Surpassing Mediocrity: How to Rise Above the Average with Ryan Stewman

Thank you for tuning in to the True Grit and Grace podcast. I'm Amberly Lago, and I'll be sharing inspirational stories of resilience and empowering ideas to elevate your business and your life, ignite your passion, and fuel your purpose. Hey, Amberly Lago here. Thank you so much for tuning in to True Grit and Grace. I have a real Treat for y'all today. One of my good friends I've been so excited to introduce you to. I've got Ryan Stuman here. He's known as the Hardcore Closer on Instagram is probably where you've seen him. He is a culture creator, a greatness extractor, a huge inspiration. He's a founder, a CEO. He's an investor. He's got a huge organization called Apex, and he's got a big event coming up in June that I am so honored and excited I get to speak at. His His story is truly inspiring, what he has created. I love his family. I actually go to the same church as him, and, um, he's just an incredible human being. So Ryan Stuman, thank you so much for being here on True Grit and Grace.

You know, us Texans got to have each other's backs, you know, got to support each other, show up on each other's shows and all that good stuff. So—

I know. And we were supposed to see each other in person, and last minute I got booked for a virtual event. So I was like, can we just do it on Zoom? But I did get to meet you in person. I went to your event last year, which was— I have to say, I've never seen a stage like yours. Like, you walk in and it was lights and smoke and music and celebrities and famous speakers. We had connected on Instagram. And then I found out my good friend Rebecca Zung was speaking there, and I went immediately and bought a ticket so I could go to your event. And it was incredible. And now you called me the other day, and I have to admit to you, so the other day I was about to do this big event. I was speaking with Ed and John Maxwell on a big stage, and I was feeling really nervous, and I was actually praying, and I was like, God, this is kind of scary. I just don't know if I'm meant for this. I don't know if I'm made for this. And then my phone rang, and on the screen, your picture came up. Like, as your number came up, your picture came up. I was like, Ryan Stuman's calling me! Oh my gosh, I gotta answer that. And I answered, and you're like, hey, I got this event coming up, and you want to speak at it? And I was like, okay, God, I hear you. I need to keep speaking. I need to keep sharing my message. So I want to know from you. So you really helped me that day more than you know. So thank you for that. You have such an incredible story. And when I say that I love the family man that you are, your beautiful wife, Amy, and your children, and how you have been such a role model for your kids. I saw that your son is now like a famous YouTuber. He's like posting his stuff on YouTube and stuff. But I want to know, how did you get to be like, how did you get on this path where you're like, I'm going to create Apex and tell us what Apex is, and I'm going to inspire people. I'm going to create a culture. And now I really feel like you're in Plano, Dallas. People mostly know it as Dallas area. I feel like people are wanting to move out here, and I'm not just saying this just to get close to you. Do you feel like that? Like you're creating that culture where people are now like, Ryan's got something going on. I'm going to move out there and be close to him.

Every day, you know, and we have no shortage of people wanting to rent out extra space at any of the buildings that we have or the offices we're in, you know, even at our old building, which you went to, there's, you know, beautiful, huge, is one of the biggest buildings in North Dallas.

Is that the one I was at? Or was that at the old Dallas?

Oh, that's our old building. But there was 2 of our clients that end up getting spaces in that building, you know, that didn't live in Texas that ended up moving there. And so people see that we've got our stuff going on here, they want to get close to that, you know, which is a good feeling. That's, that puts a lot of pressure on me though, because, you know, I have to be this example. I'm accountable to the public. I have to be a good father at this point in my life. I have to be a good father. I have to be a good husband. I have to carry myself a certain way. People think, oh, you know, it must come easy for you. It's probably the hardest thing that I do because I have to be the exception to the rule, not in a bad way, not because I'm always bragging about how good or how good I ain't. It's like I've literally set out for my life to be an example of what's possible. And if I fail at that, like how many— of people am I letting down? And maybe millions of people don't follow me on social media, but how many business owners do follow me that have thousands or hundreds or dozens of employees? And there's a big butterfly effect of that. So it's a lot of pressure, but I'm willing to take it. You know, pressure makes diamonds. I'll shine a little bit. So, yeah.

But how do you take that pressure? Because it is a lot of pressure. And you know what I mean? This is— I'm not trying to get too dark or anything, but a friend of mine, I'm not sure if you know him. Do you know Dave Hollis?

I saw today several people mentioning, uh, that he passed away. He looked like a very, very handsome fella, you know, very handsome, good-looking, tall, muscular.

He was a good guy, and I feel so bad because he's been on my heart for like the past week. And I was like, gosh, I haven't talked to Dave in a while. I don't know why I keep thinking about him. I need to reach out. And I just— life gets busy, and I was like, I'll do it later. And then I was like, He passed away, heart problems, and he's younger than me.

47.

Yeah. And I'm thinking there's so much pressure as an entrepreneur, so much pressure to keep showing up, so much pressure to keep performing, to keep providing, to keep posting. How do you deal with that pressure? Because one of the things I have to say I really admire about you, Ryan, is You do so much, and I have so much respect for you because I'm doing my first bigger in-person event, and it, it's hard. Like, it— this is harder than when I published my book. And I look at you and you put together an event with thousands of people, and you haven't even like launched your next event. You've already got over 400 people that have signed up because people know what kind of atmosphere, what kind of value you provide. But how do you deal with the pressure? Because I've seen you in action, and you've always got a million things going on. But you always seem like you have this inner peace and serenity. Like, how do you deal with the pressure?

