James Swanwick Talks Success, Authenticity, and How He Built Several Multiple 7 Figure Businesses

Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and we're here to interview the game changers, the future makers, the co collaborators and creators who are here to collaborate with one another towards a better future for all of us. Enjoy the show. We've got a great guest coming up for you right now. Welcome to Make More Marbles. My name is Brad Hart, and today I am thrilled and honored to have Mr. James Swanik on the show.

What's going on?

Mr. James Wannac.

Brad Hart. Thank you very much for having me, sir. I'm doing terrific.

My pleasure. Yeah, I should have told you how to up the energy in this. In this whole podcasting land. I know you don't know anything about that.

I've had a podcast for a few years. I know I usually start with a lot of. Lot of energy.

Yeah, you got to get it. You got to get it out early, I think just get the jitters out and then the things flow from there. James and I have been friends for a little while now, and I don't get to speak to him as often as I'd like to. And I. We were just catching up before the show. You're in Brisbane, Australia, is that right?

I'm in Brisbane, Australia, my hometown. I usually live in Los Angeles, California, but I'm out in Brisbane this time of year.

Right on. And the last time we got a chance to catch up, you were working with Ty on some projects and doing some things over there as a silicate.

Yeah, Yeah. I have a sleep company called Swanwick Sleep. I own it with my youngest brother Tristan, and Ty Lopez, who was my first business mentor. And we've been going almost exactly two years now. Wow.

Congratulations on the anniversary. And I mean, Tai Lopez is a phenomenon as far as, you know, reaching people across the Internet and helping them kind of, you know, come out of their shells a little bit and be more entrepreneurial. And we're definitely on board with that. And I know you guys had a ton of success. Can you talk a little bit about some of the metrics that success, where it's been, where it's going, and what you've kind of seen happen in the last two years? I've just seen it go crazy from the outside. I'd love to know what's going on on the inside if you're willing to share.

Yeah, well, I started this sleep company and the first product, and still our main product is a pair of blue light blocking glasses, which we call Swannies. And if you've seen people on Instagram Wearing them. You know, they have an orange lens. They're very distinct kind of style. And these glasses, they block the blue light that is emitted from your cell phone, from your computer screen, from, you know, bathroom light. You wear these about an hour before you go to sleep. And the idea is you block the blue light, you're able to sleep a lot better. So my brother and I really just started it from my West Hollywood apartment two years ago. And we launched on Black Friday 2015. And we sold 18, 18 pairs on day one. And then we went backwards and we sold nine pairs and then seven pairs, and we were like, oh, this is what's going on here. And then. But, you know, like, we just kind of sold underneath 10 pairs a day until we sold out of our first batch of 300 units. And then we ordered more. And then we just gradually started to get a. To get a following and sell more steadily. I was a guest on Dave Asprey's bulletproof radio program a about four months after launching, and we tripled our sales overnight. So that was just like the right demographic. And then we thought we are rock stars. And, you know, we were doing, you know, tens of thousands of dollars a month in sales versus, you know, just tens of sales per day. And. But yeah, we lost $27,500 worth of inventory in one night, actually, because a couple of very immoral people figured out a way to hack our discount codes and stack like a 20% off on top of another 10% off on top of 20% off to get 100% off. And literally, literally overnight, 27 and a half thousand dollars worth of inventory went flying out the door, which was, you know, six figures of lost revenue. So that was a setback. But then, you know, as with anything, we've just grown, you know, continued to grow steadily along. Ty came on as an investor and partner in the business four or five months ago, and, you know, the first year we did a million dollars in sales. We did a million dollars in sales in 11 months. And, you know, it's just. It's just kicked on from there now. Not just selling on Amazon like we were, but also on our own e commerce store on Shopify. And we go to seminars and conferences, health conferences, and sell quite extensively there. And I was on a home shopping network in Canada recently. We're talking to people about getting onto qvc and then we're looking to get into retail stores in 2018 as well.

Right on. And you've always been really great as being the frontman. I know you have a Lot of experience with news and you run ESPN for a while and you've done that kind of thing. Do you think that's been a boon to your success or do you think you had to kind of step back and be the back end of the company to be more successful? Like, what do you think the natural and not so natural things that you've done have really contributed to what you've ultimately created? Which is an incredible sleepwear company, by the way, the Swanik Swanee's. I see them everywhere I go. And I know you have other products coming as well. So what do you think of some of the learning and leadership lessons along the way for you?

