.
RV (08:43):
So I always, you know, think, invest in yourself, invest in your business, then invest in your retirement. So that’s how I would think about investing. And I would go, okay, I wanna get debt free first. That’s simple. Then I wanna invest, but I wanna invest in myself and then I wanna invest in my own business, the things that I’m controlling. Like if I have, if I have a choice between place and money with some outside person or entity or real estate investment or some project or investing into the business that I run and operate and control every day, I’m gonna invest in that one, the one that I have control over, the one that I understand, the one that I can influence, the one that I can shape. And so we just don’t think of investing enough with just invest in yourself, invest in your own business.
RV (09:26):
So that’s investment number three. Okay, so talking about real investments. I’m gonna just say this and, and you know, maybe some of y’all will disagree. Have a boring investment strategy, have a boring investment strategy. You know, you heard Rob talk about buy, buy boring businesses. You know, Cody Sanchez is one of my favorite people to follow online. I’ve developed a little relationship with her recently and that she talks about buying boring businesses all the time. Like, your investment strategy should be boring. And I don’t, I think buying businesses is not boring. I think buying businesses is like scary and risky. And half the time that go, more than half the time that investment probably goes to zero. You know, just doing single, like, you know, investing in startups and stuff is that is not for the faint of heart. That is, that is, you know, typically very risky.
RV (10:18):
I’m talking about growth stock mutual funds like the, the, the s and p 500 in here in the us. These are, you know, the, the big large, stable enterprises that they’re not gonna make you a millionaire overnight, but they’re gonna grow steady and consistently. And if something happens to those, if those all go under, that means the world is like, the world is in such dire straits. It doesn’t matter what your money is because you’re probably like you, you know, fighting for candles and, and water and stuff. Like these companies, the big companies, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’re, they’ve been around a long time. They’re stable. They’re not typically going anywhere. Y you know, they’re not going anywhere anytime soon or easily, right? And so it’s a boring investment strategy if you, if you don’t understand the investments, don’t make them. And, and if it feels like a lot of work to understand what it is, again, I would say don’t make it if it, if it, if it seems complicated or complex.
RV (11:17):
Like if you can’t explain what it is to someone else, don’t do it. And you know, if, if you’re doing it just because you saw someone on the internet telling you it was a good idea, man, be careful. I mean, just be careful. The, the people that I know that are the most happy, right? If peace is the new prophet, that’s something I’ve been saying so much lately. Peace is the new prophet. The people who are peaceful are not the people I know that make a a the most money. I know lots of people who make lots of money that aren’t peaceful, they’re constantly stressed because they’re constantly managing chaos. The people who I know are the most peaceful have simple plans, simple strategies, simple savings is they do simple things that they can understand and explain and, and that make sense to them. And they don’t do things because they wanna look smart or look sophisticated or to feel like they’re caught up with the crowd.
RV (12:17):
They, they do things that they actually understand. So have a boring investment strategy. Number four, choose abundance over scarcity. Choose abundance over scarcity. I think one of the most costly things that we have in the world today is a scarcity mentality. Simply stated. I think a scarcity mentality is, is often like an is is an an an either or thing. Either you can win or I can win. Abundance is going, we can both win, right? Abundance is going, there’s a, there’s a way to figure it out where everybody wins. Scarcity make feels like, well, if, if I help this person, that’s gonna take, if I help this person succeed, it’s gonna take something away from me. Abundance is thinking as I, if I help this person succeed, it’s gonna come back to me. And I think that too many people hold on too tightly to their money because they have scarcity.
RV (13:23):
They’re afraid that if they let that money go, it won’t come back to ’em. And so they don’t invest it, right? So what they do is they just hang on it and, and they go, I don’t want anyone to steal it. I don’t wanna do anything with it. I just have to hold onto it. ’cause I’m not a, I’m afraid if I let it go, it won’t ever come back. Well, one of the things that wealthy people do is, is they’re using their money. See, ironically, I think a lot of times people think that rich people have, are, are, are overly focused on money, or they’re like overly like, consumed with money and they go, oh, that’s why they have money, is because they just, all, they, they must love money. And that’s like their whole life. It’s their whole focus. That’s what people think.
RV (14:03):
That’s what I used to think, right? Coming up from, you know, a lower class family financially and, and not having much financial education until I self-educated in, in like my, you know, late teens and early twenties. What I have actually learned is that wealthy people, not all of ’em, right? Some wealthy people are not this way, but most of the wealthy people I know, they actually have the most healthy detachment from money because they know if they lose it, they’ll get it back. They’re not, they, they’re, they’re not hanging onto it for their, their own survival. They’re not so scared that going, oh, all of my security is in money. They’re going, no, I’m gonna invest in myself. I’m gonna invest in my business. I’m gonna invest in growth. I’m, I’m willing to take risks. I’m, I’m willing to. And, and I’m willing to invest in investments, whether it be real estate or it be the stock market or, you know, I I, there’s not that many non-traditional investments that I am a fan of, at least unless you’re, unless you’re like a professional investor and investing’s all you do all the time and it’s all you think about and talk about.
RV (15:02):
But you, you have to be willing to think of money as a tool, right? The, the analogy I use is don’t think of your money as like a shield. Think of it as a tool. Like, like, don’t, don’t, don’t think of it as like, don’t depend on it, just for your safety. Think of it as like something you use to build something with. And that’s abundance is going. I, I I I use money to, to make money. I mean, one of the things that we’ve done our whole life, we hire people to do everything. Like the number, probably the number one thing we spend money on even more than ourselves per se, is hiring other people around us to help us. We have lots of work that we need done. We need lots of help and going, part of why we do that is we don’t even make a lot of money, but we get more peace back because all the stuff there is to do, we hire, help people to help us do it.
RV (15:55):
And so even if we make no money, we go, well, at least we have help and we don’t have stress. And that’s the idea is, is is being willing to choose abundance over scarcity and, and be willing to invest. And, and by the way, that’s the risk of being an entrepreneur, right? Is you pay yourself last, right? The, the potential upside is one day you would make a lot of money, but it’s, it’s like we always pay ourselves last. Everyone else on our team gets paid whether there’s a good month or not. Like we have to pay them. That’s the commitment. And so that’s the risk. But you go, gosh, if we have, you know, there’s good months and bad months, and even if there’s bad months, I trust that like over time it’s gonna work out. That’s abundance, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s thinking long term.
RV (16:37):
And then number five this is another thing that I think this is related to abundance, and I don’t think enough people talk about this. And I think this is something that’s like maybe is kind of rare about me and aj. And I think this is something, I think part of what, how God blesses people with money. And part of how I think part of how other people bless people with their money and they wanna see people succeed is because of this. So number five is become great at helping other people make money, become great at helping other people make money. If you become great at helping other people make money, you will make a lot of money because people love being around people who help them make a lot of money. Like, and this is just something we do like, again, in the abundance mindset, our goal is to, is our goal is never to pay people the least amount possible.
RV (17:36):
Our goal is to pay people as much as we can. We wanna always pay at the top of the market. We don’t always have the money to do that, especially when we’re starting something new, right? So Brand builders group is still only five years old. Like we’ve, we’re still, you know, we just coming outta startup mode. But like over time, we want to pay more money. We wanna pay our, our team the most we want. We wanna help make money for our clients. We wanna help our clients succeed. Why? Not because we need their money, but because we want to help them make money. We know if we help them make money, they’ll return it, they’ll help us make money. We, we really focus on trying to help our affiliates make more money to go, ah, how can we help our affiliates make more money?
RV (18:14):
If our affiliates make more money, they’re gonna wanna help us make more money. But I think if you focus on just going, how can I make more money for myself and all I care about is how do I make more money, then it’s like you’re taking money from other people. And so other people close off to you. But if you figure out how can I help the people around me make more money, then you’re opening, you’re like opening the door, you’re opening a relationship, a connection between people to help you make more money. And you know, a lot of the people who are around who have been around us, they make more money because it’s a rising tide raises all ships, is we try to help them make more money. They’re working hard to take stuff off of our plate and make us free us up to be more productive and more efficient.
RV (19:00):
As we’re more productive and more efficient, we make more money and then we share that back with them. So this is, this again, is, is a difference in mentality. Most people are thinking just about themselves, how do I make more money? You know, who could I find that would just pay me the most? Versus going, what can I do to help the people around me make more money or help them have more time so that they can be more efficient, so that they can make more money trusting that it will flow back to them. And that’s what happens is I think money cascades down to the people who, who help. And, and that always happens. You know, and they say proximity is power. I would also say proximity is profit. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, right? Proximity is power. I, I think Tony Robbins said that.
RV (19:41):
I mean, I, that’s who I heard say it that lots of people have said it, but that’s who I think it was like the original source of it. I don’t know if it was him or not, but that proximity is power. But I would, I would adapt that to say proximity isn’t just power. Proximity is profit, right? And if you’re around, if you are literally in proximity to people who have the ability to create income and create revenue and build businesses, I promise you if you help those people succeed, it will cascade back to you. We always want to reward the people who are helping us grow, right? And, and I’m saying that we like in a general sense and in a and in a literal sense of like me and aj, I mean, wouldn’t you right where you go, aren’t you going to reward the people who are most critical to like helping you grow?
RV (20:29):
Yes. If, if they’re really helping you and they really, you really have that mindset of like, it’s an effort, it’s a partnership, it’s a collaboration. We’re growing together. And so I’m constantly trying to find my, I’m constantly trying to find ways to add value to the people around me. I mean, just today, so I was on a call, I was on two different calls today with Ed Millet, some of you know, ed Millet you know, he’s, he’s one of our, our more well-known clients. And we’ve gotta know Ed a lot over the last few years. ’cause We helped him with his book launch and we’ve done a number of things together. He’s one of our top affiliates. And I’m trying to figure out ways to make Ed more money, not just with us, but this other deal. And, and I brought Ed an opportunity that this is a, is an equity opportunity.
RV (21:11):
And I’m going, I mean, ed makes lots of money, right? But I’m going, how can I help him make more money knowing that if I can add value to Ed’s life, there’s a good chance that some of that value rolls back to me somehow. And I don’t always have to know how. I just have to trust that if, if I become great at helping other people make money, they’re gonna want to help me make money, they’re gonna want to reward me back. And, and, and that is true. I have found that to be true. And you, you align with people who are that way. And I know that’s true about me. If there’s, if there’s people around me who are helping me make money, I want to return and go as I make more money, I want to return it back to them. It’s a rising tide raises all ships.
RV (21:54):
And so proximity isn’t just power, proximity is profit. So pay attention to the people you’re around in your life to go, who, who has a capacity here to make a lot of money and how can I support them and, you know, be around them and partner with them and, and, you know, serve them and align with them and add value to their life. You’re likely going to win because of that. I mean, I have been the, the, the, the beneficiary of that, the recipient of that, and the benefactor of that also to other people. So there you have it. Five keys to being financially secure as an entrepreneur. First of all, get debt free to buy your own freedom. Number two, invest in yourself and your business first before you invest in other stuff. Number three, when it comes to inve outside investments, have a boring investment strategy.
RV (22:43):
Number four, choose abundance over scarcity. And number five, become great at helping other people make money. And you will make money with all of that. Just remember, peace is the new profit. You don’t need more money. You need less stress. You don’t need more money. You need as much as you need less complexity. I mean, we do want more money. You do, you, you should go for more money. You’re creating wealth for the people around you. But in reality, for most of us, we don’t need more money as much as we need less stress. And as we don’t need more money, as much as we need less complexity.

Ep 538: Play a Bigger Game with Markus Kaulius

RV (00:01):
I have an exciting announcement to make the man you’re about to meet. Marcus Kaulius is not only a friend not only a brand builders group client, but today, this morning we found out that his book Play A Bigger Game is officially a USA Today national bestselling book. We just found out early this morning and we met Marcus a year ago, I dunno, over a year ago. We’re gonna talk about that here. And we had no idea when we scheduled this interview that we would, we would do the interview on the day that we would find out that the, the vision and the dream that he once had when he became a client would actually come true on the same day. So let me tell you the rest of his story a little bit, or tell you his bio, and then you’ll get to meet him.
RV (00:54):
So he’s a serial entrepreneur, and one of the things I love about Marcus is he has built multiple eight and nine figure businesses. So he’s a real entrepreneur. He has a supplement company that he took from startup to $170 million, which I want to know about. That is so impressive and inspiring to me. He helped people worldwide lu like lose, like a cu a cumulative 3 million pounds, which is really cool. He’s been featured in Fox News on Apple tv, CNN. He’s a Guinness World Record book holder. He’s got several hundred thousand people who follow him online. And then as of today, he’s Canadian, who is a USA today national bestselling author. So, Marcus, congratulations brother. We’re so excited to celebrate with you. Welcome to the show, man.
MK (01:52):
Oh, Rory, this what an intro. Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you for everything you and brand builders are doing, man, it is awesome. You already know how much I love you guys. And now to put me on that list, it’s just crazy. It is absolutely surreal. If anybody is watching this podcast, listening to this podcast, and I seem a little nuts at times, just know I’m riding a bit of a high . And but let’s, oh man, I’m, I’m excited also just to have a conversation with you, man.
RV (02:24):
Yeah. So, so when did you is this apropos the timing of this? So when did you first hear, hear about Brand Builders Group and, you know, you started this journey of like, building the personal brand and then the book, and then meet us, and then like, here, here we are, like, you know, hitting, hitting a, a really great high highlight moment in your career. So like, tell me the story of how you found us and all, all of that.
MK (02:50):
I I remembered this story this morning ’cause I think I’ve only given you glimpses of it, but what a god led moment. I was writing my book, and I am not somebody, by the way, as people get to know me, you’re gonna find out, like I, I’m not a guy who’s like, oh, I’ve always wanted to write a book. I, I felt called to write this book and God just really wrote through through me. And he put this book together. And as I’m getting towards the end, I start going, oh God. Like I don’t, I don’t know any publishers. I don’t know any agents. I know nothing about, nothing over here. Mm. I was going into deep prayer. I’m like, Lord, I need you to step in. Like you told me to write this, but I don’t know what to do with it. Like, you just want me to pick up the phone a hundred times.
MK (03:30):
I’ll, I’ll do it. You know, I will. That day, that day that I was deep in that prayer, a Christian buddy of mine who we don’t even con connect that often, he reaches out and he goes, Hey, do you know who Rory Vaden is? And I, I think you’re writing your book right now. You need to meet Rory Christian Guy and just, he gives you, gives me this resume. And I’m like, are you serious right now? And I’m looking up like, God, you are awesome. And boom, texts go back and forth. You and I are connected that day and you sent me this beautiful text, and then you sent me the links to, to podcast, and you’ve been on with Ed, my lead and Louis House, and I’m watching these. And by the way, Rory, those were works of art. They were stunning. Like every, like, you could have scripted it better for how those went.
MK (04:23):
And I was like, it, you know, you know, any good God-given moment where it’s just like my screen was lit up in a special way. I’m like, oh, this is the guy. This is the guy who I am supposed to work with. And from day one, I’ve just, I loved who you’ve put together. You have an amazing team. I love you and aj, I love the, I love your marriage. I love the way you guys treat each other, the way you talk about each other. And then of course, I love how niche you guys are. You guys have figured out this system in this lane, and you stick to your lane and you guys kill it in your lane. And I think I’m a great example of that because again, people listening, I am not some like of course I got a bestselling book, of course, . No, I’m a guy who had no business writing a book, and I wrote this book, and then I put it in the hands of B, BG. I just followed the plan, I followed the plan. I said, you know what? I trust these guys. They, they know what they’re doing and look at what the results are. And, and the results speak for themselves by
RV (05:29):
Saying, when was that? When, when was it like a, it was like a y was it like a year ago? That was we first, it was like a year ago. Right? Man, I love how God moves like that and just go like, you know, and also it’s, it’s such a, it’s such an example of a story where it’s like God will show you the second step after you take the first step. And it’s like, you go, Hey, I feel prompted to write this book, but I don’t know what to do with it. But it’s like, well write the book and then I’ll show you, right? Like, write the book and then I’ll open the door. And I think that’s a really big part of how God moves, is like, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll show you the second step. You know, I think about like, the story of Moses, right? And, and, and God never said, you know, here’s what’s gonna, here’s how you’re gonna move through the desert. He just said, go tell Farrah to let my people go. Like, doesn’t explain how, doesn’t explain like what’s gonna happen. Just like, go do this. So I love that. The, the other thing, brother,
MK (06:27):
Definitely lemme jump in real quick because I love what you just said and I so agree with you. But I also see this is one of the biggest issues with humanity today. We go, okay, I know this first step I’m supposed to take, whether God gave it to me or not. I know I’m supposed to do this, but I’m not gonna move until I know the next 10 steps. And I think that’s what just freezes people. And that’s why so many people get so stuck where they are. They’re like, well, I know I should do this, but I wanna know exactly what’s coming. I think the most successful people and the people who get really good results in life, and, and this is a great example of it today, is I knew only the first step in front of me, and God only lit up this one step.
MK (07:10):
And I said, okay, I’ll do it. I don’t need to know what’s next. I have enough faith and have enough trust. And again, you don’t have to have God for this part, although it’s really good if you do . But, but it’s in humanity. Just take some steps. If you know you’re supposed to go there, once you’re there, you’re gonna see a different view. There’s gonna be a whole different perspective, new opportunities will open up for you. You’re gonna meet new people on that next step. So I had, I never taken that step Mm. And my buddy reaches out to me, goes, Hey, aren’t you writing a book? My answer? Oh no. Okay, , end of story. Yes. In fact, I’m getting close to the end and I don’t know what to do. You need to meet Rory. Unbelievable.
RV (07:54):
Totally different outcome. Yeah, I mean that such a great example. So I wanna hear about the company because you know, I, I, I mean we love personal brands, clearly this is what we do. But I but also are entrepreneurs and you know, we, we think of like real entrepreneurs as like people who like built a widget, a a a a product or system that’s not like based on them as a, as an individual. And you’ve done that. And I wanna hear, was that a similar kind of thing? Was it like, oh my gosh, I have no idea what’s gonna happen. I’ll just take the first step and then see what happens after that? And then, and then did you guys grow all the way to $170 million a year in revenue?
MK (08:34):
Well, I, I won’t get too deep into, okay, let’s, let’s jump right in, let’s start with this. Yes. It was another situation of, I know the first step, and it was January 17th, 2005. God spoke to me and said, I want you to have your own bread. I was already selling supplements. I had three supplement stores at the time, and we can rewind further. And I went from tiny business to a little bit bigger and a little bit bigger. And then it was this moment and God said, I want you to have your own brand. And of course, I don’t know, holy smokes, I probably didn’t know 1% of 1% of 1% of what I needed to know, but I knew enough to take the first step and I started to create my own supplements. And as a Christian man who had really devoted his life to God saying, God, I won’t make decisions without you.
MK (09:22):
I won’t make moves without you because I don’t wanna do that ever again. And I know the piece that comes with having God on your team. I mean, that’s the best business partner there is. And we just made little steps, little steps. I, I’m not the Instagram business that oh my goodness, I was doing a million after two weeks. And if you’re not doing it this way, you’re doing it wrong. Oh my goodness, man. I was, I was eating craft dinner for years into this, and my wife and I loved talking about this. You know, the first five years at Magnum, five years, I didn’t take a salary. Mm. I just knew we were doing well. Like by the fifth year we were, we were in the millions, but I knew where I wanted it to go and where God had shown me where it was gonna go.
MK (10:07):
And I knew that if I started pulling money too early, if I started driving a Ferrari or a Range Rover too early, it was all gonna crash down. So I just kept moving in faith and taking those steps forward. And he kept opening doors. And last year we were in over a hundred countries worldwide. Wow. I’ve learned so much over the almost 20 years that I ran that business. And then God called me one day and said, now I want you to sell it. And then he sold it , he sent a buyer for me. And I got to have this unbelievable, every entrepreneur’s dream situation. I got to exit my business. Mm. And what he actually said to me in a car ride home one time is a whole new chapter in your life is about to start. And of course God, and with his phenomenal sense of humor as well, he’s also tell talking about the fact that there’s the chapter in verse and I now I get to just, I get to invest in other companies. I get to invest in other entrepreneurs. I get to just figure out what he’s got planned for me next. And I am absolutely loving this journey.
RV (11:20):
That’s really cool, man. Can you just, like, that road I think is so important for entrepreneurs to know because it’s like, you know, you see someone, you see all the people with the Ferraris and the private jets or whatever. I think it’s like entrepreneurship is so glamorized today. And it’s just like, the reality though is like, it is a massive grind for at least like five years. And then I think you feel like you’re failing if you’re not like, you know, living this up. And it’s like, that’s not the story. I mean, that’s how it ends maybe for a very small few. So how, like, how many years did it take you to get to seven figures and then to eight figures, and then to nine figures? Like, just, just roughly like, do you kind of remember what the arc, because you said it was like 20 years between when you started it and you sold it, so we know it, like basically went from like zero to one 70 in 20 years, right?
MK (12:22):
Yep. I grew anywhere from 22% to 56% per year, year over year. Okay. And you know, the funny stuff that, like you talked about, all we see is the stuff on social media, the, the stuff that’s never talked about. Do you know what was the most uncomfortable year, the 56% growth? It was nuts. Like the amount, and we were in inventory business. So it’s so different for someone who doesn’t carry inventory. But when you’re an inventory business, 56% growth means I had to have like, almost double the inventory. It was nuts. But here’s one of the other things I wanna say about something you just said. And I, and I love that you’re bringing this up. I think there’s so many people, especially when we see social media and we’re trying to copy what we think we’re seeing. Mm-Hmm. as if it’s all real.
MK (13:13):
And we get so tied to the outcome. And this is such a dangerous thing for entrepreneurs who are, who are watching this stuff and going, well, I’m not gonna be successful until I’m driving the Ferrari. I’m on the private jet, I’m this and this and this. So I’d love to give just a little bit of the other side of this coin. Number one, if you get too tied to the outcome and you think that that success, I wanna also mention to you, everyone who I’ve ever met who achieved that stuff, everyone I’ve met was grossly unfulfilled. Mm. Like horrendously like some of the most unhappy people, especially backed with the fact that I’m supposed to be living my dream. I thought this was my dream. If, if this isn’t my dream, what what is life all about? And that what a horrifying reality. So my encouragement to everybody who is an entrepreneur is enjoy the journey, find ways to enjoy the journey. Don’t just tie it to a end result. Enjoy the journey, because it is likely gonna take you way longer than you think it will. Yes. Social media goes, yeah. If you’re not super successful in three years, you’ve blown it. I don’t know if I’ve actually met a human being, and I’ve met a lot of very successful people who became radically successful in three years.
RV (14:33):
Yeah. And I, I would echo that. I mean, when you say grossly unfulfilling my friend network of people who have sold companies, many of them are not just unfulfilled. They go into a stark depression. It’s, it’s, it, it’s like you’ve spent your whole life working, you achieve this thing, the high lasts, you know, a few weeks. And then it’s like, wait, this is supposed to be the pinnacle. And, and, and what is it? And that’s a really, it’s it, it’s hard to explain, right? Because, because , you know, it’s like, I remember, I remember growing up poor, and people would be like, people would say, you know, money doesn’t buy happiness. And I, I was, I, I remember thinking like, well, well try me. Like, I’d like to , I’d like to try it. I’d like to just like it, see if that’s right. But then it, it, it really is, it really is true.
RV (15:28):
So enjoying the journey, I think is is, is a really big part. And the, the other, the other thing about that enjoying the journey is like, you know, there, I think there’s a, there’s an element of truth to the hustle and the grind. Like, I don’t know someone who’s built a successful company that didn’t have some level of sacrifice, you know, for a season. But I think it’s also risky to say, man, I’m gonna do nothing for 10, or, you know, for 20 years of my life other than work. Because you go at the end, even if it does pay off, and a lot of times it doesn’t, you know, have the huge payday. But even if it does, you look back and you go, well, that wasn’t worth losing 20 years of like seeing my kids or seeing the world or like getting in shape, like losing my fit and my health or whatever. So that’s, that’s awesome to have your in insight on that.
MK (16:21):
Oh, thank you brother. And you know what, you’re so right. And I, I work with a lot of guys these days who’ve had exits, and you’re absolutely right, man, the amount of depression and just loss of identity, because we tie our identity up so much in our, in our business. Like yeah, Marcus was the Magnum guy. I was so blessed because I was called to leave it. I was called to sell it. So I didn’t have to struggle with that piece. But man, did I have my eyes open going, oh yeah, this was a moment, this moment right here. Like, I’ll never forget having to pack up my nice big, beautiful office. I mean, I had this thing designed for me. It had all the beauty, all the, the, the beautiful desk and the this and that. I had a slide that left my office and went into, it was a secret slide against a secret wall. It was so cool. I had to pack it up one day to give it to the new owner, and I had to move into the tiny office next door. And I’m sitting there going, this is a moment, this is a moment where most men or women who sell the business are gonna go, what have I done?
RV (17:23):
What have I
MK (17:24):
Done? Can’t go in the small office. I’m not the small office guy. I’m the big office guy. . And even more so, you know, we think, and I think this happens to us when we’re really young, when we’ve got this idea, well, okay, if you sell your business, then I’m just gonna get to golf every day and I’m gonna, I’m gonna take my time at the gym and I’m gonna do this. And it’s like, do you know how insane you will go doing nothing every day? Mm-Hmm. It does not work like that. Like, I love golf and I’m already tired of going golfing. I not even that, I, I spent too much time on the course once I retired. But that I, that idea of retirement is not what we think it is. I think the idea of retirement is for non entrepreneurs. I get it.
MK (18:08):
Like, if you’re punching a clock for 40 years, it’s like anything but punching the clock. And I’ll be happy. And I see that. But for an entrepreneur who, who actually puts their heart and soul into something and uses their mind and their energy every single day, and then to go from that to just like, okay, I’m gonna swing a club for a few hours every day. Oh man, that, that, it’s, it’s not what you think It’s Mm-Hmm. So again, enjoying the journey will help you realize what you’re really all about. And you’ll develop relationships, you’ll keep growing. And I think growth is a huge part of enjoying your journey.
RV (18:44):
Yeah. I want to talk to you, I want to talk to you about that. ’cause That’s another thing that just year after year after year, this amazes me. You know, when, when I first heard about personal development and going to conferences and seminars and getting coaching, I remember so many people going, that’s such a waste of time. Those are people taking advantage of weak people who are desperate, who, you know, just, you know, they’re needy people. And like, but yet I, yet I would read a book and I was like, that’s not at all what this is. This is amazing. This is, and, and now I become more and more convicted that it’s like every time, it’s not this the desperate needy people who are at the con personal development conferences and in the coaching programs, it’s the people like you. It’s the, it’s the go-getters.
RV (19:33):
It’s, it’s the world changers. It’s the, the mission-driven messengers. It’s the’s the people that you go, like, of all the people you wouldn’t think would, hi, join Brand Builders group and say, I’m, I just sold a company for a, you know, a $170 million company and now I’m gonna go pay somebody else to be in their coaching program. And yet it’s always that way. It’s like, and, and I know you were in Tony, you were in Tony Robbins platinum thing. So te tell me a little bit about your philosophy on growth and personal development, because it’s like, you seem to very much be a product of that, of, and someone who’s really bought into that, you know, for, for not just brand builders group, but lots of, lots of people.
MK (20:17):
Yeah. Oh, thank you. I love where you’re leading this, by the way. So my life is one of these timelines where it’s all about the personal growth. I also, like you grew up really poor. And the first 15 years of my life, I was so stuck in that mindset and like, I’m not gonna make anything. I can’t because of where I come from, because of what I’ve already experienced. I no chance for me. Hmm. I’m so blessed. I got Tony Robbins cassette tapes when I was 15 years old, and there was just something about the way that guy spoke. It might be his Tony Robbins big voice , but like, I just, I, I, yes, yes. And just moving a little bit on my growth, just even a little bit, if you grow 1% each day, you won’t believe how good you feel because it’s like, I’m doing something about it.
MK (21:08):
I’m in control. You’re taking control of your life. And if you do it for a long enough time, you are gonna recognize that everything in your life changed. And when you talk about these conferences, you talk about being in these rooms and who are in these rooms at the very basic, just think about if you surround yourself with a whole bunch of go-getters who are doing big things, who have already achieved big things, of course that’s gonna have a massive impact on you. It’s going to change how you view success, what you think you are capable of. And you listen to these stories and you, you talk with guys like Rory and you’re like, wait, you grew up poor. I thought because I grew up poor, I couldn’t do anything. And it’s like, who told you that? Those are limiting beliefs. And soon you just break down these limiting beliefs.
MK (21:55):
And it’s amazing how many we have. It’s amazing how many things we set in stone in our minds. Totally. When we were 6, 7, 8 years old. And when you peel them back, it’s like, oh my goodness, that that’s not even remotely true. But my 7-year-old self who’s still in there, said, no, no, no, no. Hey, hey, you can’t do that ’cause of this man. It is wild. And then essentially you’re taking control of your life. You have the reigns of your life. Isn’t that exciting? And by the way, any Christians listening to this, because I know there’s a lot of Christians listening to this. Remember, you have God inside you. You are a co-creator of your life. You are co-author of your life. God did not create you with all the blessings He’s given you all the talents he’s given you to live some crappy life on the couch. If you do, he has mercy for you. I have mercy for you. He still loves you. It’s not about that. But he’s going, what do you wanna do? You could do anything.
RV (22:51):
Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s an inspiring thought. And I think it’s, it’s easy to lose sight of that as Christians was just like, literally the Holy Spirit dwells in us going the creator of the universe and all of its magnitude and power is like inside of you to do exactly that. It’s, it’s very easy to overlook that. It’s very easy to take that for granted and, you know, and to underestimate what’s possible. Like, it’s so easy to underestimate what’s possible. You know, I, I’ve been talking a lot to our team at BBG, right? So we, we had eight figures last year was our fifth year in the business. And it’s like,
MK (23:36):
Congratulations brother.
RV (23:38):
Thank you, thank you. But like, when AJ and I started BBG coming out of the former company, our vision was 1000 messengers. We’re like, one day we’re gonna get to a thousand messengers, a thousand personal brands that we’re, we’re, we’re, we know in a meaningful way we’re serving in like an in, you know, in an in intimate relationship. And we thought, well, gosh, if you, if we had a thousand people at a thousand dollars a month, that’d be 1.2 million a month that that’d be a figure business. That was like our, that was like our 30 year, you know, like in my mind I’m like, oh, that’s like our 20 year, 30 year vision. And it’s like, God made it happen in five years. And now you go, whoa. Like if, if we could go from zero to that in five years, what could we do between year five and 10 or five and 20?
RV (24:26):
And it’s like, I don’t even wanna put a re it’s like, I almost even wanna put a goal around it because I’m like, man, the, if, if you apply that same or just the same order of magnitude to what happened, go like, like God can multiply. I mean, he’s a, he’s a multiplier. Like, it, it’s not, it’s not hard for him to multiply things. He just needs a willing vessel who wants to participate and co-create in it, and then go like, look what I will do through you as, as long as you’re willing to invite me in, and as long as you’re willing to like, share, share in the credit with me. Like, you know, I just go, it’s, it’s, it’s so magnificent. Easy to, easy to overlook.
MK (25:14):
Oh, so good. And Rory, by the way, I so see this in you and aj and that’s one of the reasons I’m so drawn to you guys. And I love you guys. I love what you’re doing and I’m so excited to watch what happens for the next five to 10 years. And, you know, I’m gonna be on that, on that sideline cheering you guys on and on the bench whenever you want to call me in, I’ll be going in. But I think one of the key things that I wanna bring up here is this is where a lot of entrepreneurs mess up is, and even Christian entrepreneurs. Mm. You get to a certain level of success and maybe it’s a level of success that you’re like, I don’t know how I got here. I’m shocked. But then we start going, well, you know, I am pretty awesome and you know, I do deserve this, this, this, and this, and what happens?
MK (25:58):
And you just said it, which I love how you said it. Even if you just applied the same principles, the same standards, and just kept doing the same thing, you’ll grow incredible. But we don’t even do that. We take our foot off the gas, we stop doing all the things that made us successful. And like you said, and I totally agree with you, you stop involving God, you stop going. Well, let me tell you why. I’m like, that’s why I’m here. That’s the only reason I have this book. That’s the only reason anything you call success in my life is a hundred percent him. If you see anything negative or embarrassing, oh, that’s Marcos, I, I’ll take credit for that stuff.
RV (26:34):
,
MK (26:35):
Everything else is him. So if I remove him from the equation, all I have left is the embarrassment, and I am am confident, I’ll go to zero pretty quick. And I’ll be like, how did that happen? Oh, I’ll tell you exactly how. So that’s my encouragement to any entrepreneur who reaches any level of success. It’s, there’s not a specific number because it has to do with what you believe That number is where you are shocked that you got there. It could be 1 million, it could be 10 million, it could be a hundred million. And then you just go, I made it. It’s over. I did this. This is incredible. I don’t need to even do whatever I was doing. And everything starts to change for the negative.
RV (27:13):
Mm-Hmm, . Yeah, man, I, I, I don’t, it that’s like a great fear that I have is like, I never want to be there. I like, I don’t want, I don’t, I never wanted to have that level of success that it would cause me to do it. Which it’s not a level of success, it’s a heart change, right? And so you just go, you know, like I think of, I think it’s Colossians 3 23, which is like, do everything unto the Lord. And I, I remember thinking about one time, well, how do I know if I’ve, if I’m doing it for God or if I’m doing it for me? Because either way, it looks the same, right? It’s like, either way, I, I wanna make it successful, which means I need to work hard. I need to make sacrifices. I need to put, pay a price.
RV (27:53):
I need to learn, I need to study, I need to optimize. I need to use data. I need to build a team, whether it’s for me or God. It’s like in order for it to, to to be good, like I have to do the same activities either way. And then I, I guess I just, I felt like God saying to me, the only way you know is, is to wake up every day and to dedicate it to me and to wake up every day and to just keep giving it to me. And is, it really is a matter of an intention of just being like, okay, this is yours. Because the, it’s, the behaviors are the same. The intentions are what’s different. And hopefully that never changes. And I, I do, I I think it, it can change that. And that’s why I think, frankly, there’s so much conversation in the Bible about money and the, the risks of money and the danger of money.
RV (28:40):
It’s not that rich people are evil. It’s that rich people can reach a point where they start to become less dependent on God because their worldly needs are met. And that is what opens the door for evil to kind of like come into their life. You know, David was very wealthy. Solomon was very wealthy. Jeremiah was very wealthy. Like there’s a lot of very wealthy people in, in, in, in scripture. But it’s, it’s never a, it, it’s, it’s never a self-reliance. It’s always a God reliance. So anyways, it’s, it’s powerful to, to, to to see that happen. So just real quick, so I know we’re wrapping up, but I wanna remind everybody. So the book is called Play A Bigger Game, which I love, right? You could see Marcus has been playing a bigger game. He’s got strategies for stepping into this. The book is seven principles, seven Universal Principles to Experience True Fulfillment, which is what we’re talking about and how to really, really win at life. First of all, all Marcus, where do you want people to go to, to get copies of the book if they wanna like read more about this and, and what you have to share?
MK (29:50):
They can go anywhere. Great books are sold. You know, go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Noble, go to any of those great places.
RV (29:56):
Don’t go to anywhere where crappy books are sold. That’s, you won’t find this one. If they sell crappy books, , they won’t have, they won’t have this one.
MK (30:06):
And I, I wanna encourage you, everybody, if you’re gonna take, if you’re gonna grab a copy of my book and the Audible is coming out any day right now, which I was really excited to do because I love that stuff, but I want to tell you this, you must take action. Don’t just read the book. And one of the great things I love about what God gave me to put in this book, constant challenges and advanced challenges, because you have to put the book down and actually do something with it. We can consume every book on the planet, and if we do nothing with it, nothing will change. But if you take action, you can actually start to see your life change right away. It’s just perspective shifts. You just look at things differently. And so that’s what my book is all about. And I would love to hear, if you read my book, if you listen to the audio book, will you reach out to me? Tell me what was your takeaway? I would love to hear that. I will personally respond because I love hearing that from people. It’s my favorite thing to get messages from people I do not know from wherever in the world. And they’re telling me they read their book, and this was the impact that made that would light me up.
RV (31:12):
Yeah, man, I, I love it. And I love seeing a, a Christian entrepreneur that’s had the level of success that you’ve had who has not at all lost their reliance on God, but only leaned more into God. That, that’s inspiring to me and something I think worth aspiring to. And also, I mean, you’re still growing and still doing personal development and still like, I mean I, I, I just, I love your zest for life and your zest for the Lord and and your zest for service. And I think that really comes through in this book and, and the movement and all the things you are. So we’re so proud to, you know, be a small part of your success story and this book and everything that’s going on, and you represent very much the things that we want to be associated with.
RV (32:03):
And I think, you know, so many times people hear Brand Builders Group and they think, oh, Louis Howes and Eric Thomas and, and, and Ed Mylet and Amy Porterfield and all these amazing people, which is great. We love them too, but it’s, it’s like, I, I think people maybe don’t realize how much there’s a whole monster future generation of, of inspirers and thought leaders and messengers who are like literally rising up and you’re in that group. And we’re so honored to be a part of that brother. So keep it going, keep serving and we wish you all the best.
MK (32:40):
Rory, thank you for everything you’re doing. Thank you for the beautiful company you guys are running and for being so obedient the way you are. I love you guys, and God bless you, man.
RV (32:50):
God bless you, brother.