I used to not deal with it well at all. A long time ago, when I was in finance, I was a loan officer. And, you know, it'd be the end of the month, and everybody's trying to put their mortgages in and close at the end of the month. For some reason, everybody in real estate likes to close on the last day of the month. I don't know why. But that's always a thing. So as you can imagine, that's a thing in these states and every city and every county and every title company and every mortgage officer. So, you know, the end of the month, the underwriter at a mortgage company is just under a massive amount of stress and pressure and everybody's angry at them and, you know, trying to get their loans closed on time. And so when I worked in that industry, I was in my 20s, I used to get so mad at the end of the month. I would get so angry because here I am fighting all these other people for space in front of the underwriter in this last-minute stressful situation. And I I swore I was gonna have a heart attack by the time I was 30, but I got smart and I started closing all my deals on the 15th. You know, like people would come to me like, okay, we're gonna close at the end of the month. No, no, no, no, we're not. We're gonna close it either the 15th of the following month or the 15th of this month, depending on how much time that we got. We're not gonna fight the end of the month stuff. That's for rookies. And, and that's like leaving for work during traffic hours if you don't have to. That makes zero sense, right? We'll just give it another 15 minutes and wait till traffic clears. So You know, I got good at alleviating stress, right? So not necessarily dealing with the pressure or stress, but I got really good at alleviating it. Flash forward, you know, last year I think we ran 34 events, just us, or I'm sorry, 34 days of events because some of them are 2-day events. So that is a lot of events. At the very least, that's 1, 1.5 deals, 1.5 events a month that we're running. That's a lot. Yeah. And a small event for us is 150 people.

That's unbelievable.

Most of our events are somewhere 250 to 400 people. We kept outgrowing the places that we, we would rent out. And so now I'm building an auditorium here that holds 295 people and a stage and all this other stuff. And I have a feeling—

That's where I want to have my next event. That's what we were talking about before we even recorded. I was like, okay, the first thing I said was, is your event space ready yet? Because I want to sign up. I want to have my event there because I know how you run things and it is over the top. I mean, it is unbelievable. It's like nothing else I've ever seen at an event. So I know it is going to be incredible. So now you're going to have your own event space, which I'm so excited about, especially because we live so close together. And then you have— gosh, maybe in just like a couple of weeks. Uh, an apex event, right?

Sure.

And then after that, in June, you have the big event with thousands of people.

Yep, that's it. You know, the, the reason why we run events really well is because I've been— I've spoke at so many events and seminars for people and traveled the country and saw how so many people ran good ones. Some of the biggest ones are the sloppiest ran. Uh, some of the big conferences you see are really sloppy ran. Then I've been to some that are really big, that are well ran, like 10x is ran really, really well. Then traffic and conversion is ran really, really well, you know. And then I've been to some other ones that I won't name that aren't run very well, that have thousands of people. And then, you know, but we started off with small ones. But what I've done is I've kind of made the event idiot-proof because if, if the person in the audience— and for those of you throwing events, this is something for you to think about, you know, a lot of people That they're there to stand on the— I'm throwing an event so I can stand on the stage and talk. And know what? You're throwing an event so that the person in the audience can have one of several things, and maybe even a combination of— they can have a life transformation, they can have an educational breakthrough, they can have a moment where they meet the right person at the right place, right? A networking thing, uh, or to where they, they make money, get some— like I said, a financial breakthrough. So that's really what those people are there. They're there to be entertained. Right? They're there to be entertained, and that entertainment is you're making them more money, uh, you're making them better connections, or you're making them a better person. That's why they're sitting in the audience. That's the entertainment in their life that they're looking for. And so a lot of the speakers think that it's about them. I can't tell you— and Amberly, you tell me if this ever happened to you— how many times you meet somebody back in the green room, somebody who's successful, someone who's earned the right to speak on a stage alongside people like yourself, me, and Mylett, those kind of people, right? Like we were discussing earlier, And you ask them, and I swear to God, I'm gonna put him out there because, because you know him and we were talking about him before this, and then he'll think this hilarious. Brad Lee is the number one person that is the offender of this where you say, hey man, what are you going to talk about? And he's like, I don't know, I'll figure it out when I get on stage. Like, wait, you don't know? You're like, there's, there's all these people there and you have no clue what you're going to say. It's like, I'll figure it out when I get out there. Brad is like the king of that.

And he's funny as hell.

He is funny as hell. You know, he is funny as hell and he pulls it off. And a lot of people think they can be like Brad and do that and they can't, you know, and or they go longer, they get lost and, and trail off and things like that. So what I did as a promoter, as a producer of the show, I know that my job is not like most people. Their loyalty is to the speakers. My loyalty is to that audience because speakers wouldn't be there if it wasn't for that audience. So I want them to have the best experience. And one of the things that we do is I meet one-on-one with all the speakers and or at least my team does and make sure that we got slides, make sure they know what they're going to talk about. That they have an idea. They know that their time. Hey, look, you're gonna get a hard cutoff. Like your mic will shut off at thirty minutes. If you so, you know, we let people know everything because we gonna keep this thing on time. My security guards will come pick you up and scoop you off the stage no matter who you are, whatever, because we gonna keep it on time. But we let them know that up front so that there is no now all of a sudden they're like, shoot! I know I gotta close down. That clock says twenty five. I gotta get out of here. Stuman's guys are coming, right? And And that's because we're running an efficient show.

Yeah.

When we did the panels, you know, a lot of times you get people on a panel and they just like rectally extract a question and everybody's like, oh, I'll answer that one. No, we had a meeting with the panels and we said, each of you get 2 questions. Amberly, here's your 2 questions. Here's the person that's asking them. You're going to have a card. So you have 2 weeks to come up with these answers. These answers have to be 120 seconds or less when they ask you to in order for us to fit all 6 of you into the 25 minutes that we need up here on stage. So we're going to ask one question through once, then we're going to ask the second question that everybody has. Different questions, but now everybody's prepared. So when they show up on my stage, they don't trail off, buy time, overthink, or whatever. I've handled all these objections, then all these issues that I saw at other places as much as possible. And then stuff happens. Last year, God bless on my buddy David Harris, he got it. He said he got a message from God that he was out there to deliver a message, and he went about 15 minutes over. And normally we would have taken somebody off the stage, man, but he was really out there transforming people's lives. So I just cut it off of my time since I was following him. So So, you know, like every now and then something like that'll happen, but usually we keeping stuff on track. But we've never had to cut anybody's mic because I've just had that conversation with them up front and my team reminds them. It's like, hey man, you got 30 minutes, watch that clock because we are on top of this stuff. No exceptions, you know.

