Influencer Series: Behind Brendon's Career (Part 2 of 2)

Foreign. It's Brandon. And I'm excited for this special series we are beginning right now called the Influencer Series. If you're on my email newsletter, you know, I've sent out a few emails recently about how I do my career. You guys are always asking about that part of my life. You know, the part of my life that's more of the influencer side of things than just teaching the personal development, meaning my career as a coach, speaker, author, writer, trainer. Someone who's out there every single day, you know, sharing my message and earning income from it. And lots of questions always come up about that. In terms of marketing, you know, how do you create a massive online community around your passions, your mission, or your cause? How do you create viral videos? How do you host these events? How do you get sponsors? How do you get featured in the media or sell online courses and subscriptions? How do you launch these podcasts and these courses and these books and blah, blah, blah. I know you guys are always excited about hearing that. So I'm starting a series today that we're just gonna call the Influencer Series, where we're gonna really break down some very tactical things that I do in my business, but also some larger, practical things in marketing that will really give you insight into how this industry works. Now, when I say the of course not everyone loves it, we say just influencer. But really, that's what the industry's become known as. It used to be the expert industry, and then it became the thought leader industry. And now anyone who's really an author, speaker, coach, seminar leader, online trainer, social media thought leader is often bucketed under the influencer industry, which I'm totally cool with. And in fact, many of you know, we have launched Influencer 2019. That is where you can go for three days and learn from me. And really 10 of, I think, some of the greatest influencers alive today, how we built our business and how you can start from scratch, just like we did. If you're interested in that, just go to influencertickets.com to claim your tickets. We've got tickets coming up. October 10th through 12th in San Diego. Influencer will be an annual event, so that's your only chance to attend and learn from us. It's October 10th through 12th in San Diego, and just go to influencer tickets.com to get your tickets. Now, with that, this first kickoff, I thought I'd do something where I really get to share about my journey and what I've learned as an influencer through the rebroadcast. Of an awesome episode my friend Lewis Howes did on me. I was on Lewis's podcast called the School of Greatness and we did a special two part epic journey through my career as well as what I would recommend to you on how to think about the career, but also how do you think about marketing in general? And it was so hugely popular on his podcast that we decided to play it for you here in case you're not subscribed. I hope you will really enjoy this episode. It's Lewis Howes, the founder of the School of Greatness podcast, walking you through my career. With that, it's gonna be a two part episode sequence, meaning this will be one episode here and then another episode and then we'll jump into some very tactical marketing episod coming up soon. Again, if you'd like to learn all of this type of stuff and you really dig it, make sure you go to influencertickets.com Louis will be speaking at our event as well. A lot of my friends actually. Rachel Hollis will be there. Dean Graziosi will be there. Trent Shelton will be there. Tom Bilyeu from Impact Theory will be there. Anthony Trucks, you know, American Ninja Warrior. We've got so many unbelievably awesome influencers coming to teach you very tactical things. Again, that's October 10th through 12th in San Diego. Go to influencertickets.com that's influencertickets.com to get your tickets. Without further ado, here's my awesome interview with Lewis Howes.

There's a lot of influencers that are have expertise and they built this following and they're like, well, I'm still broke. I don't know how to make money. I don't want to sell something to my audience. I just want to like add value and be of service. I just want to create cool content. Like, I don't want to figure out this business stuff. It's too overwhelming for me. What should be thinking people thinking about as influencers right now and over the next couple of years as a business model, maybe you can give a couple examples and then also talk about a little bit of your model.

I'd say first, if you're starting in this space and you're coming from that heart centered, service driven place, which is where you and I both came from too. Everyone starts if their heart's in the right place. They're like, I just want to give away free. I don't want to charge people. I don't want to be a jerk. I don't want to do business. It's like, no, you're doing a disservice if you don't build a business. And here's the thing, often people don't pay attention unless they pay. You want to create a real transformation in people's lives. They have to invest something, they have to give something there. But I also say, listen, especially to the new folks. Sometimes I go, listen, kid, I love you, but since you're so smart and you know everything, you don't need to make money. Can you show me one major influencer, thought leader, person you admire today? One. Show me one who hasn't focused on building their brand and business. Show me one. Oprah didn't care about making money. She's changed a lot of people's lives. One of the richest ladies in the world. I've been at a ranch up in Maui. You can't even call it ranch. It's the top of Maui. It's like her other homes. It's like she, trust me, she cares about business and she's built a team to care about business because she knew she could reach more people. Find me one. One influencer. Like a major one, like an og.

What they're like, well, this activist that's been like a non profit. That's changing.

That was in that movie that made $15 million for. They banked away, you know, so it's like you're just not, I mean, Tom Shoe, you had him here. Yeah, right. He's still, he knew if he doesn't sell this shoe, we don't give shoes. So you cannot find a major influencer. No one has an like. That's what I tell people. Always notice what's working. Why is it every major influencer focused on their business? Why? Because they care enough about their people that they wanted to be there for them.

And most of these people weren't good at business in the beginning.

Right.

They were talented, they were an artist, they were an actor. They were, you know, a messenger of something. But they weren't necessarily talented in the business. This is not something that comes easy to people. You're gonna have to learn it.

That's it.

You'll have to apply it. This is why you create so many trainings on this. You're gonna need to find great people on your team to support you because maybe you don't want to build the model yourself and you gotta hire someone.

That's right.

And that's okay too.

Yeah.

Either way, you're gonna have to do it eventually.

You're gonna have to do it.

Eventually, if you want to sustain this as a lifestyle and as a career and something that can give you freedom financially.

Yeah. I've been blessed now to kind of be in the business as a mentor for people. For 16 years. The biggest names have come to me, especially this last decade. Wow. And none of them ever said, you know, I wish I hadn't worked on building my business earlier. They always say, you know what, I should have focused on the business earlier. It would have given me more freedom. It would have given me more team. It would have given me more capabilities to. To build and scale and do those art projects that I wanted to do. That didn't make any financial sense. It's like if you. I was telling people you want, like, the freedom to do your art, have the financial resources that you have the freedom to do your art, you know, so in our industry, there's so many different models. Most today, most people are focused on the sponsorship and the brand model. And that shouldn't account for 10%.