Ep 535: 3 Ways Your Faith Affects Your Profits | Graham Cochrane Episode Recap

RV (00:03):
So many entrepreneurs underestimate the role and the power that faith plays in their business. And that’s part of what I want to talk to you about today is three ways that you may not even realize that faith is shaping your future profits. And three, sort of exercises and demonstrations of faith that are really, really important for you growing your business. So the first thing is you need to understand what’s working against you. And you need to understand that there is biblically there is a spiritual battle going on, that there are things going on in the heavenly realms that surround this world that we don’t know about. Now, that can be one of those things that feels hard to believe for people. And if it is, I get that. I kind of go, well, that feels, you know, wild to me sometimes. And you can go really deep on, on that.
RV (01:03):
But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that like there is, you know, a spiritual battle going on all around us at all times, what you should be able to understand concisely and quickly and see for yourself is that even inside of your own head, there is a battle of doing what you know you should be doing and doing what you feel called to do versus being pulled back into doing what is safe and doing what is convenient and doing what is comfortable. And what I want you to know is that if there is a devil, okay, so let’s just say it, let’s just say it that way. If there is a devil, the devil, if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he will stop you from doing so. If the devil can convince you to not dream, then automatically you will not do.
RV (02:09):
Here’s the other thing that you should know about the devil, right? Part of the devil’s greatest victory if there is a devil, would be convincing people that the devil is not real, right? So part of his great victory would to go, oh, that’s crazy. That’s made up the devil. I’m not real. The devil’s not real. Like, and, and, and, and if that were true, then he would be completely free to operate in silence, to create chaos, to to shape the world without the world even being aware of the fact that he is there and that he really is, you know, an ultimate enemy. Now, that alone doesn’t just prove that the devil is real, but either way, whether the the devil is real and is, and wins by making you think he’s not real. And so he gets to operate freely. Or if the devil is real and you believe that he is real or even if it’s not the devil, if it’s just your own voice inside of your head that says, don’t dream.
RV (03:13):
You could never do that. You could never win. Sure. So-and-so could do it, but that’s not you. You don’t have their resources. You, you’re not as smart as them, you’re not as talented. You don’t have as much money, you don’t have the, the relationships, you don’t have the connections, you don’t have the education, whatever it is, even if you wouldn’t call that the devil spiritually, in all three of those scenarios, whether the devil is real and you believe it, whether the devil is real and you don’t believe it, or whether the devil isn’t real, but something inside of you still convinces you to stop dreaming the devil wins or somebody other than you wins. Because if the devil can stop you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And so you gotta combat that. How do you combat that? You combat that by dreaming.
RV (04:03):
You combat that. You combat that by first giving yourself permission to dream by first even allowing yourself to go suspend, bend, suspend the necessity for it to be realistic, right? No one said it had to be realistic. It doesn’t have to feel real realistic. It doesn’t have to feel possible. It doesn’t mean that someone else has to have done it. Chances are whatever dream you’re having, somebody has done it. So it is possible. But even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around it, I would just say when you’re dreaming, the first rule is give yourself permission to dream. And the way you do that is by suspending the requirement for realism, suspend the requirement for realism. Allow yourself to dream without it having to be realistic. You go, that’s right. I’m not having a realistic picture in my mind, that’s not what I’m trying to do.
RV (04:56):
I’m, I’m trying to dream something in my mind. Let’s suspend realism, at least temporarily. We can always bring realism back later. But if you don’t allow yourself to dream, you won’t allow yourself to do. And if the devil is real, and I believe the devil is real, ’cause I believe that is I believe in scripture. And I, I believe that that’s, there’s evidence and proof of that. As you probably have heard, if you’ve listened to my Eternal Life podcast where I go through, you know, 15 hours of evidence that supports scripture in the life of Jesus on my other free podcast the, if the devil stops you from dreaming, he automatically stops you from doing. And many of us are blind to that. Many of us go, man, that’s a battle that I’m losing before, before the war even begins. That prevents, prevents me from even having a chance.
RV (05:46):
So you gotta be aware that your faith comes into play from the moment you have a dream or an idea. The second thing, the second place that faith comes into business that you may not realize how important faith is, is you gotta understand that very often it is our broken dreams that lead to our beautiful dreams. Very often, our most broken dreams are the things that lead to and plant the seeds for what becomes our most beautiful dreams. The very things that we thought were just like, were devastated. ’cause We go, how could this happen? Why would this be years later, you look back and you often go, oh, now I can see how God worked that out in, in my favor, in my good. You know, I I think of like the high school reunion, right? This is classic where you go, man, there was this, you know, this, this, this boy or this like, you know, this girl or this boy that I had a crush on in high school.
RV (06:52):
And then you go back in your high school reunion 20 years later and you go, holy moly, am I glad I didn’t end up with that person. Like they went in a completely, you know, different direction than I would’ve ever gone in. You, you know, like that is not how I would’ve wanted my life to end up. Yet in that moment when they didn’t choose me in that moment when, when they didn’t show me love in that moment, when they didn’t come back after me, I was devastated. My dream was broken, I was, I was heartbroken. But yet that that not happening actually created the environment for the life that I have. Now, the reason this is important is because if you don’t consciously realize that when you have broken dreams, when things don’t work out for you, you automatically default to God is against me, or this wasn’t meant to be, or this isn’t in my destiny, or this isn’t fate.
RV (07:47):
And when you beli, when you beli, when you adopt that mentality, you often give up those broken dreams. Go, see, I tried, it didn’t work out, I’m finished. But the perspective principle of faith, so this is, this is actually in chapter six of Take the Stairs. The perspective principle of faith says that faith is consciously choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for your good later on. That actually ties back to a verse in scripture, Romans 8 28, which says, in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose. Not in some things, not some of the time in all things. What it doesn’t say is you’re gonna feel good all the time. Life is gonna be easy, it’s gonna be evident to you. It’s gonna be obvious what God is doing.
RV (08:44):
No, it just says in all things God is working for good. And so we can have faith in that. But, but that’s a conscious choice. You have to, you have to make inside of a heartbroken moment. Like if you’re, if you’re having a heartbroken moment, it’s easy to go. Where is God? There is no God or or if there is a God, why would God be letting this happen to me? Right? That and that’s where it stops. And that’s a lack of faith. That is that faith is choosing a long-term perspective, right? Faith is believing in, in a, in a future, but faith is having hope for what you cannot see. Faith, faith is more than just what is happening to me right here, right now in this moment. And if you’re not consciously aware of that, then when you have heartbreak and you will have heartbreak, right?
RV (09:33):
Faith doesn’t mean you won’t have heartbreak. Jesus himself says, in this world you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world. But he says, in this world you will have trouble. So it’s a validation of faith to say you’re gonna have problems. We know the problems are coming. You don’t get a choice about whether or not you’re gonna have problems. You’re gonna have problems. I promise you’re gonna have problems. Anybody who’s been successful will tell you problems are on the way, right? Like you, you’re gonna have problems. The question is not whether or not you have problems. The question is how you respond to those problems and how you respond to those problems has a lot to do with how you process those problems and the meaning that you assign to those problems. And if you don’t have faith, when you have problems, when you have broken dreams, the default is to assign it to, oh, I was, I’m destined for failure, or God doesn’t love me, or God doesn’t care about me, or this isn’t meant to be, or I’m not smart enough.
RV (10:35):
But when you have faith, you Romans 8 28, faith, you know, in all things God is working for good faith is choosing to believe that what is happening now is somehow for a greater glory Later on. And I see this pattern again and again and again in the mindset of the ultra performers. And even if you can’t get your mind wrapped around the idea that this is God, hopefully you can get your i your mind wrapped around the idea of perseverance to go. It would be naive to think you could achieve anything meaningful without enduring heartbreak, without enduring some failure. You know, that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen. So what is necessary is perseverance. And to be able to persist through that, well then that means the way that you process that failure matters a lot. And if you think that heartbreak means you’re gonna fail and you, then you’re just gonna give up.
RV (11:28):
So, but if you have faith, then you go, I trust that God’s gonna weave together this beautiful tapestry somehow. The third way that you may not realize your faith is affecting your prophets is realizing that overwork is a sign of under faith. Overwork is a sign of under faith. If I overwork, then what, what I’m, what I’m demonstrating, what I’m saying with my actions is if it’s to be, it’s only up to me. It’s not up to anyone else. It’s not up like it’s not up to God. I’m in this alone and it’s on me a hundred percent. I must take control, full control of my success. It’s only up to me in general. I’m a fan of agency, I’m a fan of accountability. But spiritually we are co-creators with God, right? We, we, he created us, right? We’re not the creators of all things.
RV (12:31):
We are the created. And as the created, we get a chance to co-create with him. So there is this, you know, from the time Adam exists in the garden, there’s a co-creation mechanism that is reinforced biblically. Now, again, if you can’t get your, if you, if you can’t get your mind wrapped around that or you don’t understand that, it’s not necessarily, it’s, it’s not really nec, it’s not necessarily a necessity that you do. But what is is to go, when I’m overworking, I’m saying it’s only up to me. It, there is a level of faith required to tap the amount of work that you put in. And this is one thing that’s different about brand builders group from the company agent and I built before in the company we built before, we just worked like crazy nonstop. There wasn’t margin for God. We didn’t leave margin for a miracle.
RV (13:26):
You, there’s no, there’s no space that you’re inviting God to show up to fill you. You, if you wanna see a miracle, you have to leave margin for a miracle. You, you, you have to go, I’m gonna do my part and I’m going to, I’m gonna use my talents, but at some point I’m releasing control to say what happens here is, is out of my control. It’s, it’s in your hands. So I will show up with what I have, which is little right, which is humane. It is not much. I I don’t have supernatural powers, but I will use the skills and the talents and the resources you’ve given me, and then I will give it back to you and I will trust you to do it. That’s a sign of faith. And a lot of people don’t equate the idea that overworking is a sign of under faith is to go, oh, I have to work constantly because I, I don’t trust that God will fill in the gap. But having faith means I’m leaving margin for a miracle. I’m allowing God to fill in the gap. I’m, I’m contributing to the extent that I can, but then I’m surrendering, surrendering ultimately to his control. And these are three parts of your faith that influence your prophets.
RV (14:41):
The devil can stop you from dreaming. He’ll stop you from dream doing if you gotta realize that broken dreams lead to our most beautiful dreams, and that
RV (14:50):
Overwork is a sign of under faith. All of this points to an idea that if you increase your faith, you will increase your profits. That’s the challenge I wanna welcome you to and invite you to take in the next stage of your business.