Well, you know what, thank you, you know, thank you for saying that because just last night I had dinner with one of the speakers who's speaking at my event next month. And he's like, well, how much time do I have? I'm like, have you been getting the emails that I've been sending out about exactly how much time you have and when you're gonna speak and this and that? And he said, oh, well, I only get 35 minutes. Well, I'm gonna need 45. Can I at least have 45? And I'm like, no, because if I give you 45, then I'm gonna have to give this person 45 and this per— I said, no, we gotta keep it on time. So thank you for saying that. And, and that's the thing. I remember, Ryan, the very first gig I ever got, the very first time I got to stand on stage. It was a stage in Salt Lake City. It was an event called Powerful You. And all the speakers, it was Ed Mylett, Jay Shetty, Mel Robbins, Brandon Burchard, Dean Graziosi, Randy Garn, like Bedros Koulian, like the biggest people. And they told me I had 5 minutes. And I was like, oh, thank you. 5 minutes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I get to get on stage with these legends. I will take it. And they— before I got on stage, he looked at me and he said, if you go over 5, we will come out there and yank you off stage. And I was like, I will not go over 5. And I went out there and I—

4:59 it is.

Yep. And I gave a 5-minute talk. And you know what? I had a line of people waiting in a booth for me to, to meet them and sign books for them. And I was just so grateful for that 5 minutes. And, and that's the thing, you know, as an event organizer, it's a lot of work behind the scenes getting everything organized, trying to fit everybody in. And we give these speakers this platform to reach a huge audience. But I'm just blown away that you fill a whole room of thousands Of people.

The most important thing.

And how did you start filling a room when you first started out? Like, this is for people who are like, I'd like to do an event, or I want to put together a mastermind. Or how did you start to build that momentum to start getting people in the room? Because it's harder than you would think. I think that it's, especially when you're first starting, for people to To have an incentive to get on a plane, to book a hotel, to travel? What's your secret? Because you are the hardcore closer. Tell us the secret.

Well, you know, the secret— nobody ever really wants to hear the secret. What they really say is they want like a shortcut or whatever. Really, nobody wants the secret. You know, they don't really want the recipe. They want to know if you'll cook them the cookies yourself and send it over to them these days, you know, and I'm not saying you specifically, but typically people. But because the truth is money's made in the mundane, right? Billions come from the boring. The guys that built Google and Yahoo and Microsoft and all that, like, that's built on endless Facebook. Instagram's built on endless hours of coding shit that is just boring, right? And that's how billions are built. The money's built in the mundane. So, um, 2010, I left the mortgage industry involuntarily. It's a long story. We won't get into it, but I left the mortgage industry and I just kind of trying to find, like most entrepreneurs, it's like, hey, I want to start a business. I don't know what kind of business I want to start. I've read some books with some ideas. I've watched some videos with some ideas, but it's kind of lost like anybody else. I dabbled in multi-level marketing and, and, you know, I did some car hustles on the side and a little bit of car sales and I had been in the mortgage industry successfully 8 years prior to that, but that had ended for me. So, you know, I got into teaching loan officers specifically about social media. Now, in 2012, when I'm doing this, it's 2023 now, so it's 11 years later. But in 2012, people weren't feeling social media like they are now. You know, there wasn't—

Yeah.

There wasn't a billion users yet. There might have been 100 million on Facebook, right? And the movies weren't out yet about the social network and all that. So none of that existed. So you would approach a 50-year-old person that worked in the average person's 45 to 50 years old that worked in the banking industry and say Facebook, and they'd be like, oh yeah, my daughter's on that. Or yeah, my kid's college is on that. And they, you know, here I am about 31 years old at the time and people weren't really buying into it, but I stayed on it, you know. And later on down the scene, Gary Vaynerchuk pops up on the scene and starts making a big splash. And some of these other guys that we now I now know really adopted it. They were already doing well in life, but they bought in on social media, which made social media even bigger, you know. And my first mastermind was in 2013, and my first live event rather was in 2013. And I rented out a hotel and I had all these plans and all this like great, like this, we were just gonna kill it and gonna be a millionaire because I had bought a how to run an event DVD. And like, I just thought I knew everything. And, uh, and I threw it at the DoubleTree Hotel in Richardson, Texas, and there was 5 people there.

Wow. Thank you for sharing that.

Yeah.

Because, and hotels are expensive, by the way. My, my second event that I did, a mastermind, I was surprised at the hidden cost that you get at hotels. And it was $2,000 worth of coffee for 45 people. And I was like, what the hell? How much coffee did y'all drink? It was crazy.

One time, after years of working hard, I filled up a room with, let's say, 100 people, maybe 80 people, right? So, I mean, I went from 5 to 80 years down the road, okay? And I, I rented out the Marriott, nice room. It was like a college professor thing where I could talk to people. It was like my favorite room I've ever spoken in still to this day. It was so cool. And I had to get a room block in order to get the room discount. And then my people didn't stay at the Marriott. And I made like $30,000 from the event, like was profit. And then the Marriott took $26,000 of it because I didn't fill out the room block.

Like, I learned that lesson, the room block lesson. And so that's why this next event that I'm doing, I got a room block for the speakers and that's it.

Yeah, that's all I ever do too, because I'm like, fool me once, like Bush said, can't get fooled again, you know?

Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I made that same mistake. I had about $17,000 Worth of empty room. Like, it was crazy. Yeah, that and with the coffee.

I'm gonna house the homeless for a night. You know what I mean? Like, if y'all were just gonna book me for empty rooms, I would have let like the homies party in them or something.

Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. But you know what? Thanks for sharing that, how you went from 5 to like 80. But you learned lessons along the way too, because I sure did. Learned some hard lessons about hotels and stuff. And now you're up to thousands.

So my first event had those 5 people. And what's crazy is last year my biggest event had 2,600 people check in and 3 of those 5 were in the audience. I brought them backstage. So, so they, they've been with me this whole time.

Wow.

Like all these years later, 3 of the original 5 were in the audience. So that was really cool.