Typical influencers who have a following.

Yeah.

They're making money off sponsorships.

Yeah. And if that's more than 10% of your revenue, what you haven't accepted yet as a business person is what you have is a busy job that other people pay you for. And if they don't pay you anymore, you're fired. You don't have. You don't have. Or if you're following, you don't have a freedom. You don't have. You have. No, you might. There's a difference between having a business and earning money for individual contributions. Just acknowledge what you have. Oh, when I do this, I earn money. That means you basically have a job for other people who are in control.

Yeah.

A business runs.

Or waiting for them to, like, say, here you go.

A business runs while you're sleeping. You know, for 10 years of my life, I've had evergreen campaigns that. So on average, if I stop working right now, we make the same amount of money for three years. If I stop working right now for three years, same amount of revenue. That's crazy. Why? Because I built a business and it was like, I need to build some kind of automated processes that if I'm sleeping, I'm still earning. The business is earning. That's what a business is. It's like a business is automated process that earn even if you aren't doing everything in it. Otherwise you have a very lucrative hobby, you have lucrative individual efforts, but you're selling yourself short.

Or you're a hired talent.

Yeah, you're a hired Talent. That's a great way to put it.

You're a hired talent.

You're a hired talent, but you can make a lot of money doing it. Yes. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But again, let's have some aspirational figures. Tell me one. Aspirational. I mean, what was, you know, Kylie Jenner sitting there going, oh, I'll just be a hired gun all the time. And she's like, I'm going to build my own line, an empire. Why would I do that? Because that's called smart.

And so people buy from me.

Yes.

They're buying from me by, you know, a sponsorship post. They might as well buy my own product.

You got to build the business. And so in our industry there's so many different ways to do that because there's so many different things to sell.

What are the different main ways you would recommend?

Like I always tell influencers, make sure you get something digital running in the background. Selling all the time. My favorite thing, you know, you have to have digital sales and subscriptions these days.

So that could be. Course.

Yeah. So my number one thing go to for most people is make sure you have a subscription program. That means people give you everything. They give you money every single month for access to your content library or to new content. So for example, you and me, we both go live once every month and we charge people to attend that live.

That's it.

And for the library of the other recordings of previous months. And that model just, it's always running, it's game changing. And so that gives you, it gives you a budget each month. Now the only issue with that is you have to show up each month to keep doing stuff. Right. So that's just one model.

You still gotta put energy into it.

Yeah, still gotta put energy. But that's something that's buildable and scalable. It gives you things like monthly recurring revenue, mrr, which you know, people really care about. When valuating your business, it allows you to have metrics with your team to go, oh, how many new people do we have in? How many did we lose? Let's do better at both of those things to earn more. So I love that digital sales. You've got anything from online courses to charging people to access to libraries to webinars, to coaching.

Online coaching. Right.

Online coaching. Live or virtual, you have the ability to do seminars, workshops, events, retreats, books, PDFs. I mean, still this day, audio. Audio programs. I don't know if you ever saw our big campaign. We put you know, 100 episodes in one of my podcasts on a thumb drive.

That was the greatest campaign.

Thank you.

So good. You were running that for like six months.

That thing was just crushing, smashing. We sold a thumb Drive for $7 with all our audios on it. Our best picked audios. People went crazy for that. You know, we. We've sold swag and things like that, but we sell a lot of book packages. We sell a planner. So you got products and swag, you've got live events and experiences, and you have digital sales content. And it's about figuring out, well, which ones do you love to create and which ones work for your model and your message. It doesn't work for everybody. Like, we were talking about Tony earlier, Tony Robbins, he doesn't have much of a membership program because his method, his passion is being on stage. And so you also have to understand everyone's got a different passion or a different way of letting their method shine. Like, for a lot of my friends, they're like, wait, you do online courses? I go, yeah. You do five week online courses? I go, yeah. They go. And each module is two hours long. Like, my courses are these huge, comprehensive, like, major curriculum. I don't do short courses. Other people, they love a short course. Other people are like, I'm never going to stand in front of anything and teach anything. That's just not my thing. I just wanted to have conversations with compelling people. I'm like, well, then do that. So this is where the most important thing is your message, your method, and how you monetize off the line up.

And knowing who you are.

That's where it starts with when you.

Know who you are, who you are. Because for me, I don't want to be on stage every two weeks. Like Tony, you know, I do one big event a year and I speak on your stage or a few other speaking gigs, and they pay me my fee and it's like, I'm good, cool. I'll do that maybe once a month, maybe. But it's like I want to sit down and have the intimate conversation.

Yes, because you're great at that. So this is your method. And if you're on the road all the time, you can't have people here.

And my model used to be a lot of online courses because that's what I learned in 2008, 2009. That's what was working for me at the time. Then I just said, when I met with you two years ago, you gave me this great feedback of like, what you need to have recurring you need to have a subscription.

Yeah.

You can keep doing the launches and the courses if you want, but you've got to have subscription. Then I just said, I'm kind of tired of doing courses, you know, for me, knowing who I am and what I've already created. Just a lot of energy for me.

Yeah, they're hard. People don't appreciate how hard it is hard.

So I just said, you know what? We're getting rid of the courses. We're going all in on subscription.

Yeah.

And it's been two years. It's been amazing. And we did that half day session with you that really game changer.

So thing. What? Rachel had the same thing. She was kind of anti selling something. I said, let me give you all the business reasons to have a subscription. Watch what happens with your business. Watch how you can anticipate revenue. Watch how you can grow and have you give your team something to grow that you don't have to do everything on. And it just. It always takes. It almost takes me three or four conversations and then they get it. You were like, I got it. And you, I mean, you were. I think you actually, like 30 days.

Yeah, yeah.

And we were so pumped. I was like, oh, my. Louis is doing it.

And here's the thing. It wasn't perfect.

Right.

I think a lot of people and it's evolved. You know what we started it out as, it's now evolved into something else. And I think a lot of influencers get hung up on everything trying to be perfect when you just. Just get it out there and start building and then make it better as you grow.

So my first online courses suck compared to my eighth.

Yeah.