Ep 534: How to Find Yourself and Your Own Vision with Graham Cochrane

RV (00:02):
Well, I can’t wait to let you hear and listen in on this conversation with my good buddy, Graham Cochrane. So, Graham is a BBG client, and he represents, in my eyes, much of why we started the company, to find good people with real expertise, who are helping people and care about making a difference in the world, using their skills and talents to make the world a better place. He is a mission-driven messenger who has real expertise and a really impressive track record. So Graham is a seven figure entrepreneur. He has a podcast that reaches over 80,000 people every month. So he’s in the top 0.5% of all podcasters. He has over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, which is super impressive. I’m super jealous of that. And he does all of it in minimal number of hours per week. He’s been a Ted speaker, he’s a keynote speaker.
RV (00:56):
I know he’s speaking at some of my friends events, and I’m starting to see him more and more. We’re also in a Christian entrepreneur’s mastermind together. His wife and AJ are in an actual mastermind together. And so just an amazing guy and he’s got a new book coming out called Rebel. Find Yourself by Not Following The Crowd, and we’re gonna talk a little bit about that and how to just, you know, make money doing what you do and getting paid for what you know, which was kind of like more of his first book. So, Graham, welcome to the show, man. Good to have you
GC (01:28):
Dude. Pumped to have the conversation, man. It’s been fun to see our, our world collide over the last 12 months. A little bit more love what you guys are doing at Brand Builders. It is literally the best. Like literally, if you’re not in brand builders, you need to join. ’cause It’s the best program for getting your message out there holistically and building a business around it. It’s so well done, bro.
RV (01:46):
Man, thank you for that. I mean, that’s a powerful testimonial and, and to get it from someone like you who’s already, you know, doing a great job of it before we found you. I love that. And, and I just, I, I love your heart for what you’re doing. Everyone listening already knows I’m a hardcore bible thumping Jesus freak, and AJ is you are, and your, your, your wife is, and, and we got a chance to meet your family and that whole thing. But talk to me about Rebel, the title Rebel, and specifically the subtitle to me really spoke to me when I, I saw it said, find yourself by not following the crowd. So why is not following the crowd important? And I feel like we live in a world where people are constantly following the crowd and like looking at what other people are doing. And I feel like your book is like a very distinctively, diametrically kind of opposed message to that. So tell us about that.
GC (02:47):
Yeah, I mean, I think people are ultimately looking for fulfillment. You know, if you’re a personal brand or business owner, you want to be fulfilled in your business. And, and I have some thoughts on what leads to fulfillment, but t typically what we do is we almost abdicate the path to fulfillment by just looking at what everyone else is doing and saying, well, he looks happy. She looks happy. That’s how she’s running her business. That’s how he’s showing up online, that’s how they’re raising their kids. That’s how they’re thinking about handling their money. And so we just sort of copy what we see ’cause it’s easier. The, there’s already a flow. There’s already like a current of culture, of conformity moving in a direction. So the easiest path is the path of just doing what everyone else is doing. And the problem is, is that you’ll never find fulfillment by following the crowd because it’s gonna pull you further away from the way you were designed.
GC (03:36):
So we believe in a great designer and you, you know, this is true intuitively because you know what it feels like to feel out of alignment and then when you’re like in the zone or in your sweet spot, and it’s a lot easier to live in alignment. And I just think we’re afraid to a figure out what does alignment mean for us? Like, who, how are we designed? The late Dan Miller who was like, I, I had him on my podcast and he endorsed my first book and had a brief interactions with him before we lost him. But the two questions he always says that you need to answer are, who am I? And why am I here? And I, I, I agree with him on that, that we don’t know who we are. But even, but if we did the small but important work of finding out more about the way God designed us, the way we’re wired, man, we’d flourish in business. We’d flourish in parenting and marriage. We’d flourish in our relationships with money and people and spirituality. So it’s, to me, this book is a book about alignment and identity. But once you figure that out, man, you’re gonna be more successful. You’re gonna be more satisfied, you’re gonna be of more service to other people. And I think those are three things everybody wants.
RV (04:39):
So, yeah. And I think, you know, you used that word abdicate, which I really love. ’cause I think that it’s, it’s like this energy of almost like a a default mode. And I do think people basically like live, live their life in that way of like, I’m just sort of default. And I think probably at least the way I view it is few people wake up and go, yeah, I wanna do what everyone else does, and I’m just gonna follow the crowd. But it seems more of like, they struggle to figure out, how do I know, who am I? How do I know why I am here? How, how, how, how do I find that? So what insights do you have there? If someone’s like, well, I just don’t really feel like I’m that clear on that, what are the steps that they can take to sort of like, get clear on some of those things?
GC (05:28):
Yeah, exactly. So there’s a lot of ways to do this. The way I teach in the book, it, it is a, an acronym, rebel is an acronym. It’s a five part framework. And the, the r the beginning of it, it starts with resolving to dream again. So the R stands for resolve to resolve to dream. Again, my theory, my premise is that joy and dreaming and desires that I think are put there by God are the starting point to figuring out who you are. Mm-Hmm. The point of thinking about dreaming, the point of thinking about what fires you up, what you would love to, you know, in Tim Ferriss’s language dream of doing, being or having, like he says, like, if you’re the smartest person in the world and there was, it was impossible to fail, what would you dream of doing? Being or having, I, that type of questioning is a starting point for figuring out your identity.
GC (06:19):
Not the end, but the starting point. ’cause My my theory is that dreams are clues as to the way God designed us. We dream. We might have collective dreams that are similar for all people, but I think there’s a lot of uniqueness to the things you want to do, want to have people, the person you want to be, that are a, a, a clue to, maybe I should pull on that thread a little bit more, but the problem is, is like, as adults, I think that’s just beat out of us. Like, as a kid, this was so natural. Like we grew up dreaming. We knew what we wanted as kids. And then either culture at large culture, like in your home or whatever, told you this is the, the way, you know, sort of mandalorian star Wars. Like this is the way you have to follow it.
GC (07:01):
And very few people dream anymore when they grow up. And so they, they no longer know who they are. They’ve lost sort of themselves, and they, they’ve conformed. And I really think there’s a difference between the path of conformity and then the beginning of getting off of that path is dreaming again. And it’s really hard to do. ’cause We feel like dreaming is pointless. It’s childish. It’s my dream didn’t work out for me very well. I got burned by dreaming. There’s disappointment there. So it’s a very tender place, but that’s my theory. You start with dreaming again, 30,000 foot view might seem impossible. I don’t know what I’m gonna do with this dream, but it starts to tell you a little bit about the way you’re wired.
RV (07:34):
Yeah, that’s good. Brother and I, I mean, just as you were talking, I was, you know, sort of processing what you were saying and it, it dawns on me that like, you know, God puts a dream in your heart. If you, if you look at the inverse of that, the devil, if the devil stops you from dreaming, then the devil stops you from doing, right? Like, if you never allow yourself to have the dream, then the likelihood of that thing ever coming true, it basically becomes non-existent. And so the devil doesn’t even have to stop you from doing, if he can just stop you from dreaming, then it’s like, it’s like a seed that never gets watered. It never gets birthed. And so then it’s like the devil wins by default in terms of a spiritual battle. And just thinking about like a spiritual enemy of you know, and I think of that, you know, that’s what the scripture says, that, you know, the devil is a liar. I mean, that’s, he, he, he’s he’s a liar. He comes to kill and steal and destroy. And you go, if he plants a lie, like if God plants a dream, you should go do this. And then the level the devil shows up and just plants a lie on top of it, you could never do this then like you lose. So it’s like, which voice are you gonna listen to?
GC (08:43):
Oh, that’s so good. And there’s different lies. It’s either for some people he knows what’s, like, if we’re gonna talk spiritually, the devil knows what’s effective for each of us. So it might be, you know, you you’ll never be able to do this. The other lie could be if this won’t work out, and you’ll be incredibly disappointed. And there could be a huge fear of disappointment, especially if you had a dream that did die in the past. Something we, we talked about, about a year ago, I was doing a session with you. We talked about this identity crisis intersection about like, and I wrote about this in the book about when you have a dream, we all have had a dream. It could be a financial dream or a career ambition, or a relationship dream. Like, I wanna get married, I wanna have kids.
GC (09:21):
And then what happens when that dream dies? Well, we’re at this identity crisis intersection because our dreams are not compartmentalized. They’re part of, our identity is attached to our dreams. That’s why they hurt so much when we lose them. And that’s why they feel so good when we gain them. And so part of you dies with that dream. And so what most people do is they say, forget this. I’m gonna choose the path at this intersection. There’s two choices. I’m gonna choose the conformity path, put my head back down, be like everybody else, and say, Hey, dreamings for other people that didn’t work out for me. There’s no way I’m gonna do the opposite. Which is the other choice, which is to dream again. You know, maybe the, the divorce happened, you could choose to pursue another relationship and dream again. But most people are like, I don’t want to be hurt again.
GC (10:00):
I don’t wanna be disappointed. Again, it’s a tender spot. So we, we gave dreaming a shot once or twice, and then that was it. And I think I was just talking about this with Chris Cook on the Win Today podcast of like the people that seem younger as they get older and seem more full of joy in life are the people that continually let themselves dream again, dream new dreams. Maybe that dream didn’t work out, but what’s a different version of that dream? I could dream, you know, my first dream was to be a rockstar. Like literally try to get a record deal that fell through. I had to make some tough choices. But in a roundabout way, God put new versions of that dream in my heart, where now I’m in front of tens of thousands, if not millions of people regularly performing, sharing, creating, doing creative work.
GC (10:44):
I just didn’t wanna sit at a cubicle all day. And God gave me another way to do that. It was through YouTube, which didn’t exist when I was in college. You know, it was through podcasting, it was through books, it was through all this stuff. And so I never could have even imagined. But I think, yeah, there’s that lie of you’ll be disappointed if the dream doesn’t work out. It’s impossible. Dreaming is selfish. Depending on your, your origin story, your parents might have said, we don’t get to do what we want. We do what’s responsible we do with the families, businesses, we do. You’re gonna go to college, you’re gonna do this. So a lot of times dreaming feels selfish. So everyone’s story is gonna be a little different. But this is where, why I start with dreaming. ’cause It’s like so useful if you let yourself do it. But so many people have mental blocks around it.
RV (11:23):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, totally. And I, I think as I think of like the most successful people I know, they’re not the people who had a dream and then the dream came true. They’re the people who had a dream. It didn’t quite come true. They had a new dream that didn’t quite come true. They gave and chased a new dream that didn’t quite come true. And it’s like, it’s kind of this course correction of like, they’re chasing dreams that never come true. And then yet they keep chasing them. And then you look back one day and you go, I’m freaking living the dream. And it’s a dream that I never even had. I had different dreams that were, you know, things that I wanted. And in the moment you go, why isn’t God giving me my dream? Like, why isn’t God having this come true? But then you do that and it’s just like a giant, you know, Plinko board or a maze or something like that. Mm-Hmm. . And then one day you, you look back and you go, oh my gosh, God had such a better dream for me. But it was like, it was like he was using these dreams to lead me, to lead me down the path. So I I I love that. It’s like dreaming the, to me, the power of dreaming is not even that it has to come true. It just, the power of a dream is that it moves you to action.
GC (12:44):
Yes. Right. Because to do anything great, let’s talk about personal brands. Like to build a personal brand takes risk. Like anyone who thinks you can build a business without risk is, is not in the right mind. It takes risk. And so some people get scared away. But I think, and that was me when I thought about entrepreneurship, I never wanted to start a business ’cause it seemed risky. Mm-Hmm. , what I didn’t realize is I didn’t have a big enough desire for the outcome on the other side of the risk to take the risk once I had a dream or a vision of like, man, I could help. So for me, you know, my business started out in the music space teaching musicians how to record music and set up a home recording studio. Hmm. That’s how I started my first YouTube channel. That was the skill I had.
GC (13:21):
And so once I saw a vision of like, well, I, it’d be so fun to help musicians be so fun to be able to talk about music. And I was a freelancer at the time and do a little bit of everything. That was a big enough desire that made me want to take the risk. ’cause I had no idea what the business model was. I didn’t know who Amy Porterfield was. I didn’t know any, I didn’t know what a course was. This is 2009. You know, I’m like starting out in the dark ages and like trying to figure this out. But I think desire gets you past the risk. So if you’re gonna build a personal brand, don’t build the brand that you think you should build or someone else is building or build the business model the way you think. You, you’ve gotta really be excited about the thing you’re building to get you to take the risks necessary. And like you said, like horse correct along the way to get anywhere meaningful. And without that, I just don’t think we’re gonna take the risk. Mm-Hmm.
RV (14:07):
. I love that. Okay, so Rebel is the acronym. So that’s, that’s the first one. What’s the e
GC (14:15):
The e is to establish the outcomes you want in life. So if we’re resolving to dream again at the beginning, big picture dreams. I walk people through a 50 dreams exercise in the book. The E is to establish the outcome. So now we get clear on vision, right? And this is more of, okay, what what do I specifically want my life to look like? And I love, I kind of stole this question from Rich Lipin which is this just the simple scenario of imagine it’s three years from today, and I bump into you Rory, and I’m like, Rory, I haven’t seen you in three years. How the heck are you buddy? And you’re like, Graham, it has been the best three years of my life. I’m like, oh my gosh, that’s amazing. Let’s grab a coffee. Sit down. Tell me, tell me about that.
GC (15:00):
What would you be telling me about what would have to be true for you to say to me? It’s been the best three years of my life. And what I like about this journal prompt or thought exercise is two things. One, it’s open-ended. ’cause It’s not business related. It could be, it could be your family, it could be your finances, it could be whatever. But also it’s the timeframe of three years. Like, I’m not, like, I’m a big planner on the strength finders. I’m high on futuristic. I live in the future to my detriment a lot of times at the expense of the present. But 10 years, like people having a 10 year plan, it’s really, really hard because 10 years is so far down the road. I’m either gonna be highly unmotivated to take action today. Totally. It’s a decade away or I don’t know who I’m gonna be in 10 years.
GC (15:43):
10 years ago I was a totally different person. And so it’s just a tough thing to project one year. Like I, I kind of like New Year’s resolutions ’cause they give you a lot of urgency to like, let’s freaking go. And I like the, the boost of adrenaline, but then it’s hard to change your life in a year. And so you get discouraged and you give up three years, you’re close enough to who you kind of can project who you’re gonna be and what season of life you’re gonna be. And you can look at your kids, you can look at your life and go, I can kind of see in three years where I might be. So that’s, it’s reasonable to assume some things. And yet I think you and I both know that we can do a lot of damage in 36 months. Like we could change our body in 36 months. I could change my marriage in 36 months. I could transform my business in 36 months. And so that three year question allows people to go from dreaming big picture to man, what do I really care about that I would say it’s been the best three years of my life. What would have to be true? And now I have some specific outcomes I wanna move towards.
RV (16:39):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah. I agree with that. I I love that the three year window. I, I think the, there’s also something powerful about, yeah, 10 years feels far. One year. It’s like you tend to over, you tend to overestimate what you can do in a year. But like by the time you’re an adult, you, you can look back at your own life and go, well, three years, like that was basically high school. Think of how much I changed when I was in high school or that was middle school. Think about, I went into middle school basically as a kid and then come out as like a teenager, right? So there’s like, you can look, you can look back in your life or college, right? It’s like four years. So three to four years you can look back in your own life and go, I see evidence of how radical a life can change in that window of time, physically, mentally, you know, spiritually. So there’s a, it’s long enough that you can do real change, but it’s short enough people can still get their mind around it. And they’ve kind of had those like little seasons, those little windows of of time and mm-hmm. . So I love that. So in, in that, you are basically just answering that question, what would need to happen in the next three years for you to be able to say you’d have your, your best life ever? And you’re just like writing that out. The answer to that question,
GC (18:01):
Yeah. You start to journal it out. There’s some sub-questions you can ask yourself. Like once you see that vision, like what are the opportunities in front of me right now that could get me to that vision that are just low hanging fruit? And then the opposite, what are the obstacles that I could foresee, external obstacles, internal obstacles that would prohibit me from making that vision come a reality. But the reason we do all this stuff, right, is like, and, and I have this with clients who come to me and say, Graham, I wanna, I wanna make a hundred thousand dollars a year in my business. And, and I’m like, Hey, go, go do this exercise. Go do the three-year vision. They come back and what it does is it exposes what they uniquely want. And I had a client who wanted a hundred thousand dollars a year in his business.
GC (18:42):
He wanted me to help him scale up. But when he came back from this exercise, what he discovered was actually what I want is to move to Florida and live closer to the beach so I can ride my bike or walk on the beach every day with my wife. I want to be able to have my wife stay home with our kids and work with me in the business. So my four kids, me and my wife are all at home together. We have more time together and we’re getting to work on something together. I want to be able to travel a little bit more and I want to be able to replace my car. Like he had very specific things and he was like, I wanna be working out every day. Like he had mapped all this out and he realized I don’t need a hundred thousand dollars a year, a month in my business to create that vision.
GC (19:20):
‘Cause The money is where as I coach business owners a lot, that’s where their minds go is a a dollar amount. But I’m like, the money is a just a vehicle. You really have a business to create the life you want and serve your life, not have your life serve your business. So like what, what kinda life do you want? And that’s gonna be different for Rory and me and my clients. Like, you’ve gotta get clear on what you uniquely want. And the reason why as a business owner, if you’re a personal brand, is that well then now you’ve got a much clearer vision to give yourself permission to not do what she’s doing, what he’s doing, what the trends say to do if it’s not in alignment with your vision. So if your vision is to work less than than 20 hours a week in your business, you probably shouldn’t be taking on a, a model of business that requires you to pump out content all day, every day.
GC (20:06):
And you’re a slave to the business. ’cause You’re now sacrificing your vision for making money. What if it got you to be curious about, is there another way to make money but have my vision of working less than 20 hours a week if that was part of your vision. So that’s where it starts to get more personalized to you so you know how to design your life and not just float. ’cause In personal branding, you’re gonna, everyone’s gonna copy everyone, but you’ve got some of the biggest clients in the world and everyone sees them, the Ed Millets and the Amy’s and all these people and be like, oh, I should just do what they’re doing. But maybe that’s not best for you and your personal brand. Mm-Hmm. Or your season of life or your unique challenges or your special needs child or your whatever. You gotta really get clear on what you want to do and make your business fit. That, that’s part of my heartbeat when it comes to business owners specifically.
RV (20:50):
Mm-Hmm. . Yeah, totally. I I mean I was thinking about that ’cause our youngest just turned five and, you know, it’s, it’s been such, such a wild ride and you know, it’s, it’s been the most beautiful thing, but also very difficult. I mean, like the last seven years of my life have been extraordinarily difficult, you know, growing up for most of my young years without a dad not knowing what it means to be a dad, not knowing how, how this, you know, looks and had no expectation whatsoever. I would never been around young kids. And it was like, it was hard. And, you know, I was, part of it was celebrating me. It was like, man, I feel like we’re finally turning in a corner of like the kids having some autonomy and me being able to just like, sleep through the night. I mean, it was just literally like, I basically went seven years without sleeping through the night.
RV (21:39):
I mean, like, it, it was hard. And, and I was thinking about that to myself and I was going, you know, people don’t give themselves enough grace for the season they’re in. Right? It’s like you’re looking at someone online who’s blowing up and it’s like if you got newborn kids, like you’re living in a completely different universe. Like you’re, you’re not even, you’re not even in the same game, the same league. Certainly not the same field. Like you’re in a completely different universe. And just having that, you know, both the dreams for your own life, but also the grace of failure of like, if it’s not happening so fast, it’s like, dude, there’s, you know, and, and having kids not having kids, it’s like, it’s two different universe, I mean, happening on this planet. Like they, they they’re completely different. Yeah. And each one has different, you know, things that come along with that.
RV (22:31):
And so I love that. And, and so, so the acronym y’all, R-E-B-E-L. If you want to know the rest of the acronym, you need to go get the book. Okay. So the book is called Rebel. By the time you’re hearing this, the book is out or really close to being out. So you need, you can, you can go get Gram’s book. I, I have one more thing I want ask you about before I let you go Graham, but like, but before I do that, where should people go if they wanna like get the book, learn about you, you know, stay in touch, et cetera?
GC (23:02):
Yeah, the rebel book.com will get you directly to the book. And if it’s before it comes out, there’s some pre-order bonuses there. But graham cochrane.com, the Graham Cochrane show, or on Instagram, the only place I hang out online is at the Graham Cochrane.
RV (23:17):
Cool. cool brother. So the last thing I always wanted to hear your thoughts on a little bit is how you build a business not working a hundred hour a week. I know this is something that you have made a focus in your life. I know that this is something that you have done. I know this is something that you have coached and advise people on. I would love to just hear a few of your tips or pointers around that and going like, I think a lot of people do think, I mean, entrepreneurship is hard. I mean, let’s, let’s be real. It’s, it’s like, I think there’s a, a lot of truth sometimes to that whole, like, you know, you quit a job working 40 hours a week for someone so you can go work 80 hours a week for yourself.
RV (24:03):
And a lot of times that is pretty, and then my experience has been that that is often true, especially like the first couple years. But like, you also have the freedom to design a business differently. So how do we design a business that works that way? The other thing I’ll say about you is I love meeting your family and I really learn a lot and like all I need to know about a person by meeting their family just to go like, you know, is this someone who’s just trading what’s happening at home for something else? Which is not necessarily good, bad, right or wrong, it’s not. It’s just, but I, I’m always very curious, especially of like people’s kids and things like that. And yours are so wonderful and your wife is so wonderful. So it’s, it’s powerful to me to to to go, alright, here’s someone who’s who’s doing this. And, and while, while they’re able to have this like really wonderful, beautiful family. So talk to about, talk to us about that a little bit.
GC (25:01):
Oh, thank you so much, man. And likewise, your family is a, is a, a, a treat to meet them and see them. And AJ is such a classy, classy person, and Shay’s really loved getting to know her. And I think they’re trying to stick together in their little small group inside this mastermind. But looking forward to doing more life with you guys. Man, I think we, we want the same things, right? Which is you really care about your family and you care about your faith and you care about other people and probably your community. And those are all things that are a time commitment. And so from day one, when I started my business, I was on food stamps. I was newly married, new baby planning a church. I was like a volunteer worship leader. Like I, I was like, I know God’s telling me to start a business, but there’s no way it can be a hundred hour a week business.
GC (25:48):
It just can’t. ’cause I, I am volunteering 20 hours a week at this startup church. I’m trying to become a dad for the first time. I’m, I’m still a couple years into marriage. So it has, I had parameters from day one that had to fit in. And so that was my set of circumstances, which I’m really grateful for because it taught me to understand something that’s just so simple, but it takes effort on the front end to do, which most business owners don’t do, which is really do the hard work of, of an 80 20 analysis on your business. Like I think people hustle because they’re lazy. I think hustle is just a, a form of laziness in disguise because people are, haven’t done the hard work of sitting down and slowing down and saying, what of the tasks I’m doing in my day, week, month, what of the offers I have, what are the lead gen strategies I have really are the, the 20% of the things I’m doing that are generating 80% of the results I need?
GC (26:40):
And that changes from season to season in business business. And I’m constantly putting everything under the gun, so to speak, of, prove to me that this task is worth it. Prove to me that that offer is worth it and I’m willing to let things go. Or I’m willing to not have the most perfect system as long as it gets me most of the results so I can do it in a minimal amount of time. And I became like a weirdo bro every year. I was like, I made it a game every January. How can I work fewer hours in my business this next year while increasing my income this year and just see what’s possible? And I haven’t always done it perfectly and economies change, things change. I’ve started a second business. That’s what I’m doing now. Now I’m writing and speaking and things are changing again.
GC (27:21):
But that’s always a mantra I have is I have to prove to myself that this task is worth it. I just think most business owners are doing a lot of activity and most of it isn’t moving the needle forward. It feels important, it might even look important, but I’m willing to not look as important. I’m willing to not look as active on social media or other places to have more of my time back and have the income and lifestyle I want. So it’s just a, it’s just a decision to analyze things and put it under the gun.
RV (27:50):
Yeah. That’s cool. I love that. I love that question. How can I work fewer hours this year while still growing the business? You know, that’s a AJ and I put constraints and parameters around our stuff. Like, you know, we’ve always said like, brand builders group cannot be more than 50 employees because then you get into all these other, like, it just becomes more complicated. There’s all these HR policies and like all these other things that come, come into play and it’s like, so what’s the most impact we can create with 50 employees? And it’s like, you have to go, what’s the impact per employee? What’s the revenue per employee? And it’s been really fun to, to fund to do that. We, we also, you know, we worked a hundred hour work weeks and the first business and brand builders, we said, we’ll work from nine to five and outside of that it’s up to God.
RV (28:36):
Like we, and so it’s like, how can I build a business? And this is the constraint. In, in AJ’s case, there’s two days a week and she, you know, she, she’d been trimming back more and more ever since we started to, to be, have more time with the kids. So I think it’s good to give yourself those types of parameters, those types of boundaries, those those types of challenge questions to go, how can I do this? Because if you ask the question how your brain will figure out the answer, it’ll start to cut what’s irrelevant. But if you don’t ask that, it’ll just fill the space with whatever shows up. So I really love that, Graham, I’m so excited about you and the book and just the, the future. I just, again, you know, we’re so proud of the people we get to work with as clients and just be a part of their journey and proud to hold people up and say like, look at, like these are the people who, who we get a chance to work with.
RV (29:31):
A lot of what I think we do that’s really brilliant at Brand Builders Group is we pick people who are gonna be successful with or without us and then we work with them right before they blow up . So I, that is, you know, part of my prayer for you too, brother and I, I think that’s happening like more and more. So thanks for your time here. Thanks for who you are. Thanks for what you’re, you’re putting out there in the world. Keep helping, keep serving brother and, and we wish all the best. Thanks bro. The feeling is a hundred percent mutual.