Yeah.

I called them out from the stage and told them to meet me if they were there and they showed up in the back. So. Um, which is really cool. You know, those dudes been supporting me. Uh, one of them actually has his kid in the same school that my kids go to. So it's like small world. But, but here's the thing. So that second event that I did, I had 3 people. So you, you think, you know, oh, 5, 6, 7. No, I had 3. So I lost 40% of my audience on the second one. And I thought it would be cool to throw the event in Vegas. And one of the people fell down an escalator because they were drunk. So I had like 2 people the next day for this mastermind. You can't really call it a mastermind with 2 people, you know what I'm saying? It needs to be at least 5, I think. But I want to tell you, I'm a financially tuned-in person. So that first event I charged either $2,500 or $5,000 per person. So the hotel cost me 10 grand to rent for 3 days. I got 5 people there that I made $25,000 off of. Let's just call it the hotel cost me 10 grand to rent for 3 days with the $2,000 a day coffee and the food and shit like that. Then at the end of that, all 5 of them, I believe if I remember correctly, all 5 of them joined my $20,000 a year mastermind, right? So I end up getting $25,000 per person. So it ended up being over the course of 12 months, not upfront. Over the course of 12 months, end up being $125,000 I made from that event with only 5 people. So a lot of people think, oh, you got to have thousands of asses in seats in order to make money. But not— there's ways that if you add value, can create a relationship and can mentor people. So what would, what would somebody want to pay me $25,000 back then for? Well, I told them, you know, you do mortgages, the average mortgage commission's $3,000. All we have to do is 8 Loans over the course of the year for you to break even at the minimum. And I believe that we can get up to where we're doing 8 loans a month together within 6 months. I deliver on those results. They're happy still to this day. They're showing up obviously at our events and still a part of what we now have evolved into Apex. And so the second event, same process. Third event, we do it in California. We got 8 or so people. So it actually grows that third event. I continue down this path once every other month, throwing these mastermind events and enrolling people into a year-long program. The mastermind—

Wait. You did. You were doing them every other month.

Every other month, right? And now we do them like every other week. But yeah, so every other month.

And do you really?

Oh yeah. I don't know too many people that have more event experience than we do. It's not something I brag about, but I really, you know, you think we've been doing this for 10 years now, 11 years, and just like on the grind, not counting the events that I've spoken at, but the ones that I've ran myself. I don't know, maybe Cardone or Tony Robbins or somebody like that stature has ran more events than I have because they've been around another decade or two longer than me. But we're on them. And so the thing is that keeps going until 2017. So let me just timeline here. I throw my first event, 5 people, 2013. 2017. Okay? So that's 4 years later, 2017. I finally got enough people to get 80 people in a room. And what I did was I went back to all those years, 4 years of people going every other month. to the events and, and the ones that were in the mastermind and say, would you like to come to a reunion? You know, that's what I called it. It's like, it's the, it's the reunion. You know, we've all been through these things. We can give you an update and everything else. Some of you will speak there. And, and so we had like 80 people and then kept on the same path. The next year we had 150 people, kept on the path the same year. The next year we had 300, then 500, then 1,000, then 2,000, 3,000.

So— How many are in Apex?

Uh, we have 2,100 and some change members of Apex.

Wow. So you have 2,100 members. That is like so inspiring to me because my mastermind, I have 13 people.

That's still awesome. I remember those days. I was just talking about it.

You know, I love that it's a family, but 2,100, how do you meet with them online or is it all in person?

There's several levels to it. There is a—

There's 3 in there, 3 levels to it.

Sort of. So there's, uh, there's a $2,500 a year level, there's a $10,000 a year level, and a $60,000 a year level. And then we've got some specialty stuff like investor program that we have, and then we've got some example programs. So, but yeah, there's 3 levels for the most part, and the majority of folks, as you can imagine, are at level 1. We've got 200 and something at level 2, and then in the final we got like 150 or so that pay $60 grand a year, right? The people that pay $60 grand a year, we throw events in-house once a month. So the first Friday of every month they come out, we have special guest speakers, you know, big name speakers too, and sometimes people that you don't know that have done miraculous stuff that you get to learn from that you wouldn't see marketed otherwise. Plus they get to network. So we got a really good system. And then we got the level 2. They meet once a quarter. And so this is where the events come into play for me. So level 1, I'm doing once a month. Level 2, I'm doing once every 3 months for 2 days. And so on one— so every 3 months I'm doing one level, level 3 event, and then 2 days of level 2, all back to back, right?

And you amaze me. You seriously amaze me with the way you're bringing teams.

Yeah, it takes a team. And so, and then level 1, we have like the Apex Live that's coming up. They have to pay to go to it in addition to it. It's like $99, so it's not very expensive, but they have to pay $99 to go to the live event. But we do 2 of those a year. So level 1, they can pay to go to the Apex Live. They get a discount twice a year. Level 2, they get 4 2-day events a year. Level 3, they get 10 1-day events a year plus access to anything else they want to come to.

So Well, I'm amazed with you. And by the way, I get all your email, and I'm gonna admit this to you too. Okay, so you have a bigger impact on my life and business than you even know.

Wow.

So not just that you called me the other day and I was like, oh my gosh, it's Ryan Stuman calling me. And I was like, okay, God, I hear you. That's a message. But I get your emails and they're so good. that I actually forward them to my assistant and I'm like, we gotta do more stuff like Ryan. Like, that's how much I'm inspired by your emails. So I get your emails and your post on Instagram. Like there, there's not many people like you really wanna read their captions. I read every word of your caption because it is always value. There's always a lesson. I love whether you're posting about your kids or your beautiful wife or some crazy lessons that you have learned. Everything you offer is just such value. And I'm so inspired by all that you do through, like, as a business person, as someone who I feel like I'm a baby in the mastermind, like I'm so inspired by all you do with your events and everything. And you have a saying that if it's meant to be, it's up to me. Let's talk about that a little bit, because I love that saying.