Yeah, well, just on your first question there, in terms of the frontman versus the, you know, I guess operations, initially you take on every role. So I was filming myself on video. I was, you know, managing the business, I was dealing with inventory. You just have to do everything. Being on camera does come naturally to me. Like you said, I was a sports center anchor on ESPN 2010 through 2012. So it's a natural fit for me to just put the glasses on, record a video and stick it up on our website. In fact, if you go to swanicksleep.com, you know, the first video that you're greeted with on the homepage is me in front of camera. I can speak in front of a thousand people on stage and feel perfectly comfortable with that. Wasn't always like that, but now I can, which is terrific. I've had to learn how to be a CEO. Like I haven't known. I'm only very, relatively newly. Four, four and a half years. And so it's really been a baptism of fire. I didn't go to business school, I didn't study business at college. I didn't do any of that stuff. It was just like, all right, how do you start a business? Okay, right, here's an idea. How do you get on Amazon? Well, we better find out. All right, how do we manage inventory? Okay, we better learn that skill. Alright, how do we create an email list? All right, better learn that skill. Wow, there's so much stuff going on here. We need help. We're gonna have to hire. We have to hire our first assistant. Who do we, how do we hire someone? All right, let's just reach out to our network to start off with. Okay, now we need like a web developer. Do we know anyone or should we hire someone? Upload a job description to Upwork. Man, I'm getting overwhelmed with stuff to do here. This is Too much. I just want to be on camera and talk on talking stage. Why am I, why am I now creating discount codes for Black Friday sales and dealing with, you know, like all these kind of weird things that are going on in the business, you know, like, and even like setting up a business like the LLC and coming up with the ein number. And then when you're, when you're selling in the uk, you've got to create a. You got to pay vat, which is their local tax, and you've got to, you got to, you got, got to come up with the government regulations there. So this is just a long way of saying that all of these things in business, certainly in the first two years I've been willing to do myself up to a point of about where I feel like I'm a three or a four out of ten. And then I will hire or I'll buy help to come in and take over those areas where I'm not skilled. So I am skilled at being the frontman and talking about the products and being on TV and being interviewed on podcasts. I'm not as skilled at email list management or inventory or cash flow, but now I've put in team members to help me with that.

And then how do you kind of. What are some of the tests or personality pieces? Or do you just. Because I remember having a conversation with you about sales one time and you said, oh, there's four types of buyers. I thought that was really fascinating. Could you kind of elaborate on some of the tools that you use to both in sales, but also in team management and team creation? Like we talk about wealth dynamics and we talk about disc a lot or MBTI to some extent. What are some of the tools that you use?

Yeah, well, Tai Lopez actually taught this to me four years ago. He calls it the PACE system. P A S E. So there are four types of buyers or personalities. There's practical, action, social and emotional. So I sold about $2.7 million worth of TIES programs in 2015, just over the phone, using my cell phone while sitting in my box of shorts and a tank top in my West Hollywood apartment, just understanding that pay system. So a practical person is someone who wants to really think it through and what's in the program, what are the features, when does it start? And so you would talk to them in that kind of sense. An action person is more like, great, how do we do this? What's going on? And so you would talk to them in an action type language, which is, yeah, this is going to be Great. Awesome. This is how we'll start. Let's go. Social is more like, oh, where are you from? I'm from Denver. Oh, I love the Denver Broncos. I'm a huge Broncos fan. Oh, that's great. Oh, do you know Johnny? Yeah, I know Johnny. He's a great guy. Oh, that's terrific. How many kids you got? I got two kids. Oh, kids are great, aren't they? So that's more of, like, a social type of personality. And then emotional is, you know, as it suggests talking about emotional issues, like, oh, it's really tough in my job right now, and I can't support the family, or my sleep really sucks at the moment. It's just really dragging me down. I'm just so, so sad and irritable and upset all the time because I can't sleep very well. And so you would talk to them in using a similar kind of language, which is emotional language. So really identifying who your buyer is and that personality type, quickly, if you're doing a phone call, you would then mirror their language and speak in that type of language. And then in terms of online sales, we just make sure that we hit all of those levels on our. On our sales page. So we do have, you know, we have language that would hit a person, a practical type, language that would hit an action type, language that would hit a social type, and language that would hit an emotional type. So with emotion, we'll talk a lot about pain. So it's like, do you have trouble falling asleep? Do you toss and turn in the night? Do you wake up feeling tired? Are you so irritable that you snap at your kids or your husband or your wife? Does it just get you down that you can't lose that weight and that you're always looking weathered and tired the whole time? Do you know that pain and suffering of having someone reject you because you didn't have the confidence, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera? So we'll use that language because we know that there's a huge chunk of people in the world who respond to that type of language. So, yeah, the pace system has been super beneficial for us. And then I would also say just understanding who our core customer is. Like, we understand their sex, their age, their demographic, and so then we talk in the same language and use the same language that they. That that demographic uses.