You know, but also when you figure out that model, you got to work that thing, push it. Like a ton of people, like, they'll take my course and they'll learn, oh, this is how you do courses. And they'll kick out one. They'll promote it one time and like, oh, it didn't work. It's like, you have to stay on the model. You have to work the model. The number one issue I found with influencers often is they never step into the role of CEO.

They don't want to.

They don't own the fact that they are responsible for the business, because that feels like, well, that's not art, man. Yeah, but it's like, so it's like. But if a business owner never goes, I own this business. I own my dream. I am ultimately responsible for this thing growing. Once you accept I'm responsible for growing this thing, Even if you don't push every button, even if you hire the CEO or the CMO or whatever, once you go, this, I'm responsible for this message, I'm responsible for this business. Everything changes. And this is what I always tell people. You have to honor the struggle involved in building a business. Because if you complain about it, you moan about it, you bemoan it all.

The time, it's a job, it's something you don't love.

Anything you apply hate to quickly dies. So if you say I hate doing email marketing, it's dead, you're toast, right? I hate doing podcasts your toes. Anything you apply hate to dies. And so you have to go, okay, am I honoring the struggle here? Allowing the hot mess, but staying in it and owning it. The most important thing influencers must do, I tell them all the time, especially new and really young kids, because we, you know, I've got a client right now, she's 17, she made $40 million.

Last year making money.

And you know, so her parents hired me because I've been in the industry for a long time to kind of do some mentoring. And I can't say it's like, listen, you got to take command.

The 17 year old telling her, you.

Got to take command. Telling somebody they have to own something. Like, because listen, we all have the same aspirations. Same. We all have four aspirations. Our whole life, Our being goals, like who we want to be as a person and our desire to be congruent with that. Our relating goals, how we want to treat other people and show up with other people. Our creation goals, the things that we want to create, the things that we want to contribute. Like, I want to do something right? I want to do something with my life that's a creation goal. I want to do a podcast as a creation goal. I want to leave a bunch of money to someone that's creating a significant, meaningful thing. And then our growth goals, how we want to grow along the way so we have the same aspirations. So what makes a difference if everyone has the same types of goals? I want to be a good person who's congruent and proud of myself. I want to with other people so there's deep, real, meaningful connections, love and care. I want to create things that I feel like, draw out my passions and make a difference. I want to grow into the best person I can. If we all have that same thing, what's the difference? Makers usually two things. Number one, did you take command? Are you the captain of your ship or did you just get blown around by everybody else.

Were you responsible?

Yeah. Did you take responsibility of that? Did you really take command of your life? Did you take. Doesn't mean you have to do everything yourself. It just means that you own it. And then the other thing is community. The people that you're around. Yeah, right. Who help support you. Like, we became friends because I was like, I can learn a lot from Louis, you know, and you were always so humble with me, like, hey, how do you do this, Brendan? And we were just both givers. And it's like, you know, that's it. I mean, I don't think we have any competition between us other than I think you're way more athletic and beautiful. But it's like, but it's like a better interviewer than me times a thousand. But it's like, you know, it's like we just, we deeply care about the community we have. But you're here because you were on your sister's couch and one day that wasn't allowed anymore and you took command.

That's it.

And everybody has that in their life. So I tell influencers, you have to Command. This is 17 year old girl. I'm saying you must command the direction of what you're doing here. You're listening to everybody else. And she's one of these girls who's got all these reps and all these agents and people around her all the time. And I was like, okay, let's sit down. What does it look like to take command of this thing if it was yours, where's it going, what's happening? And no one talks to her like that. They're all telling her what to do and how she's going to screw it up and how dumb she is because she's 17 and I'm the guy honoring her and going, well, she's created some kind of mat. There's magic here. Let's really empower that. Let's really open that up. Let's let her control and shape and shift that thing. And that's hard for adults to do. It's hard for parents to do with YouTubers, you know, out of the top 100 YouTubers, you knowSew, 15 have been real significant clients and they and experts academy graduates and they're kind of like, how often did they made 100 videos, made no money and if they didn't say, I'm going to do this and keep commanding that of themselves, commanding of their will, commanding of their attention, how many of those huge shows would have never had those millions of subscribers? And everyone who I talk To. They always say the same thing. It's like, yeah, at some point I just, you know, I took it over. I took back control. It's like I tell people in motivation manifesto, you got to reclaim your agenda. You got to reclaim your life's agenda. You got to take command back of that thing again because life sucks it away. Distractions.

So that's true.

Yeah. And the most important thing you take command of is your business model. What are we going to do here? Don't wait for other people to tell you how to make the money or the agents to say, we'll go get you the deals. You have to be so you know this. You have agents. You have to be so actively involved. Otherwise you get, like, wait around forever. You get peelings.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's powerful. But there's also mayhem that comes with being. With being an influencer.

You like this framework of the alliteration. You got message market mayhem model.

Yeah. So there's mayhem that comes with being an influencer. What does that mean? So you're telling me that I can't just be an artist and put out my content, and I'm gonna start making money and everything's gonna be happy, go lucky, and. Yeah, work forever?

Yeah. Some of your family is going to hate your success and your following.

Yeah.

You know, you're going to be a lot of haters. Some of your friends are going to be like, what the hell are you doing? Who are you? I don't get this. Why are you posing? You know, some of. You know, some of your girlfriends and your boyfriends are going to be like, you know, too much time away, or, why can't you be more present? Your mind is always on your dreams. You know, people. There will be relationship mayhem when you commit to your dreams. And that's what the universe set up to test if you wanted it or not. Because it's not just the mayhem of like, oh, wow, I got money now. Or I'm nervous because that's always gonna be there. Like, I'm nervous right now. I'm talking to Lewis Hapless. Right. I'm on a show. There's a wonderful woman over here filming. There's cameras going. I'm like, ah, I'm a little weirded out. I don't do a lot of interviews. I'm great on camera in my studio, doing my thing.

Alone.