Yeah, I think I got that from— well, I know where I got that from. When maybe I was 2, 3 weeks into working in the mortgage business back in 2004, I think it was, there was a guy that worked for Brian Tracy and he came and he did a little sales training for us and was selling us tickets to one of Brian Tracy's events. And that guy said that if it's meant to be, it's up to me. And this was the first ever commission. Now, I had taken jobs where I was hourly plus commission, but this was the first time I never had a salary job my whole life, but I was hourly plus commission. This was my first time where it's like $0. You got to go make your, you know, rent's due next month. You got to go figure something out this month. You have no money coming in, right? And that guy said that. He's like, if it's meant to be, it's up to me. That's what salesmen do. And I thought, that's right. I'm going to adopt that. You know, at that time, that maybe wasn't the word that came to mind, but it was like, that's my phrase. You know, like, I'm that guy. He said something that didn't. So I don't know if that's a Brian Tracy phrase or not. I want to try to take credit for coming up with it, but I feel like I live my life by that, you know? And the other day I was with my right-hand man, Jose, and we're out on the ranch together. And he's like, look at all this shit that you bought, man. You got like tractors and all this other stuff. He's like, do you know how to drive any of this? I was like, we'll figure it out, man. We're going to figure out how to do all this stuff. That's the whole point of it. He's like, That's what I like about you. You just like do stuff and then you figure it out once you you've committed to it. Like that's that's how it's supposed to because if I just that's what I do too. Absolutely. What I'm gonna expect somebody else to come and rescue me or save me?

No.

If it's meant to be, it's up to me. If if if it's meant to be a million dollars, it's up to me to go get it. If it's meant to be a dream life with a dream wife and amazing kids, then it's up to me to go get it. If it's meant to be for if if it's meant to be for me to go get have a beautiful body, work out hard in the gym, be strong, be healthy, then it's up to me to go do that, right? So, so many people, they wait for life to be up to somebody else. You know, they're waiting for a rescue. And then guess what? Oftentimes God will send them a ship to rescue them and they'll waft them away because they're waiting on a better rescue opportunity. It's like, oh no, I'll keep swimming and thanks for trying to rescue me, but I'd rather be picked up in a bigger boat. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

Like, that's, that's how most people are. And for me, it's like, you know, Hey, I'm just gonna go make this stuff happen. If what I want has never been handed to me my entire life, nobody's ever said, "Here, Ryan, here's your dreams handed to you." I don't think anybody said, "Here, Ryan, here's something that you've been praying for for a long time on a silver platter." None of that's ever happened to me. Matter of fact, a lot of things that I have prayed against have showed up in my life over the years—not so much lately, but showed up in my life in my earlier years—and I understand that nobody's handing me anything. So I've got to go out there and. And, and there's in the Bible, I know you probably least, I know she mentioned that we go to church together, but those that are just listening to least likely to be a Bible quoter here, but I'm actually a prolific reader of the Bible, believe it or not. And I have been for over 20 years. And there is a story in the Bible about a man named Jabez. And there's actually a book that you can read called The Prayer of Jabez, but I'll, I'll save you the time and give you the Stuman's Notes here version of it. But Jabez basically prayed a prayer that said, Lord, increase my territory so that I shall become powerful but never harm anyone. And what he was saying was, it's the old adage of, in order for my light to shine bright doesn't mean I have to snuff yours out. In order for you to enlarge my territory doesn't mean that I— in order for my mastermind to be 2,100 doesn't mean I need to take your 13. We can both exist and you can have 2,100 in yours too, and I can have 2,100 in mine. Right? I don't have to outshine. Now, what I don't want to do is increase mine to 2113 and put you out of business. That's not how I want to enlarge my territory. And so when I say if it's meant to be, it's up to me, I'm going to go out there and take everything, but I'm not going to take anything from anybody else either at the same time. And that philosophy and mindset, I call it the mindset of Jay, right? The mindset that he has is wanting to be powerful, wanting to be wealthy, wanting to be strong, but not wanting to affect or hurt anybody along the way. Man, if more people thought that way, Corporate America would be better.

Yes.

Business industries would be better. Hell, the weights would be re-racked in the gym. It would just be a better world in general, you know?

It sure would. I love that so much. And, you know, my grandfather used to always say, going back to, you know, if it's meant to me, it's up to me. My grandfather always said this, and I put it in my book, that, um, you've got a shovel in your hand. You can lean on it and pray for a hole, or you can start digging. And it's like you can sit there and lean on it and just pray and pray, but you got to do the work. You got to start digging. Yeah, if you want something to happen, I've never been handed anything. You know, when I moved to California, I didn't have parents that were like, "Well, let me drive you out to California and find you a lot nice little setup and pay your rent and get your place furnished." They were like, "Good luck. I think you're making a big mistake. Don't die out there." You know what I mean? I was like, "No, I'm gonna make it." And There were times when I was like, okay, do I buy toilet paper or Top Ramen today? But I have taught my kids, you know, my oldest daughter, when I was a single mom, she saw me work so hard and build my business from the ground up. And that has given her that grit. And I didn't go to college, but now she's going to Yale and I'm just so impressed with all she's doing. So our kids watch everything that we do. And you are such an incredible dad. And I love that you share the lessons that your kids have learned from you, but also the lessons that you learned from your kids. Like the other day, your son was like, Dad, you need to like put stuff on YouTube that's going to go viral. How have you changed things? What?

You know, the coolest part of that story is, you know, that's my 11-year-old. He has a YouTube channel and You know, he's he's got a couple videos that have been viral. I don't know how he does it, but he's got a couple videos that have gone viral, and he'll show me.

And my fourteen-year-old too, and I'm like, "Can you please run my TikTok for me?" They just know how to do it.