I really love that. And then from a team perspective. And thank you for explaining all that, by the way. That was actually really concise and beautiful and actionable and practical and tactical. And I Appreciate that. And I wouldn't expect anything less from you, James. But what are some of the team pieces that you use? Like, what are some of the pieces that you might use to, say, hire this person for this job as opposed to this person for this job? And now, are they similar, or have you kind of overlaid some of them and thought of them as a more holistic function? Because there's no one personality test I.

Like to think of.

These are all like pieces of a puzzle that we get to put together. And the more pieces we have, the clearer the picture becomes.

Yeah, it can be messy at times. I haven't always got it right, but I will take someone who shows initiative and who is proactive over anyone who has the best resume or cv. Now, what I mean by proactive is I get. I get pitched all the time from people. I mean, I have a lot of social media followers. Well, I don't have. I mean, I've got a modest following on social media, but the people who follow me are very engaged with me. And so they're always coming to me asking for jobs and work, and I want to work for you. But 99.9% of them get it wrong. They come and say, hey, how do I work for you? Hey, I really want to work for you. Hey, can I take you to lunch and pick your brain? Hey, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And I just, honestly, I ignore most of those. The people that I pay attention to are the people who get my attention. And ordinarily, that is by coming to me and offering value right out of the bat. It's not asking if they can give me value, it's actually just giving me value. So rather than coming to me and saying, hey, hey, how can I help? They just come to me and help. And that can be by looking at my website and going, hey, James, I noticed a few things on your homepage. I think if you change this, this, and this, you'll probably make more conversions. I'm optimization expert. Well, now I'm interested, right, because they paid attention. Same thing with my podcast. I've had a podcast called the James Swanik show running now for almost four years, and I get pitched all the time from people who want to be guests on my show, but the ones where they just go, oh, hi, I really love your show. Could I come on your show and talk about blah, blah, blah. I know that's pretty much just a copy and paste pitch that they've sent to about 20 things. The ones who say, hey, I've been a long time listener of the James Swanick show, and I really loved your last episode about this because this, Hey, I was thinking maybe I might be a good guest on the show because your listeners would resonate with blah, blah, blah. That's the pitch I'm paying attention to. So when you ask me, like, what's my hiring strategy? It's the people who are proactive who demonstrate that they know who I am and they know about my business, who actually come offering value and understanding the value that I want and that I need. It's. I don't tend to hire or pay much attention to people who say, will you please hire me? And, you know, I've tried to teach this to people all the time, but still I keep getting messages that's just like, hey, can I work for you? Oh, I wanna. And I. And I don't want to, you know, like, mock or make fun and because I'm very appreciative that anyone would want to work for me. Right. It's. Work with me. It's terrific. But it's totally the wrong way to go about it. When there's a choice of a hundred people, I'm choosing the one who kicks down the damn door and gets my attention and understands my business and is willing to give me value. That's the person that I'm hiring. So you can do all these personality tests and they are super important, but the one who's proactive and gets my attention is the one I'm hiring.

No, I love that. I love that distinction as well, because I've been a guest on the podcast and I've formed a relationship. I think the reason we originally connected, by the way, if I'm not mistaken, I was living in Santa Monica at the time. I remember very distinctly sending the email. We just done that alcohol video. You were doing the 30 day alcohol challenge, which I want to get into in a second, and I reached out to you and I said, hey, I think I can send you traffic. I don't want to create a program about alcohol or really cultivate that, but I'm getting all these people that are signing up organically. Can I just direct them to you? And how do I do that? And I think you immediately are like, oh, it's easy. Go to Clickbank and here's the link.

Bam. Done.

I was like, cool. Done.

Right?

Because I had a brand new pair of roller skates, you had a brand new key. We put them together, we found out, we saw, and I sent you some sales. I don't know how many eventually, but I think I still send traffic there. I didn't look at that funnel in years because it's not. The alcoholics aren't exactly the audience I'm trying to cultivate. Not there's anything wrong with that. And people need help. Please do find help. I lost my dad and my best friend to the disease. So I totally understand where you're coming from, but I think that was probably the first time we connected. And then since then, we've done a few things together. We run into each other, conferences and things like that. But had I just been like, hey, James, I think you're super rad, why don't we be buddies sometime? You would have been like, whatever, later, dude.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's a. Yeah, it's a great point. I, you know, people, it's the number one mistake I see people make is say, hey, I'd love to buy your lunch sometime. I'd like to take you out for coffee. And people think that that's a great way to inspire connection. Like Keith Ferrazi. He wrote a book called Never Eat Alone and who's a real hero of mine? He's like one of the top networkers in the world. He's been saying a lot recently. You have to earn the right for a genuine friendship and a genuine relationship. There's so much noise in the world, right? In order to have a genuine friendship where you want to do something for someone without expecting anything back, you actually have to just give, give, give, give, give the beginning just to get the person's attention, and then you earn the right to have a genuine relationship. And it sounds kind of counterintuitive, isn't it? It's like in order. Well, shouldn't I just, shouldn't I just have a genuine relationship? Because you're a person and I'm a person and shouldn't we just be free? Well, yes, but when there's only a finite amount of time in every day and you have, fine, you have family, you've got a business, you've got, you know, responsibilities, you can only give your attention to so many people and so many things, right? So when someone says to me, can I take you for lunch and buy your coffee? That's a two or three hour block of time out of my day. Why am I going to give that to a complete stranger who only wants to just, you know, who, who is coming to me saying, I, this is what I want, this is what I want, this is what I want. I want your time I want to buy you lunch. I want. Well, I got stuff to do. But if you come to. If you come to me and say or show me. Hey, hey, I wrote you a blog post. Feel free to use this on your blog, no charge. Hey, your emails I'm getting on your email list, and they're great, but I think that could be better this way. Then I'm paying attention. Then I'll be like, okay, great. I'll love to meet you. I'd love to have a genuine relationship with you.