Yes. Here. It's new to me. I'm sweating. I'm all nervous. There's always gonna be mayhem. There's the internal may of the self Doubt, the fear, the frustration, the lack of motivation and discipline that just upsets us, that we all have. But the real mayhem that really messes up people in the influencer space is the relationship mayhem. Your brother don't get you, your spouse doesn't support you, you have a partner who steals, you have somebody who takes advantage of you, because all of a sudden, now everyone wants something from you. And when everyone wants something from you, there's going to be some, you know, relationship mayhem. There's going to be some distrust, there's going to be lack of. There's going to be a lot of problems. And I tell influencers, like, anticipate that. Know that you are going to be challenged. Know that every. You walk off stage and there's 10 ladies in the audience, right? I walk off stage, there's four. But, you know, no, it's not.

They want something from you.

Yeah, everyone wants something from you, whether it's a business deal or a money or a handshake or a selfie or something. And I joke about it in some ways because it is funny for a guy from Montana who's awkward, as weird as I am, to get the invitations and the offers, but also like the schemers and the scammers.

Yeah, a lot. It's hard to tell. It's so hard to tell what's true, what's not true, what's like, the right opportunity. You also, as an influencer, get an abundance of opportunities. So the mayhem of hurting people by saying no over and over and over again, yes, that's challenging in itself because you want to say yes, you want to help, you want to be a part of projects. But then if it takes you away from your message, your method and your model, then you're hurting yourself. Influencer.

Yeah. And I tell people it's like the way through. Because there's two kinds, right? The internal kind and the external kind. Right? The internal self, doubt, struggles, difficulties. The external, the relationships, the business, the turmoil, the chaos of the world. And the way through both of those. The internal kind is through your own mindset and habits. You've got to do everything you can to dial in your mindset and your habits, from how you think of yourself to how you take care of your body, to what you focus on each day to how you reward yourself. And the more you dial that stuff in, the less. Like, to me, at any given moment, with the size of the brands and the businesses and the teams and the relationships, something's going wrong, you know, something is just not right. So I've got to find, to be able to. The ability to be peaceful and present, the ability to deal with the stress and the challenges, you know, the nervousness, the anxiousness, the anxieties I've had. I've made a life of trying to master that internal world.

So the mayhem is really, when the mayhem comes, you've got to be mastering your mental health, which is the next thing you talk about, which is everything you've been saying is like, making sure you take care of your health, your habits, your relationships. You're reclaiming your agenda.

Yeah.

Because when we don't reclaim our agenda, we lose our mental health. I feel like.

Absolutely.

That's when you're like, ah, yeah.

And so my life is so out of control. I'm like, who let it get out of control? Like, let's take some ownership. Because, yeah, if mindset and habits can really help with the internal mayhem, with the external mayhem, you need mentors. It's like mindset and mentors can solve a lot of problems.

That's so true.

Right. Mindset and mentors can solve a lot of problems. And the external stuff happens is like one of the reasons, you know, we were just with Rachel and Dave in Puerto Rico and, you know, the reason I met them is she kind of reached out on Instagram, said I, you know, she first. She promoted my book High Force Habits with. I didn't even know her. She was talking about it and I heard all these people saying, there's this lady talking about your. But then she had the proactive nature to reach out and say, you know what? I don't know. What, I don't know. You know, could we get together and say, come up to Portland? And everything they were asking was kind of like, what are we going to run into that we don't know is happening?

And because she seeked out you and a few other key mentors and you guys guided her and Dave on. Here's what's going to happen, here's what people are going to be asking you for, here's what you're going to need to look out for, and here's the business model you should be adding in. You've helped her make multiple seven figures in six short months of just adding in a few things where if she didn't know those things, if she didn't seek out the mentorship from you, she would have been struggling more.

Yeah. And others too. And like you said, she, she sought out a lot of people, which was really great. And, and for the record, like, because we were mentioning her and a lot of people a lot. Because we were just with them last week, right? So it's just a different, like. But no one is taking credit for anything she did or I did or.

She'S doing the work.

She took command, she's implementing, and she got the mentors. That's it. Like, I was one of those. She got lots of them. And same with you.

Like, you learned everyone on the walls.

His mentors all around the wall. It's like. And that's what you have to do is your mentors, the people you're around, your community again, they're going to help make sure that as you take command and you deal with the mayhem of life, you're doing it well. Like, I'm not allowed to screw up a lot because my friends are like, yo, I have a great group of friends. They'd be like, dude, what was this video? Or, what was that? Or, I heard you did this. Is that true? And they'll like, there's no way. Because I've surrounded myself with such quality people, they hold me to a high standard. I want to be a good person for that. And my amount of mindset won't let me not do that. So I think mayhem. Solve it with good mindset. Work on yourself. Big shout out to Rachel and Dave, who've gone through that huge process. You have done that huge process, and so is Jay. Right? All Jay's internal work becomes a reflection of his external successes. All of us.

And when you're a monk for four years, that helps you, like, keep your mental health in check. When the mayhem happens, help chill out. And he's doing two hours of meditation every morning. He's focused. He's, like, doing the work. He's still doing the work. Still doing the work that allows you to deal with everything. What's all the press being on Ellen, today's show, and billions of video views, and it's like, all the mayhem that comes with impacting people. And what we're talking about next is meaning. When you have your message, you want to be an influencer and reach people, and you want to build meaningful life and a meaningful business, there's going to be a lot of stresses also. So you got to take care of the mayhem with the mental health. But what does meaning mean for influencers, and what should we be thinking about as influencers?