Ep 527: How to Outlast Difficulty | Randy Gale Episode Recap

And so, I think a lot of this comes down to just being able to outlast, outlast your competition, right? And when I say competition, I don’t really mean like other people. I mean, can you outlast your fear? Can you outlast your self-doubt? Can you outlast your insecurities? Can you outlast the inconvenience of having to figure out technology? Can you, can you outlast the pain it is and the challenges and the difficulties that come along with getting your message out to the world?
RV (01:09):
If you are a mission-driven messenger, you gotta outlast all those things. It’s not, and, and, and, and if you’re not seeing the success that you want, don’t look back and say, oh, the algorithm, or, oh, I don’t have the right topic, or, oh, nobody cares about this. Or, you know, I, I don’t look this way or that way, or, I don’t have the, don’t you like? All of those are excuses. And here’s the thing. If you set out on this journey, you said you wanted to change lives, well, you can change lives at any given moment. No one is stopping you from changing lives, right? Making money is a different thing. You may or may not make money. It may, may take, may take time, but if you wanna change lives, you can push a button and publish. You can push a button and record.
RV (01:51):
You, you, you are one button away from literally broadcasting to the entire world. Like, are you doing your part? And if you’re not, at some point, you just gotta reconcile the reality. Like, you gotta go look snowflake. It’s, it’s not that you’re unlucky, it’s not that you’re not knowledgeable. It, it’s that you’re not showing up, you’re not outlasting, you’re not doing the work. And so I wanna give you three strategies, three tips, three techniques, three sources of inspiration that I think will help you outlast the competition. And by competition, again, I’m not so much saying other people who do what you do, although you could, you could think of it that way. I just think it’s, it’s outlasting your own fear, your own self-doubt, your own inconvenience, your own insecurity, outlasting, all of the excuses that will come up on this journey. ’cause They will, I’m living them.
RV (02:49):
I face them every day, right? Like, I still carry this chip on my shoulder of going, man, I would be so much further ahead if I didn’t have to start over five years ago. Like I was so much further down the road, I had to start completely over, right? So I know what that feels like, and here’s three things that I want to remind you of and equip you with that I think will help. So these are three sources of inspiration to help you outlast the inconvenience. Number one is vision. Vision. This comes right outta my first book. Take the Stairs, which still to this day is selling like hotcakes. If you’ve not ever read it, it’s a life-changing book. Like, if you haven’t read, take the Stairs. I don’t know how you’re surviving. Like, it, it’s, it is a, it, it is a quick read.
RV (03:39):
It has got so many powerful fundamental truths about success in general. And it shows up here and it applies to personal brands. Why? Because one of the things that we talk about in there is that the amount of our endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of our vision. The amount of your endurance is directly proportionate to the clarity of your vision. When you can see something clearly that you want, when you can see it, when you think about it, when you could taste it, when it’s visceral, when you, you dream about it and you focus on it and, and you go, this is something I want in my life, for my life, for my career. When you can see it, then that creates a naturally strong connection to how the sacrifices you’re asking yourself to make today forwards you towards that pursuit. It creates a context for action to take place.
RV (04:32):
And so you discipline engages automatically. You become motivated, you become inspired, you become alive, you become activated, right? But discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. If you’re not dreaming or you don’t have a dream, or you don’t dream that often, or you don’t dream that clearly, or you’re not spending time thinking about it, then there is no reason to make the sacrifice. There is no reason to bear the inconvenience. There’s no reason to endure the pain, to navigate the difficulties, right? To to to survive the setbacks, to conquer the challenges. If there is no vision, there’s no reason. That’s why the Bible says, without vision, people perish. Because it literally dies. You. There’s no reason to put in that effort, that energy, that work, because there’s no payoff at the end. But that payoff is something that exists in your mind.
RV (05:27):
The powerful part is not achieving it in real life. The powerful part is having it exist in your mind, which is something you can create and access today and it will use, and in your mind will use that to activate your discipline. So what is your vision? And do you spend time thinking about it? And, and when you, when we talk about vision, we mean think of a picture, a moment in your life that you wanna live in the future, right? I, I, I tell the story often of like walking through the airport and seeing my book on the bookshelf in the airport with the New York Times bestseller logo, like burst on the cover, right? Or, or being on stage at, in, in front of a huge arena or our house that we live in, right? It was years that I was visualizing this house that I, I wanted to have and, and, and, and not so much because I manifested it, right?
RV (06:17):
It’s because I saw it and I worked my butt off and we worked our butts off to where it became real. But I held it out there. So that, I mean, yes, I’d like to believe that it’s moving towards me, but I was moving towards it, right? And maybe you meet somewhere in the middle. I don’t know, maybe you did manifest it, but I’ve never manifested anything without working my freaking butt off. Like I have never thought about something and had it just like something huge, something significant, and just had it show up. Other than one time I did manifest 1 million followers because I went to bed thinking I’m gonna get a million followers, I’m gonna get a million followers. And the next day someone dropped off at my house, a book called 1 million Followers . So it wasn’t quite what I was going for, but it, it was 1 million followers, but it, it wasn’t actually a million followers.
RV (07:07):
It was a book called 1 million Followers by Brendan Cain, which is actually a really good book. I really, I really like it. We’ve had Brendan Cain on the podcast. And so, but you gotta have a vision, right? You gotta have something you can see that you’re moving towards. The second thing is you gotta have some good old fashioned commitment, good old fashioned commitment. And this also isn’t take the stairs, we call it the buy-in principle of commitment. And it says, the more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail.
RV (07:47):
The more you have invested into something, the less likely you are to let it fail. That means you should increase your investment, increase your expenditure of time, money, prayer, thoughts, resources, attention, like you should increase your investment. Because when it’s difficult, you’re gonna tend to run away. That’s the, that’s the natural default and design of the human brain to keep you safe, which means to run away from pain, to run away from fear, to do what everyone else does, which is to avoid the inconvenient and chase the convenient chase the easy escalator, right? And what you gotta do is you gotta be a take the stairs person. You gotta be someone that says, no, I’m, I’m not gonna be like everybody, I’m not gonna run away from the pain. I’m not gonna run away from the fear. I’m not gonna run away from the inconvenience.
RV (08:36):
I’m gonna run towards it. I’m gonna run into it, I’m going to conquer it. I’m gonna be the buffalo. If you’ve ever heard me tell this my Buffalo story, which now is like, you know, going all over the internet which we’ve been talking about for my entire career, being the buffalo charging the storm. That is what it takes, is straight up commitment. Because the more money you invest into your dream, the less likely you are just to walk away, right? The more time you’ve got into it, you’re like, I can’t just walk away from this. Like, I’m not just gonna leave this here. I pour my life into this thing. Like I poured my life into pursuing it. And that’s what it takes is to set a goal that matters to you so much that when you go all in, the reason it works is not so much because like, you get lucky ’cause you went all in or, or ’cause you figure it out.
RV (09:23):
Just ’cause you went all in. It’s because you, there wasn’t any other option. And so you do it until you find a way. And there’s always a way, a lot of times it takes a long time to find the way, but eventually you find the way, if you stay committed and you stay committed by increasing the investment, right? You do more, you spend more time. One of my mentors early on in my career was a guy named Randy Gage, and he said this, and I’ve always loved this, he said, you should always be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be the number one investor in your own dream. You should be investing. Not your boss, not your investors, not the bank, not your rich uncle. You, it’s your dream. If you want it bad enough, you put your money on the table, you put your time on the table, you come to the playing field and you put your heart on the field and you say, this is what I want. This is what I’m after, and I’m all in.
RV (10:21):
And if you don’t do that, then don’t be surprised when it doesn’t work out. Like, don’t be shocked when you fail. Don’t be surprised that you, you end give up or you get distracted. And what most people do is they don’t get, they don’t quit, they get distracted and then they quit inadvertently, right? Accidentally. And it’s some good old fashioned commitment. And that leads me to number three. So the number three, number three force here that you can use, the number three source of inspiration to help you outlast the challenges is service. Service. To me, service is the greatest and most powerful inspiring force there is.
RV (11:04):
It is getting outside of ourself and what we want and saying, regardless of what I want, regardless of what I care about, regardless of what I like, regardless of what is convenient for me, I’m going to do whatever I have to do to be of value to somebody else, to enhance their life, to improve their life, to, to help their situation. My inconvenience is irrelevant. The fact that it is difficult is not a, not something that factors into the consideration. It’s not a characteristic of the equation. Because what matters is helping other people and making a difference and making an impact. And so honestly, my wellbeing in that is sort of ancillary. It’s, it’s anecdotal. It’s, it’s irrelevant. It, it’s not a part of what matters. When you are living in service and there is no fear, once the mission to serve becomes clear, there is no fear, there is no self-doubt. You’re not worried about it. ’cause You’re not thinking about yourself. You’re thinking about the person out there who needs you. That is what I want you to do. That is how you outlast your competition. You’re focused on others and you’re going, yeah, this is difficult. Yeah, I don’t feel like doing this today. Yeah, I don’t like it. Yeah, I don’t like the technology. Yeah, this annoys me. Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah. I’m spending, investing more money into my business. Yeah, but it matters because it matters to someone else. And your message matters.
RV (12:35):
Your message matters to someone else. Your work matters to someone else. Your life matters to someone else. When you get fully present to that, then you won’t abandon ship. You won’t change course, you won’t alter the destination. You’ll stay focused, you’ll stay on target, you’ll stay committed, you’ll stay disciplined, you’ll stay activated, and you’ll outlast all the fears and inconveniences that show up, and you will conquer it and you will do something great. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and keep coming back every single week on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Thanks for being here.

Ep 526: How My Brother Transformed His Life with Randy Gale

RV (00:06):
Welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast. This is the place where we help mission-driven messengers, just like you learn how to build and monetize your personal brand. My name is Rory Vaden, and I’m the co-founder of Brand Builders Group, a hall of fame speaker, and New York Times bestselling author. And this show is to help experts learn how to become more wealthy and well-known. I know you’re gonna love it. Thanks for being here. Let’s get started. Well, a huge part of my life has been built around trying to inspire people to be more disciplined, teaching them the psychology of discipline, how to get themselves to do things they don’t want to do, and to help them achieve excellence in their own life. But a huge part of where I learned that from and my life was from my brother, my big brother, Randy, who you are about to meet.
RV (01:01):
This is a very special episode. And my big brother was a huge part of raising me. If you know anything about my story, our story but you know, that we were raised by a single mom. My mom was often working and, you know, busy doing things. And so Randy spent a lot of time raising me. Even though today I try to avoid tools and camping and anything masculine, pretty much at all costs. The, the, the manly skills that I have, and most of all the discipline and the perseverance and the resilience that I have is largely because of this man. Randy is incredible in his own right. So he’s done many things. So first of all, he is a military vet. So he served in two Wars. He was in Kosovo and he also was in Operation Southern Watch.
RV (01:52):
So he’s from, he was in the United States Navy, and he is a coach. So in addition to his professional life, he coaches competitive women’s softball and specifically young women. And their teams have been incredible. So he has coached the firecracker softball team in Colorado over the past 12 years. And their, his teams have tallied over 700 wins, and they have had two final four finishes in the Colorado State High School softball championships for the high school teams that he has been associated with. Part of what was the catalyst for this interview was that my brother went through an amazing physical transformation recently. He was always very athletic and very in shape in his younger years. Then as he had kids and built, you know, built a family and was doing the, doing the corporate thing he got busy doing other stuff. And we’re gonna hear about something that happened in the last couple years where his dramatic transformation led him to becoming a professional bodybuilder where he got two first place medals in the master division. I was there to watch it, and I wanna hear a little bit about the psyche for how he was able to transform his his own life again. And who knows where else we’re gonna go. We’re just having a chat with me and my brother, so please welcome to the show. Randy Gale. What’s up, brother?
RG (03:26):
Hey, how you doing? Thanks, Rory. Great introduction. Really appreciate it. Just one caveat, not a professional bodybuilder. I’m an amateur bodybuilder MPC amateurs. So yeah, I did win my show there and the overall for masters, which then qualified me for a national level show that I have yet to do so. But yeah, a big difference between, you know, the amateur MPC level and a, and a professional, professional bodybuilder who’s been doing it for several, several years.
RV (03:55):
Sure. Thanks. So thanks for clarifying for that, for clarifying that. And let’s start, let’s start there. Because that really was the catalyst where I was like, man, I gotta, we, I don’t know why we’ve never had you on the show, but this was an amazing transformation. So can you just give us some stats on when, oh, how much did you weigh Mm-Hmm. What was going in your life? Give us, give us the backstory of like, what was going on with you physically, and then what was the decision you made? When did that happen? And then, you know, at what point how much time passed between the transformation and when you were actually when you actually won in this amateur show?
RG (04:36):
Sure. So kind of what had happened is o over the years, you know, I’ve been coaching for several years and, and work and, and doing all of that sort of thing. But essentially I was kind of having, I wasn’t, I wouldn’t say health issues, but what I thought was maybe gout in my knees or my, my ankles and stuff when I eat certain foods, I was the heaviest I’d ever been. I was 280 pounds, so five foot eight. So there’s not a whole lot of room for that to go. I was, you know, over 50% body fat, like was, I was just fat obese not who I am or what I felt like I was. And I always remember there was one that, you know, there’s been two times in my life where I’ve tried to lose weight.
RG (05:26):
And the first time I remember I actually, a statement that you had told me was, you know, your body will only allow you to get to a certain suck level, right? And then once you notify your suck level, you’re like, oh, turn the gas on. It’s time to go. Well, I had less sight of that obviously from the last time that I had started to sort of train for a bodybuilding competition. And, you know, I, I pour a ton of energy and time into these young ladies and, and trying to help their dreams come true of playing col college softball and, and just, you know, becoming great character kids and, and, you know, contribute to society and whatnot. So we really trying to teach them how life is gonna happen, life skills, what’s gonna, you know, come their way, how to be ready, and how to be disciplined in that facet.
RG (06:20):
And in doing that, I lost sight of who I was, and I didn’t the focus wasn’t on me. So when I started having some health issues, I was kind of like, you know, this is, this isn’t gonna work. You know, I just, I’m not comfortable. I can’t tie my shoes. I can’t , you know, without breathing heavy. So it, it really was. I saw, you know, the thing that sort of shoots that catalyst is, is when you see a photo of yourself and you’re like, who is that? Like, it’s not me. I don’t look like that in your head, right? How many people, you know, you, you’ve talked to that it’s like when they go down that health journey, it’s like, you know, I was at a point where I was like, I didn’t even recognize myself. And that’s so true. I mean, everybody I’ve ever talked to that has needed help or has been there, that’s where they start. It seems like they, that’s a trigger point that, but usually it’s physical when they see themselves physically, but they’re like, I got, I can’t do this no more. So that’s kind of where it happened with me. I started training the biggest thing. So, just,
RV (07:24):
Just to pause, just to double click on that for a second. Hmm. I mean, one of the ways to say that is just basically, it’s a reality check, right? It’s like you come face to face with an irreconcilable truth. And I think that’s powerful for, in lots of ways, right? Like, people who are struggling financially, they are often afraid to look at their statements and they’re, they’re trying to avoid. And then it’s like, at some point you come, you’re forced to come face to face with this reality to go, this is my, this is my real situation. And so anyways, so so you saw, you basically saw a picture of yourself and you were like, I gotta do something .
RG (08:09):
Yeah. Well, it, it’s, it goes back to how am I, I’m, I’m this coach and everybody knows, how can I ask these young ladies to do something I can’t even do myself? Like, if I can’t be disciplined in my eating habits and my healthcare, how can I possibly ask them to, to be committed and disciplined into their sport and the things that it takes to get to that next level? So that was really the, that was really the, the thing that kept me going. Once I had saw, you know, the physical, the, the way I looked physically, I was like, you know, that’s what got me going. You know, I, I did, you know shameless plug to Joe Rogan, ’cause I used to list, listen to, I listened to his podcast in the morning about when I was getting up and I was doing this cardio, and it was like, you know, I’ve already completed something in my first half an hour of my day, then most people will do all week, right? And so it was understanding that to complete something that other other folks wouldn’t do. And it’s just get through it. Just get through it. People say that it’s, you know, motivating motivation is what keeps you, it is not, it’s, it’s discipline. Motivating gets you started, something motivates you to get started. But once that motivation’s gone, you have to have discipline to carry it out. Mm-Hmm.
RV (09:28):
.
RG (09:28):
And for me, I’m very goal oriented, right? So,
RV (09:33):
Yeah. So tell me about the competition and tell us, like, okay, so you were 280 pounds. Yeah.
RG (09:38):
You
RV (09:39):
Were over 50% body fat. Mm-Hmm. . And then you decided to enter a, a competition or work towards one, and how much time passed?
RG (09:50):
So that, that was not on the radar yet when I got started, obviously, right. It was just about, you know, getting healthy and trying to lose some weight. Biggest thing was, can I, can I change my diet to make it like a lifestyle where it wasn’t so extreme, I couldn’t handle it, and I’d be right back where I always am. So that’s how it started. So the first year, I, I picked the biggest, baddest dude in the gym, and I went up to him his name’s Taylor. And I said, Taylor, you’re working out with me . I’m like, I’m gonna work out with you. And he was like, Hey, great man, let’s do it. So he trained me and he was a bodybuilder, so he trained me as a friend. Like, I didn’t pay him for it, it was like a friendship, you know? And I had lost, you know, that first year, 50 pounds, just training with him and eating right. So after a year I had
RV (10:39):
Dropped. Hold on. How, how long were you training? Like, that’s, that’s , that’s a big moment. So you lost 50 pounds?
RG (10:46):
I lost 50
RV (10:47):
Year. How often were you working out?
RG (10:49):
Well, December to like, the following December, I had lost 50 pounds. Wow. and I worked out five, six days a week.
RV (10:55):
Okay. How long
RG (10:56):
Cardio three, cardio, three, four days a week. 20 minutes to 30 minutes. And it was just, you don’t start there. So for your audience that’s listening is like, you can have in your head, that’s where I want to get, and you can attain it, but don’t set yourself up for failure and say, Hey, I’m gonna go start here. ’cause In two weeks you burn out. Right? So start slowly do what you, what you’re capable of, and put goals in front of yourself. Right.
RV (11:21):
Well, and I think the other thing that’s really powerful is, you know, you talked about suck level, which is a concept that, you know, like, I used to talk about that a lot. I I, I, it’s funny, I haven’t talked about that in a long time of like, that’s a good concept because it’s like your suck level is basically when you push yourself at red line to reach a new level, then it pushes you forward. Then you’re, what you would consider sucks, is actually much higher than you, you normally operate at. And the other way to do that is to do what you did, was to like surround yourself with people who are operating at a higher level. You’re, it’s like your, your baseline suck level goes up automatically because their expectations are so much higher. And just like you adopt their psyche, you adopt their habits, you adopt their, their self-talk, their way of eating. And that must’ve been going on with Taylor.
RG (12:12):
Yeah. Well, the other piece of that too, right, was, so after that year, I had talked to Taylor. I said, I wanna do a show, man. Like, I need another goal. I dropped the 50 pounds. I need another goal. I was two 30, and I was like, okay, I’m pretty fit. I’m, I’m looking pretty good, you know, like, but I wasn’t what I had still pictured in my head. And so when I talked to him, I said, gimme a show. Let’s pick a date. We picked October and this was in December, and I started full, full go. It was, it was on. And the way I made sure I did it is I told everybody I was doing it. I had to make myself accountable to other people, not just to myself. Because when you’re only holding yourself accountable, until you’re disciplined enough to continue to do that by yourself, you need something to push you to keep you doing it.
RG (13:03):
Because for me, I didn’t want to fail everybody. I told I didn’t want to fail my kids that I said I was doing this for. You know, I, I didn’t want to fail and prove that I couldn’t do something. So for me, I told everybody, I said, I’m doing, I, I, at first, I was, I was slow about it. Like January, February, I was kinda like, Hey, something new coming. I didn’t like fully commit. And then by March when I had dropped another, like, you know, 10 pounds, I’m like, Hey, I’m doing a show in October, by the way. And then it really kicked up another level. And it was, and, and to be quite honest, the hardest part for me is bodybuilders are selfish. You have to be a very, very selfish individual at that time, because right then it’s all about you.
RG (13:49):
It’s all about what you’re doing and how you’re com you know, competing and how you are making yourself look and how you, everything evolves, evolves around you because you can’t, you can’t do it up the other way. You would fail. And so, yes, I did surround myself with very like-minded individuals. You know, even at home it was like my wife Nicole, and my, my son Carter was like, you know, I’ll eat what you’re gonna eat. I’m not eating that. I gotta eat this. Right? And so that’s not always easy to have to, you manage three different types of meals or whatever. When it’s like, Hey, we could just make one meal. I was like, no, can’t I got six to eat today? And, you know, whatever. But so yeah. So that’s kind of how that happened. And then,
RV (14:37):
So by telling everybody, basically you kind of like, you don’t have a choice after that. Like once you, once it’s, once it’s out there now, your integrity’s on the line, your reputation’s on the line. Like, and these, it’s amazing how much these girls from your team, like how much of an impact they played here without, they, they maybe they didn’t even know. I don’t know if
RG (15:02):
I would talk to them about it. ’cause I, I would, I would tell them like, listen, ’cause they would ask me, you know, they’d see me eating six almonds or whatever on the sidelines, you know, during tournaments. ’cause We’re, you know, I’m coaching constantly. We’re always playing whatnot, but I bring my, my lunches or whatever, you know, and, and they would see, and I’d say, listen ladies, I’m not doing this to just do it. I’m doing it to win. Like, I don’t, I don’t set out to do something to just to do it. If I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna go out to win. And that’s exactly what I expect you to do. I don’t expect you to step on the field to just be on the field. I expect we’re gonna win. So that was my whole motto the whole time. That second year, and in that second year, I dropped another. So I got down to two 30. So dropped 50 at first, and I dropped another 30 pounds to step on stage. So I stepped on stage. I weighed in at 1 99. After two years of, you know, just going mad crazy. And, you know, I think the day of the show, I was 1 97 that morning.
RV (16:04):
Wow. So it’s over 80. So over 80 pounds,
RG (16:07):
Three pounds. Yeah.
RV (16:09):
And what was your body, what did your body fat
RG (16:11):
? My body fat was down to like 5%. And I, I remember the definitely because think, think what meant so much to me is you came out right. That, that was tremendous for me, was a huge impact. And meant you don’t even know what that meant. But I remember waking up the next morning and telling Nicole, there’s no way. That’s me. There’s no way that that is me in the mirror. I, I mean, I went the other way so far the other way. And I was like, I cannot believe, I mean, I’m talking, but I can’t believe that’s me. . It was like, you know, when you’re 47 years old and you got a six pack and you can see the, you, you know, the, your durations on the side, serrations on the side. You’re like, wait, you know, it was crazy. It was, it was really crazy. I was really hungry. But it was really, it was really cool. .
RV (17:00):
Well, and if you go to, if you go to if you’re on Instagram, if you just look up the, the Randy Gale, GALE, the Randy Gale, you can see these pictures. Like, I remember I posted a picture on my Instagram that showed the before and after, and people went nuts. I said, it was like, that’s freaking massive 80 pounds. But, but dropping 45%. Yeah. In body fat in less than two years. That’s gnarly.
RG (17:27):
It’s really the body composition, right? The, the weight you can drop off. But if you are not, if you are not doing the right things, you’re just going to lose weight. And yeah, you’ll recomp yourself a little bit. But, you know, for me it was like, when you’re that big, you have X skin, like you have extra skin. That was the hardest thing. You know, and I think even you had heard some comments, you know, in the, in the stands, I was like, man, that dude lost a lot of weight. ’cause I had skin that you can’t hide that. And I wasn’t about to have surgery to have it removed. ’cause Why would I, you know? But it’s like that’s the biggest thing. I think that was the most difficult or most challenging thing. Wouldn’t you have lost that much weight? Is like, what do you do with all this skin that you were stuffing before , you know?
RV (18:07):
Well, I mean, the, the, I mean, it’s a reminder. I mean, it’s a reminder of the price you paid, right? It’s like scars. It’s going, this is a reminder that I’m not the person that I once was. That I’m not going back like that. It’s this, you know, it’s, it’s a, yeah. It’s, it’s a relic. It’s a relic of a different time in my life where I made different choices and I had different outcomes. Umspeaking.
RG (18:34):
Well, it’s also kind of a, a scary, a, a scary concept too that, that folks don’t really understand or I, I never really, I think thought about was, you know, there’s a lot of food diseases out there, right? That, and, and, you know, I even had a young lady on one of my teams that had a, a, a eating disorder. By doing this, it gave me somewhat of a, an eating disorder as well in the sense that I would freak out when I didn’t eat something right. And do an extra 15, 30 minutes of cardio. And so getting where I’m at now, which I’m, I’m, I’m maintaining, I’m out of, I’m call off season, right? I’ll start training really hard again here in July. It was really hard mentally for me to be like, okay, it’s okay to eat that because it’s that time of the season as opposed to, oh my God, freaking out. I’m gonna get really fat. You know? And so that, you know, that’s something that if, if somebody goes down this journey, they have to be ready for, they understand they need to talk to people. You need, there’s a right way to get back to say normal conditions of eating as opposed to, you know, super strict and, and you know, that bodybuilding diet.
RV (19:54):
Yeah. I mean, when you’re, when you’re training for a show, it’s like all consuming. I mean, it’s a very, very intense that the, I I, so I, I want to go back actually, like, on, on the topic of being, not being the person that you once were. Mm-Hmm. . You know, we just, I, you know, I just had mom on the show like not too long ago, which was like, prompted by just, oh, it’s Mother’s Day, and I should like, have mom on to like, tell her story about what it was like. And it was really powerful. I actually learned, I actually learned a lot hearing. It’s, it’s interesting hearing mom, you know, now being in our forties, hearing mom retell her perspective of the story of like, what happened, about how our life worked. And because like, my life is pretty dramatically different from where we started, you know?
RV (20:51):
Like, I see. So it’s, it’s, and, and, and that’s part of why I wanted you to, to have you on the show, because your life, your life is too, your life is dramatically different from where we started. And then you also had this more recent transformation that was also very dramatic in a very short period of time. And I think there’s people that are listening that maybe are not in the best situation, or maybe like, not in the best circumstances. Hmm. And sometimes it feels far away like that. You know, you, you could have a different, you could have a completely different life in two years or five years, like a radically different life. What do you remember about us growing up? Like what, what do you, ’cause you were older, you’re five years older than me.
RG (21:39):
Yeah.
RV (21:39):
And
RG (21:40):
Four and a half. I’m not five years. No,
RV (21:41):
You’re five and a half years older than me. Well,
RG (21:43):
Five and a half. Yeah. I’m getting older. I’m gonna tell you .
RV (21:46):
Yeah. It’s but you, but I, but I have, I have at least five point a half per more percent body fat than you do at least
RG (21:54):
Right now. You don’t, I
RV (21:55):
Believe the, you know, a lot of those, you know, the, the stories that mom was telling was, you know, like, I don’t remember a lot of the hard, I feel like a lot of the hardest times I don’t remember because I was still a baby. But you were old enough to remember some of those times. Mm-Hmm. clearly they were hard on moms. She was 23 years old. Single mom had two kids, had been divorced twice. You know, she shared about that she had two abortions and no college education at the time. Like living in a state away from her family. Like, it was hard. And that was her version of hard, my version was like a baby. I don’t remember anything. Y’all were taking care of me. But I’m curious about some of what you remember because you were like old enough to actually re remember it and you like live it.
RG (22:52):
Yeah. I, I, I, I would say first off, like, just to mom, like, as we’re older right? And understanding how difficult it is to raise kids. ’cause We have our, our own kids. And how not having another person there to support you and to be able to have two kids that turned out like we’ve turned out pretty freaking amazing, pretty amazing. Doesn’t, you don’t hear about that. I mean, and to understand not only the, the, the difficulty and challenges you have to, who’s gonna watch my kids when I go to work so we can eat, like, thank God for, you know, the ETLs and, and Danny and all the people that, you know, mom brought up and that were there for us. ’cause They didn’t have to be, and and times were different then, right? I mean, community was a lot more community back in those days.
RG (23:50):
And, but, but fortunately for us, like there’s, I don’t know. There’s no way, there is no way that we’d be where we are without the help that mom got. Because I don’t know how, I don’t even know how she got where she got without, you know, without them. But prior to them, it’s like I do, I would tell you, like as I listened to the, the, the podcast, like there are things that mom stated that I think are different than what she said. But that again, as perspective, right? She’s older. I’m anywhere between five and 10. So I see things differently or I remember things differently. You know, I, I can tell you that.
RV (24:30):
Well, and just to, just to underscore what you said there. Yeah. ’cause It’s like, I, I go like, you know, me and AJ are happily married and we have a team. I mean, we got a team of people, like, and I go, we’re, we struggle, like, we struggle to raise kids and like keep up with the family and like, working and, and just, just keeping the house clean. And just like having Santa, just getting the kids to go to eat and like, go to sleep at night. It’s, it’s like, it’s so hard. And what
RG (25:01):
I, what I would tell you is I think now, and, and you’ve written me and you, and you’ve told me the affinity that you’ve had for me, an understanding, like, I raised you from five to 10 because mom was working. So when you say you were with me a lot of the time, you were with me all the time. Like, I never got to go anywhere with just me. It was always me and my brother. This is,
RV (25:28):
You’re talking about from when I was age five to when
RG (25:30):
I was Yeah. From when you were like five to 10. It was like, you were always with me. We were always doing stuff with my friends or whatnot. You know, they were your fr they, a lot of my friends growing up were your friends because you were with us. Right? but I think you also kind of started to understand like, I was being a parent, right? I didn’t know how to be a parent to you at that age. So, you know, even in talking with mom, and she’s apologized because I didn’t have the childhood, you would have Right. That, that a normal, you know, two, maybe a two parent home what people would call normal, I guess upbringing of, you know, a, a family, kids are allowed to be kids and you get to a certain age and then, you know, you start figuring out adulthood. Well, for me, it wasn’t about that. It was, take care of your brother, make sure you don’t burn down the house or wherever you’re living. .
RV (26:26):
Yeah, we weren’t living in houses. We weren’t living in houses.
RG (26:28):
Yeah. We weren’t living in houses. And it was a dungeon, you know, Utah, I talked about the dungeon. It was a dungeon. It was a boiler room. The boiler was literally in the kitchen across the street, like the sink. Like it was, I’m, no, I’m telling you, it was, it couldn’t have been more than 36 inches wide. We’d walk in the door and it was just like two rooms with a boiler room and a kitchen sink. I don’t even remember a stove in there. I don’t remember if mom said it was a stove, but I don’t, I don’t remember ever cooking in there. But it, it, it is what it is. So, I mean, we always, always had a roof over our head somehow. I don’t how she did it. You know, she was
RV (27:04):
Resourceful in that way. I mean, my mom was resourceful. She was good at making friends. Yeah. And she was good at getting people to care about us. And they looked after us. I mean, we had so many people. So she was super resourceful in that way.
RG (27:18):
Well, I, I will tell you that, that is what created who I am as far as, you know, when I meet people, I’m, I, I, I love making friends. I, you know, everybody’s a friend to me. But I’m also that person that like, I try to take charge to take care of, if that makes sense. So I, I’m, you know, people are like, yeah, you know, you’re that a type personality. Well, it’s really because I’m always on, I’m always just looking out for everybody,
RV (27:47):
Like on duty. Yes. Like, that’s how I think of it. That’s how I think of it as like, you’re my big brother who is always on duty. Like you were on duty training me, looking after me, watching over me, you know, doing. And, and even now you carry that. Like, I see that with the girls, like on your softball team. Like, it’s like you’re on duty.
RG (28:08):
Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know how to let somebody else take care of me and my situation stuff. All I know is how to take care of everything and handle it, if that makes sense. So you know, maybe that’s kind of a fight or flight thing from when we were little is just like, figure it out. Like, we always just figured it out. We never got in, in a bad situation that we didn’t get outta because we would just, I’d figure it out.
RV (28:42):
And what do you so, so what do you remember most about growing up? I mean, out outside of just in general, taking care of me. Like,
RG (28:51):
I remember moving a lot. I remember, you know, I, I know like I did, I went to like three different first grades. I think Mom even said that, you know, like three different first grades. Which we were always in sort of the same sort of area, but it was like, we didn’t move states at least. But we did move around. I, I felt like we moved around a lot. I remember, you know, mom had always had me in sports though. Some way she managed to get me into sports. So like, I would, I did Boulder Valley Soccer when I was younger. I don’t think we paid, ’cause we didn’t have any money. And she found a way to get me in there. And so she never let us have downtime to just get in trouble. Right. She always like found a way to have us with somebody somewhere, or doing some sport. At least for me. You were a little bit younger, so you, I mean, you, I guess somebody was watching you. I don’t remember like where you were when I was, you know, playing soccer and whatnot. But so I was always kind of involved in sports growing up.
RV (29:58):
Do you remember, like, do you remember feeling poor or thinking we were poor or having other people like tell you we were poor? Like, do,
RG (30:10):
Do you, I remember, remember that what I do rem what I do , what I do remember a lot of is when my dad would send child support money, we would, mom would take us out to McDonald’s.
RV (30:22):
I remember that.
RG (30:24):
And that was my dad had sent child support. We had a little extra money and you and I would go get Happy Meals and that was a big deal. Right. Because it was like, whatever that character or whatever was in the Happy Meal.
RV (30:35):
Ronald McDonald Oh no. The thing, the toy and the Happy Meal. Yeah.
RG (30:38):
Toy and the Happy Meal. But we also used to go to the train at the McDonald’s in Boulder. They used to have that one over by Crossroads Mall back in the day. And it was like, you could go in the caboose and whatnot and I don’t know, but
RV (30:49):
Right. I remember that
RG (30:50):
Used to do that. I, I remember not feeling poor because mom would take us to do stuff. Like we were always in the mountains in the foothills. I know you didn’t like it. But for me it was great. That’s why I liked fishing. And, and like, I al one thing I do remember was I always wanted a dog though. Like, we never had our own place. Like we were always living with somebody or lived in somewhere that we couldn’t have a pet. So that was one thing that I wish I always could have. And then I finally did, you know, in high school we got, you know, mom allowed me to get Roscoe.
RV (31:28):
And Did you? Yeah, that’s right. We had Roscoe Roscoe 1 1 1 time. One time we were playing football. One time we were playing football in the living room. I remember ’cause you used to put the blankets over. Oh yeah. . We were playing goal line. And I used to, I used to carry the ball and I’d have to like jump over you and you’d be under the blankets with all the pillows and you’d slam into me and I’d have to try to like jump over the goal line. And you rocked me back into the Christmas tree, like knocked me back
RG (31:56):
After. It was like yesterday.
RV (31:57):
I hit the Christmas tree, Christmas tree completely tips over and crashes. And mom’s favorite ornament. Was it ACO cu Buffs ornament Or a, I think
RG (32:08):
It was a Broncos ornament. A
RV (32:10):
Broncos ornament crash and shattered and all And what happened, mom goes, I took care
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Of it. What happened? Randy
RV (32:19):
Took care of it. Mom
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Roscoe knocked over the Christmas Street. . We blamed it on the dog.
RG (32:27):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
You did. You took care of it.
RG (32:29):
That’s why I always wanted a dog was ’cause I was always getting caught. ’cause I had nothing to blame it on. It’s like, plus mom knew everybody, so it was like I could never get away with anything.
RV (32:37):
We did tell her the truth of that story. Like 10 years later, maybe I don’t even something like
RG (32:40):
That. Don’t even remember. Maybe this is the first essential here. I don’t know about
RV (32:43):
Yeah, maybe. I think we told her the truth.
RG (32:45):
Yeah. And then
RV (32:46):
Anyways, we’re honest people. We’re honest people. But we did, we did lie about the . We did lie about the Christmas tree.
RG (32:52):
. Yeah. and then, you know, I think our fondest memory, for whatever reason, I don’t understand why is, is always, you know, always around football. Like when we played Garfield, like, you know, I don’t know if you, you’ve told your audience what, what I sent you for a Christmas gift, but it was, you know, the doll or stuffed animal that we used to play with for a football. ’cause We didn’t have money for a football. Like something that simple, like, and we literally, we picked it up and here goes to get it. He is. And you could fit your, this is show him how you flip it around and you fit it. I was always the quarterback. So that this
RV (33:33):
Was, this was, this is the greatest Christmas present baby I’ve ever gotten because this is, this Garfield doll is the doll. We couldn’t afford a football and somebody must have donated us.
RG (33:44):
I think we got it at a church or something.
RV (33:45):
A church or something. But when you, his little plastic eyes, he’s got these like hard plastic eyes. When you throw this bad boy, he perfectly spi I mean, perfectly spirals. Yep. And so we played with this for hours, for years.
RG (33:59):
Yeah.
RV (34:00):
And then this last Christmas outta nowhere, Randy sends me this no note or anything. There was nothing. It just showed up. Because you must have ordered it from Amazon or something. Yeah,
RG (34:11):
We looked that for it.
RV (34:11):
Yeah. And it showed up. And when I opened it, I knew, I knew it was from you. Like, ’cause this was, and I so it sit, it sits on my desk. That’s where I just went to grab it. . Right, right behind me. Right. The
RG (34:25):
But it, I mean it’s the, it’s what you talk about in some of your you know, when you’re, you’re speaking sometimes you talk about the Garfield and, and, and that’s it. I mean, for those that don’t know, that’s that’s it. That’s the thing That was football for us for years. Same thing. You know, we just made do, we emptied two liter bottle and we make paper baseballs wrapped up tape balls. And we played baseball. I think most kids didn’t have things, did that sort of thing. And we, we played baseball. We had
RV (34:52):
A two liter empty, two liter bottle of soda was our bat. Right. And then you had take a, take a pick paper and roll it up and tape it up. Yeah. We did that all the time. We
RG (35:01):
Used to do, we used to do great things as kids. I mean, we, you know, even things that I did with Carter now is, you know, I made a tournament, a basketball tournament bracket. Right. Like how you and I used to play that all the time. You know, I was the older one, so I got to pick out and do all the fun stuff and Yeah. You
RV (35:18):
Got to shoot all the three pointers and I sat and rebounded
RG (35:21):
Yeah. Hours
RV (35:22):
At a time and
RG (35:23):
Yeah. But you were a great rebounder when you got the high school.
RV (35:24):
That’s true. I was a great rebounder in high school. . So did you, but you never, so like, the thing that dawned on me was like, I didn’t really realize I didn’t, I never had any inclination whatsoever that like, we were only one, you know, we were only like a few days away from living on the streets at time. And like, we hadn’t had friends, we wouldn’t have had a meal. And like, it never dawned on me. It wasn’t until I was much older looking back, being like, wow. Like, mm-Hmm. And, and I started learning about money and business and stuff and being like, we, we, we, we come a long way. So, so, but when you were young, you never felt that either. You never felt like, no. Oh, I’m not gonna be,
RG (36:09):
I never felt
RV (36:09):
Somebody because we don’t have money.
RG (36:12):
I never felt like, I mean, I guess the, it, I don’t know if it’s a good example or not, but you know, some kids, when you’re going to school, you’re like, he, well that kid’s, the, the, the dirty kid or he smells or he doesn’t take a shower because they can’t afford the water, whatever. I never felt like I, that was us. Okay. Right. I never felt like that was us. I do know that we learned the value of a dollar very early. ’cause When we wanted something, we had to earn it. I can recall we went camping in Colorado Springs one time. I had saved up all my allowance for months to buy a fishing rod in a Rio. And I mean, I tell the story all the time that you and you and mom are over here on the side. And I’m standing on the dock. I got my fishing rod and my line in the water. I got a Pepsi in one hand and Cheetos in the other. And I hear, skip, skip, skip who? And a fish. Big, big old fish took my pole and Rod. And I stand up and I’m screaming and I’m crying to mom and she’s all, what? What’s going? I said, the fish just took my pole. And she says, well go get it. I’m like, how am I supposed to go get it? I’m diving in this lake. Like, I’m great
RV (37:22):
Advice, mom. Jump in the
RG (37:23):
Lake. Go get it. Go get it. Oh man. I was so, I was so heartbroken. I had saved up for the best reel, you know, forever. It was like, I mean, those are the kind of things that, that we have stories like that from, from our whole childhood. Like, I have stories that I remember that are, that if I say now just crack me up, they’re hilarious. But at the time they were like, you know, destroyed me, you know, type of thing. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, I don’t, I don’t think, you know, we always had, I don’t feel like we ever went hungry. I’m, I’m sure we were probably hungry, but I don’t feel like we ever went hungry, if that makes sense. Yeah. I don’t think we ever missed a meal. You and me, like we always had something to eat some soup or something. But we
RV (38:06):
Were on, we were on wic. We were
RG (38:07):
On wic. Yeah. Yeah. Which is, you know, it’s milk and butter and, and eggs and cheese I think is what it is. It’s like the essentials.
RV (38:15):
But that’s only till, I think mom said that that only was while, while I was under age too. Once I was like over age two. Yeah. It shuts off. So I,
RG (38:23):
I don’t, I, I guess I don’t know all that. Like, I don’t know the details of when that kicked in or not. I do remember, like, we grew up on mac and cheese. We grew up on ramen noodles. We grew up on the little, you know, Kool-Aid things that were 5 cents, they were little barrel that, that had juice in them. You know, they’re not even juice. I don’t know what they were, but taste like juice
RV (38:42):
Chemicals.
RG (38:43):
S they definitely chemicals, you know we grew up on tortillas, but you know, we
RV (38:48):
Call little one burritos. The
RG (38:49):
White, the white, the white man burrito. Right. We put cheese in the tortilla and melted cheese. And it was like, Hey, that was our burrito. Yeah. Didn’t have beans in it. Just had cheese and yeah.
RV (38:58):
We weren’t eating healthy because we were eating cheap. Which is unfortunate. ’cause That’s how a lot of families are like, when you don’t have money, it’s like you Yeah. It’s all crappy food that’s Yeah.
RG (39:07):
Afford. Yeah. Well that you’ll find that too, when you’re trying to get healthy. Right? Like, they don’t help you to get healthy. That’s for sure. .
RV (39:13):
Yeah. It’s expensive. It’s hard to find. It takes forever to cook. Like yeah. Ram Well, I, I just, you know, if, if there’s somebody out there right now who’s listening, who’s just going through a tough time, like maybe, maybe they’re looking at a picture of themselves in the mirror going, that can’t be me. Or, you know, maybe they’re in a place where they don’t have a lot of money, you know, or they’re, you know, like one of your girls dealing with some type of a, of a, you know, an eating disorder. Like, you’ve come so far and, and we’ve come, I mean we’ve, we’ve, we’ve all come so far. What would you say to that person about what it takes to transform their life?
RG (40:07):
For me, people sometimes say think big, but for me it’s think, think simple. Don’t, don’t bite off the biggest piece of the apple first. Start off slow, but continue to do it every day. And eventually you’ll be done. You start off slow on that bottom step of that mountain. You didn’t think you could get to you, but you had to take a step to get it. We’ll, take one step, take two steps the next day, take three steps the next day. And before you know it, you’re at the top and you don’t even know how you got there. You don’t remember where, what it was like when you started. And then I’ve heard this lately a couple times, is get uncomfortable being uncomfortable, like to make a change of anything. It isn’t gonna be nice. It’s not gonna be comfortable. It’s not nothing worth doing is easy.
RG (41:05):
Like, that was the biggest thing for me is like understanding. Like, I’m going to get there eventually, but it isn’t gonna be easy and it isn’t gonna be in 30 days and it isn’t gonna be in 60 days. But I don’t care. I I, I have a date out here that I gotta get to. And if I just keep doing this every day, I’ll get to where I’m at. And if I have to reevaluate my goal when I get there, then I’ll reevaluate. But I’m not gonna reevaluate until I get there. There. And then though, you know it, you’re there. If it’s a financial situation, I mean, I, I would say I’m not the greatest financial person to be given financial advice, but you know, but it’s, for me, it’s like I start to think about more of like, what’s more important for my next payment, right?
RG (41:56):
Like, can I live without this so that I can get this? Yeah. That makes more sense. So I start to weigh things like that, you know, now as, as opposed to before when we grew up, like that was my big, that I think that is one of the big issues that I have is we didn’t have money. So now when I have money for something, I’m like, Hey, get it. Like my, I don’t want my kids to never have nothing that they don’t want. Like, that was hard for me. My my daughter, you know, she wanted a new bat. I’d go get her a new bat. She wanted a new glove. I’d go get her a new glove because I didn’t want her to feel like I fell, which was, I had good enough. Or I had, I had shoes on. Who knows what brand they were. Right. I had a shirt on.
RV (42:40):
I know they were from Payless. I know sure that was
RG (42:43):
Straight Payless.
RV (42:44):
Uhhuh . They were from Pay Less. That was the only place that we ever went.
RG (42:47):
Yep. When they started like, making shoes that looked like Reebok pumps. I remember that day. . You know what I mean? So you know, don’t give up no matter what you do. Don’t give up. Don’t give up find. I found, I, I found that it wasn’t that I could really necessarily go to any one individual that I knew. It was more like I found podcasts and I used social media to push me by watching motivational things. That’s how I did it. So, you know, I would say things that, that I would internalize and I would hear it and it would make me think about where we came from. Or it would make me think about how far we’ve come or it’d make me think about what I wanna show to my brother, or what I wanna show to my mom or what I wanna show to my kids.
RG (43:44):
Like what am I doing that shows them that what I say, I mean, you know, and so for me, the bodybuilding thing I feel I’m like in my life is probably the one thing that I said I was gonna do that I did without a doubt. And you know, this, I mean, there’s a lot of things that I’ve wanted to do in my life and I’ll start and I stop because whatever it’s ’cause of whatever, the two things, I don’t the three things I’ve never stopped. I’ve been married to almost 24 years. I’ve got two kids. One’s getting, both of ’em will be seniors next year, one in college, one in high school, and I coach. And I’m lifting. Like, those are the things now to me that I’ll, I I’m not gonna stop. Right. And so, you know, if there’s anything in life that’s worth doing, it’s, it’s for your family. And you do whatever you can do. You do whatever you gotta do for your family.
RV (44:38):
Yeah. Well, I just want to thank you R like it’s not lost on me that the life that I have is much the result of many people who made sacrifices along the way and who invested in me. Many, many people starting first and foremost with you and mom. Like and that’s continued, that’s continued to this day. Like people constantly investing into me and, but I never, I never would got there if it weren’t for you. And I’m so grateful for the discipline. You know, and I, it’s like I joke about not, I mean, I kind of joke. I mean, I do, I joke about the fact that I don’t like camping. I don’t like manly stuff. You know, I don’t, I would rather get a man a manicure than I would go fishing a hundred times . But the truth is like, I’m a pretty tough son of a.
RV (45:36):
If I have to be and it’s because of you, it’s because you beat the crap outta me, and pushed me to the limits. And you, you always taught me to get back up. You always taught me to keep going. You always taught me like don’t listen to what anybody says to you. And don’t, don’t ever internalize someone who’s talking crap about you or about us. Like you always, I remember you always pushing me in sports and never letting people who are bigger than me and older than me. You know, like your friends. They never got to make fun of me. That was, you would always, you would. We were on duty.
RG (46:15):
Yeah. I have a great story I have to tell because it, it goes to that point. I remember coming home one day and you were at Ryan Elementary, this in Lafayette, and I came home and I don’t know, one of the neighbor girls came running up, your brother’s getting in a fight, your brother’s getting in a fight. And I’m like, what? So I tear off and I’m running across the street and I’m, it was my friends and you come walking back across the street and I’m like, what happened? And they’re like, Rory knocked him out. . It was like some big kid that was messing with you in school, wanted to meet you after school, and you met him and you knocked him out. And I was like, what? It’s like I didn’t get to do anything. I didn’t get the help at all. And you guys were walking across the street like, you know, like king of the mountain. It was funny. I just remember that story when you’re saying that. It was I don’t know if you remember doing that, but you came walking across the street with with Craig and the guys and you are like, you know, it was, it’s funny.
RV (47:15):
Yeah. And I, I don’t, I, I, I don’t look for fights. I try actively to avoid fights, but like, and not just fights rejection, right? Heartbreak, setback, failure. People telling you you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re, their skin’s the wrong color. Like you’re whatever. Like yeah. Those are, those are, those are things that I’ve endured and I know that you have and I know that people listening have and just, so anyway, so thank you for that. Y’all, if you want to know more about my brother and check out his journey and see what he’s up to with, with lifting and you can, you could go to Instagram and follow him at the Randy Gale GALE, the Randy Gale brother. I love you. Thank you. Thank you for this. And thank you for everything.
RG (48:04):
Thanks for the opportunity. And yeah, if any reviewer, your viewers have questions on Health Journey that they’re going through, hit me up. I’m always here to help. Like Rory says, you know, I’m always on watch.
RV (48:17):
I love it. I love you, bro.
RG (48:19):
All right, love you.