And what you're pointing to is considerate, specific value adding for specific people. People, not just random, hey, I want to be good and do good in the world. That's totally pointless. But hey, this is what I think I can do for you. James Wanik, are you in? And if you're not interested, cool. You know, and that's the key. And I think that's been one of the keys to both your success and any successful person, myself included, is just being able to say, okay, what does this person really need most right now? And there's always something, whether you're Richard Branson or the guy on the street. Everybody needs something because we're human. That's just the nature of the game, right? And no matter where in life, if you can, just remember that if you can serve people, and this is something you're great at, is delivering a message to lots of people, as long as you can serve those people, then you'll have a life. If you can continue to give and thrive, the secret to living is giving. You'll continue to expand as a human being. And I think that's really just the key takeaway there. It's just keep giving, keep getting better at giving, and keep giving to the right people and your life will continue to expand.

I think that's really well said. I would also say just one caveat to that is that they did a study. There's a book called Give and Take by Adam Grant. And I'm not going to articulate the exact study because I've forgotten it to a degree, but it basically says some people can give too much and it cost them. So giving is terrific, right? But if you give too much, you actually compromise your own, your own success. So the most successful people had the great. The right balance of giving and taking. Unsuccessful people, all they did was give, give, give, give, give. So you do have to give, but you also have to take and you also have to not give times. So there is that. There is a balance there. So while the. The theme of what we're saying is, yes, give, give, give is terrific to a degree only up to a certain point. And if you go too much on that, then you start to suffer.

It's that abundant line you walk between miser and martyr.

There you go. Well said.

If you fall to either line, side of the line, you fall over yourself. James, let me. Let's kind of ground this with a story a little bit and talk about a time when you really made that line for yourself, because you're a busy guy, you pack your days with activity, and you have all these companies and things that you're doing. What was that line where you're like, all right, no more. Never again. Here's my line. Here's my standard. And how do you maintain that boundary with people? What are some of the ways you communicate that boundary in a way that doesn't necessarily. Because it's hard, right, turning people down sometimes, or at least it is for me. I love people. I want to serve people, but I got to also have boundaries. So how do you kind of go.

About that in life? Your.

Your life?

With difficulty? Because I'm just. Because, yeah, I'm kind of like the same. It's. Sometimes it's tough with boundaries. I've got better at just politely saying no. Like, just now, I just say, like, no, no, thank you. Hey, thank you for offering. Really appreciate it, but it's just not a good fit at this time. Or I'll say, oh, look, thanks very much, but it's just not. Not for me at the moment. Or I'll say, look, I really appreciate you reaching out, but I've got to prioritize so many other things currently and so forth. I do get a lot of these pitches all the time, and they all, quite frankly, a lot of them sound terrific. And in my head, I'm like, oh, yeah, I should definitely do that, but it's kind of like the shiny new object thing. And like the phrase, the man who chases two rabbits catches neither. Right. So what I've learned, I think what. I think what I've been poor at, which I'm getting better at, is that I've said yes to too many things or I've tried too many things in a short amount of time. So as an example, in my Swanee's business at the moment, you know, we have a Swanee's glasses funnel, we have a magnesium spray funnel, we have a sleep supplement funnel. I just flew to Canada recently to be on tsc, which is the shopping channel over there. We're doing A crowdfunding campaign. We've been talking to QVC about going on to qvc, been talking about getting the glasses into retail stores. Like, there's a lot of things going on. But in all honesty, in hindsight now, I probably would have been better served if I just focused on two of those funnels and just crashed through and dominated them and executed them perfectly with all of my attention, rather than what it feels like a little bit scatterbrained of saying yes to too many things. Yes, I'll do this. Yes, I'll do that. Yes, I'll do that. Yeah, let's go. Let's just do it. So, like you were saying before, Brad, a lot of its balance. I think I'm a little bit out of balance, quite frankly, at the moment with that. I'm gonna have to kill one or two of those things and just focus on the others. And that will rely on me being better at saying no to things, both to invitations from people and also just me just saying no. Don't chase that, James. Don't chase that right now. You can put that off to another. Another phase.