I think the first thing is how often people get it wrong as influencers. They're waiting for the day to come where they can finally have satisfaction and fulfillment from their efforts. Oh, when I get to a million followers when I make a million dollars, then I can, like, myself, feel good about myself, enjoy the day, rest peacefully. I'm like, if you can't teach yourself to rest peacefully now, you're screwed when the mayhem really hits, Right? Yeah, that's what happened. A lot of people like, oh, well, Brennan, you know, I'm so stressed out and so upset. I'm like, now you haven't started yet. I mean, give it 10 years. So you really have to immediately take control of that, including the meaning of your life. It's like you have to train yourself to draw meaning from each day. Each day, you have to train yourself to draw meaning from it, because otherwise it's just one day after another. And I tell people all the time, I face my death twice in significant ways, being in hospital beds, think I'm going to die. Both accidents. And I learned that real reverence for life shows up in the oddest of ways. Real reverence for life is, did you feel this day? Like, did you feel it, or did you just kind of bumble through, finish it, do the meetings, you know, now you're tired, go to bed. Or did you, like, make yourself feel it? Like, get present, get aware, take that breath, feel the earth, you know, feel your life, feel the blessing of your spirit. And so many people that happens when they're on their deathbed at the end. I was lucky. I had that as a young man. I got mortality motivation at 19. To realize you got to have reverence for life. You have to make each day meaningful, do meaningful things, but also draw meaning from it, not later. And some of the most miserable bastards I know are people who literally are waiting for some day to enjoy life. But reverence for life shows up in how you felt the day. Reverence for life shows up in your time management. I tell people all the time, look at all these days you wasted. Don't tell me you appreciate life. A lot of people have a gratitude journal, but you know what shows gratitude? Let me see your calendar. Your gratitude journal. That's a nice reflection. You want to talk about real gratitude for life? Reverence for life. Show me your calendar.

Did you maximize each day?

Is that what you mean? Yeah. Are you actually using your days wisely? Because if time is short, if life is short, then you better be using it wisely. It doesn't mean you need to stack everything in there. It's just like, can I see in your calendar that you're enjoying life? Can I see you're building and growing and taking it seriously? Do you have some time with your family and friends schedule?

Are you playing? Are you traveling?

Are you playing? Are you enjoying life? Is there, is there some time off in here or is it meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting? Business, business, business. Like there are a lot of people like especially influencers, they wake up, they create content all day, they check their stats, they go to bed. And if that's your life, that's an oh, that's a very unique kind of secret hell.

Mm. And that goes by pretty quick.

Goes by pretty quick. And it's what is the frame is in comparison. Right. It's a unique kind of hell is waking up and doing something every day only to check the stats on it, versus really connecting with the audience, really connecting with why you're doing it. I'm looking above your head here and you've got some legends up there, including Tony Robbins, who's both of our dear friends. And he's helped us, we've helped him in many ways. And listen, he wouldn't be doing this this long if he didn't take deep.

Meaning from the actual work every day. Because it's a lot of work, it's a lot of energy. Five days in a row, 1215 hour days on stage, not peeing, not eating.

Yeah.

You do the same thing 15 hours a day.

We do the two longest events in the entire industry and the two longest single leg trainer events. And you don't do that unless you make yourself draw. Meaning. Because otherwise what's gonna happen is, and what I tell people all the time is like, if you are constantly exhausted, you're not in meaning mode yet. Because when you're in real meaning mode, it won't let you run yourself to exhaustion.

Yeah.

It won't let you do it.

It will say, hey, it's a sustainable fuel.

Yes. It will say, hey, man, enjoy this moment. For a beat here, it's when you're going that means you're not in meeting mode. Because if you're in real meeting mode, it won't let you exhaust yourself.

That's true. That's true.

All right. Hey, my friends, are you enjoying this episode with Lewis? I hope you really are. We're going to really dive deep in this and the next episode for you on some tactics. But I really want to share the overall story and philosophy of how I approach this because I think it has given me some untold advantages and success. And if you want to learn more about how to do this, do yourself a favor and go to influencer magazine.com because here's the deal. I know not everybody can attend Influencer Event Instead. San Diego, October 10th through 12th. If you can attend it, great. You can also get tickets there@influencermagazine.com but also we've launched the Influencer Business Program, an online community and training that will also help you build your influencer career as an author, speaker, coach, Seminole leader, social media, thought leader where you can work really anywhere, just sharing your passions, your wisdom, your life story and really engaging an audience and earning an income and revenue from that. How do you have the Influencer career? Just go to influencer magazine.com and just choose. How do you want to play with us? Do you want to come to the live event that's influencer 10-10-12th in San Diego? Or would you prefer just to learn from home online from us? You can click Influencer Business Program again. Both those things are available@influencer magazine.com we are launching Influencer Magazine late winter this year and really going to be the voice of this industry, which we're really excited about. So make sure you go check it out. Influencer magazine.com to either join us live at the event or join us in the online training program. That's Influencer Magazine.com no further ado. Back into my interview with Lewis House.

I'm curious, why do influencers or anyone deal with self doubt when you've achieved a lot of success? Why does self doubt creep in when you're just starting? Why is self doubt there and how do we eliminate self doubt?

Yeah, self doubt is one of the first signals that you deeply want to grow. And most people start with self doubt being a bad thing. I'm like, oh, it's a signal saying, you know what? I'm not yet enough to be able to do that thing I want to do. And that's okay. That's a great acknowledgment. Like I hope everybody starts every new endeavor doubting their capabilities, doubting their competency, doubting if they know how to do it. The difference is successful people and unsuccessful people in the way they deal with the doubt. Like self doubt. For if you're like struggling and you're always unsuccessful is because self doubt is stopping you. Successful people, they have the same doubt, but they're exploring it. They're like, oh. And they're acknowledging it. You know what? That's true. I don't yet have the capabilities to do that. So agenda item, go get capabilities to do that. They don't let the doubt stop them. It's when doubt delays you or divides you from other people or destroys your progress, that it's a problem. But it's a good cue to have come up, you know, because if it never comes up, you'll never say, I don't know, or you'll never say, I don't know how to do that, or you'll never raise your hand for help. So self doubt is a good mechanism in the human experience. It's when it stops you that it's a problem. And so the goal is to explore it. And the goal is to realize that it should be a cue for you to learn and ask for help. And what most people do, stubborn, you know what they do? They get self doubt and they go silent. But in the silence of self doubt, that's where the suffering is. When you speak it and you share it, say, hey, Louis, I'm about to do this podcast, man. I've never done something like this.

I have no clue what I'm doing.

When I do this. How do you think through it? Could you coach me and mentor me? That is a proactive way to meet the self doubt and then overcome it. But if I go silent with it, that's where the suffering and the stopping happens.

That's powerful. This one's on love. When do you personally feel the most loved in your life?