Yeah. So your kids, they don't listen to you; they watch you. And so so many parents now hear me out, parents. I'm raising four kids now, and they're really good kids. And you say, "Wait till they're this age or that age; it ain't gonna matter." Here's why: We try to pretend like. Our parents pretended like they had things together and they were hardheaded and stubborn, but they were in their 20s. Now think about yourself in your 20s. Did you know anything? My parents were 18 when they had me. They had to be complete dumbasses. I'm just serious because at 18, I was a dumbass too, you know? And as a kid, you think your parents are supposed to have the answers. Then one day you're 13 and you're like, I'm a dumbass. My parents are equal dumbasses. And now you're in this frustrating situation. Or, or they tell you your whole life, go, go get a job and take care of your family. That's how you live a good American life. And then they see you miserably coming home and drinking every night because you hate your job, right? And so, yeah, so true. That's the problem most parents have for— but, but see, what happens is they see you miserable and drinking from your job. Now all of a sudden they don't want a job because they don't want their life to look like that. They don't want to be drunk and obnoxious like you are, right? I'm speaking this to somebody with me. I've always been completely 100 million percent transparent. I don't hide anything. I don't keep anything from my kids since birth, right? And a lot of people say, oh, what about cuss words? They've never— they go to Christian school. They hear me cuss like a sailor. They have never cussed in school. None of them, not any 4 of them. And they can all say it. They don't say it. Matter of fact, one time I told my 5-year-old to repeat what we said out when we were hunting one time to, to my wife, and he would not do it. He was like, they're, they're good kids because I've explained to them that those are words for adults. When you're 18, you can use these words. There's— when we're on the ranch, you can use these words. I don't care, right? But when we're back in the city with your mom, keep your mouth shut with this stuff, right? And so I have these conversations with them so there's no shock one day that all of us talk a different language. There's no shock one day that Daddy occasionally has couple drinks or Daddy occasionally smokes or whatever. There's no shocks with them to where one day they're going to be like, oh, you know, he's, he's not who he says he is. So I say that because my kid's telling me this about YouTube because he wants to be on YouTube because he sees me on there, right? And, uh, and he does better at YouTube than I do. So I asked him for some advice. One of my friends who's a Navy SEAL, by the way, great friend of mine from church, you know him, Garrett Unclebach, and he's one of the church leaders, he sends me a message. He says, if Jax will review my channel, I'll give him $500. I'd like some young kid's opinion On some things that we can do too. Here's my channel. And he immediately Cash App'd me $500 before I could say yes or no to him, right?

Wow.

I turned around and Garrett and I have never— we're friends, we've never done business before, right? So I turned around and I tell my son Jackson, I said, hey Garrett, he knows Garrett because Garrett's taken him shooting before. I said, hey, Garrett sent me $500 for you. So you have a job now because he's already paid us. He wants you to review this channel and give him some feedback. Within about 20 minutes, Jack's hitting me back with it. It's like, kid's 11, by the way. And in the message it said, I'd like him to tell me 5 things I can do for my channel. Jack sends back a typed up message that he went and made in his notes on his iPad with 6 things that he can do because he says we go above and beyond, which is one of our core values, right? Service is our core value.

Oh my gosh. Are you kidding me?

None of this prompted to me. So he knew that when we get paid, we go do the work immediately. That's one of our core values. We do the work. So he got paid, stopped his Fortnite game, He went, watched this thing, read the channel, went back, gave an analysis at 11 years old. I told him, hey, wait till Wednesday, you'll come over here, I'll show you how to elaborate on this stuff and present it like a business. You might be able to make some more money from this. But that's because he was able to do that. In my opinion, most rich kids would have been like, oh, that's $500, I don't really care, my dad buys me everything anyway, I'm gonna play Fortnite. Whereas my son was so excited to get a job that he like stopped what he was doing. He's like, this YouTube thing, I just made $500 from YouTube at 11 years old. Like, you know, where's my Ferrari? You know what I mean? That's amazing.

Amazing.

And so it's one of those, like, and this was just Sunday night. It's Tuesday now when we're recording this. So it was like, man, I know what I'm doing is working because in the Bible it says you should know a man not by his words but by his fruit. And I can see that the fruit is Jax returning the work in 20 minutes with an extra thing that he didn't have to do. I see that they obviously see me living it and it's paying off with the cars, the ranch, the things that we have as toys, and the life that kids judge because they don't know the other side of life They say, hey, it's working for Dad. I'm going to model that. Just like I go to the gym every morning and so does their mom every morning. So, when they grow up and they're old enough to work out, they won't know that not going to the gym is an option because they'll have seen us do it for 15 years of their life before they're still starting.

I could not agree more. I love that. And so, my daughter, I just got a message the other day from a mom who she was over— my daughter's 14. My youngest, and the mom said, "I just want to say your daughter is so nice to be around, and she has the best manners, and she's so polite." And I was like, "I'm glad she was polite at your house, but I'm glad that you know she says thank you, and she is grateful, and we practice gratitude, and we have a gratitude practice every night." And a lot of times she'll roll her eyes, but at least it's sinking in. But I'll tell you what. But every single day, my daughter goes upstairs and works out. She fits in her workout. She's 14.

Wow.

And she's like, Mom, come on, we're going to do a contest. We're going to do a hip thrust contest. And it's like she loads up as many weights as we have and she does a hip thrust. And my husband's like, isn't she going to hurt herself? I'm like, honey, she's been working out since she was little. She's worked her way up to this. She's going to be fine. But I love that she sees us working out every single day. She saw me working out from the hospital bed. She knows it's just not an option to not do that. So they do. They see what we do. So I love that. Now, is your son or your kids going to be at the event in June? Will I get to meet them? Because—

They're always in and out of there. So the last one, they went and hung out with Logan Paul. When he was—

I did catch Logan Paul on stage. I missed day 2 or something, but I did get to see Logan Paul.

And then my oldest, he likes rap. So he was at the rap concert with Rick Ross and everything else on the first night. So, you know, most people probably would—

How old is your oldest?

11. And most people probably wouldn't take their 11-year-old to a Rick Ross concert. But that's, I think, his second time to meet him anyway. So it's okay.

Wow. Your kids must be so proud to say, look at my dad, to their friends. You've got to be the coolest dad ever. Out of all the dads at school, you are like the cool dad.