Ep 521: How To Be Rich | Matt Fornito Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Do you wanna know how to be rich? Well, I’m gonna tell you a story that I recently heard, and here’s how the story goes. Regardless to what amount of truth is to this story I think it’s a great example of something that we all need to hear and learn if you truly want to be rich. Now, I say that with bunny ear quotations because rich is a really relative term. If you live in the United States, then statistically speaking, you are already richer than most human beings on planet Earth. And if you make more than $50,000 a year, then you make more than most people worldwide. So there’s a relative term there. But if you wanna learn how to be successful, right, which I think is a part of what rich means, then this story should mean something to you. And this is a story about Warren Buffet and a conversation that he had with his pilot.
AJV (00:55):
And his pilot asked him, he said, Warren, will you teach me how to be rich? Will you teach me how to be successful like you and I think anyone in that your surroundings would’ve said, yes, teach me too. How did you do what you have done? And he said, okay, here’s what you wanna do. Get out a piece of paper and write down the 50 things that you want to accomplish. So he got out a piece of paper and he wrote down, here are 50 things that I wanna do, I wanna accomplish, right? He said, okay, now cut that down to 25. So narrow it down to what are the 25 most important things on that list. So he did. And then Warren said, okay, now cut that list down to 10. And the pilot did. He said, okay, well, I’m gonna cross this out and cross this out and cross this out.
AJV (01:46):
So he went from 50 to 25 to 10, and then Warren came back and he goes, all right, now I want you to cut that list of 10 in half. Again, I want you to narrow it down to what are the five things that are most important on that list. And the pilot at this point says, whoa, we started with 50. Now you’re all the way down to five. Like, that’s hard. These are all important, these are all significant. And then Warren said, but you asked, how do you be successful? How do you be rich? And if you’ve got more than five things that you’re chasing after that you’re doing, that you’re spending your time on, then it’s too many, right? And I, I, this is something we say at Brand Builders Group a lot, that diluted focus gets diluted results. And I think this is a great story that exemplifies what we’re talking about.
AJV (02:40):
And it’s like, you only have so much attention, right? We only have so many minutes in an hour, so many hours in a day, so many days in a year, and so many years in our life. And if we make this, you know, I hear people talk about this all the time. Here’s my bucket list item of things, right? And it’s like, then we’re kind of just like checking off whatever comes our way without a lot of intentionality. But if we want to really be quote unquote rich or really be successful, then what we need to do is have extreme focus, extreme intentionality into what are the five things, or are the three things. I’m not saying it has to be five, but what are the few things that you could go after with all of your focus, all of your might, all of your intention, all of your attention, all of your passion, all of your time, because that’s where you have success.
AJV (03:31):
You have success in the areas in which you spend the most time. You have the most expertise in the areas in which you spend the most time. You have the best relationships in the areas where you spend the most time, right? And that’s how you become rich, , rich in relationships, rich in time, rich in money, is that you’re not chasing every shiny object out there that you have narrowed it down to in my life, for my life, in my business, for my business, these are the select few most important priorities that are, that are above all else that get my time. First, my attention. First my energy, first my passion, first, my money first because I have declared them. So, and that can’t be spread out equally with 50 things, not even 25 things, likely not even 10 things, but maybe with five, more likely with three.
AJV (04:28):
And if you think about the way you’re going about your day this doesn’t not apply to that, right? I look at my calendar right now somewhat sheepishly. I’m going, I need to take my own advice here because on any given day I might be doing 10, 12, 15 different types of tasks. And let me tell you how I end those days. I end them completely exhausted, completely overwhelmed, not enough energy to go and give my kids and my husband the love time energy that they deserve. Why? Because I’ve expended too much in too many different areas, doing too many different things. Not a an ounce to breathe and ounce to go to the bathroom without being on a phone call, eating lunch while I’m multitasking lunch sometimes, like, what is lunch? Right? That’s my chew, that’s my choosing. No one did that to me.
AJV (05:16):
I did that to myself and I did it because I had a lack of priority. But when I have priorities and I enter and I put all of my energy into those, I have better days, I have more energy left over I, I am more fulfilled and I get more done because I was able to go deeper in the areas that got the best of me. And that is true for life too, right? And it’s like, there’s just so many things that we can do, so many relationships that we can invest in so many tasks that we can complete so many, so many opportunities that we can say yes to. There is a limit.
AJV (05:56):
And, and I say there’s a limit if you wanna do them well, right? So how do you be rich? You narrow down where you’re investing your time, energy, focus, learning, expertise and you pick a few that you can be exceptional at, and that’s how you become rich.