Who are the people in your life, James, that keep you grounded and balanced? And what are some of your habits or practices that you use to keep yourself balanced? So you're noticing that you're out of balance. Right. And that's fine. The awareness is the first step. But how would you get yourself back into balance?

Yeah, I. Well, simple daily habits. Literally, just going to the gym and exercising and getting. And walking. Like, even just the walk that I do from home to the gym. Sometimes I'm so caught up in my mind, in my head with work and things that I don't even notice the trees or the leaves or the flowers. And I love to say that I do this every time I walk, but I don't. I probably do it once or twice a week max, where I'll just stop myself and I'll just look up and look at the sky and look at the trees and look at the wind blowing through the trees and look at the flowers, and I'll just remind myself to get out of my head and go, life is beautiful and it's okay. And these stresses that you're having about work and the business, it's not really. It's nothing. It's really nothing. It's just whatever. It's just thoughts. It's mental diarrhea. It's mental garbage that you're creating. There is really no pressure. You're just creating the pressure. Look at the flowers. Look at the trees, look at the, those things. And that's a very brief kind of thing, but it's so powerful. The art of exercise. For those 45 or 60 minutes I'm doing it. I love that. That gets me out of my head and keeps me grounded. Death. I've had two ex girlfriends die in the last year and a half. One of them died of lung cancer. She was 29. Then another one, I was shocked to learn just recently she died of a heart attack. She was only 41. Died of a heart attack in her sleep last year. And then I have a childhood friend of mine, a woman called Faith Brewer. And I grew up with her. In fact, my parents were next door neighbors and I met her literally from like months apart and grew up. She's a 42 year old woman who just got diagnosed with brain cancer. She has two tumors and she has two young daughters. And I just interviewed her on my podcast actually, which got a lot of support from people. But you know that those kind of things, you don't want those things to keep you grounded, but they really do, Brad. You know, like you hear those things, you see those things and then all of a sudden, you know when you wake up in the morning and you look at your to do list for the business and you're kind of like stressing out at times on how you're going to do things. You just go, does it even really matter? Because I'm in perfect health. Like I get to travel around. I'm not, you know, I've got, I live in the year 2017, 2018, where there's just extraordinary opportunity. Like any, any issue or problem or whatever I have is just self made. It's just, it's just me creating it. Like so I think that kind of stuff really brings me, it keeps me, keeps me grounded a lot. And I also have a phrase, I don't know if I'm allowed to swear on the show, but whenever people blow smoke up my. When they say, oh, you're great, James, you're wonderful, you're amazing. Because I've got the podcast and I got the company and everything, I'll either say to them or I'll just say to myself, I'm just another guy. I'm just some guy. That's it, you know, I'm just, I'm just some guy. It's, that's, that's, that's all I am. It's like you might get this, Brad. You talk on stage with the microphone and afterwards people race up and they almost treat you like, you're. You're a God because you spoke on stage. And they're like, they want to take selfie photos and stuff. And I just say to myself, james, I'm just a guy. I'm just guy. And that way I don't get too big for my boots as well.

Well, I think that's a, That's a great way to ground. And what I've always noticed about you, James, at the time we've known each other and the interactions we've had is that I tend to be very excitable. And you have this ability to just ground anything in reality, and that's. That seems to be your greatest strength, is you. You can just take anything that seems a little bit, you know, spacey or flighty and just make it really tactical, practical, grounded, like right there. And I, and I really love your energy for that reason. But then I would also challenge you to maybe think that maybe you're not just a guy.

Right?

Because what you do matters. And it matters to the people who. It matters to the message you put out into the world, the people who you have had the influence on and been able to interact with and change their lives. Whether you realize it or not, your presence matters here, here and now. And maybe it won't matter in a thousand years, and maybe won't matter in 10,000 years, but right now it does. It matters to me, matters to the people listening to this podcast. So if nobody's told you lately, we're grateful for you, James. We're grateful for the things you do in the world and the ways that you do them. And one day, when we ultimately all pass on from this, you know, mortal plane or whatever the hell it is that we, we all experience this to the shared collective reality, we hopefully will look back and say that the time here meant something. And if it means nothing to you now, let me tell you, it means something to me.