I probably am, but I don't think my kids talk about it that much because years ago my oldest was telling about all the things, you know, hey, jets and Lamborghinis, and we went to this place for the summer. And I think they thought he was lying. You know what I mean? Like, oh, we're hanging out with this celebrity and that celebrity. And it's like, oh, you know, and you hear one story or whatever. And you're like, okay, maybe that just happened. They ran into— when you hear a lot of stories, like, okay, this kid's clearly full of shit, but he's not, you know. So I think a few years ago, when his class and stuff was kind of down, I think the oldest kind of toned it down. The middle kid, you never know, except for me or my wife picking him up in exotic cars from school. He don't tell anybody our business. He's like the funniest guy ever. He would be the ideal trust fund kid in the sense that he wouldn't care Whether he had $1 million or $1, he's going to live life on his terms anyway. He's a very smart, very good kid. But our youngest one, I'm pretty sure that everybody knows his dad's cool. Like, he's my number one fan. He's like big into cars and all the cool stuff that we do. So, but I'm adopted. So my stepdad adopted me and we didn't get along. And it was a, you know, a constant fight and, you know, an abusive relationship. And when I was 15, I hit the streets. And, you know, every now and then I would come home, you know, when things failed on the streets. And, you know, I might come home for 2 weeks and then hit the street again. But I just didn't like living at home. It wasn't about their rules or anything else. It was violent for me and just uncool. And so when I decided to finally bring kids into this world, I was 32 years old. And I had enough wisdom and maturity in my life at that point. And, uh, or at least I thought I did a lot more than I had prior to that. But I said, you know, I'm gonna bring a kid into the world. I'm gonna be the dad that I never had. I'm not gonna let these kids derail my success, and I'm not gonna let these children be an excuse for me not to go fulfill the dreams in my life. So I'm gonna have to figure out a way to make that work. But I'm also not gonna abandon these kids for this dream either, because I'm lucky enough to have found somebody like Keith Craft for the last 20 years of my life that I can look up to like a spiritual father. If I'm not that person for these kids, they may not get lucky like me. You know, I went to Elevate Life Church back in the day when it was called Celebration Covenant because a stripper brought me to that church. So if it wouldn't have been that night with that stripper bringing me to the church— by the way, that's how bad I needed church. A stripper brought me to church. It was like, you need Jesus. But, but that was like the divine intervention of the stripper that brought me to the church that changed my life.

I did not know that story, actually. I didn't know that.

If I'm not that example, they may not find that example later in life like I did, you know. And, and if I'm that example for them early on in life, then they'll be light years ahead of where I was, you know, in my 20s. I'm still trying to figure things out. At least I'll be able to download wisdom into these guys. And so at the same time, I said, I'm going to be the dad that I never had, but I don't want to abandon them. And so I understand that there's no such thing as work-life balance. You know, there's the balance.

You know, that was one of the questions. I've got a list of questions. I was actually going to ask you the next question. Do you believe in balance? And how do you stay in alignment for all that you're doing? I cannot, because I see all that you do, and I'm amazed at all that you So you, yeah, you don't believe in balance.

Yeah, because in, and I'm a Libra. I'm not a big astrology person, but when's your birthday? October 1st. And so Libra, like the symbols of scale. So, you know, supposedly we're supposed to be about balance. I don't think there's a work-life balance. I think the real balance that we're looking for in life, if there is a balance, is the balance being grateful for what we have right now while in pursuit of what we want. Because here's the thing. let's say what we want is money. Really, we want the result of money, but it takes money to get what we want. But money is a magnifier. Some people get money and they become lying, cheating, deceiving people. Some people, uh, that were lying, cheating deceivers get money and become great people like myself. Money is a magnifier of who you really are. So what happens is if you're not grateful for what you have right now, then you'll kick off the balance. And as you get more of whatever comes in life, you didn't learn to be grateful with little, so you'll never be grateful with a lot. You'll think more money, more women, more drugs, more material items, whatever will fulfill you. But it never will because you were never grateful for what's now. You were always anticipating the gratitude of what's next. That's out of balance. In the meanwhile, if you're always focusing on what's next, then you never learn to be grateful for what's right now. So you never appreciate what's next, no matter how large it is. That's why they say, oh, I know a lot of rich people that are miserable. It's because they didn't learn to be grateful when they were poor. You see, I had to work on my mindset and learn to be grateful when I've been in the poorest places of my life. I had to learn to grateful for the rock bottoms that I've been through in my life. I had to learn to still be happy to be alive when I had nothing else going on. And now that I'm a person that has a lot going on, a person that has all these things happening for me, I've become a better person. I'm more grateful. Now, as far as the work-life balance, mathematically, if I got to work 60 hours a week to maintain a living, which the average American somewhere between 40 and 60 hours a week, if I got to work 60 hours a week and then I've got to sleep another, let's see, 7 times, let's see, I got to sleep another 40 hours. So, that's 100 hours a week where I think you only got 120 hours, if I remember, Craig. It's not very many. I don't have time to invest equally into my family. So, what I do is I work my tail off. We call it 48/7. I get 2 days' worth of work, 7 days a week, right? But I work my tail off Monday through Friday, and then maybe Saturday or maybe Sunday, just one day, I focus on the kids. So, we go out and do something together. Right now, I have 3 older boys and a younger daughter. She tags along sometimes, but she's still very young. But me and the 3 boys, for one day we go somewhere, sometimes a couple hours, sometimes it's a whole day. Every Wednesday night, my wife and I, like clockwork— people say, what are you going to do tonight on Valentine's Day? Nothing. But tomorrow night on Wednesday, I'll be dating my wife, just like I do all 52 weeks of the year, right?

That's so awesome. My husband and I need to have a date night. We don't.

Every week we call it the AARP special because we don't go out and party till 11 PM. We like hit the, the first reservations you can make at the steakhouse are like 5 o'clock. So we go and we like hit 5 o'clock, we're home by 7, 7:30. We got a good date in, we're home in time to tuck the kids into bed and everything else, and it's all good, you know?