Denise? Yeah, my girl. You met my wife. So she believed me when no one did. And it's not just because she believed me. She's just an exceptional human. She's kind, she's thoughtful, she's smart and beautiful. But she also, she just holds good space for other people. She inhabits a good space in herself because she's at peace with being a good person. And then she's calm and she holds good energy. And it's been hard being married. And what I mean by that is marriage will challenge you so much. And I feel most love, though, in the marriage, as much as it's a challenge. Even though everyone who knows us like we have this, like you've seen us, we are so sweet on each other. But the reason I say it's hard is because, as you know, in 2011, I had a brain injury and there was a good two and a half years. I was not good as a husband, and I don't think I was good as a man. And what I mean by that is I was just like, I had anger issues because the brain injury, I hurt, you know, the prefrontal left cortex. I hurt my cerebellum, I hurt my hippocampus. I was having trouble with memory. And Motion and with controlling my emotions. And so the calmest guy in a marriage ever all of a sudden was like, being angry and like getting upset about this stupidest stuff. And the reason I feel so much depth of love with her now is because we went through that. I really believe love grows in that cirtle. What is that phrase? Love grows in that fertile soil of struggle. And we have struggled so much from having nothing to building our lives. She built an amazing business as owning exercise studios, had 30 employees. A great mentor to women. She went through tons of tons of challenges as a business person, as have I. But then that injury brought us really close together. Even though in the short term it was so painful that we survived it. That's where the love has grown so much.

What does every influencer need to be aware of with the partner they choose? Whether a relation like a dating relationship or a marriage. What do they need to have in their partner in order to be able to take their influencer message and share it with the world sustainably without too much stress and chaos from the partner?

You know what, that's good feeling like.

Oh, maybe I shouldn't do this because I'm hurting my partner.

That's right.

I gotta dim my light a little bit because I don't want to make them feel insecure. What. What do you need to look for?

Yeah. Well, first read the chapter in Motivation manifesto on love. Because love is not something that exists in another person. And love is a universal energy that we can tap into and we don't need it from another person. So it's. Removing need is the biggest and the hardest breakthrough in all relationships.

Removing the need for yourself and for the other person.

Yes. Not that it's always going to be there. The second big idea is listen, their permission or understanding is not required for your progress. People tell me all the time, well, she doesn't understand, but I'm like, why do you think she has to understand? Why do we think everyone has to understand intimately our hopes, our dreams, our needs. You probably don't understand theirs. You can seek to understand it and you should, but it's okay if they don't get it. It's totally okay because they have their own path. There's a lot of people in our world. You and I, we think like, what are they doing? That's weird. That's not what we would do. But they don't need our permission. No, you don't need the permission, the support, the understanding, or the cheerleading of everybody around you to follow your dream. Because a lot of people say, well, I'm in a bad relationship, Brandon. That's why I can't succeed. I'm like, okay, well, one, have some really honest conversations there, please. And a lot of them, and consistently. But then also, if you can't change the relationship, then change your expectations of what that relationship is supposed to give you, because you don't need to be an influencer and to be a role model. Everybody around you doesn't have to be perfect and cheering you on. In fact, you and I have had a lot of doubt and a lot of haters as we've grown. Matter of fact, I think the bigger you grow and the better you get, the more people will question you and not get it because your messaging is scaling and so anticipate that not everyone's going to get it. But what I would recommend, if you've got a good person and you're trying to grow together, is just be so diligent about sitting them down and always painting the future. And I don't mean, like, painting 20 years out. I mean, like, okay, honey, it's Sunday. Let's look at this week. What's your week look like? What's my week look like? That Sunday check in to think about where you've been and now where you're going to go is so critical to growth. I mean, I can't even emphasize how important that is, because if I know she's got a challenge on Wednesday, I'm going to be a better husband for her on Wednesday. You know, if she knows I got a big interview, she's going to cheer me on in the morning with text. Like, you can't support each other unless you know what each other is facing in the upcoming next seven days.

That's powerful.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's very powerful. What are you most proud of personally in your life? Personal life.

Personal life.

Well, it could be your business, too. But what is the thing, if you could say one thing I'm proud of in my life. You've done a lot of things, but.

That'S a great question, brother. I would say just consistency. Like, I know it sounds so weird, but, like, every great thing of my life came from being consistent and congruent, even when it was hard and difficult. Like, I. I would love to say, well, what I'm most proud of personally is my love with my wife, my. My contributions, my books. But all those things had this consistency of effort behind them. I'm proud of myself for not giving up all of those times, you know, because I wanted to, you know, I'm proud that, you know, I've been a good man to my family and my friends for a really, really long time, with very few exceptions. That came mostly from my brain injury, you know, and I feel like I've been consistent all my life, except for that period of time when my brain was not working. And, you know, Dr. Daniel Amen, who treated me and thank God for him and a couple other neuroscience guys who got me back on track of just, you know, I wasn't consistently working out or consistently being nice or consistently doing my art or my video. I was really struggling making it through that. Proud of that, because that was really hard. I mean, I stepped off. I think, you know the story. But I'd finished. I'd finished in the next academy, got off stage, you know, a couple thousand people out there and, you know, they do that thing where you finish and they call you back.

Yeah.

You know, and they're like, ah, you go back again and you. Thank you, thank you. And you go back and they ha. They did it again three times. This happens, right? Three callbacks. I go off stage and I didn't feel anything. Didn't feel jubilation, didn't feel joy, didn't feel satisfaction, didn't feel pride, didn't feel like I'd even made a difference. I just didn't because my brain was hurt. And that part of the emotional processing just wasn't working. I just didn't feel anything. And I literally stood there and I'm like, it's time to hang it up. It's like, if I don't feel this anymore, it's time to hang it up. And I really did. I made that decision that day. I was like, I'm gonna hang up the events. And this was 2013 or 14, and it's like, you know, since then, tens of thousands of people have been to our events. I was gonna hang it up. And luckily, sometimes when you know you're hurt or you know you're in pain, that's a good time to tell yourself, let's not make major decisions yet. Let's get some help. Let's try to heal. Let's try to work our way through, and then we'll make these big decisions. And luckily, I had that. A mentor told me that. He said, well, you know, you're not feeling yourself yet. Maybe don't quit yet. And thank God. So I just stayed at it. Stayed consistent, Stayed consistent in my healing, stayed consistent, trying to be the best guy I could. And it turned around.