Thank you, Brad. Well, thank you, Brad. That's very kind of you to say. Say so. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's. It's funny. I think many, I think all entrepreneurs and people, it's, you know, phase we all go through, we all experience this thing called fraud syndrome where we're like thinking we're a fraud. A lot of the times we have self doubt, we have all those kind of things. I kind of, I experienced that quite a lot. But not to, not to, you know, paint a picture that I'm walking around or miserable the whole time, it's. I do also sometimes feel myself being a little Bit too egotistical as well. Like, I do push it the other way. Like, I do. I appreciate your kind words and I do believe what you said. Like, there are times where I'm like, I know what I'm doing. Like, I'm. I'm a leader here. I'm going to inspire people. I got this. Follow me. I'm the man. I got this. I'm the man. But then there. Then they're, you know, I have to balance that out. When people, when people are kind of like putting this. This praise on me, I'm just reminding myself at the same time, I'm just guy. I'm just some guy. You know what I mean? It's like, it's just. It's like this, you know, it's. Everything in life is a balance, right? It's like you go too far forward here, then you start to get in trouble. You go too far forward here, you start to get in trouble. You start to hit too much praise on me. I start to get in trouble. I start to talk myself down too much, I start to get in trouble. It's just this constant course correction, you know, that someone used a really interesting analogy the other day, which I've repeated many times now, which is a plane. When a plane takes off and it takes a flight. Imagine a flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane, where I am now. It's course correcting 99% of the flight, which means it's never flying in a straight line. It's always going. It knows where it wants to go, where it wants to land, but it's always going a little bit left, a little bit right, a little bit down, a little bit up. It's always course correcting 99% of the time. And that's what we humans are doing, like, all the time. And that's the way it is. It's like it's never going to be a perfect straight line. So when you feel yourself going too far this way, come back. When you feel you're going too far this way, come back. And that to me, is when I feel like I'm getting too caught up in my own head. Up, get out of my head, appreciate things, course correct. When I feel like I'm getting too egotistical and I'm like, I'm the man. Look how awesome I am. Let's go. Let's do this. I bring myself back down, back down.

I love that. And it's that balance you talked about. It's that paradoxical dichotomy that is being human. I just gave a speech recently in Encinitas about gratitude, radical gratitude. And we had to pick a theme for the gratitude. My theme was contrast. And I started to tell stories over and over again about my life, but in a way of like, if it wasn't for this, I would have never appreciated that, or if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't appreciate this. Right. And the pain and the pleasure.

Right.

All of it gives you that contrast by which to see it. So yes, there's this, there's two sides to everything and there's this balance to everything. But I believe that the pendulum swings are necessary so that we have the contrast to appreciate the things, things that we ultimately have. Because, you know, let's pretend that you know for a second that God is real and there's a conscious co creation happening that we're all a part of.

Right?

And we're looking down from that place. Well, if that God is real, then that God is omnipotent, omnipresent, knows all, sees all, and does all at all times. So there's no contrast by which it can experience itself. So if it was to create a being or a form of life that was able to experience itself, it would be for the reason, so that it could experience what it actually created. And that had that contrast between light and dark, joy and pain, suffering and joy, whatever it is.

Right.

The fact that we have contrast is a gift so that we can see that there's an opposite to appreciate.

Yeah, yeah, it's true. It's why people who, you know, people who win the lottery, given the money back within two or three years or lost it all or everything's fallen apart because they, it was like a lot of times they feel like they didn't earn the money, you know, like they weren't ready, they weren't ready for that at all. They don't know, don't know how to handle it. The contrast between their life now and what it was before is too, is too great. And they freak out and they make, they make mistakes. And you know, it's why people who achieve millions of dollars, you know, multi millions of dollars of success or they inherit money or they somehow feel like they didn't deserve it or didn't earn it, they're depressed, you know, like the most. They're as depressed as, you know, as anyone, even though they've got all these extraordinary opportunities. And so it kind of, it's almost like money not earned and not fought for and not struggled for is just. Is hollow money. It's like the best type of money, the best type of wealth, if we're talking about resources and entrepreneurship, is the money that you really earned, that you grinded out, that you used your head for. But if you like, you know, stumble onto something, that's great, but maybe you don't appreciate it as much. So that contrast between pain and heaven or like the struggle and then the, the breakthrough, you know, it's a, it's an interesting, It's a very, very interesting topic which I really want to delve more into over the coming years.

Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And just thank you, James, for being in that, in this moment and just like expressing that and being real about it. Because a lot of people, they gloss over it. You know, I love to think, like, I watch a lot of social media influencers, right? And maybe one day I will be one too. So I try to pay attention to things that think they're doing right and things I want to kind of emulate and be more like. And then I look at the things that kind of like, give me pause or just hit me weird, right? And one of the things I've noticed is that the things they tend to be talking about are the things that they're going through themselves, right? So they put up the post about, oh, you know, you should never do X, Y and Z. It's because it's top of mind for them. It's what they're working on. And I think more people just own that. Instead of coming from a place of, hey, you should never do this, right? That violent language or that language of, you know, I'm, you know, whether it's overt or covert or whether they realize they're doing it consciously or not, that that sense of, hey, you should do it this way, because I know better. What if they own that and said, hey, this is what I'm going through right now. Here's what I'm learning as I go through it, here's what I think is valuable from that experience and use it or not, right? It might be useful for you. It's just another tool in the toolkit instead of the holier than thou. What are some of the ways, like, I know you produce a lot of content media that you ground, you know, and that's why I love talking to you, is because you ground that type of messaging. What are some of the ways you do that or catch yourself when you aren't doing that?

Well, I'm just, I try to be as honest as I can and I don't want to Paint a picture that I'm always 100% honest and in integrity. For me to say that on your show would be a lie. I went and did a self development program recently called Landmark Forum over in New York, and they talk a lot about being in integrity and being a man of your word and, you know, not lying and telling the truth and just having awkward conversations and just being completely transparent. And, you know, since then I've taken it to a whole new level and it's been awkward at times, but ultimately, you know, real breakthrough. And people really, in terms of social media followers, they get that. The people who follow me, they can see that one of the biggest compliments they get all the time is like, I really like you, James, because you seem just so genuine and such a nice compliment. Now. I used to, like a year or two ago, I would put up motivational quotes, me standing on top of a mountain and all this kind of, kind of stuff and you can do it and blah, blah, and you know, the words are nice, I believe it. But I was posting it not, you know, kind of at the same time feeling down about myself. You know, I mean, I was like posting like, yeah, you can feel amazing and you got to break through. But I'm post, literally posting it as I'm like, oh man, I'm really struggling, struggling at the moment. And so I felt like I wasn't being completely honest. Whereas now I'll just like, I'll just say stuff that's going on. Like, in fact, even just last night when I recorded it, if you go to my Instagram account right now, I literally went to an ice cream store last night by myself and ordered a banana split sundae. And I wrote the caption. And by the way, I have a very health conscious social media following where I'm always talking about eating flawlessly and paleo diet and exercise. And I took a photo of me eating banana split Sunday, saying that moment when you ignore the advice of health and social experts on your podcast the past few years and go out and eat by yourself and order the world's largest ice cream sundae while blocking blue light with a pair of blue light blocking glasses. And then I had, in the meantime, right? Yeah, yeah. So I had like. And I had, I put a hashtag there, like walking contradiction tonight, right? So people might look at that and go, well, that's a bit vague. You're posting photo. No one wants to see a photo of you with an ice cream. But the point I'm trying to make is that I didn't post a gym selfie going, look at my muscles and lifting my shirt and saying, look at my six pack. I posted a photo where I'm like, you know what? I'm not always perfect. I don't always have my together. Here's me succumbing to a banana split Sunday with probably a thousand calories, and look at the hypocrisy and the contradiction that I am in this moment. And that's me being. Being real and authentic. And I just think people pick up on that. And then the other thing in my Instagram profile, I changed it after Landmark Forum. It says I have insecurities like everyone else. I just. I just put it out there. So it used to be Australian American entrepreneur, owner of Swanic sleep, owner of 30 Day no Alcohol Challenge. Click down below to join. You know, and now it's, you know, it's all of that. But it's also, I have insecurities like everyone else, because I do. And that's kind of like my way of just being. Being a little bit more vulnerable and showing a little bit more, you know, a little bit of more of my. My genuine self.

That's beautiful. It harkens back to a quote by a great speaking coach. I've had a guy named Thomas Blackwell who can tell stories for hours. He's an incredible guy. Sells three and a half million dollars a year from stage for infusionsoft and other companies. And he says that people will respect you for your success, but they will love you for your failures. Because people can't always relate to a success, but they can always relate to a failure.

Yeah, I'm just writing that down. Respect you for your. For your success, but what is it?

Love you for your failures.

Love you for your failures.

Yeah, because people can't always relate to success, but they can relate to failure.

Yeah. Yeah, I like that. I like that a lot. It's. And it's. And I see that as well. Like, when I do a podcast episode, talk about that people. I get messages from people. In fact, one of the most popular episodes I ever did was about a year ago, and I called it I don't have. I don't have my Together. And I Talked for about 45 minutes about how I had a really crappy week and everything that happened, and I'm like, I don't have together. I know you're probably looking at me like, I got this podcast and I got all this cool stuff going on. We did a million dollars in 11 months of the new business, and you probably and look, I went to the Oscars and I met Game of Thrones stars, and I'm hanging out in la, and look at me traveling with my laptop lifestyle and my fancy thing. And I know it looks great, but guess what? I don't have all my together. You know, I'm like, oh, I had this pedigree. All this happened. Blah, blah, blah. I'm kind of, like, insecure. I'm stressed out about this. There's all this going on. People loved it. People started messaging me going, oh, my God, I loved that episode. I don't have together. It was the best episode you've ever done, Jay. The best episode. That's right. Just talk about what. Talk about what you are, and people love you. It's crazy.