Ep 520: Using AI to Increase Human Connection with Matt Fornito

AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Influential Personal Brand podcast, AJ Vaden here, one of your co-hosts. And today I have a friend and a fellow BBG member that is our guest on the show today. And I’m so excited to introduce you guys to Matt Ferdo. We actually just had Matt come speak to our internal group at Brand Builders Group, all on the topic of ai, which, you know, that’s what we’re talking about today if you clicked on this episode. But before we get into this conversation of ai, I wanted to let you know why I invited Matt on the show, because we’ve had several other people in and out the last two years talking about ai. But I think one of the things that’s really interesting is, you know, Matt’s the founder of the AI Advisory Group. But one of the things that I recently learned is like, I think one of the things that our team, and I, and I had Matt on the show, because I know if our team struggles with it, and if we struggle with it, you likely struggle with it, which means your team struggle with it is they hear lots about it, they know lots about it, they test different things, but it really hasn’t become a routine way of creating efficiencies in the business, right?
AJV (01:14):
And so the conversation that I wanna have today is like, well, one, we’re gonna talk about what does the future look like with this? And not in a, a job scarcity mindset. That’s not what we’re talking about, how everyone’s jobs are being eliminated, because I don’t really believe that. But it’s more of like, Hey, how can we use these, these tools that are at our disposal to create efficiencies in the lives of our team members and our lives and daily routine tasks that seem to overwhelm us? Because if I hear one more entrepreneur tell me, there’s just not enough hours in the day, right? We, we’ve all said it. I’ve said it, I probably said it last week. And at the same token, it’s like, are we using the things all around us to help improve our schedules and daily lives? And so in having a conversation with Matt a few months ago, I was like, you know what?
AJV (02:01):
It’s time to bring this conversation back to the table, not on just what is the future gonna look like and sales and marketing, but more of like, how can we use this to better our daily lives, right? How do we become more efficient, thus more effective without having to add three, four, or five more working hours to our day every day? So if you were listening to this, that’s the conversation around AI that we’re gonna have today. Now I mentioned this earlier. Matt is the founder of the AI Advisory Group. He’s also been speaking and acting little known fact for more than three decades, 30 years. He’s also led leadership thought leadership C two o round tables different events. He’s on podcasts. He’s had new out news outlets like the CIO and CDO magazines. And I know him personally. So I know that the value that he’s gonna bring today is gonna be so helpful for anyone who is in business, no matter what your role is, entrepreneur, business owner, salesperson in marketing, operations or those, someone aspiring to do any of those things. So without further ado, Matt, welcome to the show,
MF (03:12):
And thank you so much for having me. Thank you for the, the kind words. And it was you know, an honor to have you approach me because when you actually said, you know, we would love to have you come speak internally, that’s the most important thing, right? That transformative mindset of how do we actually start moving the needle and how do we get to a place where we can create a competitive mode and be people first, AI driven to enable everyone in the organization to be more effective, more efficient, and spend more time doing the things they love.
AJV (03:42):
Yeah. And that’s really the conversation around this that I love. ’cause I, I love because I, I, you know, I’m just not one of those people who’s gonna look at anything as the, you know, glass is half empty, gloom and doom. This is gonna, you know, take over the need for humans. It’s like, nah, I don’t, I just, I just don’t believe that, right? I think that as a human species, we’re also, we’re always gonna be needed. So I think there is, if we, if we just can all agree on that for a second, then there’s a lot of power and how we can use some of these tools. So here’s my first question for you and I wanna help our audience get to know you a little bit. But before we talk about how you got into AI in the first place, what I would really love to hear from you, for everyone who’s listening, is when it comes to personal branding, right? This is a podcast all about building an influential personal brand. A lot of that is tied to, you know, the mi the mindset of entrepreneurship. But how does AI benefit you when you consider all the different things of building a personal brand and being an entrepreneur? Like, how, how does AI benefit you if you’re that person?
MF (04:47):
Well, and we, we can get into my, my backstory as to why this even came to fruition. But I think the, the reality is I wanted to create a lifestyle brand where everyone that’s a part of the team could actually have good and strong work-life balance. And that meant how do we do more with less? How do we use technology to our benefit? And so there’s me and one other person that are running the organization, and then we have former Fortune 500 CDOs on the team. And for us, it’s let’s eat our own dog food. What do we need to do? Where do we spend so much time? Where do we waste time where we could be having more efficient productivity, or we could be having more meaningful relationships? And so for, and like two examples on that of what we’ve built out.
MF (05:34):
One is a just an inbound prospecting engine. For those that reach out to me, we have an entire automation process that determines where does someone fit in the lifecycle in their maturity as well as are they an ideal customer? Because if they’re an ideal customer, then we wanna get a meeting set. And getting to that point has now all been automated, and that saves us about 30 hours per week just with that, just for one person, right? So if you have a sales team if you have a marketing team that’s highly multiplicative, and the same token in regards to me talking with a lot of boards of directors and c-suite, you need to do a lot of research to be prepared for those types of meetings, right? You can’t just wing it. And so we’ve created a, using LLMs, we’ve created a sales brief, like that goes right next to the calendar event. So we know everything that’s going on with the company in the news, based on their website the person that I’m meeting with, or the groups of people that I’m meeting with, and they’re likely pain points so that I can build a stronger, more trusting relationship faster. And I used AI to help augment doing that, but it was AI as a enablement tool, not AI as a replacement tool.
AJV (06:46):
Yeah, I, I, I love that term. It’s an enablement tool, not an a replacement tool, but those are two really good tangible things for everyone listening, if you didn’t pick up on that, is just, I mean, I’ve had these conversations with people, even in the brand builders group membership community of going, I just don’t have enough time to take all these calls myself anymore. And it’s like, well, tell me about the calls that you’re taking. It’s like every single discovery call. And what I hear you saying, it’s like, Nope, there’s opportunities for, you know, technology automation and some AI integration of, well, how do we help expedite that process so that every discovery call has actually already been qualified so that you’re actually taking the calls that you should be taking, routing the other ones in different directions. And then also research, right? The amounts of information that’s required to help keep you up to date that is exhaustive .
AJV (07:41):
And so you know, just, I think those, those are really helpful tangible ways of like, in everyday interactions, both on a sales front and just like an operational front of like, man, like kind of need to be in the know to some degree of what’s happening in my space, in the market, in the economy. It’s like, to what degree everyone is different. But if you don’t wanna get consumed in the deep, dark, black hole that is news and media, then how can we use this to gimme the things I need to know that are pertinent to my role, my industry, my space without getting consumed in the masses? So I think those are two really great things right there.
MF (08:19):
Yeah. And that’s a great point, is that there’s so much noise in the industry today that people wonder where the heck do I start? And, and how do I actually create meaningful impact? And, you know, I spoke as to what we’re personally doing because we want to eat our own dog food so that we can evangelize that out as proof that you can use ai. The reality is that especially for entrepreneurs, unless you’re going for VC or PE funding, you have a lot of things on your plate. You have a lot of manual things that you do day in and day out, and it’s time consuming. My calendar’s booked in 15 minute blocks with task and I shouldn’t maybe use technology pitches. But reclaim AI is one I do use because it automates putting the task into empty slots on your calendar in regards to what needs to be done, right? But what we look to do, what was that
AJV (09:09):
Again? Say that one for so they can hear it.
MF (09:11):
Sure. It’s reclaim.ai, and so they’re a, they do task inhabit automation. So if we have a meeting set some or, or a meeting after this somebody wants to book, they can book that and the task will automatically get moved. So that way you’re not trying to figure out what to do, which takes a lot of cognitive load, right? Of trying to figure out like, what’s important, what should I focus on? What fires do I need to put out? Instead, you can go, okay, I know what’s important because I’ve already put it into my calendar and I can focus on the things that matter.
AJV (09:42):
Yeah. And I think those are like the, the subtle tools that we all should just, even if you choose not to use ’em, be aware of ’em, because right now it’s whether you’re doing it or you’re paying for someone else to do it, regardless of how that’s happening, this is an idea of something you could automate and repurpose that person’s time into something that’s more significant. Yeah. Right. Not, you know, what you said, not replace them but replace the task, right? Yep. What else could they be doing if they weren’t doing this very simple thing, right? A hundred
MF (10:14):
Percent.
AJV (10:15):
How did you get into this? Right? And I know we kind of, you know, jumped right in, but I, I do think it’s important for people to understand, you know, regardless of what you may think, it’s like AI isn’t entirely brand spanking new, right? Sure. It’s been an evolution process. And so how long did you, how long ago did you start using a AI in your life? How’d you get into it? What led you to here?
MF (10:40):
Yeah, I mean, so AI started the, we’ll say the majority of models started in the 1950s, right? And there’s been two winters that were general only due to compute, and I’m nerdy now, it’s not too much, but I, I love this space. And when I was in school, took through regular elementary, middle high school, through university, and even into my PhD, I took every, like, quantitative course because math had a, a, a beauty, a pattern, right? The same way that as a musician, I could look at that. And when I was finishing my master’s about to start my PhD my advisor and I actually had we’ll say difference of opinions because I was doing a lot of work with the, the Office of International Research Education Development, working with Third World like NGOs to help third world countries be more efficient and productive.
MF (11:32):
And one of the things that we found out in doing that research was that when looking at really small villages, the entire population only trusted the village chief. And so if they didn’t actually get the buy-in those NGOs, didn’t get the buy-in from the village chief, and nobody was going to do anything that was said. And, and so looking at, like, this was called social network analysis, but looking at these types of things was really, really important to me because it’s like the internal mechanisms of our attitudes, behaviors, cognitions and values are at least supported or proxied by data. And so it means that we can use data to help enable and improve behavioral change. And there’s so many ways that we can do that. We’re talking on the organizational level, but there’s also the, the personal level. There’s also the, the coaching level, there’s the therapy level.
MF (12:22):
And so when I was in my PhD, I left after my master’s was actually recruited out as a data scientist. I think it was one of the first data science titles out there. ’cause That came into fruition in 20 10, 20 11 officially. And and so I went to now Defunct Sports Authority and basically rolled up to the CEO and CMO and and then was a data scientist for quite a few years building important models. And sometimes like that impetus of feeling or thinking you’re important ’cause you’re helping drive change wasn’t always true either. Like the CEO of Dish had me build out all of these models for this 15 do billion dollars of spend that he had. And and it was for and FCC spectrum auction. And then the day of, he told me he’s just gonna go on his gut and that that hurts, right?
MF (13:13):
To hear like, you’ve spent months and months working on this, you know, it’s good. You’re proud of your work, and it wasn’t leveraged. And that painted a picture to me that we’re seeing in industry today, that 80 to 90% of AI models never make it into production. And a lot of that had to do with the tools and technologies of the past. But as I moved further, I had a, a data science consulting firm. I was very, very fortunate that some Nvidia leaders had seen me keynote and event back in 2015. And they brought my firm on one of seven service delivery partners worldwide for them. And then after a few years of running that, where I was working a hundred, 120 hours a week and killing myself and losing friends and family I, I knew I needed to back out of that.
MF (13:57):
And fortunately, they actually asked if I would join what’s called the VAR solution Integrator space. And so for those guys, they sell hardware, they sell software, and they have like implementation and managed services. And they asked me to build an AI practice for their top partner. And I thought, this is actually great because we can look at this at a system level of like, what is going on with the organization? And instead of focusing on like one little use case, what are we actually trying to do here holistically? And then figure out what you actually need from hardware, from software and from services. And so the, the company I was at as well as the next company, we ended up being number one and number three globally in sales worldwide with Nvidia top five, with like Dell, HPE, Cisco, along with a lot of the SaaS software companies.
MF (14:40):
And because for me it was about how do we enable people to have a strategic roadmap on where they want to go and how do we help drive and implement change? Because what I was really seeing was that people are still stuck in the mindset of the past of let’s be transactional, let’s focus on one small thing and let’s focus on technology. But the reality is, the gaps today are really in regards to people and processes. If you don’t have people that trust ai, that trust data, that want to leverage it to improve their lives, they’re never going to use it. And the same thing with processes. If you’re not assessing your ecosystem and identifying where are the gaps? Where are we spending so much time today that we could potentially automate a workflow or use AI for then what are we doing? And so, you know, we did a great job at those two companies.
MF (15:33):
The sales teams were absolutely phenomenal. And I still had a, a, a small last hint of an ego and and I said, I want to have a chief data officer role. So I took a role at a Goldman Sachs back company, and after six months the CEO and I decided to part ways. And it wasn’t that like either of us was wrong or that we didn’t respect one another or trust one another. It was that they wanted to build a platform with lots of dashboards and lots of data that people could try to like decipher. And I wanted to minimize everything so that we could actually implement behavior change. Because if you have a hundred metrics, yeah, nothing’s going to change. But if you have three things that you know are your weaknesses that you focus on, you’re going to exponentially improve those and see exponential growth within your company. And so that’s what really ultimately led to me creating the AI advisory group. We have fractional Yeah, go ahead.
AJV (16:31):
Because I think that’s, that what you just said is, I think, so valuable because I think so many times people go, they hear things like, data is your, is the new competitive advantage, or, you know, there there’s so many sayings like that, and I don’t disagree with that. Like I think data is vitally important. In fact, if you looked at our dashboards you’d throw up, they’re overwhelming. We have so many. And I think that’s sometimes the challenge. It’s like to even sit and review all of the dashboards could easily take hours daily. Mm-Hmm, . So when you say, hey, like instead of having hundreds of data points and letting people to their own, you know, devices to go figure out what to interpret or how to interpret it, how do we simplify the things and focus on that? How do you do that?
MF (17:17):
Well first you have to assess where your company is and where you think the weaknesses or gaps are, right? And so like if let’s just pick the, the sales side example, the, the BDRs SDRs make phone calls for, right? And and so you could potentially measure the number of phone calls, but that’s a proxy for everything because ultimately you’re just trying to get to conversions, right? You want customers to buy. And so maybe increasing phone calls will lead to that and, and very likely it will with diminishing returns. But what if marketing could better target the ICP and drive the right customers already into that funnel? Then you’re gonna see higher conversion rates. And then if you have processes for your sales reps that are systematic, so you can identify, do some people have weaknesses in a demo or do they not ask the right question?
MF (18:10):
Then you should see higher conversions on a per person level. And so being able to just like wonder where you’re struggling or where you have inefficiencies, where the gaps are, where you think that there’s problems, you as a subject matter expert, that’s what’s really important, right? It’s kind of the same thing. Whether you heard this in high school or college or not, was that ice cream and murders are highly correlated. So if you buy ice cream, you’re more likely to murder. But that’s correlational, not causational. It’s that summertime increases the likelihood that people are outdoors and increases the heat, which increases like frustration and angst. And so people buy more ice cream in the summer but there’s also a higher propensity for murders. And so like, if you’re not a subject matter expert and you just look at data and say, oh, these things are connected, then you could really be making uninformed decisions. But if you bring subject matter experts in that really understand sales, understand marketing, understand product or operations, finance, et cetera then you can identify like, where can we use data to help identify if our perspective is correct or if we have gaps in our thinking,
AJV (19:21):
Okay, this is so good, so we’re just gonna use me as a case study, for example. ’cause I think this is a really great tangible way that I haven’t even thought of how to use AI and data. And so I’d love to hear your thoughts as, you know, as people are listening to this going, wait, what? So one of the things that I heard you say is, and I, and I agree, it’s like, you know, I come from a sales background, which is why my ears pricked up. When you use that example of, you know, I was always told from, from the very beginnings of my sales career make more, make more calls, make more calls, work the numbers, work the numbers. And it’s like, and to some degree, yeah, like, you know, the numbers work themselves out. The more calls you make, naturally more sales you make, but not necessarily in a percentage base, right?
AJV (20:08):
Mm-Hmm. , right? So how effective am I being versus just how hard am I working? Right? And so I love what you said, it’s like, well, what if there was a little bit more opportunity and going, well, perhaps it’s not just making more calls, it’s making sure that it’s more calls with the right customers, right? And that should lead to better conversions ’cause they’re more qualified just by being in the target audience. So can we just, I wanna use two different examples here. Sure. How could you use AI if you are in sales, in marketing, or just in business of going, how, how could I use AI to help me with that
MF (20:47):
With sales and marketing? Yeah. Well, so I, I think that what we’re seeing today, especially around the and I guess let’s clarify real quick for the audience on ai. AI has been created as this umbrella term now, right? Generally people use it now in regards to gen ai, gener generative AI like chat, GBT but there’s also the computer vision, deep learning, like self-driving cars. There’s machine learning, like what is the value of my house based on, you know, location, number of bedrooms, bathrooms, and but then there’s also even like basic things like rule base, right? Like if then statements. And and so when thinking about it for marketing, that’s been the we’ll say inflection area that people are using chat, GPT and or, or, or any of them, right? I, I, I have all of them.
MF (21:40):
And so I don’t just want say that chat, GP t’s the one because I love perplexity ai Claude’s very good emini is moving up. And so it, it doesn’t matter what flavor you choose, and you should probably play around with different ones to see what really resonates. But what’s really, really important is that and then I’ll get into your que actual question, is that the majority of material has been scraped from the web, right? And people tend to have, you know, repeat other people’s thinking. And so if you just use the base version of chat, GBT or any of the LLMs, then you’re going to get a very basic output, right? It’s not going to reflect your identity, your company’s brand identity. And so what’s really, really important is that you have to basically create an agent or a bot or an input prompt that really specifies on like who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and how you want that done.
MF (22:36):
It’s my create framework, which we won’t go into today, and that will ultimately lead into better outputs. And so from the marketing side, we’re certainly seeing that as help me create an email campaign or help me with SEO optimization of my website. And we’re not really seeing it in regards to how do we increase more of the machine learning structure data? How do we increase conversion rates? How do we make sure we’re targeting the right ICP? So our cost per dollar cost per acquisition is much lower, right? And that’s where we need to go is augmenting the gen AI aspects of those campaigns with like feeding that language in into structured data model to say, oh, okay, when we use these terms, we get much higher conversions, right? And that’s like the nuance that we aren’t really tackling or organizations aren’t tackling today.
MF (23:28):
From the sales side, you can start rudimentarily at let’s look at all of our historic conversations, right? And say, what do I need to say next to progress this deal along? Because we want, you may not be able to read through, you know, tens, hundreds, thousands of emails and texts and brand scripts over the co over the course of a prospect, but it’s very, very easy for a large language model to do that. And so, because the, we’ll say foundationally, what you really want is to have these models help make decisions based on large chunks of data that you can’t really leverage. And so because that way you get faster time to value, you get more we’ll say a higher propensity or likelihood that you get to spend more time with that prospect, and Lord knows that you definitely increase conversion rates, the more time you actually spend talking with someone and messaging back and forth.
AJV (24:32):
Hmm. Yeah. That’s, so I think that’s so good. ’cause That’s like, yeah, it’s like, I think tons of people talk about, you know, chat GTP, chat GPT in terms of writing email copy or marketing copy or a landing page, but I haven’t heard anyone really talk about how are we using it to make sure that we increase conversion, that we’re targeting the right people in the right way, that allow us to have more targeted conversations, better conversations, longer conversations with our ideal prospect. So I think that’s really insightful for anyone who’s listening of going like, Hey, it’s one thing to generate a lot of calls or any calls. Yeah, it’s a whole nother thing to generate calls with your ideal prospect, right? And I think that’s a very big deal of, Hey, if we’re gonna be on the call, let’s make sure it’s with the right person talking about the right thing.
AJV (25:25):
So how can we be more targeted upfront? I think that’s really helpful. The other thing as you were talking made me think about is in terms of using like large chunks of data, like one of the things that we ask, you know, our, you know, sales director is, Hey, I want you auditing calls every month as spot checks. Yeah. And it’s a very time consuming, lengthy commitment, but I’m always like, where’s your report? Where’s your report? What’d you do? What’d you do? Right? and even with, like, we have, you know, we have 16 strategists who are doing strategy calls on a monthly basis, and we have three team leads, and they each roughly have, you know, four to five people on their team, and I want them doing the same thing. And it’s like those are like, you know, at least four to five hours of call reviews once a month at minimum.
AJV (26:10):
And it’s like, I’m constantly kind of battling like, where, where are we supposed to find time to do that with everything else we’re doing? And what I also hear is like, well, there’s the potential of using, you know, recording transcripts, uploading those and using the right prompts in GPT to give initial rounds of evaluations that just shortens maybe perhaps the time in review so that there’s highlights that are pulled out so then I can spend more time in conversation training versus, versus all the time just listening. So I think about it when I used to have a team, it’s like I would spend an hour listening to the call in order to only get like 10 to 15 minutes of feedback. Whereas if I have 10 to 15 minutes of review and 45 minutes on training and feedback, how different would the outcome be?
MF (26:58):
Well, and, and when I was at revenue io was where I was the chief data officer, right? And that’s what we were doing was it had embedded sales coaching from a botter agent that says, okay, you’re monologuing too long, or you’re talking too fast. But those transcripts would also populate into the platform. And so, you know, it was really just at the time, it was the video and the transcript, right? Like Fathom has, right? But where I think we can go in the market is twofold. One is a, an individual can say, how did I do on this call? Maybe that’s according to medic or med pick framework or Challenger, whatever the heck you’re using. But is there anything I could have done better? Right? And it’s the same thing even for your, your team, right? Are they are they coaching effectively? But then you can also look long. So a, a sales coach then could like go in and see, you know, the weaknesses or strengths of that individual call, but then we could take that further and go, let’s look on a individual level across all of their calls and feed all of that in at one time and say, what patterns does this individual need work on? Right? What are, what are the problems that they consistently have because we know that’s going to move the needle if they fix those major problems.
AJV (28:14):
How would you do that?
MF (28:17):
You just feed all of the transcripts in from all of their calls
AJV (28:20):
All at the same time. Mm-Hmm.
MF (28:21):