Yeah, I love that. Now when you— okay, when you go to dinner with your wife and you have conversation, do you say, okay, we're not going to talk about work? Do you have any topics that you're saying, okay, we're not going to talk about things? Or do you guys enjoy talking about the work that you do? Or do you talk about the kids? Or I'm just interested because my husband is retired. He used to be a lieutenant commander with the California Highway Patrol, and he's been retired for about 5 years, which has been great because he really helps out with our youngest daughter when I'm traveling for work. But he doesn't really enjoy, I don't think, talking about events and And speaking and mastermind, and he doesn't really get that. So I'm just curious because I know Amy does very similar. I mean, she's very involved with your work and her own thing as well and her own events and stuff. Do you guys talk about what you're doing for work or what are some of the things? Talk about the kids or is it just everything?

Um, you know, we don't have any off-limits things. So the thing that's off-limits is the phone. And we joke and say that, but we talk so much, we always Googling shit to make sure what we're saying is right, or because we talk about current events and stuff like that too. But you know, we try not to talk about work too much unless it's something really pressing, you know, because, uh, it can be frustrating because Amy's not in the trenches every day like I am, and she doesn't necessarily have the same heart for these people like I do. So her tolerance level is not as much sometimes, right, and as mine is because I'm empathetic being here every day, which she's not necessarily in the trenches like I said, but she also keeps me abreast on what's going on. She sits on the board at the school that the kids go to, so she's like, you know, very involved there. She's the lunch lady 3 days a week there at school and stuff like that. So, you know, I, um, I get to know what's going on in the kids' life, her life. She gets to know a little bit about at work. We usually talk about, you know, lately I ain't gonna lie, we've been talking about, man, you know, we've been putting together a plan for the end of the world, man. Shit seems like it's falling apart out here. I don't mean to derail the podcast. But like, the big topic of decision is like, listen, woman, can you grow vegetables? Because I can hunt for animals. I just need somebody to grow vegetables because I'm really concerned. Oh my gosh, you're not gonna be around and this may be our last date night that we didn't grow it ourselves. All right, so like, I just need to make sure that you can grow it.

No, I, I swear, my 14-year-old— so we just bought our house. We got— we only have like about an acre of land, which is a lot compared to, you know, we were in LA for 31 years. So an acre of land seems like a lot compared to living in Los Angeles where the houses are so close together. And my daughter's like, okay, Mom, we got to start gardening. We got to grow our own vegetables. Daddy's got to get out his guns. Like, I swear, she's like saying the same thing. But hey, at least we live in Texas. That's all I'm saying. Thank God we're in Texas.

Absolutely. You know, and, and And you're right, thank God we're in Texas. And you know, so that's been the topic, but there's really nothing off, off subject or anything like that. It's really just a time for us to communicate with each other, stay off the phones, you know, because at our house we have 4 kids and music on or a TV on or this, that, and the other. And I mean, it's just non-stop, you know, something constantly going on. So it can be a little overwhelming.

So it's just time to slow things down, go somewhere quiet, and the 2 of us Yeah, well, I am going out of town this weekend, but I'll be back on the 26th. I'm going to the 9 AM service. I hope I see you at Elevate. I'll be going with my friend Rachel Shear. She moved back to Texas, so we'll be heading—

I wonder where she's been.

Yeah, she moved to LA and she just moved back.

I brought her to that church, you know, just for the record.

I didn't know that, and she's the one that brought me.

Yeah, well, hey, you're there because of me. So you can ask her. I brought her to that church. She's been a friend of mine for a few years now, and either Keith spoke at an event that she spoke at too, or I invited her to church. But her and her mom, uh, started going to that church because I invited them there.

Wow. When she found out I was moving to Texas, she called me and she said, when you move here, do you want to go to church with me? I'm like, yeah, I need a church. And I love that church. So hopefully I'll get to see you. I appreciate you so much. Please tell everybody where they can find more about your events. I mean, y'all have the church. Check out his just for like a dose of inspiration and to get educated and inspired. Go to his Instagram at Hardcore Closer, but please come to his event. I swear to you, his events are like nothing. It's like a huge concert, basically. I mean, the smoke, the lights, the type of people that you have there is amazing. You know, we're not really selling nothing.

We're just we're selling tickets. No, and so it's not that you buy a ticket. And then you got to buy this, and everybody's pressuring you to buy. So it's not like that at all because I hate that shit. I do too. When you go to a concert, imagine you pay $100 to go to, or let's say you pay $1,000 to go see Taylor Swift. You're up in the nosebleed seats, and and after every song she tried to sell you something. You know, stop by the store and pick up a t-shirt. She plays another song. Hey, make sure that you go back. Like that would be so annoying, dude. The whole nobody would nobody want to go see Taylor Swift anymore. I don't know why people insist on doing that seminar. Yeah, it might make you a whole bunch of money, and that's great coming from a salesperson. I'm not knocking it. I just don't want to experience that. I want to be like, listen, I paid my money for this, this entertainment. Entertain me, right? That's what I was talking about in the beginning. So you can get tickets to our stuff at milliondollarmastermind.com. milliondollarmastermind.com. Really easy. Just go right there. You can grab tickets. There's still VIP. We haven't really launched it to the public depending on when you're listening to this yet. That stuff may not be available anymore. more. Uh, but we haven't really launched it to the public yet, so get in there and get good seats now before we start marketing.

They do go quick, y'all, because last time I jumped on as soon as I heard about it, and the, like, the front row seats, I was like, ah, the very front row seats are taken! But I bought a VIP ticket as fast as I could, and they were going so fast. So yeah, y'all get in there and get a ticket and come see Ryan. Come see me. I want to hug The milliondollarmastermind.com is where they can find the tickets.

Yep. milliondollarmastermind.com.

And you guys, he's got a podcast. Go check out his podcast. Check out his YouTube. Hardcore Closer. Ryan Stuman, thank you so much. You're incredible. You are such like a huge role model. I respect you so much. You inspire me so much to go bigger and do better. So thank you. I'm so grateful for you. Thanks for being on the show and sharing your heart and your wisdom. And, um, we'll see you real soon. Thank you.

Thank you for having me.