Well, because it brings you back to humanity in a way that they can relate to, because a lot of people listening, they just. They don't have a lot going on in their life yet. And they want to, but they see themselves as different than you.

Yeah.

And that's their biggest thing, is like, well, why should I try? I'm never gonna be like James or, why should I try? I'm never gonna be like Ty or whoever. Right. Whoever they idolize. And that's a dangerous mentality. And that's one of the things that I'm trying to fix here. Not fix, but not like if people are broken, but, like, just remind people that it's part of their humanity, that we all start somewhere, and it's at zero. We all start with nothing. You know, we come to this world with what we come into it with, and from there, we have to build. And even if we have all the resources, like you said, they tend to slip away from us slowly over time, because that's just how resources go. But when you do well with what you're given and you consistently put in that effort, I think you have an opportunity to really make something great out of yourself and be an inspiration. And a leader doesn't create more followers. Ultimately, they create more leaders of a leader.

Yeah, I like that as well. I'm going to write that down as well.

I borrowed that from Tony Robbins. That's not mine, but it's still a damn good quote. James, I just want to say how grateful I am to have you on the show, and just grateful for your friendship. And I know we don't get to talk as much as I'd like to, but it's just awesome connecting with you again. This is the Make More Marvels podcast, where we believe that entrepreneurs, investors, and philanthropists can win more through co creation and collaboration than they ever could through competition. One of the ways we do that is by connecting each other to resources, opportunities, people and systems to help us move our missions forward faster. So since you've been on the show and you've been such a great guest, I want to open that question up to you. What is a way that we can connect you to a resource, an opportunity, a person or a system and sow those crops to help you move your mission forward faster?

Yeah, thank you. I think I'd like to find a general manager of my business at the moment, like a right hand man, right hand woman, or an operations type person or an executive assistant or someone who can manage when messages come through to me from people looking for discount codes or affiliates or it's kind of like something just puts like a barrier between me and all, all of the noise. So I could, you know, as the CEO of the business, kind of direct that person. So yeah, I think, I think, I think it's called a general manager. It might be an operations manager, it might be an executive assistant. To me is certainly someone that I'm looking for. Virtual would be fine. It doesn't have to, to be in person because I travel around quite a lot. But it would definitely need to be someone who was experienced in online businesses so understood things like affiliate marketing and email lists and codes and things like that. So yeah, any place where I can find that or anyone who thinks they might be up for that, I'd love to be connected to that person.

Australian visionary, needs integrator with detail focused and understanding of online business.

Yeah, love it.

Right on, brother. Well, James, if people, myself included, obviously I'll take a whack at it. But if people want to reach out to you and they have a good fit for that person, what's the best way to reach out?

Yeah, email. You can email me directly. That is an email that I would welcome getting james swanick.com but if it's someone listening and you think you're, you're the person for it, remember, go back and listen to what I said earlier, which is the way to, you know, get my attention. The way that I describe, don't just send an email going hey, I heard the podcast and I'd be interested because I'll just hit delete or I'll have someone else or I'll have a, an assistant reply and say thank you, but no thank you. So James swanick.com you can email that directly and you can put in the, you know, get my. I'll leave it up to you to be proactive to get my attention. I love it. In fact, even if. Even if you got me without emailing me, that would get my attention. I won't give you some clues on how to do that, but there are lots of ways to get someone's attention that don't require email, because email can be quite a dead medium at times these days. So.

And if you're as busy as James or even myself, now I'm getting to the point where I get 500 emails a week. I just, I've been training people. Don't email me. Just not. Not something I'm gonna respond to unless it's like, you know, an attachment or something that needs to go through email. But James, I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show and on behalf of everybody on the Make More Morals community. We appreciate you, we love you, we're grateful for you, and we thank you. Thanks for being on the show.

Thank you so much for having me, Brad. I really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for listening to the Make More Marbles podcast. For more tips, hacks and strategies to create an amazing, abundant life in your health, wealth and relationships, whatever that means to you, head on over to makemoremarbles.com, check out our cool explainer video about what we're about and join our community of entrepreneurial game changers. We want to help you level up your life in every possible way. And don't forget to subscribe to to us on itunes, Stitcher or Google Play, wherever you're listening to your podcast. And please do leave a review. Thank you so much and we'll see you on the next podcast.