AJV (28:22):
Say, this is why I’m just going mind blown , like, you know,
MF (28:25):
And mind, mind, mind you, like like chat GPT, they have something called token limits. So chat, GPT can’t do all of them, but there’s other ones that can
AJV (28:35):
Like, so what would be some, so that’s another great question is let’s talk about some of the, the tools and platforms that you have found that are highly helpful, effective and, and just user friendly, I would say. So or the novice out there, right? Who’s listening, who’s going like, okay, okay, like, maybe I could see some really good value. It’s like, and I think about the number of, you know, not to harp on this topic, sales teams that I’ve been a part of training where it’s like, part of my job was to just sit in call centers all day long doing call audits and reviews. And it’s like, I know my time could have been more efficient if there had been tools like this, you know, 10 years ago, and that was my job. But so what are some of these platforms and tools that you highly recommend?
MF (29:22):
So I guess we’ll start in a few different areas, and I might have to pull up a tab on mine, that’s the other ones that I use. So on, on that sales side, you have like revenue io, chorus.ai, and gong, and all of those are like rev ops sales type coaching, right? So if you have a team, those are all very valid, useful tools to leverage in that playground. When we talk about like task automation, we use you know, Asana as our project manager and task manager, and then we feed those into reclaim AI so that we don’t have to make decisions on what the heck we’re doing each day. It’s automatically prioritized and scheduled into our calendar. Outside of that, you know, I think there’s, there’s also like the, the we’ll say crawl, walk, run approach with technology. And so beautiful AI is a phenomenal like PowerPoint type creator.
MF (30:17):
And and so very intuitive, very easy to use. If you’re better with technology, I’d say go to Canva. If you’re very, very good with technology, then you go to like the Adobe suite, right? And so, you know, there’s, there’s more of a threshold to learn those types of things. The PowerPoint creators today are not good the, the, the, or the generative AI PowerPoint creators, right? And the, the reason why is that they basically just like populate slides with tons of text because the majority of people who aren’t like, you know, speakers generally put slides with tons of text on. So that’s what it was likely trained on. And so when you see that, you know, I might just have one word on a slide, it’s not gonna know what word to put on a slide and when you know how to make that stand out.
MF (31:03):
And so we’re not there yet in regards to that. In regards to art creation, mid journey is probably the defacto standard. There’s also stable diffusion, and they are not good at creating like frameworks, right? And so if we’re talking about brand builders clients you’re going to have to manually create those, sorry. Canva has tons of great designs and Vato element has lots of great designs. So you can use those and then fill out your own process or framework. But in regards to automatically creating those, we’re not there yet either. But in regards to, you want, you want a picture of a, a monkey astronaut eating a banana on top of a spaceship, it can do that, right? And so if, like, if you want something like that for a blog post, it’s, it’s phenomenal, right? If you want something to really resonate visually, you can do that.
MF (31:56):
And I, I have pheno like art, I could have never created, I was a musician and a singer growing up, but you know, I could doodle but I could not go further than that. And so to see things come to life that, like you envision in your head, and maybe it’s not quite the vision you have, but like to see that come to fruition is so invigorating because the same thing with there’s there’s two music creator studios out there right now for generative music, and they’re getting better and better every single day. And like, they can’t, I can’t extract it. I don’t know if this shows up, but my like soundboard like, like I can’t extract it into Ableton, which is another not AI tool. It’s a sound mixing tool. I can’t extract it into there and have all the different instruments, right? But we’re likely going to get there in the next year. And that means that if you are a producer or want to be a musician, but maybe you can never play an instrument or you couldn’t mix now, you’ll be able to do that. And that, like, that really resonates with me that people will be able to like really help build up their own creative side as opposed to us just trying to say, rewrite this email for me.
AJV (33:07):
Yeah. You know what’s so interesting is like, I live in Nashville, Tennessee, so clearly I have at least a couple of friends that are singer songwriters. But one of my friends is a very good singer songwriter, and I was having lunch with her the other day, and she was talking about how there’s several artists now that only wanna hear songs and their voices. So she’s able to take all of her songs that she’s writing, use ai to use their voices. So when they hear the song, they’re like, this is how it would sound if I was singing it. And she goes, the effectiveness of that is mind blowingly successful when they go, man, I like the way I sound singing that . And so like, that would be like a really good use case of using AI in a way that allows, you know, a singer songwriter who’s pitching to a very big, well-known artist of like, here’s how you would sound with these lyrics and in this song.
AJV (34:06):
So I thought that was like a very cool use case of something that’s not taking anything away from what she’s not replacing. It’s enabling her to enhance what she’s doing for someone else. And, and as you were talking about like mid journey and stuff, like, one of the things that we toyed around with, and this is just like a, a tangible customer service or customer experience case study for anyone who’s like, well, how do I use some of these if like, it’s not gonna do graphics for me, or it’s not gonna do PowerPoints? And it’s like, no, but so if you think about it in a customer experience environment, like one of the things that we’re trying to do is, you know, during different life moments and these could be personal professional, but you know, we help a lot of people with book launches.
AJV (34:50):
And so, you know, it’s like, well, we’ll use different AI tools of them holding their own book that hasn’t even been created yet. Yeah. You know, or like somebody’s going through a really, you know, hard personal times and we’ll put them in what they would look like as a superhero, right? With like an encouraging note and message. So upload their picture and say, turn this into a superhero. And just you, you know, those are just like little, little ways that you could use some of this in a customer experience way where it takes minutes, minutes, literally minutes, no money of going, you said you joined Brand elders group ’cause you wanted to write that book. We’re so excited to be a part of the journey, and then we include the picture of them with their book. That hasn’t even happened yet, right? So I think it’s like part of, of it, it’s gonna require all of us to use our human brain to go, how do I use this to make it work for whatever I do? And I think a lot of people struggle with a lot of what I struggle with, which is, okay, I don’t have a lot of time to go learn all of these different platforms. ’cause Already it’s like I jotted down, you listed like nine, I’m like, already, that’s like, I don’t have time to learn all those, right? And so I would be,
MF (36:03):
Which which, which we could say like a simplified way of approaching that is going to any of the chat GBT or LLMs and saying, I’m trying to use generative AI to accomplish X task. Are there any tools or name the tools that can do that? Right? And then you at least have a short list of like, what you’re trying to accomplish. Because the, the biggest issue with technology today outside of nothing talking to one another, is that people are trying to round peg square hole. Yeah. But it’s like, you should figure out what your problem is first instead of trying to find a cool tool that maybe can solve one or two of your problems. Oh.
AJV (36:33):
So that’s good. So just use these generative AI tools to figure out what generative AI tools you should use . It’s like back to
MF (36:42):
And with what you said too, you know, thinking about I’ve known Gigi since I think oh 6, 0 7. And and, and you know, he was always so keen on wow experiences and I think he was only at a hundred countries instead of every country in the world when we first met. And, and that wow experience thing really resonated with me because I worked at Disney, I worked at Target, which emulated Disney and that aspect of caring about the customer, putting them first, but delivering something that’s a little more impactful than anyone else would do, really, really stands out. Right? And I had a a client of mine who one of their sales reps, this was 15, 20 years ago now, but he would take somebody’s LinkedIn headshot, he would send it to Japan, they would make a bobblehead, he would get it sent to the, like the CEO’s office and ask for a meeting. And he had about a 95% conversion rate in regards to getting a meeting scheduled. And it’s because nobody does that, right? They just send out these campaigns to 40,000 people and hope that they get some hits. But people are tired of that. They really want, like, I wanna feel special, I want people I work with who feel special and we treat them special.
AJV (37:59):
Hmm. Yeah. And this is a way you can do it in a really short amount of time without a lot of cost because that’s so prohibitive in some ways. But it’s like, man, you could do the similar things that really do make that impact without, you know, all the added costs with just using some creativity. The other, the other thing that I think would be, you know, really interesting, and you mentioned this earlier, and I wanna kind of come back to it. ’cause I think collectively what I, I wanna have this conversation be around is things that are universally applicable. And I think that universally everyone struggles with time management. I don’t care who you are, right? It’s like we struggle with the amount of things that we add to our plate, whether that’s our fault or whatever. I hear people say stuff like, you know, the the B word, right?
AJV (38:44):
I, I try not to say it the busy word. I think that a lot of people go, there’s just not enough hours in the day. And it’s like, well, yeah, I can see that, except for maybe you’re just doing too many tasks that you shouldn’t be doing . And so I think we all struggle with it at some level, right? Whether it’s real imagined or not. But you, you mentioned some task automation where we use monday.com Yep. Super comparable to Asana. But you’re saying, and I’m just thinking of like, if everyone can just, even if you don’t use a project management tool like Asana or Monday, but just think about it in general of like, man, how many things don’t get prioritized or don’t get done because they didn’t get on your calendar, or, you know, you’re struggling with just moving stuff from last week to this week to the next week because, so can we talk a little bit about, because I think this is something as universal, and you, you brought this up twice on this call, reclaim.io
MF (39:39):
Ai. Yep.
AJV (39:40):
Oh, ai, right? See, that’s why I’m asking . So talk to us about some tools like that for the, for the everyday person listening of going like, oh, man, like you’re saying, like, I could start to get some time back today. So tell us a little bit about, you mentioned Asana and Reclaim and how, how that, what’s like a good use case study for something like that?
MF (40:05):
Yeah, I mean, I, I think I almost want to take a step back, right? Because with what we do with the AI advisor group is most people go right to tactics and they don’t take a step back and start at strategy, right? And so then you’re always putting out fires, you’re always chasing shiny objects, and it becomes really problematic and it happens with executives along with everyone down the line. And so for me, just so
AJV (40:30):
You know, I completely understand because everyone comes to us and wants to build the funnel, build the website, and I’m like, you don’t even know what your business is. We, we, we can’t do that . So we understand. Yes.
MF (40:42):
And so coming from that perspective is like, you know, to the point of that my calendar’s fully booked with tasks this week from like 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM But if I just said and, and go back to like Pareto’s principle of the, the 20% rule leading to 80% of outputs and that’s largely due to a severe concussion I had that lasted 10 months. I could take away my task manager and just go, these are the five things that are most important. And it goes back to a story on Warren Buffett talking to his pilot, whether it’s real or false. And Pilot said, I want to be rich like you. Can you teach me how to be rich and be successful? Warren Buffett says, sure, write a list of the, the 50 things that you’re trying to accomplish. And he writes 50 things down and he goes, okay cut that down to 20 and he cuts it down to 20.
MF (41:39):
He goes, okay, cut it down to 10. And he cuts it down again. He says, okay, cut it down to five. And he goes, this is hard. Like, I don’t know what’s important. He goes, you gotta cut it down to five. And he cuts it down to five. And he says, if you focus on anything outside of this, it’s a distraction and noise. It’s not leading to the outcomes that you want. And so one of the things that I want to push or sh share with the audience is that don’t be busy for busy’s sake. Make sure you are doing things that actually move the needle that lead to the life that you want to have that lead to the company you want to have. And so these tools are going to either be an enabler of that and make sure we’re more efficient and productive, or you’re going to be an additional noise that just makes us check off more checklist, but we don’t actually drive innovation or success.
MF (42:36):
And I want to ensure that people are thinking of this in the right way because it’s not just AI and automation are great and amazing, and I, and I strongly believe it’s true, I’m already at 50 hours saved per week. Personally, we’re likely going to have 120 to 200 hours per employee saved, right? Which is a three to five x multiplier. But that means we’re doing that because we wanna focus on the things that are important. And if you’re filling your calendar with things that aren’t just to stay busy or appear busy, then you’re not approaching it the right way.
AJV (43:09):
Well, that is such a better answer than the question that I ask . So thank you for that. But I think that’s true. You know, ’cause the truth is, is that, you know, as I even sit here and glance over at my slightly over full calendar even for today it’s like, no, I, there I can, I can even in that quick glance, I can see two things I really shouldn’t be doing. Mm-Hmm. , right? And it’s like, if you don’t have the strategy right, no tool will help you. And that, you know, I would say the same thing with building your personal brand, right? It, if you don’t have the strategy, right, no website is gonna help you. No lead capture tool is gonna help you. No amount of anything that you do is gonna help you if you don’t have the strategy, right. And know what you’re really after or know what’s really important to you. And I, and I love that, and I think that’s, that’s really good and really wise of going, AI can really only, only help you once you know what you want it to do.
MF (44:06):
And I just read a report yesterday that said 90% of all executives, not just entrepreneurs 90% of executives spend an hour or less on strategy a month. And that’s mind blowing to me, right? To not take the time to ensure that you’re going in the right direction and focusing on what’s important. It’s why so many companies struggle. Like they, they don’t do that. They don’t look at product market fit. They don’t identify an ICP, like all the things that actually matter. And brand builders covers all of it. So thank you guys on top. But if you’re not doing the basics, then you don’t know who your customer is, you don’t know their pains, needs and wants, then who are you selling to and why are you trying to create a product or service offering or someone that you’ve never even talked to or don’t understand?
AJV (44:49):
Mm-Hmm. . And that is so important. And at the end of the day, like anything, it’s like you can inundate yourself as as easy it would be for me to like, make a list of all these and be like, oh gosh, I gotta go learn all this. No, I don’t. I need to pick the one, the two that can help me with what I’m really trying to automate, what I’m really trying to get off my plate, what really needs something, you know, that really can be done by someone or something else. I don’t need to know all of these. I need to know the one or two things that can really help solve the problems that I have.
MF (45:23):
Well, and, and I think it’s a great point. I, I know I shared it with your team, but the, like PRCV of pain, repetition, cost, and value, it’s like, yes. So you need to identify what are pains, right? Not what’s interesting or cool ’cause that’s the shiny object syndrome, but what are actual pains and is it repetitive? Right? The, I mean, I talked with my COO yesterday and I’m like, oh, this kind of stinks. And he goes, oh, well we could automate that. But it’s probably gonna be really complex. And I go, yeah, let’s not, it, it takes me, it was literally in regards to actually just putting task into Asana, right? We actually built it out so you could just do it in Slack. So it’s really technically easier. I was looking for an, I was considering an easier way to do it, but I’m like, if I map out the actual task that I might need to do for the day at the end of the day or whatever I need to accomplish, it takes me maybe two to five minutes, right?
MF (46:15):
Like, we don’t need to automate that. That’s not a big pain. But if we talk about 30 to 60 minutes of researching each prospect and we look at that over the course of a year, that’s hundreds of hours saved, right? That’s, that’s meaningful. And that’s where I want people to look at, like what does it actually cost to build this? And what’s the actual value? And then you can really ascertain is this worthwhile to pursue? Is it just something that, okay, I’ll do it, whatever. It’s obnoxious. And ensuring too that we don’t end up filling that extra time with more noise and more just ask. But we focus on what’s actually meaningful, which usually means a better product, a better service, more customer engagement and interactions, more engagements with your team to build a strong culture that’s aligned. All of those things are what really create a fantastic business and everything else is noise.
AJV (47:07):
Mm. So, so good. Matt, this has been so helpful, so awesome in so many different ways. If people wanna stay in touch with you, get to know about more about you and your company, where should they go?
MF (47:19):
We can do two ways. We’ll do, my email is Matt for Nito, F-O-R-N-I-T-O, at the a i a g.com. And and otherwise if you want to reach me on LinkedIn I certainly post a ton of content on psychology, ai, business and leadership. And so feel free to connect with me on there, happy to chat with anyone.
AJV (47:41):
And we will put those as just Matt for Nito as the LinkedIn name. We’ll put that in the show notes and the fact that you gave out your email address email address, I’m flabbergasted , I’m like, you might get a lot of emails. So, you know, build some AI automation into that,
MF (47:56):
That we have a little bit of that .
AJV (48:00):
Thank you so much. And the fact that you would even give your email addresses super kind and generous. So if you’ve got questions curious about what he does, how he integrates into companies, how he helps them streamline operations with AI and strategy email him. He just gave it to you so clearly he’s got a plan for handling all that. But then check him out on LinkedIn posting all kinds of good content. Matt, thank you so much for being on the show. Appreciate you so much. And everybody else, stay tuned for the recap episode, which will be coming up next on the influential personal brand.
MF (48:35):
Thanks, AJ

Ep 513: On the Other Side of Fear | Victoria Jackson Episode Recap

AJV (00:02):
Hey, everybody. I actually just got off of the amazing privilege to interview a friend of mine on our podcast, the influential personal brand. And her name is Victoria Jackson, and she’s the founder and CEO of Victoria Jackson Cosmetics. She is the founder of No Makeup Makeup, which is, if you’re watching this makeup I’m wearing right now, I’m a super fan of No Makeup Makeup. She’s the author of five books. She’s half of the duo of the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation, where they have personally donated over $80 million of their own money to help fund cures for rare autoimmune diseases. She was inducted into the Women’s Hall of Fame by Gloria Steinem. She was awarded an advocacy person of the year by the Pope at the Vatican. Like she has done so many things, and there’s been incredible highs in her life, but there have also been some tremendous lows from a really stable, unstable upbringing to she was the victim of the Pillowcase Rapist when she was a teenager in California to her daughter was diagnosed with a rare autoimmune disease called NMO in 2008.
AJV (01:23):
And so there’s, it’s this amazing interview of really high highs and really low lows, which all, at the end of the day, make up life, right? And I think that’s one of the things that is hard to understand is I, I hear people ask all the time, like, why do bad things happen to good people? And, but I don’t hear as much of like, why do good things happen to good people? Right? And it’s, I think Victoria is an amazing example of, there has been so much goodness, so much blessing in her life, but there’s also been a lot of heartache and tragedy and, and loss. And this interview was about her new book that’s coming out called We All Worry Now, what? And as we were talking, it got me thinking about what I worry about and as a, a business owner and who feels Uber responsible for what?
AJV (02:19):
42 employees. And as, as a wife to a husband who I love and adore and cannot imagine my life without, and as a mom to two incredible little boys, that even the thought of not having them literally brings me to my knees and to my family, who I love, my dad, my brothers, my my sisters in-laws, and my nieces and nephews, and my, my close friends. And, you know, even to the material things that like I love and hold dear, like our home. It just got me thinking. It’s like, whoa, it’s not, what do
AJV (02:58):
I worry about? What don’t I worry about? But one of the things that came up in the conversation is, you know, there’s, there’s, there’s always relief and joy on the other side of fear. And so how do you go from worry and fear to this other place of, of joy and peace and almost a, a calmness, right? And, and the answer is, is action. It’s action. And what, what does that give us? And ’cause sometimes not only is there joy and peace and calmness on the other side of fear, there’s also success and there’s, there’s blessing. And one of the things that I wanted to share is, and I don’t talk about this often, but well, one thing I do talk about often is I’m a devout believer. I have a very strong faith. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus.
AJV (04:02):
I believe that he was crucified and raised from the dead. I believe he is my savior. I believe that the words in the Bible are true. I believe those things, and not everyone does, and that’s okay. But these, these are things that I believe in ’cause I’ve seen the work of God in my life. I have seen what salvation has done for me. I, I, I’ve seen the changes that knowing Jesus Christ have made in my life. I have seen it physically, emotionally, spiritually. I’m a believer because I’ve witnessed it. And with that said, I was raised a believer, raised in a Christian home. There were lots of highs and lows in our family. We were in a really horrific car accident. When I was seven years old with we were the first car hit in a 13 car pile up by a tractor trailer.
AJV (04:55):
I don’t talk about this often. Both my brothers were pronounced dead on the scene. Hell, you know, hell evaced to the children’s hospital. Both my parents were severely injured, unconscious. Both of them admitted to the hospital. And then there was me who was sitting in the bo back of the car. And I was pulled out by the jaws of life and set in a police car while I watched limp Bodies pulled from this car. And I watched miraculously with no medical explanation. Both of my brothers healed, both of my parents healed. And we toured the country for years with the Children’s Miracle Network, telethon, telling the story of the miracle. That was my brother’s. I’ve seen God’s work and highs and lows in that. And when I was 13, my mother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and she died when I was 15.
AJV (05:56):
I deeply believe she would recover. She deeply believed she would recover but she didn’t. And I saw God at work in that too. And that took, that took a while to come full circle. But there was, there was God’s grace and and love in that time. But there were highs and lows in that, right? I have chosen to focus on what I was given, not was taken. But those were choices that took a long time to come to. So I share that to go, I have seen God’s work in my life since I was a really young child. And it hasn’t been until here recently that I decided to share that. And I think the reason why is I was worried, like back to the conversation with Victoria. Look, we all worry now. What are you gonna do about it?
AJV (06:54):
And I was worried about sharing my faith. I was worried in college, but I wouldn’t be cool. So I didn’t, in fact, I did the opposite. I just went with what everyone else was doing. I was worried in my young twenties that if I came a, you know, if I talked about that too much or I’d be a, you know, a goodie two shoes, which I most certainly was not. But I, I was worried that if I shared that I would be ostracized or I wouldn’t fit in. Or in my later years, I was worried that I didn’t wanna come across as judgmental or I didn’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable. And so I didn’t share it. I was, I was afraid. I, I was afraid. I was really worried of what everyone else would think about me if I opened up about my faith.
AJV (07:42):
And so we, we didn’t, I didn’t share my faith for a really long time because I was worried. And then in 2022, something changed in my life and my heart and my soul of going, I’m gonna be worried about anything in this world. It cannot be about what people think about what I believe. And I think a lot of that transformation happened because I started reading the Bible again as an adult. In fact, as a 37-year-old lifelong believer in Christian. I read the Bible for the first time, cover to cover. It’s kind of embarrassing for me to admit that. But that’s true. It was the first time that I had picked up the word of God and said, I’m gonna read it. I’m gonna read every word and I’m gonna try to understand it. I’m still trying to understand a lot of it.
AJV (08:36):
But I’m gonna read it because I need to. And so I did. And that’s also when I hired a life coach. And it’s when I started reading books by Jenny Allen and Craig Rochelle and John Mark Comer. And I really said like this, this worry, this, these, these fears. And not just about what people think about me, but fear of my business, fear of my children, fear of losing my husband. Like it’s, it’s consuming me fear of not being able to make payroll, fear of, is this gonna work? Fear, am I, am I making the wrong decisions as a leader? Like worry and fear were consuming me. And I was becoming a dreadful person at the end of 2020. One was probably like least I least ideal, aj, let’s just say that. And in 2022, I was like, something’s gotta change.
AJV (09:29):
Like, God, show me something. And through that process, I started talking about God publicly in my speeches, on Instagram, on podcasts, on videos like this. ’cause I realized that that was a real worry. It was a real fear. And on the other side of that, there had to be something better. And what I really needed to do is take action, right? Is, is do the thing that would like, kind of holding me up, which is, I, I’m not being authentically me. I’m not letting people get to know me. I am, I’m not speaking up for the thing that I believe in more than anything else in this world. I’m not speaking up when I know that God is prompting me too. And I got that’s a problem. And y’all, I share that to go with this. When this interview talks about like on the other side of fear, there is something beautiful.
AJV (10:29):
Here’s what I can tell you is that the moment that I just started sharing of going like, it’s okay if you don’t believe what I believe, it’s okay if I don’t believe what you believe. We can believe different things and coexist and have mutual respect for each other. But I can’t this not share this part of me. It’s that ingrained in who I am. I’ve seen it, I’ve witnessed it. I have to share it. Our entire business changed. My marriage changed, I changed. I believe that taking action in the areas where you have worry and you have fear that not only is there something beautiful on the other side of it what you do is you’re, you’re, you’re giving others the confidence to do the same thing. And I think that’s an a really powerful and empowering gift of going, even if they don’t agree with what you said, by going, man, I really appreciate, appreciate the courage.
AJV (11:29):
‘Cause I know there can be a lot of hate coming your way for that, and you’re doing it anyways. And it’s like, if we’re not willing to stand up for the things that we believe in, what are we doing? Like what are we doing? And there’s a way to do it with kindness and respect. There’s definitely a way to do it not that way. But I believe there’s, there’s a way to, to overcome the worry that we have by, by facing it. And for me, a huge worry was what would people think if I let them know that, you know, Jesus Christ is my savior here? Like, what, what, what would people think if, like, I talked about God and faith and Bible verses and everywhere I went, like, like that was a worry. And here’s what’s happened. The more that I talk about it, the more that people are asking of, why are you doing that?
AJV (12:20):
Why do you believe that? It’s inviting conversations that I had never got to be a part of before. ’cause I didn’t share. It’s, it’s also allowing us to be authentically who we are designed to be. It’s, it’s giving us the strength and the power to do stuff that we probably wouldn’t have done before. And that’s what’s on the other side of fear that that’s what it looks like to overcome worry and overcome fear is to do things. Be things, experience things that you never thought possible. Because they were on the opposite side, right? They were on the side pre pre overcoming fear. And I just felt compelled to share this particular thing because it was the thing that was plaguing me. It, it was, man, I’m a, I’m afraid to do something that I feel called to do. And the moment that I stepped into that calling, my whole life has changed, our business has changed my relationships, my marriage my family, it has changed on the other side of fear.
AJV (13:20):
And so my question to you is like, what is that saying that you know that you should do, but you’re not because of worry or fear? Like, what are you worried about to the point where you’re not doing something that you know that you’re supposed to do or say or be, right? Like, what, what’s that thing for you and what’s the action that you know you need to take to overcome it? Even if it’s this first step in overcoming it. And it’s like, so what’s the worry that’s consuming you? What’s the fear inside of you? And what’s the action that next step that you need to take to start the path to the other side? So highlight of the conversation. If you wanna learn more, check out the book. We all worry now What? By Victoria Jackson. You can get your pre-sale orders now on Amazon Book comes out September 3rd.

Ep 512: From Income to Impact: How to Make the Most Out of Your Gifts with Victoria Jackson