It paid off. Yeah.

So I know. It's a weird. It's a weird thing.

I think I've never heard that before.

I know.

True. That's a good thing to be proud of.

Yeah.

Because I think the hardest way to make a big impact is through being consistent. You can't make a big impact without being consistent.

Because I'd love to say it was some accolade. Yeah, I would.

For me or your marriage. But it's like, it wouldn't be successful marriage without the consistent.

And if she hadn't been consistent.

That's true.

You know, so having the heart of a consistent fighter, warrior, lover, caregiver, brother, friend, worker, artist, that consistent heart, that can really turn into something meaningful.

What is. You talk about sparking joy all the time.

Yeah.

What is the thing that brings you the most joy?

Teaching. Just teaching? Yeah. Like I used to say, it's writing. Because I love to write, but the writing is really. I'm teaching.

Yeah.

I just love. I love to share. I love to share what I've learned or I've researched or I've seen with people. Teaching is. I feel like I'm a teacher at heart. I'm most happy and engaged. Like, even during this interview when we were teaching something, I felt so much more calm. When you're asking about me, I'm sweating, you know, it's like. It's just like in the framework now. You're doing so great, you know? No, it's just where I feel so comfortable is just sharing and teaching. I was born to teach. I didn't realize that, but I literally had finished my 17th course and I had a new videographer help me shoot that. And he had never seen me shoot a course. And he's like, oh, my God. He's like, that's. I've never seen someone. I'll do two hours extemporaneous teaching. I mean, I've prepared and I prepared. I know my framework. But it's like, how. And I'm like that. For me, I know that's a gift because I suck at so many other things. I know that that's a gift. And so I try to step into that. And every time I. I just feel like so much of joys in life, we sit around hoping we're going to get. But when you are in your gift, the joy is just there. You don't have to work super hard. It's just there.

It's always there.

Yeah.

If. If what doesn't happen in your life that will create regret if you don't accomplish or don't live or don't be. It's the end of life. And if you don't do what you will regret it. Maybe it's something you haven't done yet. Maybe it's something that you're doing that you stop doing. What's the thing that you will live with the most regret if you don't do?

If I didn't make myself feel the days because, you know, achievements come and go. You're New York Times bestseller. Three weeks later, you're still in the grind. You know, hey, you hit number one podcast. Okay, We've both done these things, but now we're here, and it's like, I feel like regret really comes from. You just didn't feel the days. It didn't have to be special. Right. Because I've been with a lot of people. I've been in hospice a long time. I'm doing hospice work after my accident. I wonder if a lot of people went through the same thing I did. And people don't talk about big things at the end with being regret. It's not like, you know, I should have moved to south of France and drank wine. It's more like, you know what I wish when we had barbecues in my backyard, I was nicer to my brother. You know, I wish when, you know, when I was hanging out with my friends, I really saw them smile and I felt it instead of just taking a selfie and walking away. You know, it's like people wish they felt more moments of their life. And I'm aware of that for me, too, because I can remember the rocking and rolling years when it was like, whoa, like, now everyone. A lot of people do what we do. But when we started not. I mean, we were like, we were in that OG territory of our personal. Of the space that you and I play in. And so I remember when it was just so unique and so crazy and things were going so fast and so many deals that it felt like two or three years went by like that, and I didn't even sense them.

Yeah.

And I'm the guy who's so aware of his mortality because I've faced it so many times. I want to make sure I, like, feel it, you know, I just want to feel. It's like in Manifesto, we talk about learning to hold two extra beats as time unfolds. So if you're going to kiss your lady on your way out the door, like, hold that kiss for two extra seconds. You know, you give somebody a hug, hold that for two extra seconds. You know, at the end of conversation, saying goodbye. Just, you know, give a good look in the eye, hold it for two extra seconds and just like, you don't have to do a tremendous amount of things to feel life more. Sometimes you have to hold space just a little bit, just a few extra seconds to feel and appreciate it. You know, when you say thank you and be like, thank you. Just like, thank you and really hold that, like, that's. You're creating meaningful moments in those spaces that you hold. And so I know I'll be really regretful if I didn't do that enough.

Yeah.

You know, and that's been. And it's been. It's been my own personal challenge since the brain injury because it's easy for me not to do that. So I'm just trying every day to make sure I feel the day.

I love that. It's something I've been doing for a long time, which is giving long, awkward, awkward hugs.

Yeah, you are good at that.

It's like, hold it for five seconds. Unfortunately, now I have to be so cautious because of the time of the age we're in.

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

Where it's like, I'm almost, like, barely giving a hug.

Yes.

Especially like a female.

Yes.

Just like, can I give you a hug?

Can I?

You know, it's like, I've got to be very confident. So it's like finding the joy in the things that. And not being, you know, I don't.

Know, but it's still, you know, there's other ways to have it. You know, Facebook example. It's just like having that meaningful conversation for an extra two minutes and not.

Being on your phone during it.

Yeah. It just like, I really feel like that the ultimate trying difficulties of our time is that people are not feeling the day anymore. They are swiping through the day and no real comparison is happening. Emotion of the rise and fall of the videos is happening. But they go to bed at night and they're like, I didn't really. I didn't feel the day. I did a lot. I was distracted a lot. I looked at a lot. I even worked hard. But I'm not feeling this life. And I'm like, you have to make yourself feel this life. You need to learn mindfulness or awareness practices, or try meditations or learn how to breathe, but have that intention. Like, I really want to feel it. Because after the most successful people in the world who I've been blessed to work with a coach, they just want to feel it more. Man. They are so tired of going through the motions. They're so exhausted of doing everything else everyone else wants, and they just want. I mean, I was with this person about four weeks ago, incredibly cover magazine person. And I was visiting the person's house. I coached this person, and we went for a walk, and I saw this sign that said something about some park. And I said, oh, let's go over there. And this person had not been in that park. Now, they lived in this neighborhood, really fancy neighborhood, for, like, five years, had never been in the park. I said, well, let's go over the park. And first thing, well, you know, we don't have time. And I said, you know what? Let me eat in my time today and give you this gift. Let me eat in my time. All right? So all we did is we walked, and I said, why don't we just walk around the park? And I know this sounds very Zen master stuff, but I'm from Montana. We're outdoor people. Okay, let's just. Let's take a stroll. And literally last night, I get this text, and the person's like, you know what? I've gone to that park every day now, and the conversation that I know is having this head is just like, I'm taking a moment of peace for the day, to experience the day and to feel the day a little bit. I tell people all the time, get outside a little bit, breathe a little bit without your phone. We're living in such a distracted age. The number one problem we really have is people don't feel the day. They don't feel their relationships. So they're looking for this, for feeling, and they're lacking life.