AJV (00:01):
Hey, everybody, welcome to the Influential Personal Brand, and that is the perfect title of a podcast for the interview that I get to do today with the one and only Victoria Jackson. When we talk about influence, this is a woman who has immense influence, and I am so honored to get to know you personally and to get to know your story. And I also, to get to be the one to interview today, I snatched this away from Rory so that I got to lead the interview today. But before I launch into this episode, for everyone who is listening who maybe is new to the name Victoria Jackson, let me give you a little bit of the background. And if I were to read all of her accomplishments and accolades, it would take up the entire podcast. So I’m going to give you some of what I consider the biggest highlights that stand out to me.
AJV (00:57):
So here are some of the things that you need to know about Victoria Jackson. First and foremost, I think this is first and foremost to me. She is the mother of three awesome kids and her and her husband, bill, how long have you guys been married? 32 years. So to me, like those are some of the best and biggest accomplishments. But she is also the founder and CEO of the global brand and infomercial giant Victoria Jackson Cosmetics. And I think this is phenomenal because Victoria was a part of revolutionizing and dominating the entire beauty industry with her no makeup, makeup, which is just relaunched. And I wanna talk about this later. It’s actually, if you’re watching the video today, I am wearing no makeup makeup, and I love it, and I could go on and on about it. But as a huge part of this entire way that she launched this makeup, she was a really, truly a pioneer with being the first to market a cosmetics line on TV with more than 11 international infomercials.
AJV (02:03):
And so she had a 10 year run on QVC with Victoria Jackson’s cosmetic, with more than 600 beauty products, generating a billion dollars in sales. That’s a BA billion dollars in sales, and I love that story, but I think some of the things that, that make up who you are are just as significant as, as, as a teen Victoria survived a sexual assault, and she has gone on to reach out and empower women of in so many different ways around the world. And then in 2008 her daughter was diagnosed with N mo Neuromyelitis Optica and was shared that they, she only had four years to live. And so Victoria, along with her husband, bill, went on to found the Guthy Jackson Charitable Foundation which has raised an unbelievable amount of money to fund research to help find a cure for this disease.
AJV (03:04):
She was nominated as the National Women into the National Women’s Hall of Fame for this work. And then she was also at the Vatican, at the Vatican accepted as the Pontifical Key Advocacy Award for her personal work in trying to overcome and understand the rare autoimmune autoimmune diseases that are in the world. She has funded a series of documentaries. She’s the author of five books. She has a brand new book coming up that we’re gonna talk about later. And she has relaunching this makeup line Woman. I do not know how you have time to do all of these things. So without further ado, everyone and Victoria, thank you so much for being on the show. We’re so excited to have you. So welcome.
VJ (03:48):
Thank you for having me, aj. Yeah, it’s definitely, I, I like to keep myself busy and, you know, I think I was just, you know, born ready. I, I don’t know, a friend of mine said, I’m born ready. Like, I feel like I was just born ready to, ready to go and take on all the challenges, and then just be a doer, you know, and always really there to help and support women and people. I’ve been a Goodwill ambassador in so many different ways.
AJV (04:16):
Ryan, what I love too, is like, you truly are so humble about all of it, and it, it’s, it would be easy for you not to be humble about all of it, but you are. And so I kind of wanna just help the audience get to know you just a little bit. And so can you just tell everyone a little bit of the story of how did you get into the world of makeup? And I mean, I know the backstory, and so just pull out some of the highlights, because I think it’s a really phenomenal story because I think a lot of the people who are listening to this are trying to figure out like, what’s my next thing and how do I go from where I am to where I wanna be? And you have done that exceptionally well.
VJ (04:57):
Well, there, you know, it’s, I think my least favorite question always was when people would go, well, what do you wanna do when you grow up? Or What are you thinking about doing? And I actually, I didn’t know. I didn’t as you mentioned, you know, I had an unfortunate kind of start in life in a, in a few different ways, but one in which really prevented me from graduating high school, from going to college. I was a victim of the Pillowcase Rapist in California when I was 17. And up to that point, I was always a little bit of a, of a nervous Nelly and had anxiety. And, you know I don’t know that I knew where I was going in life. I had a very tumultuous, unstable upbringing, parents kind of getting divorced and, you know, just really not kind of always being able to find my feet.
VJ (05:47):
But one thing I did find my feet with and my hands was I liked doing makeup. I liked taking, having my friends come over and doing makeovers on them. And even though my technique really was something that I had to perfect over time, it was just something that I liked doing. I liked, you know, I, I’ve always had a good eye and wanted to work to, you know, show people how they could look better. And I realized through many, many years of doing this that when you look better, you feel better. And when you feel better, it allows you to go on in life to have more success, or, you know, just feeling good about yourself opens up the door to so many things. So I just started one foot in front of the other, started doing makeovers for friends and put together a makeup kit. And that was the beginning
AJV (06:37):
Mean, but to go from doing makeovers on friends Mm-Hmm. to a billion dollars in sales. Yeah, right. Is pretty radically amazing. Yeah. If there was one thing that you could look back and go, I think I did this different, I think this was unique, and that others can do it too, what do you think it would be?
VJ (07:00):
Well, I think for me, it’s all about perseverance. I, in one of my books, I, I wrote and I opened up in The Power of Rare, which is a book I wrote on Cure and, and helping find cure for disease, and how to put a blueprint together for that. But I write that perseverance is where the God swell. I think that what I can do, and what I will always do is stay the course that I persevere, that even though everybody told me, you know, nobody’s gonna be able to buy your, your products. I sold them on television that nobody was gonna buy makeup on tv. That women need to see them and touch them and feel them in person. I’ve always taken the No and turned that around and said, well, I don’t know about that. You know, I, I, I think I can do it, and here’s how.
VJ (07:45):
So it’s just that sense of perseverance, of this constant, this resilience that just makes me move forward no matter what. And I think that’s the takeaway most people get when they look at, you know, the breadth and the depth of, of my career. And what I’ve done is that I just, I never give up as all the people that, you know, you talk to and your listeners, all the aspiring entrepreneurs out there, you just have to keep going. You. so even though I’m saying, oh, I started by putting a kit together and doing my friends, it really was, everything was one step to the next step, to the next step. And even the book that I’ve written now, we all worry now what Ta-da. It’s really the, it’s the step by step of how to zoom out, how to get perspective, how to just take that next step. And a lot of it, you know, we think of, oh, you know, it’s so basic, but it’s, the basics really are the stepping stones that get you there. It’s just doing it, you know, it’s doing the work, and it’s not easy, and you gotta just keep moving forward. Even when everybody tells you, you know, it may not lead to that pot of gold. Everybody’s pot of gold is different.
AJV (09:04):
Hmm. I love that. Curious, I don’t know if I know this timeline from the first day that you started, like professionally doing makeup, so we’ll say beyond just doing makeovers, but like, when you were actually doing professional makeup to when you actually had, like, success with these infomercials, how long was that timeline?
VJ (09:28):
Oh, that was 13 years. So people think, oh, overnight success. Yeah. I was doing I was doing makeovers for 13 years. I was working in the, you know, editorial space, so I was doing everything, A lot of the ads that you see a lot of at the time magazine covers, album covers. I did about 200 album covers. I would do people magazine covers. So many kind of, and that time is invaluable because during those 13 years, I could see, well, what kind of products do women respond to? I came up with during that time what I became known for, and still to this day, hence product number two, no makeup, makeup. That was really something that I came up with in the eighties. And think about that in the eighties, everybody’s wearing like the shoulder pads and like, you know, heavy glam makeup. I’m doing no makeup makeup. So I was completely going contrary to what was happening at the time. But it was very much, and you see how timeless things can be still holds true to this day. I mean, you have it on, you look beautiful. I want women to just not look like they have a lot of makeup on, but just feel like themselves, not use it as a mask or war paint. And so that 13 years gave me that chance to perfect my, really became my signature of no makeup makeup.
AJV (10:52):
You know, I love that because I think most people listening, no offense to anyone, don’t get offended. We’re trying to skip all that time. Yeah. We’re, we’re trying to skip the hard work. We’re trying to skip the hard years, the research years, and we’re going, why isn’t this working? And the truth is, is you’ve been doing it six months or a year. I saw this quote on Instagram a few days ago, and it just really stuck out to me, and it said, you don’t have the patience to build your business in three years, but somehow you found the patience to work for somebody else for 40.
VJ (11:26):
Yeah.
AJV (11:27):
And I think that kind of sums it up. It’s like, good take time and nothing is wasted,
VJ (11:34):
You know? And I mean, honestly, it, those are the kinds of things you have to think about. You know, being an entrepreneur and being in that, there is a little bit in that secret sauce is you have to be somebody. There are some people that they, they want that security and that comfort of working for somebody else for 40 years. And that’s okay. That’s okay. Because when you’re kind of, you know, cutting that tie and you’re going out solo and you’re doing your thing and you’re, you’re, you’re flying on your own, that’s scary. And that’s not easy to do. So you really have to have those hard talks with yourself to see, I’m the first to encourage it, but I never shame anyone for deciding, Hey, yeah, you know what, I’ve got the good job that I like, or the comfort or the things that I’m familiar with, and no, that’s okay.
VJ (12:22):
But that’s, that isn’t my, you know, spirit. I am that little warrior that is always sort of from the beginning, gotta explore and do, and, you know, figure it out. And sure, it’s a lot easier now at this point in my life as I’m getting ready to wait for it, I turned 70 you know, I’ve had a lot of life experience and all of that has really led me to where I am now to be able to tell my story and try to encourage people and look back at all the things that I’ve done and, and, you know, pay it forward.
AJV (13:00):
Yeah. And, and first of all, I hope I look like you do when I turn 70. You look amazing. But I think also one of the things that you just said is one of the reasons I really wanted to have you on the show, because this is about, you know, building an influential personal brand, and not for the sake of fame or notoriety, but for, for doing good and making a positive impact in the world. And in many cases, you can do that without money. And in some cases there are opportunities for people in, in your case, like you had this a abundant mental abundance mentality of going, I have the money. How can I do good with it? And one of the things that I love is this idea of like taking your income and turning it into impact. And I think that’s one of the things that you’ve done so extraordinarily well with the success of all that you’ve done in business, you were able to take that and also do some really amazing things with you know, this charitable funding, trying to find cures for rare disease.
AJV (14:05):
So here, here are the questions I have, because a lot of people in our community, in our audience impact is really what they’re after. They, they have good sustainable businesses and they’re going, but I, I just, I know there’s more from me than just, you know, the revenue and p and l statements. Like, I, there is something in me that wants to do good. And I know that there was, you know, kind of this life altering moment in your, you know, life in 2008 when your daughter got diagnosed, but there was also something else in you that goes, no, I have the funds. I’m gonna do something about it. Because I think a lot of us have funds that we’re not doing something with. So can you talk a little bit about like, what’s the path of turning your, your income into impact?
VJ (14:50):
Well, I think you have to start earlier on the path. When I did that, as I was even in my makeup career, I was going to the jails, right? So even when I didn’t have money, I was thinking, what ev what else, what other skillset do I have that can feel like I can add value, that I can do something when I didn’t have money? So I went to the jails for 20 years, and I had a look better, feel better program for women that were in jail. So I was already thinking about and wanting to give back. And even in my makeup skillset, I was doing makeovers at the hospital for patients. So, you know, I was always already thinking and geared that way. So when my daughter was diagnosed in 2008, it was really, okay, I’m gonna, you know, as a mom, I’m gonna find a cure for my daughter.
VJ (15:42):
I don’t know what that’s gonna look like. As I said, I didn’t graduate high school, I didn’t go to college, and now I’m in the world of a very complex autoimmune disease, NMO neuromyelitis optica, which really manifests in very much looks like in misdiagnosis and ms. People think it’s ms, they’re very similar. And so how am I gonna learn about this, do this? And I started from that place. And then very quickly as my daughter and I were going through this very, very difficult time, she said to me like, you know, this isn’t just about us anymore. And then I realized it wasn’t for, and we, fortunately due to our business and my husband’s success and business, we put in $80 million of our own money. We never raised money. We actually put in our own money. And that was something, you know, and, and we’re still doing that 15 years later, we’re still putting in money for a foundation that is now changed the entire landscape.
VJ (16:44):
And I recommend for anybody out there who’s suffering with, you know, any kind of a, whether it’s a, a tough diagnosis or how to go about looking at what we did, our story Ally and I, is called saving each other. And it’s what I call my momi, really our story. And then the Power of Rare, which is the blueprint of how did we actually take this money and get drugs made, because now we have four therapies and my daughter is, you know, is stable at this point in time. So it’s kind of, I took that same thinking from my makeup days because it was very much about, here’s the makeup and then here’s how to, it’s very much like, here’s the foundation, here’s our story, and then here’s how to, how to do it. So really from like almost foundation to, to foundation. So it’s always been for me about giving back an impact and purpose and taking a lot of leaps of faith along the way.
AJV (17:45):
Yeah, I love that. And I think that’s probably where I think a lot, lot of people are struggling of finding the balance of like, okay, I want this to be about impact, and I need it to be about income. I have to make money at the same time. But, and I love what you said, it’s like there’s, and there’s a million ways to get back with your gifts and talents. It doesn’t require money, but how do you figure out what those gifts and talents are and put them to good use?
VJ (18:14):
Yeah. You just gotta get scrappy and think about it, you know, like, what’s going on in your local community and what, and what can you do? I think the world being as nutty as it is now, and as you know, divisive and polarizing, all the things that are going on, I, it’s so important to get back to community and to thinking about what can we do to support each other? You know, where is that kindness that we can really can put into every day something that we’re thinking not just about ourselves, but others? I think that, and, and that just, you never know when you’re doing that, what doors open where that leads you because so much of it is you, you just don’t know. Like, if somebody would’ve told me while I was doing makeup and trying to figure that whole part of my life out, that cut to the next part of my life, I’d be actually working to cure rare autoimmune disease. I would’ve never believed it. Or that I’d be at the Vatican receiving an award from the Pope, or that Gloria Steinem would be inducting me into the hall of, like, all those things would’ve never even entered into my consciousness. And yet, they’ve all, they’ve all been a, an amazing part of my life that I’ll always, you know, look back on and go, wow, how did that all happen? But life unfolds in a way, and if we just keep doing the work and showing up.
AJV (19:37):
Yeah. And I, I mean, I think that’s like the heart of so much of your message. It’s like, show up, do the work, keep going. What’s the best next step? Yeah. And I think a huge part of how you’ve been able to give back a lot of, you know, you’ve written five books. Mm-Hmm, . And we’ve got this new one that’s coming out September 3rd, 2024. You guys can, it’s on presale now on Amazon. I’ll put the link in the show notes, but it’s called, we All Worry Now. What, so this is the fifth book that you’ve written. So this is not your first rodeo, but I, I think it’d be worthwhile of just helping everyone know, with everything else that you have going on, there was no need for you to write books. So where did the passion for writing come from? And then I would love to specifically talk about this new book coming out.
VJ (20:27):
You know what, it’s also, it’s all part of that sharing. There’s that, I just have this very, if I can do it, you know, because I come from a place of low self-esteem, I still am constantly working on that, which people go, really? But yes. So it’s always the, well, oh, look, if I could do it, you can do it. And here’s how, like, I, I did this, so you can do this too, and here’s how I’m gonna just show you what I did, and you, you know, take what works for you and, you know, leave the rest. And so that’s always been it. The first book was a, it was called redefining Beauty. It was a beauty book. The second book was Make Up Your Life. So again, it was the, the how to of the book, redefining beauty and then Make Up Your Life was, why does it all matter?
VJ (21:12):
How does looking better feeling better change? Then, you know, the third book was saving Each Other, which was really when my life changed and our story. And then the fourth book was, and here again, is the how to and now this book is really all about, you know, I’ve been, at this point in my life, as I said, I’ve always been filled with anxiety and a warrior, and, but I’ve also been a, a warrior. So the book originally was Warrior to Warrior, but I’ve, there was a few titles with that. But I also liked the universality of like, we all worry, you know, worry is, we talk about stress and anxiety, but you kind of start with worry. Worry is what you like water. And it, all of a sudden now it has become the stress, the anxiety. So I think you’re gonna hear a lot more about worry.
VJ (22:02):
And it’s kind of, now what do we do about that? So it was important to me to share my experiences. What do you worry about? I worry about everything. I’m a black belt warrior, , so I, I’m really good at worry. So, you know, I worry about my kids. I worry about, you know, why are people so angry these days? You know, I worry about, I still don’t love to travel. So what’s great about me writing this book is it’s not like I write it like, oh, I’m cured. I I don’t have worry anymore. No, I still worry. But I, it’s manageable now. Now I really use these steps to sort of like zoom out, get perspective, and what’s also great in the book, I was very intrigued, how do other people navigate it? So I asked these extraordinary women that all open each chapter.
VJ (22:54):
And men, I have Jay Shetty in there as well. But Maria Shriver, Chris Jenner, okay. We think about the Kardashians. So what are, you know, what are they worrying about or what’s going on? Chris Jenner, you know, very religious, you know, what, how does she start her day with, you know, faith every day? You know, how does she bring her family together? Gloria Steiner, Jane Fonda, what does she worry about? There’s so many interesting things that I was learning from what women, not only worry about, but how they navigate it. So I wanted to put all that together. And again, it’s my offering to people out there on how in a, in a world of a time where there’s so much we worry about just because you have a lot of money doesn’t mean you don’t worry, you know? I, my life is fantastic. I mean, I am so blessed and so lucky, and at the same time, we’ve worked really hard and I make sure to give back, but there’s still worry, you know?
AJV (23:59):
Yeah, I know. I mean, I think, I, I agree with you. It’s a universal, doesn’t matter how much or how little you have there is worry, right? Yeah, yeah. Whatever it is, right? The, the magnitude of the worries are different with each stage of life, but we all, we all do that. So I’m curious to know a little bit about your writing process, because so many people who are listening to this podcast, they do have a calling on their life like you have where it’s like, I, I feel called to put this on paper and, and turn it into a book. And so I would love to hear from you. It’s like, how did you go about deciding what the book should be about? And I think if I recall, you hand write, right?
VJ (24:47):
I hand write. I mean, I’m so old school that is part of being, being old. I’m old school. I like, you know, I have my little pad of paper and I just write stream of consciousness thought I talk I’ll talk it out into a, you know, a recorder. And I just did the audio version. This is the first time on this book that I actually did the audio version. And I have to say that was an experience in itself as well, reading it all back to yourself. Because a lot of times when I’m writing, you know, you’re not, I’m not always reading it back as much as I, as I think I am, until I’ve really finished the book. And I was like, wow. But you know, it’s just a very, it’s, I think writing a book is really tough. It’s really frustrating for me at times.
VJ (25:34):
I, I struggle with it. I’m lucky. I’ve had, I can never take full credit. I have people that have helped me in my writing because I’m very insecure in that I grammatically will think, oh wait, do I need to put a a period here at the end of this sentence? Or should that be a comma? Or, you know, I can get so stuck on the stupid little things. That it’s been helpful for me when I’ve been able to sit with somebody and go like, okay, these are the big points of what I really wanna say and get across. And again, it’s just doing it. It’s just doing it. Like, I could use, I could have used that as an excuse. Well, you know, I’m not really good at writing dah dah, dah. You have people that support you or help you, or, you know, it takes me longer than most people to write a book, but I still manage to put out five of them. Versus there’s a lot of people that talk about it, think about it, never do it. Yeah. You just gotta,
AJV (26:31):
Yeah. And I love that. ’cause It’s like, and I love that you hand write, like, I think that’s incredible. And I think that’s just a testament for everyone listening. It’s like, there’s no right way to write a book, talk it out on audio hand, write it in a notebook, work with a coach, have a ghost writer, hire an editor. Like whatever it is, just do it.
VJ (26:53):
Just do it. And then make sure it’s true to you. You know? I mean, that’s when I felt really good was when I was reading back the book and I went, this is absolutely true to me. This is, this is honest, this is true. This is real, this is helpful. This is what I want to impart to people. So that’s really important. ’cause I genuinely care.
AJV (27:16):
Yeah, I know you do. Why, why a book on worry. So what was it about this particular topic that compelled you to write a whole book about it?
VJ (27:27):
Because that’s been the theme of my life. . That’s, that’s, I mean, worry is that’s, I’m a, I’m a wor like I said, black belt warrior, so that’s what I wanted to work about, because worry, stress, anxiety can so blanket your life to a point where, you know, I was able to always have that right there. But I’ve still been doing things kind of a contrast, a real contradiction in terms like, I’ve been really crippled with it, but at the same time, I’ve also accomplished a lot. But it’s always been the weight that I’ve carried. And as we say in the book, you know, worry weighs more when you carry it alone. So building that support system. So I really wrote about worry because it’s been the thing that I’ve struggled with more than anything. The stress, the anxiety, the panic attacks. So I just thought that if, if something that I’m gonna leave behind, besides, in addition to the part of my life where I was telling you how to make your lips fuller and your eyes bigger, I was also going to tell you how to navigate worry. And then, oh yeah, I might throw in how to think about getting a, a drug made and a, and a therapy too. It is just, it’s all part of my sharing of my life experiences along the way. I mean, it’s really, you can kind of just look at it and go, yep, she did this. Then she taught us how she did this. Then she shared that. Then she’s always, oh, she’s always been a warrior. She’s showing us how to be a warrior. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (28:55):
That’s good. Who would you say for everyone’s listening, like who would you say this book is really for?
VJ (29:03):
I think it’s for everybody. I really do. You know, you look at these books now that are out like the anxious generation and with where we are in social media, I mean, everybody’s affected one way or another. I mean, young people are, are worrying about everything to do with their friends and how they look and you know, there’s so much that young people now, and it, because of social media, which I didn’t grow up with the way it is now, I think it’s just, there’s so much more anxiety and stress. So even if they’re not sitting down and reading every page of my book you know, there’s something that they’ll be able to take away from, like, something that’s actually doable. So is do we really know too many people that are, you know, short of like little kids that are not worried or stressed or anxious these days?
VJ (29:53):
Sadly, I, I don’t, you know, I’ve got little grandkids. So at six and eight, I hope they’re not dealing with too much anxiety. But when you read this, these books now that are so much, it starts pretty early. So I, I write something just like I do my makeup. You know, people always say, well, who’s your, what’s your makeup geared for? What? It’s a, oh, you’ve got skin. I am, this is your makeup. You know, I mean, I’m, I’m not putting it at a over 40 person. I’m not, you know, I like the idea of no makeup makeup for everybody to just look natural and look like themselves. So I think more universally, I guess is what I’m saying, ultimately.
AJV (30:35):
Well, I do believe, you know, worry is a universal problem. We all struggle with. Like, I could probably make a list of at least 10 things that I’ve worried about today Yeah. Since I woke up just a few hours ago. And so one quick thing about the book, and then I would like to talk about no makeup makeup in the last few minutes that we have. But if you were to say, if you consider yourself somebody who really struggles from worry, like if there was one thing from the book that you’re like, I don’t care if you don’t get anything else from this book, if you just left with this one thing I know it would help you, what would it be?
VJ (31:09):
It’s taking action that even in the face of worry, even in the face of your massive anxiety, that you still have to do something to take that next step. So to me, you know, yes, it’s okay to fall apart and be stressed out and have that moment, but you have to then like not sit in that. You have to take that walk in nature or make that phone call. You’re afraid of, you know, everything that, there’s that saying, you know, everything is amazing. That’s on the other side of fear. It’s, it’s really working to get to that other side of fear and to get anywhere close to that other side of those amazing things that can be on the other side, you’ve gotta just take the next step. So it’s just doing something, whatever it is, when you’re in that moment of like paralysis and you’re worried to the point of not being able to do that, you’ve gotta just do something. And sometimes that’s just walking outside and, you know, going around the block, something to shake it up. I know it sounds so basic. You’re like, that’s it, Victoria. It’s like, yeah, sometimes that’s it. Because in that moment you clear your head enough to sort of let the next thing in and the next thing and the next
AJV (32:28):
Thing. Hmm. That’s good. Quick personal question. Is there anything that you can say like, Hey, this is something that I fear, fear that I haven’t yet done that I know I need to do to take action on?
VJ (32:44):
Yeah, I mean, for me, travel has always been sort of my like little bugaboo. Like I don’t love a lot of movement. And I say this as a person who’s moving all the time, probably like going to some exotic traveling will be what I’ve gotta sort of go, okay, you can do it. I didn’t fly for so many years 35 years, I didn’t, I didn’t fly as a result of claustrophobia. And I still struggle with that. So I think for me, that will be my continued kind of, you know, eat, love, pray moment of going out, you know, in the wild and, and just wherever that is, just out of my comfort zone.
AJV (33:30):
Hmm. Yeah, I asked because I, you know, I was just sitting here thinking as you were talking about like, what are the things that I know I need to take action on, but there’s some amount of worry or fear that is preventing me to move forward. And I just know that if you struggle with that, if I struggle with that, everyone’s listening, we all struggle with something like that. And, you know, Rory and I have had these conversations in our house a lot here lately. And I think one of the things that we fear is like, man, like how much of what we really think should we share? You know? And I think there’s a real fear of not wanting to come across as judgmental, but also feeling compelled to, to share an alternative view or one that maybe isn’t as popular or as common. And I think there’s a lot of that fear of cancel culture, which has a lot of people who have thoughts and opinions afraid to talk.
VJ (34:31):
Yeah, no, it’s, it’s very, it’s very real. It’s all part of what creates the, the stress and the anxiety is ’cause people are afraid to just be themselves. But I think that there’s a way to do it if you do it with kindness, where the problem is there’s so many people that are doing it you know, with so much hate or bitterness or, you know, anger and, you know, that’s always hard. And then, so then other people are afraid to just say anything because of the afraid of the judgment. You know, I’ve always tried to be as authentic and real and you know, I’ll, I may have opinions that other people don’t like and they’re just mine and it’s like, take it or leave it. And I’m very, you know, if people are not like doing harm to somebody else, and some people politically believe this and some people believe that, and somebody was pro-abortion, somebody’s pro-life, like, you know you know, I just take it all in and, you know, you try to have conversations as civilly as you can and listen to other people. You know, there’s that level of respect at times that we’ve all lost a little bit. And I think you just have to get back to that and and not worry so much about not being able to just have conversation and be yourself. I think that’s important. You hate to lose that because that’s kind of really where the magic is because that’s where we’re authentic to who we are.
AJV (35:57):
Totally agree. And, and back to, it’s like we all have worry at some level. So what are we gonna do about it? So again, we all worry now what coming to a bookshelf near you very, very soon. Again, I’ll put the show notes or the link in the show notes, but you can pre-order it now on Amazon. Pick up a copy, buy one for yourself, buy one for a friend. And before we go, I also wanna talk about this relaunch of Yeah, no makeup, makeup. And as I mentioned earlier, I am wearing it today and I love it. I think it’s amazing. One, I love that it’s in a little compact and it’s so creamy. ’cause I’m usually putting my makeup on, on the go , and I can do it in the car. Not that I should be doing that while driving, but what inspired this relaunch?
VJ (36:45):
You know, for me, I mean, I love look at being, I was always in a, in the lab creating product. As I said, I made about 600 and it’s really fun working with color and pigments and coming up with a great product. So I am a formulator at heart. I love it. And my foundation, when I first launched No makeup makeup many years ago, was my hero product, my number one product. And so I wanted to bring it back, but bring it back in a new clean vegan, like, just an amazing formula. I was not gonna launch anything until I had like, what I thought is the perfect foundation. That’s what this is. It comes in 13 shades. And I, I love it. I mean, it’s so easy for me to sell it because I’m like, I love it. I think since I’ve launched, just in the last month, we’ve had two returns. I mean, like, people love it. So that’s what I wanted to just get back into kind of back where I started the whole no makeup makeup and I own the trademark. I trademarked that in the eighties. So it’s just a message that’s still true. It’s timeless. So I wanted to make a, just a fantastic product and I’ve done that and it’s no makeup makeup.com and people can check it out and yeah, I love it.
AJV (38:00):
Well, you know, that’s the thing about building something that’s evergreen and timeless, and now it’s getting introduced to a whole new generation of people like me who wasn’t wearing makeup in the eighties. And and a again, I think one of the things that I love is just a great reminder for all of us is that, you know, it’s never too late to start and it’s never too late to restart. And that’s so much of what I love about you. It’s like, I mean, if I can do it, why not? We can figure it out.
VJ (38:36):
Why not? And I mean, even in makeup, you know, it’s sort of like, it’s, it’s pretty easy. Like this comes with a brush and it’s start at your jawline, match your color. You’re, you’re in, it’s, it’s makeup. If you don’t like how something looks, you wash it off. Like I, I try to get women off the, the hurdle of, you know, they get so in their head sometimes, not just women. And we get stuck that even when I was doing my makeup for so many years, which with this how to, it was just like, here’s, here’s how you do it. And it doesn’t matter. Like, people go, well what if, do I need to start with my eyes first? And then my lips, I’m like, at the end of the day, we just care how it looks like when it’s all done. So I just wanna create products that make you feel good and look good and look like yourself and not wear a mask. So there’ll be other products that follow this, but right now it’s no makeup, makeup, just the foundation for beautiful skin. Well,
AJV (39:29):
I can attest. It’s feels good on, looks good on, I think the feel of makeup is really important to me. And this, it doesn’t feel like I have anything on. I really love it. And I, what I love too is that, you know, this whole idea of like, people think all the time I have to create something new. Yeah. And it’s like, no, you don’t. Yeah. You can just take something that already had and just make it better. Make
VJ (39:57):
Better, improve it. Yeah. That’s the good thing. You know, technology’s changed and I took what was an original formula and I just improved it, you know, manyfold. So, and you look beautiful.
AJV (40:09):
Thank you. And I think for everyone listening, it’s like when you think, oh, I have to write this whole new book, or I have to build this whole thing. No, you don’t. You just, you can take what you have and revise it and it’s taking
VJ (40:21):
That next step. It’s just, it’s just, it’s just doing it. You know? It’s, there’s talking about it’s great, but then you just gotta, you just gotta do it. And it’s always work. So you gotta just be ready to do the work. And and that’s honestly, like I said, it’s, it’s simple, it’s basic, but and people are, are listening, trying to always find what are the magic words you’re gonna say? Sometimes it’s just, you gotta get uncomfortable. You gotta do it. And you gotta work to find what’s on that other side of, for me, fear. Mm-Hmm. . And there’s pretty amazing things.
AJV (40:59):
All right. Last question. And I know that we’re running out of time here, but you mentioned this earlier, that you’re about to turn 70. Yes. And so I wanna know what’s next for you. Like,
VJ (41:12):
You know what, that’s the great part. I don’t know. Who knows? Who knows? Maybe you, and I’ll be talking in five years, 10 years, and you’ll go, you did what ? I, I don’t know. You know, maybe I’ll be laying by a pool. You know, in 10 years from now, I, I haven’t had that opportunity yet. I’ve been doing for so long. I don’t know. You know, I think that’s part of it is to go into this as now I, you know, have grandkids. My kids are getting older. It’s seeing what that, you know, I don’t wanna sound all like old and sleepy, but I don’t know what’s coming up next. You know, I think I’m, I’m the kind of person that just puts it out there. And then I’m gonna see what comes from the book that I, i, you know, have written. Who am I going to hear from? What am I going, who am I going to meet as I go further down the road with my cosmetics? I, that’s kind of what’s so cool. You don’t know, you just gotta put it out there to, to even know what’s coming next.
AJV (42:15):
And I love the, the mystery and the adventure and all of that. ’cause The truth is, if we had never put out what we were doing, our paths would’ve never crossed. Yeah. And you just, you just never know. But you gotta put it out there. You gotta do the work. And I love too of going just enjoy the beautiful mystery of just not knowing, but do the work, keep moving and enjoy the ride.
VJ (42:39):
Yeah, exactly.
AJV (42:41):
Victoria, thank you so much for coming on. And everyone just one more time. Her book is coming out very soon, September 3rd, pre-order now on Amazon. We all worry now what? And her makeup as relaunched now available [email protected] and at Victoria. If anyone wants to just follow you personally, where’s the best place to send them?
VJ (43:07):
Oh my gosh. Probably Instagram. You can, you know, the original original Victoria Jackson, I believe is where we’re, I’m so not in the world of social media. You’ll all help me as we go along on this journey. But yes, you’ll be able to follow me. Okay,
AJV (43:23):
Well that’s what’s next for Victoria Social Media. That’s it.
VJ (43:28):
,
AJV (43:31):
I’ll put the handle the official Victoria Jackson. I’ll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much. Loved having you on today. Love getting to see you and talk to you and everyone else. Stay tuned for the recap, which will be coming up next. And we’ll see you next time on the influential personal brand.