Yeah, feel it.

You gotta feel it every day.

This is called the Three Truths. You answered it last time, so I'm curious to see what you said. I'll go back and review the last.

I know what I said last time. I'm gonna do something different now.

Okay? So hit me with it. So imagine it's your last day. You've accomplished everything. You have no regrets. You felt every day. You sparked joy everywhere.

You.

You know, we're the influencer of the century. Whatever it is you want to be, you create. And you have an incredible marriage and relationships. It's all there. But you got to take everything with you. All your messages got to come with you. And you can leave behind three truths. Three lessons or experiences you would share with the world. What would you say are yours?

I'm questioning what I said last time. Three truths, things gone away. My first one would Be. I'd want to carry on the message of my dad. That's a big one for me. And that message was my dad basically taught us the same seven things. I know this is cheating a little bit because there's multiple things here, but it's. Be yourself, be honest, do your best, treat people with respect, take care of your family, be a good citizen, follow your dreams. You know, it's. It's. It's. One of the things I'm most proud about in my career was that the thing, the quote, you know, I've created quote cards since literally day one. And my most popular quote of all time was those seven things my dad did.

Wow. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, like 37 million times.

That's powerful.

It's just so huge. So I'm really proud of that. I want to share the truth. That's my life. But the message behind that is somebody mentored you and somebody inspired you, and you had a good parent or family or caregiver or somebody. One of the truths is, if they're going to take away everything else, make sure you pass on their message. We live in a time where our elderly are discounted and thrown away in these homes and forgotten. We live in a time where, you know, the wisdom of previous generations is completely lost to us because we're so fascinated by innovation and newness that I really believe we've got to have kind of resurrection of this. This feeling of passing on values and the wisdom from our parents or grandparents or somebody. So I'm like, that would be something. A truth I like to give is like, it's part of your destiny is to carry on something from a previous generation. And, you know, it used to be just genes and genetics, but now I think it's message and values. And that would be one truth. Another truth is that you are so desperately in need of love, and you're the only one who's going to grant it.

Wow. Yeah.

You know, everyone is so desperately in need of love and they think it's going to come from some external thing, but it's going to first come from an allowance and an opening and a permission that will actually allow other people to access that same energy with you that will create what feels like a relationship, love. But if you can't access that with inside, then you're in trouble. And then the third thing is nothing will ever be more fulfilling than service.

That's true.

Nothing. Nothing you achieve, nothing you give, nothing you make happen. I see people all the time. They hold up their awards. I did this, I'm this. And I'm like, no, your audience did that. The people you were serving did that. Realize no one's really self made. It's the people who they were benefiting that propped them up. And I feel like you're going to really tap into a deeper level of service in your life when you recognize who is being impacted by what you're doing. Whether we're talking about influencers or any other person who's trying to be a role model is really just stay in your heart of service. It's hard to be in the heart of service today. Today we're in the selfish kind of mode, the selfie mode. And we aren't in the heart of service the way we used to be. And I feel like if people knew how fulfilling service was, they'd aim for that as much as aiming for the selfie.

That's powerful. Yeah, I love those. Those are good, man. Final questions. What's your definition of greatness?

Oh, my gosh, I forgot you did that. I thought we were done. Definition of greatness, you know, it's evolving. I think the older I get, the more the definition of greatness is entirely tied to the concept of service.

Yeah, me too.

More and more and more. And I've always believed that, but I think it is the ability to demand of yourself and command your mind and your body and your day to do something that's meaningful for other people. Because that's what's great, right? You can be good just doing stuff for yourself, but you become great when.

You do things for other people. Brenda, Masha. Thanks, brother.

Thanks for having me, man.

Of course, man.

So good.

Powerful.

Okay, my friends, I hope you have enjoyed the interview here that Lewis did on me and my career. I've just been so blessed to get to do this work. And I hope you heard that in the interview. How just how much I love this industry. And I know not everyone calls it an industry, but I really feel like when you've got an entire community of tens of thousands of people, you know, now our industry is valued at over a billion dollars. Every single day, people are spending literally tens of millions of dollars and learning from influencers or transacting through influencers. I think it's time for you to really question, could you do this? Is it time you take your life story and your life's wisdom and share it with others and get paid for it? Would you like to share your knowledge, your advice, your passions, build a community, build a business, build a huge audience, build the ability to have lifestyle freedom. Well then that's the Influencer space. So just go to influencer magazine.com again, that's influencermagazine.com and choose how you want to play. Do you want to come to Influencer 2019? That's our conference in San Diego, October 10th through 12th. Or would you like to learn from home by joining the Influencer Business program where thousands of up and coming and many of the leading influencers alive today have joined so they can learn from me every single month how to do better marketing, how to do better branding, how to start their personal brand, how to scale the business, how to do things like team and ads and affiliates and videos and everything that you see us doing. Just go to influencermagazine.com, choose how you'd like to play along with us and we'll get you the training and the support that you need to build your personal brand, grow your audience, scale a business and achieve the impact and lifestyle freedom that you really want in terms of sharing your passion and your wisdom. Again, my friends, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Make sure you share this with somebody. If you know somebody who's really interested in this industry, please send it along and also tell them to go check out influencer magazine.com so they can be part of this community as it continues to scale and get better and better and better? Again, that's Influencer Magazine.com thanks for listening to this special series. Again. We'll continue dropping a few more marketing episodes for you so you can learn how the industry works and how you might get involved. Until then, go to influencer magazine.com sa.